The Last Summer of Being Single Read online

  Looking at Seb now as he effortlessly worked the room, the hopelessness of that attraction shook her by the shoulders like a good friend and demanded that she snap out of it.

  He was a tourist who would be gone in a few days. Just passing through like a whirlwind destined to churn up everything in his path. Here was a man who only yesterday had no intention of keeping his promise to Nicole. Selfish perhaps? But also vulnerable when it came to his own family.

  It was a powerful combination.

  She was far too old to have a summer fling. Wasn’t she?

  Ella had been right. The gentle ebb and flow of the piano music blended seamlessly into the bright background chatter and laughter from around the room as Madame Morel introduced Sebastien to her extended family and friends.

  Yes, there were several André Morels in the family, but André Sebastien Morel from about thirty years earlier? Cue puzzled faces and questions about places and dates he had few answers to. He had quickly accumulated a list of names and telephone numbers to follow up.

  Friendly promises to ask around and get back to him mingled with the excellent food and drink to create a genuinely warm and welcoming sense of community and family.

  His greatest challenge was refusing the delicious wine that a local winemaker had supplied for the evening. His apologies ended in a mass exodus of the men, and a few of the ladies, to the car park to admire his sports car. Only the howling cold wind prevented several test drives and they agreed to continue their heated debate on the relative merits of French and Italian motor manufacturers back in the warm comfort of the bar.

  Where Seb had his first real opportunity to observe Ella as she worked.

  The woman was a revelation! Just when he thought he was starting to understand her, she came up with something even more remarkable!

  The elf who had challenged him all morning had been replaced by an elegantly dressed beautiful woman with immaculate grooming.

  Her dress was a shimmering blue silk cocktail gown with a matching gossamer wrap that drifted around her shoulders like candyfloss. The shade of the silk was a little darker than her eyes, but fitted perfectly onto her sweet rounded curves. It was an inspired choice. Elegant but not stuffy.

  The bed hair was twisted up into a French chignon, leaving the smooth line of her neck clear for a small row of pearls.

  Combined with natural looking make-up, which seemed to make her pale blue eyes sparkle even more than normal, the overall effect was stunning.

  He had met and escorted many beautiful women and professional fashion models over the past few years whose artifice in making themselves attractive for the cameras evaporated a few hours later. Ella was a natural beauty, as easy in her own skin whether she was cycling along a country lane or baking in a country kitchen, or, now, elegant and sophisticated.

  Ella Martinez the single mother, hard-working housekeeper and young widow was gone. Replaced by Ella Jayne Bailey. Solo pianist.

  She simply took his breath away.

  He was totally attracted to Ella Martinez and everything about her, and this new side of her personality and talent only added to his confused feelings.

  Which meant that he was in deep trouble.

  Seb gulped down the recognition of what he was thinking and feeling and quickly looked around the room to see if anyone had noticed him growing hot and heavy.

  He did not do holiday romances, or short-term affairs.

  But it did make him wonder about her choices.

  What was Ella Bailey doing here in the middle of the Languedoc when she had so much talent?

  Did she love her late husband so much that she wanted to hide away from the world with her son in the countryside? Perhaps she had wanted somewhere safe and secure where she could grieve in peace?

  But perhaps it was more than that?

  He leant against the wall as the other guests shuffled to the dessert trolley.

  For now he was happy to watch the most beautiful woman in the room as her small hands moved effortlessly over the keys, her attention focused completely on the sound she was creating. Now and then her shoulders swayed from side to side with her head as she moved with the melody.

  No sheet music. No written notes.

  Yet the music soared into a tapestry of emotional, uplifting and inspirational sound.

  This was her passion. Her delight.

  He had always been fascinated by the work of skilled craftsmen, whether they were the expert cabinet makers who designed and made the dining-room furniture in his Sydney apartment, or the software engineers who saw their virtual designs take shape on mobile technology used around the world.

  This was why every part of him knew that he was looking at a true artist.

