Chapter Three
Lycos saw her face pale.
‘You won it from Gerald?’
‘Yes. He was angry that I’d won every game and he stupidly let his anger get the better of him. Then he played badly, recklessly, which is always a sign of stupidity.’ Lycos didn’t bother to hide the contempt in his voice. ‘And I took advantage of it.’ He took a breath. ‘So, the Mas Delfine is now mine.’
‘It can’t be! Not like that!’ There was disbelief in her voice, as well as outrage and dismay.
He shrugged and said, ‘It’s legal. I made sure of it. The transfer of ownership was signed and witnessed. The formal paperwork will follow.’ He let his eyes rest on her impassively. ‘Why object? If I hadn’t won it off him he’d have sold it anyway, so you’d be the loser still. What’s it to you who owns it now or how they acquired it?’
Something glimmered in those deep blue eyes of her. Anger, again, and outrage.
‘To make a game, a wager, a bet, with my home—’ she broke off, overcome with emotion.
‘But it isn’t your home, is it? It has never been.’ He looked at her consideringly. ‘On the other hand…’ he said, his manner still impassive and unconcerned, ‘…since all I’m going to do with it is sell it, because I’ve no use for it, I might be prepared to give you first refusal. If you can meet my price. Buy it back if you want. I’ve no objection.’
‘And I…’ she said tightly, ‘…have no money. All I have is the income from some money my father gave over to me when I turned eighteen, which allows me to live here frugally. But the capital isn’t nearly enough to buy the mas. I told you, Naomi got everything when my father died.’
He let his eyes rest on her. ‘Parents let you down,’ he said. ‘Never rely on them.’ His voice had no expression. He gave a shrug and asked, ‘So, no money?’
‘Not nearly enough to buy back the mas,’ she said.
‘What will you do when you leave here?’ he asked. As he did so, he wondered why he was asking. It was nothing to him.
‘Go back to England,’ she said.
‘To do what?’
It was her turn to shrug. ‘Get a job. Make a living. I don’t know.’
‘Well, before you leave, I’ll want a tour of the house and whatever grounds there are. I’ll want an inventory, too, of all the contents.’ He poured himself another coffee and demolished the last croissant.
‘Tell me, is there a pool? I haven’t seen one.’
‘It’s at the gable end, not visible from here or your bedroom,’ she answered. Her voice was hollow, as if she was doing her best to be disengaged.
‘Good,’ he nodded. ‘I could do with a swim later in the afternoon.’
He drained his coffee. ‘OK, let’s start the tour.’ He got to his feet. ‘You can clear away later.’
He watched her stand up. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t need to. It was all shown in her eyes—resentful, baleful, hostile.
And beautiful. Very, very beautiful…
He let his eyes rest on her. Her tee shirt did nothing for her except highlight the honeyed tan of her sun-kissed skin and her hair was now rigidly pulled back into some kind of tight knot on her head, but neither diminished her extraordinary beauty. A beauty she clearly did not flaunt and almost seemed oblivious to. She was completely different from the women he was used to. They were all chic, fashionable, immaculately groomed and keen to hang around wherever rich men gathered.
‘What do you want to see first? House or grounds?’ Her voice, interrupting his thoughts, was less hollow but still disengaged. As if feigning indifference. Or using it as protection… .
But he did not care to think about what was motivating her, only that the interruption was welcome to him. His thoughts about women, the kind of women he’d become used to, were out of place here. Here, the only perfume came from the profusion of scented flowers. Not from bottles that cost a hundred euros or more.
‘We’re outdoors. Let’s start here.’ He said looking towards her expectantly. This beautiful woman who so openly resented his presence here and the reason for it. But what did he care about her resentment, or anything else about her? What did he even care about her beauty? It had no relevance to him. His only interest was in his latest acquisition. This mas in the middle of nowhere. He would inspect it, assess it and hand it over to the realtors to dispose of for the maximum profit.
‘As you can see…’ she started, unemotionally, this woman in whom he had no interest and who was only a source of currently useful information to him, ‘…the gardens are terraced. There are three levels leading down to the lavender fields. There’s a gate at the bottom, so you can access the fields.’
