heart stopped. It was like groundhog day. She went into her office with a palpitating heart and shut the door firmly behind her. Another bunch of flowers. Slightly different, but as extravagant as yesterday’s. Her hands were sweating as she repeated the process of opening the envelope and taking out the card. This one read: ‘will…’
By the end of the week Alana sat at the wooden table in her sitting room and felt a little numb. The smell of flowers was overpowering in the tiny artisan-cottage. A vase sat in the centre of the table abundant with blooms. And also on the table in front of her, neatly lined up in a row, were the five cards that had accompanied a different bunch of flowers every single day of the week.
All together, they now made sense: ‘I will see you tonight’.
But of course she’d known what the full meaning of the cards was when she’d received the fifth one that morning. All day she’d experienced a fizzing in her veins and a sick churning in her belly. She’d vaguely thought of going to the cinema, or seeing if friends wanted to go out, anything to avoid being at home where she was sure he was going to call. An awful sense of inevitability washed over her. She wasn’t ready for this. She would just have to make him see that and send him on his way. But still…the gesture, the flowers, and his obvious intention to fly all the way back to Dublin just to see her, was nothing short of overwhelming.
Her phone rang shrilly in the silence and she jumped violently, her heart immediately hammering. Her mouth was dry. ‘Hello?’
‘What’s this about you and Pascal Lévêque?’
Alana sagged onto the arm of her sofa. ‘Ailish.’ Her oldest and bossiest sister was always guaranteed to raise her hackles. Twenty years separated them, and sometimes Ailish came across as a little overbearing to say the least. She meant well, though, which took the sting out of her harsh manner.
‘So? What’s going on? Apparently one of the world’s most eligible bachelors took you out for dinner last weekend.’
Tension held Alana’s body straight. ‘How did you hear about it?’
‘It was in the tabloids today.’
Alana groaned inwardly, wondering how she’d missed that. Someone at work must have leaked the story. God knew, enough people had heard him ask her. And it wouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to work out who the flowers had been from, either.
‘Look, I interviewed him and he took me for dinner, that’s all. Nothing is going on.’ The betraying vision of her house full to the roof with flowers made her wince.
Her sister harumphed down the phone. ‘Well, I just hope you’re not going to be gracing the tabloids every day with tales of sexual exploits with a Casanova like that. I mean, can you imagine if Mam and Dad saw that? It was bad enough having to defend you to practically the whole nation after you threw Ryan out—’
Alana stood up, her whole body quivering. The memory of her parents’ lined and worried faces was vivid. And her guilt. ‘Ailish, what I do and who I see is none of your business. Do I comment on your marriage to Tom?’
‘You wouldn’t need to,’ replied her sister waspishly. ‘We’re not the ones being discussed over morning coffee by the nation.’
Alana heard her doorbell ring and she automatically went to answer it. ‘Like I said, what I do is none of your business.’ Her sister’s ‘judge and jury’ act made anger throb through her veins, and she knew her voice was rising. She struggled for a minute with the habitually stiff lock, and tucked the phone between her neck and shoulder to use both hands.
‘I am a fully grown woman and I can see who I want, go where I want, and have sex with who I want whenever I please.’
The door finally opened. Her words hung on the cool evening air as she took in the devastatingly gorgeous sight of Pascal Lévêque just standing there, turning her inner-city enclave into something much more exotic. Her heart-rate soared. She’d forgotten all about him in the space of the last few seconds, and the high emotion her sister had been evoking. In her shock she lifted her head and her phone dropped to the ground with a tinny clatter.
Pascal swiftly bent and picked it up.
An irate voice could be heard: ‘Alana? Alana!’
Alana couldn’t take her eyes off Pascal. She took her phone back, lifted it to her ear and said vaguely, ‘Ailish, someone’s just arrived. I’ll call you back, OK?’
Words resounded in her head: too late to escape now.
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