  Ella was superb. The music was perfect. She was perfect.

  Except that she was playing the piano in a dim corner of the room, being ignored by the party guests as they chatted and sampled the delicious food. Guests like himself, for example.

  He had been to so many parties and events over the years where there had been a cocktail pianist playing in the background, and, thinking about it now, he was shocked to recall that he had not once gone over to speak to the musician or even made a note of their name.

  Ella was happy to stay in the background playing the piano while he worked the crowd for information about André Morel. In much the same way, Ella seemed happy to stay hidden away from the world in a remote farmhouse while he travelled the world!

  His high-profile lifestyle would horrify Ella. What girl would want to have every aspect of her personal life and past history trawled through by journalists looking for a juicy headline?

  And she was a single mother with a son.

  Putting all of those aspects together, there was only one conclusion he could make.

  He and Ella lived in completely different worlds with very different priorities and the sooner he realised that, the better. For both of their sakes.

  Right now he had to focus. He needed to know a lot more about the Morel family before the evening was over.

  Over an hour later, Seb was noting down the telephone number of an older lady whose cousin was called André Sebastien when he noticed that the music had stopped.

  He calmly promised to call the next day, expressed his thanks, and then turned back to the piano.

  Ella was standing now, her cell phone pressed firmly against one ear, her right hand squeezed against her mouth, and from the look on her face whatever she was hearing was not good news.

  Seb instantly made his excuses and crossed the room to take her arm.

  ‘What is it? Is everything all right?’

  Ella shuddered and shrugged into her jacket. ‘That was Yvette. She was reading to Dan when the lights went out. It has happened once before in a mistral and we lost power for a couple of days.’ She clutched at Seb’s arm. ‘Can you take me home, please? I wouldn’t normally leave a party before the guests but this is an emergency.’

  ‘Sure. But I don’t understand… Is it Dan? Is he frightened of the dark?’

  Ella grabbed her bag, then pressed her hand onto her chest and took a breath. ‘Not frightened of the dark. Terrified. I’m hoping that he will grow out of it, and I’ve tried everything but right now…he’s going to be panicking. I need to get there and fast.’

  ‘Of course. Let’s go.’ Seb grabbed her hand and led her through the hotel guests who were crowding in to chat about the music. Ella would have been lost in the crush but with Seb in the lead they were in the porch before Sandrine could reply to their quick ‘farewells.’

  Seb flung open the front door to the hotel and it was snatched immediately out of his hands by the gale-force winds that howled as loudly as the howls of protest from the hotel guests who were being buffeted by the freezing cold draught. By turning his shoulder to the wind, and protecting Ella as best he could with his body, Seb managed to shuffle their way across the car park and open the passenger door of his car for Ella, bracing it against his back long e
nough for her to throw herself into the seat before the wind slammed it closed.

  By the time Seb collapsed into the driver’s seat and pulled his door closed, he was freezing cold, exhausted and shaking with physical effort.

  ‘I had forgotten what the mistral wind feels like!’ Seb murmured to Ella, who had taken a firm grip with one hand on the grab handle on the car frame and was holding her seat belt extra tight with the other.

  He slowly unclamped her hand from around her seat belt.

  ‘Relax. You are surrounded by six air bags, Ella, and the same safety technology used in racing cars. You are quite safe.’

  ‘Then why do you need six air bags?’ she squeaked as the powerful engine roared into life.

  ‘Not all drivers are as experienced as I am,’ Seb replied with a hint of a smile on his lips, trying to reassure her, while thinking of some task to keep her mind busy. ‘But I do need some help. Would you mind checking for fallen branches on the road? There is not much clearance between the road and our seats.’

  Ella could only look ahead in terror as Seb carefully edged the car down the main road, the powerful headlights lighting up the thrashing trees and bushes either side of the road.

  It was going to be a bumpy night.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ELLA came to a dead stop at the top of the staircase.