‘How many fields?’ he asked. ‘Do they come with the mas?’
‘Just the two. Less than two hectares in all, but there is pasture land as well, and an olive grove and a citrus orchard. It’s all rented to a neighbour, but not for money. It’s done in return for keeping the trees pruned and so on. Payment is taken in produce—olive oil, meat, milk and cheese, lemons and oranges. The lavender goes to a perfumery near Grasse. The land was once far more extensive, but my grandmother sold a lot to try and reduce the debt on the property.’
‘Why was there debt in the first place?’
‘Farming is always uncertain. My great-grandfather, he was of the war generation and times were even harder during the Occupation, tried to make money in other ventures. They failed, hence the debts.’
She started to walk along the paved terrace, towards the far end of the house.
‘This is where the pool is,’ she said. ‘My father had it installed.’
It wasn’t a large pool, but it looked inviting, glinting azure in the sun. Padded loungers were set out between the water and the gable end of the house. A pair of white ducks were swimming happily across the water. An exclamation broke from her. The tone of her voice, speaking French, entirely different now. Indignant but affectionate. The contrast between the coolness with which she addressed him and the warmth with which she addressed the ducks could not have been more marked.
‘Oh, Mathilde, Maurice! You know you should not swim here! You have your own pond! Shame on you!’
Lycos heard the clap of hands intended to shoo the ducks, who only quacked derisively in response and swam off defiantly in the opposite direction. A laugh broke from him, he couldn’t help it.
‘They know perfectly well they are not supposed to swim in the pool, but they just don’t listen!’ Arielle said indignantly, reverting to English. The animation in her voice was still audible.
‘Let them,’ he said. ‘They’re not doing any harm.’ There was amused tolerance in his reply.
Her shoulders rose in a hapless shrug. ‘Well, I don’t suppose it’s very hygienic, but they do so enjoy it and they know I indulge them. What’s really irresistible is when they bring their ducklings here to learn to swim. They bob about adorably!’
The open warmth in her voice appealed to him.
‘Have they got ducklings?’ Lycos found himself asking. Why he should ask he did not know, but he did all the same.
She answered with a shake of her head.
‘Not at the moment. Matilde usually lets Honore sit on her eggs when she lays a clutch.’
‘Honore? Another duck?’
‘No, she’s one of the hens. They come into the garden, which helps with pest control, but they are mostly on the waste ground on the other side of the barn, by the pond. They get fed corn as well, for breakfast and in the evening. It’s the only way to get them to come in and roost safely in the barn, or the foxes would make short work of them! The ducks come in then as well.’
He heard her voice change. Stiffen.
‘Whatever…whatever happens to the mas, the poultry must go to my neighbours. They need to be looked after. If you consider them your property as well as everything else…’ the twist in her voice was tight ‘…I will buy them off you.’
Lycos’s eyes went back to the renegade ducks, splashing contentedly in the azure water, openly contemptuous of any attempt to get them to abandon this preferred location. They looked at home.
‘There’s no rush,’ he heard himself say. Then, glancing around, he went on, ‘OK, so what’s next?’
She led the way past the pool, through a gateway in a high stone wall. He found himself at the front of the mas, beyond which was the gravelled space where he’d parked his car. The gateway leading into the cobbled courtyard was visible, along with the barns bordering the other side of the courtyard. Bordering the barns was open ground, in which the contours of a pond were visible. Presumably, he reckoned, the pond where the errant ducks should be. Hens were pecking haphazardly, and pigeons nestled on the tiled roof of the barns, their cooing soft and murmurous. It was very peaceful. The only thing that was out of place was his long, low car.
And himself.
‘If you want to see the citrus orchard, it’s beyond the pond,’ she said, interrupting his surveillance of the scene.
Lycos shook his head. ‘Later,’ he said. ‘First, show me the rest of the interior of the house.’
She led the way through into the cobbled courtyard and back into the kitchen, waiting while he looked about him.
