he’d found what he needed, he closed the programme, then paused mid-stretch as he heard Ana’s voice in the hallway.
He’d lunged towards the door before he’d fully recognised his intentions.
She’d changed into a dark orange shift dress that set off her golden skin so spectacularly he had to shove his hands into his pockets to stop them from reaching for her. Her loose dark hair rippled with vitality, caressed one cheek as she turned. Slim fingers tucked the strands behind her ears, a small smile appearing on her lips when she saw him.
‘Are you hungry?’
She grimaced. ‘Not really. My appetite seems to have taken a hike.’
She started walking towards the library. He fell into step beside her, opened the door and let her precede him, trying not to get too lost in her subtle perfume. Feeling like a geeky teenager caught gawping at the hottest girl in class, he plucked the nearest book from the shelf and cleared his throat.
‘I have something for you. Come.’
She glanced at him, but said nothing as she followed him to his study. A smaller laptop sat next to his large one. He turned it towards her.
‘Sit down,’ he said.
Too surprised to protest, she sat. He pressed a button on the small laptop and the screen flickered to life. ‘I’m not sure what your tutor was using before, but I’ve found a programme to tutor you in basic reading and writing. Do you use a laptop at home?’ he asked.
Flushing slightly, she nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Good.’ He guided her through the simple programme until she could manage on her own. Then he handed her the laptop. ‘This one’s yours. We’ll have a lesson every morning after breakfast. Make no mistake: I will be hard on you if I think you’re slacking— Why are you biting your lip?’
‘Because I’m trying to stop myself from crying, you idiot.’
That protective instinct he’d been trying to stave off washed over him when her eyes filled. He found himself crouching before her, cupping her cheek before he could stop himself. Hell, there was no denying it. Ana undid him like no other person on earth.
‘If you’re trying to find a way to make me go softer on you, forget it.’
She laughed and the sound suffused his veins with happiness. When she bent her head and a swathe of hair covered part of her face he tucked it behind her ear.
‘Why are you doing this, Bastien?’
He stilled, searched for a flippant answer but failed. ‘Because you’re a generous, talented person and you deserve someone in your corner.’
Her beautiful eyes filled again and he cursed under his breath.
‘But on the hill you said—’
‘I shouldn’t have ripped into you like that.’ His smile felt strained. ‘Truth is, no one has ever dared to examine my baggage so closely. No one has ever been allowed close enough to try. Except you. Hell, I even called my mother today because of your pushing. I’m thinking of heading to Gstaad when the shoot is over. Will you come with me?’
Her eyes lit up. ‘If you want me to.’ She reached out and touched his knee. ‘Tell me what happened with her. Please—I want to know,’ she implored softly.
Bastien swallowed. That he was even considering sharing any more of his painful past with her surprised the hell out of him.
‘Are you sure? It gets a little messy,’ he warned, aware that his voice was huskier than usual.
She pursed her lips and waited.
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. ‘Do you remember that last day at Verbier? You may have been too young—’
‘I remember.’ Her smile was poignant. ‘Your mother turned up out of the blue and demanded to see your father. Lily was screaming vile things at your father...’
He clenched his jaw. ‘And he was busy taking out his anger on my mother. They spoke in French, so you didn’t understand, of course. He told her she had no right to be there. That he was done with her pathetic, needy clinging.’
Ana flinched. He smoothed his thumbs down her cheeks.
‘He said was leaving her—divorcing her as soon as they returned to Geneva.’
‘Oh, Bastien...’
He shook his head, a cold, icy hand clamping over his chest where for a long time he’d remained frozen. ‘Here’s the kicker. He told her if she intended to fight for me he wouldn’t stand in her way. And she...’ An old wound, never really healed, split open, throwing him back sixteen years, so that his parents’ voices were as clear as if they were in the room with him now, ‘She said if she couldn’t have my father then she didn’t want me.’
Ana gasped and threw her arms around him. He held her tight, reeling from the remembered rejection even as he acknowledged that the pain he’d felt all these years was considerably less this time around. As if baring his soul to Ana had washed away the rough edges of anguish.
‘Oh, my God, Bastien. I’m so sorry. I had no idea,’ she murmured softly.
He finally pulled back, focused on her crouched before him. One hand touched his cheek and he exhaled noisily. She was offering comfort. When had that ever happened to him? He’d forged his way through life on his own after that stark double rejection sixteen years ago. And he’d succeeded. Hell, he’d more than succeeded. He’d excelled at everything he’d ever set his mind to.
He glanced into Ana’s face, ready to tell her to save her pity for someone else. Tears shone in her eyes.
‘You’re crying again.’
‘No child should hear that from anyone—most of all their parent.’
‘You cry for me even after all you’ve suffered?’
His voice sounded strange in his own ears, and that tight band around his chest loosened. Shaken by the feelings rolling over him, he caught a tear from her cheek with his thumb.
‘Maybe I cry for both of us.’ Slowly she raised herself up on her knees and kissed his cheek—one, then the other. ‘I’m sorry for both of us.’
Bastien wanted to catch her to him, to hold her tight and never let her go. And that thought above everything else unsettled him, shook him to his core, made him pull away from her.
‘Don’t be. It was a lesson well learnt. People use love as a tool to hurt each other. My mother tried to take her own life because she loved my father too much to watch him with another woman. She never once stopped to think of her son or how her actions would affect him.’
She rocked back. ‘You think she betrayed you?’
‘No, I don’t. In fact I don’t think she was thinking about me at all. She was thinking only of herself—obsessed with living in fairytales, searching for that elusive happy-ever-after.’
Clenching