  Dan was sitting huddled on the bed in his room, one arm wrapped tight around Milou’s neck while his other hand was clasped firmly around the handle of their biggest torch.

  The light was pointing upwards and reflecting from the ceiling so that the bottom half of his small face was white and the rest in shadow. Thick church candles burnt brightly inside glass flues, but their light was ineffectual compared to the giant electric torch.

  The hard light contrasted so powerfully with his sweet striped pyjamas and towel dressing gown that her heart constricted with the sight of it. Dan had always been scared of the dark but she had not seen him looking so pale and terrified for a long time.

  Ella forced herself to lift her head for the last few steps and skip lightly into Dan’s room. She had to be positive for her son’s sake—she just had to get him through the night.

  ‘Hello. Are you still awake? This is exciting, isn’t it? Did you hear the big wind? Oh—you found the torch from the kitchen! Good thinking.’

  Ella flung herself down on the bed next to Dan and gave him an extra warm cuddle.

  ‘What a clever boy you are. And thank you for helping Yvette.’

  ‘I had to help find the torch,’ he finally managed to reply. ‘But then the wind got a bit scary.’

  ‘Well, seeing as you have been so brave, I think you can come downstairs for a few minutes and tell Seb all about the excitement.’

  In an instant Dan was shrugging the duvet from his legs and sliding out of bed.

  Ella grabbed hold of his hand and used the torch to guide their way to the hall, which was flooded with light from the driveway. Yvette had already driven off home, but Seb had left his car headlights on so that the powerful beams pointed straight onto the house and the glass panel above the front door.

  She could have kissed him on the spot.

  An even brighter light came walking out of the living room—the beam so powerful that Ella shaded her eyes.

  ‘Hey, guys. Hope you don’t mind that I lit the fire. And what do you think of this new torch? Cool, eh?’

  Dan shone his torch onto the carpet, then looked at Seb. ‘Yours is better than mine,’ he said with a quivering-lip voice. He looked back and forth between the two torches and said, ‘I need one like that.’

  ‘Well, how about a swap? Here, try it out. I should warn you, though. It’s pretty heavy!’

  Dan ran forwards to take the handle from Seb, then blew out hard. ‘Really heavy!’ Then he started waving it about. ‘Look, Mum. Now I can see everything.’

  ‘That’s wonderful. In that case you can guide our way to the kitchen. I fancy some hot chocolate. And you’ll never guess what happened to me tonight?’

  Dan lifted his head towards her, eyes wide and suddenly curious.

  ‘Did your lights go out too?’

  ‘No, they didn’t. But Seb gave me a scary ride home in his sports car. What do you think of that?’

  ‘Hey! It wasn’t that bad! I didn’t go that fast.’ Seb laughed and winked at Dan, whose mouth curled up into a grin. But as Seb strolled down the short corridor, Ella realised that it was Seb’s fingers Dan sought rather than hers, his tiny hand engulfed inside Seb’s palm.

  And it broke her.

  Hours later, Dan’s head lolled on Seb’s shoulder as Seb carried him back to his toy-filled bedroom, with Ella carrying the torch to guide their way up the narrow old staircase.

  They had shared hot chocolate made in a pan on a gas ring fed by a bottle of propane, then huddled in front of a roaring fire in the living room. Seb had drawn the heavy curtains, but nothing could block the howling wind on the other side of the glass and the draughts that blew the smoke right back down the chimney, making them all choke and splutter and laugh.

  Dan had been given the task of holding the big torch while Seb fed the fire and lit a cluster of scented candles so they could see where the cups of hot chocolate were.

  It had seemed only natural for Seb to divert Dan with stories about the hot and dusty places he had visited and all of the exotic plants and birds that he had seen during the previous month in the North of Australia.

  Tales of kangaroos and Koala bears and kookaburras and remote towns where people had to drive for hours before they saw another house or person.

  Places where people needed computers and clever phones to keep in touch, and even go to school. Places where the software and communication systems that his company made came into their own.