The kitchen was large and old-fashioned, with a black range set in a fireplace. There was a slightly less old-fashioned electric stove, large old wooden store cupboards, a massive and solid-looking dresser with solid-looking earthenware crockery on its shelves, an ancient-looking refrigerator rumbling in a corner, an even more ancient-looking stone sink with wooden work surfaces either side. The centre of the room was dominated by a scrubbed oak table set with kitchen chairs. The combined scents of cinnamon, citrus and coffee from breakfast hung in the air.
He gave a nod and moved towards the door that led through to the central hallway and the parlour beyond. He’d seen the parlour already on his way out to the terrace earlier. As old-fashioned as everywhere else, the room was dominated by a large fireplace with a wood-burning stove and a handsome baby grand piano, which raised his eyebrows slightly though he said nothing. As he headed up the stairs, Arielle followed him.
‘My room I know,’ he said. ‘Show me the other bedrooms.’
There were another three bedrooms. Two of them were small and just as old-fashioned as his own.
‘The remaining bedroom is mine,’ she said.
He glanced at her. ‘Show me,’ he said. It was not a request.
He saw her expression stiffen.
‘Arielle,’ he said, ‘whatever your objections and protests and obvious resentment, this property does not belong to you. It belongs to me. So, show me the bedroom you have been using.’
For a moment, as they paused on the landing, her eyes refuted his assertion. Then, her gait as stiff as her expression, she opened the bedroom door. He stepped past her.
It was, very obviously, her bedroom. Just as old-fashioned as the others, but far more personal. Far more feminine. The walls were papered with pink roses, the pattern reflected in the quilt and the fabric covering the stool in front of the dressing table. An earthenware vase full of pink roses stood on the chest of drawers and the curtains were rose-patterned. The white painted chest of drawers also had a rose stencil adorning it, as did the large, old-fashioned wardrobe.
‘Seen enough?’ Her voice was cool. Hostile.
He gave a brief nod.
‘You have an en-suite, or only the bathroom I used?’
With visible reluctance she opened a door that might have been to a dressing room, but was not. The bathroom was, predictably, old-fashioned. Whoever bought this place, Lycos opined, would have to gut it completely.
Well, that was their problem, not his. A realtor would probably seek to present it as a project or, even more optimistically, some kind of historic artefact.
‘You hate it, don’t you?’
Her voice was flat. His eyes suddenly met hers.
‘My opinion is irrelevant,’ he said. ‘All that matters to me is that it is sold for the best price it can achieve. I have no other interest.’
He turned and walked out of the room, heading downstairs again. Something about her accusation, for an accusation it was, riled him. He glanced at his watch. It was nearing midday. He should collect his suitcase, get into his car and head off. Make for Paris. Select a realtor. Get the paperwork of possession sorted and then hand this place over for sale.
She’ll have to be evicted.
Would she go quietly? With or without her livestock? Which probably wasn’t hers anyway, any more than the mas was. He frowned a moment. He would need to carefully check that she had no legal claim on the property. She’d said she’d tried to make a claim and had failed, but maybe she’d just lacked a decent lawyer. Well, he could afford the best lawyers and they would ascertain his own claim. And if there was any doubt about it, then Gerald Maitland would pay the price for it. Staking what was not his to stake was unforgiveable when playing the Wolf… .
‘Are you going now?’
Arielle’s voice from the top of the stairs made him turn. It had been coolly spoken and he could see her hand gripping the banister. She obviously wanted him to go. To leave her here. Enjoy what little time was left to her in the place she was so clearly reluctant to accept was never hers in the first place.
‘No,’ he said.
Instantly, he frowned. Why the hell had he just said that? He’d been on the point of leaving, but now—
‘I’ll stay the night,’ he announced.
Arielle’s grip on the banister tightened. Then, stepping downstairs, she asked in a constricted voice, ‘Why?’
The dark, unreadable eyes rested on her. ‘I don’t believe…’ Lycos Dimistrios said, ‘…that that is any of your business. As I have repeatedly said, I am the new owner of this property and what I want will be.’
Her chin went up. ‘I only have your word that you have acquired it from my stepbrother!’
His answer was a shrug. ‘I have it in writing. And if that doesn’t suffice, contact him. He’ll confirm it. He’ll have no choice.’
Arielle’s face contorted. ‘I wouldn’t speak to that toad if he were on his deathbed!’
Another shrug came her way. ‘Then don’t contact him. It’s no concern of mine.’ She watched him make his way into the parlour, settle himself into an armchair and get out his phone, paying no more attention to her. For a moment or two she just stood there, fulminating, until she heard him start to speak in French. He was speaking to someone called Marc and was saying he had been delayed and wanted to rearrange his meeting. She left him to it and stalked into the kitchen. Her thoughts were full. Beyond full.
The implications of what had happened this morning were overwhelming her and out of nowhere she felt her heart start to race and pound. She leant against the stone sink, trying to get control of herself, but it was impossible. She felt herself start to shake. More than shake—convulse. A cry broke from her, tore her throat and dry sobs racked her body.
It had happened. It had finally, finally happened. The sword that had been hanging over her head since the day she’d read her father’s will, since she’d heard Naomi’s hateful voice and Gerald’s even more hateful one mocking her and taking from her all that she held most dear, had finally fallen. Finally sliced her through…
‘Arielle?’
She didn’t hear her name being spoken. Her eyes were screwed shut and the uncontrollable shaking of her body would not stop, nor would the dry, cracking sobs in her throat.
‘Arielle—stop. This is hysteria.’
She felt her hands seized and pressed together in a much stronger grip than hers, so tightly it distracted her. She flung open her eyes. Lycos Dimistrios, who had arrived like a marauding pirate to take everything from her, was there right in front of her. His expression was strange. Concerned.
‘I said stop,’ he said again. ‘Get control of yourself. Control is essential. Without it you are nothing. No one. Without control you are vulnerable. A victim.’
His eyes were holding hers, like hooks, not letting them go. The force in them was impossible to deny. Impossible to defy…
With racking breaths, she heard her dry, cracking sobs start to die away and her convulsions finally ceased.
He nodded curtly.
‘That’s better.’ He let go of her hands as he reached past her, taking an upturned glass from the draining board and filling it with cold water from the tap over the sink.
‘Drink this,’ he said. ‘All of it.’
She did, though she had to force it past her constricted throat. He stepped back while she drank, but his eyes never left her face.
‘Better?’ he asked, as she carefully replaced the glass.
She blinked. Her heart rate was returning to normal, her breathing easing.
‘Yes,’ she said faintly. She made to turn away, but a hand closed around her upper arm.
‘Sit down,’ he said. He guided her to one of the kitchen chairs, lowered her down on it and she sat unresistingly. He sat himself down as well and looked across the table at her.
‘We had better talk,’ he said.
For a moment Lycos said nothing, collecting his thoughts. It had been…unnerving…to witness something that had all the hallmarks of a hysterical collapse. Her complete, uncontrollable, uncontrolled breakdown in front of his eyes. His thoughts now were conflicted. He’d sat her down and said they had better talk, but he didn’t want to. Why should he? It was nothing to him that she was upset because she was nothing to him. Yet, all the same, he took a breath.
As he looked across at her he saw that her face was blank. Not with the resistance she’d presented so far, but with a kind of emptiness.
‘Arielle, you’ve had a shock. Something bad you’ve been holding at bay has finally happened. Now you’re having to deal with it. But look at it this way. You’ve known since your father died, so you told me, that you are going to have to relinquish what you’d expected to inherit. There’s nothing you can do about it. Accept it. You don’t have a choice and you know…’
Something edged into his voice he didn’t want to think about.
‘…when you have no choice, it…it frees you. That might sound illogical, but it isn’t. You don’t have to fight any more. You don’t have to fear any more. The worst has happened. That’s it.’
He fell silent, eyes masking a moment. Then he spoke again. Slowly this time.
‘When the worst has happened, nothing more can hurt you. That’s a kind of freedom you know. It has…a value. When choice is taken from you, so is responsibility. Do you understand what I’m telling you?’