  An hour later Dan was cuddled against Milou and his mother on the couch, half asleep and yawning his head off, despite calls for more stories about the kangaroos.

  Seb lowered Dan slowly onto his warm bed as Ella held back the quilt, and then tucked him in.

  ‘Doors, Mum. The doors.’

  Dan’s eyes fluttered open and Seb turned away as Ella opened up the big wardrobe door and shone the powerful torch inside so Dan could see the neat shelves of clothes and toys.

  And absolutely no monsters.

  Ella bent over to kiss Dan, wish him goodnight, and stepped quietly onto the landing.

  Just as Seb went to follow on, Milou tried to jump onto the bed, but was not quite up to it without Dan helping him up, so Seb did the honours instead, and as he did so Dan tugged at his sleeve. ‘Have you looked inside? Over there? Cause I can’t see over there. I don’t want to worry Mummy.’

  Seb glared at the dark spot next to the cabinet, reached out and turned on the powerful torch from the car, grateful beyond measure that the batteries were new and unused.

  The whole bedroom flooded with light and Dan peered out over the top of the bedcovers before snuggling down again with a sigh of contentment.

  Seb popped the torch onto the bedside table. Just in case Dan needed it again.

  Then without thinking or hesitating, he whispered, ‘Night, Dan. Sleep well.’

  And a sweet child’s voice answered, ‘Night, Seb.’

  The living room was still cold despite the fire, which had started to ebb down, and Seb quickly tossed dry wood onto the burning embers.

  ‘I suppose power cuts are one of the downsides of living in a remote farmhouse. Some things clearly haven’t changed,’ he said in a positive voice, then looked around for Ella.

  He was shocked to see a tearful, anxious little face staring back at him, her skin pale even in the warm amber glow from the fire.

  Ella had wrapped an old patchwork quilt around her shoulders and was sitting hunched up with her knees to her chest, hugging the quilt tight around her body.

  She looked cold, shivery and terrifyingly, achingly sad and empty. As though all of the joy had been drained out of her. When she spoke
she asked him the most ridiculous question he had ever heard.

  ‘Am I a bad mother, Seb?’

  He was so shocked that instead of answering he simply turned back to the fire to hide his own rush of emotions, stoking up the wood into bright flames.

  Seb did not have to look at her. Her anguish was only too clear in her voice. The type of anguish that no bland denials and complacent phrases could eradicate.

  ‘I love Dan so much and want him to be happy,’ Ella continued in a low tremulous voice, ‘but maybe Christobal’s parents are right? Maybe I should move back to Barcelona? He will have a better education and money and… He would never have to worry about the lights going out in a storm and being scared again.’ She paused for a second before her voice faltered in a few halting words. ‘He was so frightened! I don’t want him to be scared. Not ever.’

  She was crying now, the tears running down her cheeks as she fought and lost the battle to hold back her fears and regrets.

  Which was why Seb did the only thing he could do. He sat down next to her on the sofa and wrapped his arm around her shaking shoulders, gathering her close to his side so that she was cuddled all along the side of his body, cocooned inside the quilt.

  The contrast between the Ella he was holding and the Ella who had been playing and laughing only a few hours earlier was so sharp that Seb took a moment to close his eyes and try and clear his head. He revelled in the glorious sensation of holding her in his arms, but immediately felt guilty for taking advantage of her sudden vulnerability.

  His chin pressed onto the top of her hair and he hugged her closer, wrapping the quilt around her back, desperate to share his warmth with her. Her perfume was fainter now, mingled with the soft fragrance of lavender from the quilt and Ella’s own sweet scent. Unique, powerful and totally compelling. A scent that pulled him in so fiercely that he never wanted to let her go.

  She snuggled closer. Just a tiny inch. And his heart soared in delight. It had been so long since he had been in such close physical contact that the gentle thump of her heartbeat inside the ribcage beneath his hands seemed magnified. Loud and fervent.