Her face was still blank. He went on. He didn’t want to think about where his words were coming from.
Didn’t want to remember.
‘You’ve felt responsible, haven’t you? For this place. You told me it’s been in your mother’s family for generations. Now it’s gone. It isn’t your fault that it’s gone. If there was any fault it was, if you think about it, your mother’s fault in trusting your father. And before that it was your great-grandfather’s fault for putting debt on it. So, because it’s not your fault it’s gone, it’s not your responsibility either.’
He could see her face work now, her hands clenching. ‘But I don’t want it gone,’ she said in a faint voice.
He gave a sigh. ‘The secret of a happy life, Arielle…’ he said in a very dry tone, ‘…is only to want what we can get.’ He took another breath. ‘If you want this place then my advice to you is this. Go back to England and make some money, enough to make whoever buys this place an offer they won’t want to refuse.’
She looked at him. ‘I don’t know how to make money.’
‘Then learn!’ he said impatiently. ‘Anyone can do it! I’m proof of that—’
He broke off suddenly and stood up. ‘That’s enough of a life lesson for now. I’m hungry. What’s for lunch?’
It was a distraction, he knew, but it was also what he happened to want right then.
And getting what he wanted, whatever it was, was the most compelling life lesson that he had learnt. And lived by.
Arielle’s voice interrupted his familiar mantra, sounding hesitant, ‘I usually just have salad for lunch.’
‘What kind?’
She replied, still sounding hesitant, ‘Tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, cheese and ham. That sort of thing.’
Lycos nodded. ‘Sounds good. Let’s eat outside.’
She was still hesitant, so he crossed to the ancient looking fridge, which was rumbling to itself in the corner, and opened it. He brought out what he could find by way of cheese, ham and butter, and put it all on the table. He knew that some of the baguette he’d brought with him remained from their breakfast. Arielle collected herself sufficiently to fetch tomatoes and a gold-yellow pepper from a large bowl by the sink.
‘I’ll… I’ll go and cut some lettuce,’ he heard her say as she headed outside. Lycos let her be. She needed to come down completely from that state of mental turmoil she’d succumbed to. He busied himself loading up the wooden breakfast tray, wondering when he’d last had to prepare his own lunch. Arielle returned with a handful of leaves, washing them and then tossing them in a crockery bowl with oil and vinegar. She didn’t speak and neither did Lycos. He picked up the tray.
‘Ready?’ he asked and made his way out to the terrace. The midday heat hit him and he was glad of the shady awning. Arielle emerged with the salad bowl, a jug of water and two glasses. Lycos sat himself down, as did she, and he started to help himself to bread, cheese and ham, and a couple of the ripe tomatoes. He got stuck in.
‘This is good cheese,’ he said.
‘My neighbour makes it,’ Arielle said. ‘The ham is from their pigs too.’ Her voice was back to sounding studiedly neutral.
She poured water into the glasses. Lycos took a draught, wondering when he’d last drank tap water, and only that, during a meal. But it was cold and refreshing with a distinct taste to it, unlike city water, and he remarked as such.
‘It’s from the original well,’ Arielle said. ‘Though it’s pumped up by electricity now, not by hand.’ She paused and he could see she wanted to say something else. Then she did.
‘When…when you said what you said about responsibility…did you mean that?’
‘Yes,’ he said, looking across at her. ‘You can let this place go, Arielle, because nothing about it or what’s happened to it, is your responsibility. Except, maybe…’ he allowed a trace of rare humour to creep into his voice, ‘…for your poultry. You can find new homes for them with my blessing. Though…’ he added ‘…I suspect unless Matilde and Maurice get a swimming pool of their own, wherever they end up they won’t be best pleased!’
She gave a wry, if reluctant, laugh. Lycos liked the sound of it. He let his gaze rest on her for a moment from beneath his lashes. He wanted, he realised, for her to get over what was obviously a blow to her. Discovering that what she’d said she’d been dreading, her stepbrother disposing of the mas, had actually happened. Get over it and…
And what?
His gaze rested on her a moment longer. She really was, he knew, exceptionally lovely.
Maybe, now he was here, he should take advantage of that.
Thoughts flickered in his head. Yes, he was here, but he wasn’t exactly going to stay, was he?
Her hesitant voice interrupted his thoughts.
‘When are you planning to sell?’ she asked. Her voice was low and she didn’t look at him.
‘I’ll be putting it on the market when I get to Paris. I was on my way there, driving up from the coast, when I decided to stop off and take a look this morning.’
‘Do you live in Paris?’
‘I don’t live anywhere. I stay in hotels or rent apartments if I’m anywhere for any duration.’
‘But you’re based in Greece?’ she sounded puzzled, making an assertion she seemed to assume must be the case.
‘That’s the last place I’d call home.’
He hadn’t intended there to be an edge in his voice, but it was there all the same.
‘Why?’
She was looking at him now, straight at him, with those celestial blue eyes of hers. As if she could see into him. Or wanted to.
‘Why?’ he echoed. ‘Because… I escaped.’
‘From what?’
He drew back, dropping his knife on the table. ‘What is this? Psychoanalysis?’
‘Not really. But you’ve seen fit to lecture me about my circumstances. I… I’m simply retaliating.’
He gave a laugh. A short one, but a laugh for all that. Although there was an edge to it too.
‘From things I wanted to escape from. Mainly poverty. And I have. Now I can get things I want. That’s why, Arielle, I say the same to you. If you make money, you can get what you want.’
The blue eyes were still looking at him. ‘How did you?’ she asked. ‘Escape poverty?’
‘I discovered I had a skill and I honed it, until I could use it on others. On people with money. To remove it from them—or enough of it to enrich me in the end.’
She frowned. ‘What skill?’
‘I told you already. The same way I acquired this place. I gamble, Arielle. That’s my skill.’ He met her frowning gaze.
‘So you are a professional gambler? Is that it, you make a living out of gambling?
He shook his head. That was easy to answer too.
‘No, I make a living out of investing the money I make out of gambling. Gambling provided me with capital, lump sums, that I then could invest in whatever it is in the world that makes money. Once you have money, Arielle, it’s easy enough to make more. Millionaires and billionaires don’t have to work hard to stay rich. The markets do it for them. Providing they stay sensible, they’ll make more money. Or, rather, they themselves won’t. Their fund managers will make it for them and cream off a percentage from their clients to make their money while they’re at it.’
‘But you do still gamble? You just won the Mas Delfine off my stepbrother by gambling.’
He could hear the bitterness that the place she loved had changed hands in a game of cards in her voice, but he ignored it.
‘To keep my hand in,’ he said. ‘To pay, if you like, homage to the skill that made me rich. We should not, Arielle, neglect our roots.’ His voice was dry and self-mocking, yet cautionary. He would never, must never, forget his roots. His origins. Or he might become like the other rich idiots out there who took their wealth for granted.
He wanted to change the subject away from himself. He was not used to talking about himself—he never did. He was no one’s business but his own.
‘So,’ he said his voice changing as he helped himself to another sweet tomato. ‘What’s your skill, Arielle? Besides looking after this place and attempting to shoo ducks off the swimming pool?’ He let humour lighten his voice, as his eyes went to her questioningly. ‘With luck it might be a skill you could use to make enough money to buy this place back.’
She gave a rueful half-smile. ‘My skill isn’t one that yields much likelihood of riches,’ she told him.
‘What is it?’ Lycos asked.
‘Music. I studied it. Went to music college. But there is a huge number of good musicians out there and only a few make a living. Even fewer make a good living and almost none become virtuosos or stars! My mother always encouraged me though and my father was happy enough to pay for my studies. He gave me the piano in the parlour, so I have that to thank him for. Then…’ Arielle hesitated as a shadow moved over her face, ‘…after I’d graduated my mother became ill, so I came here to look after her. I stayed with her until she died. Then I stayed on, while I mourned her and then… Well, my father remarried four months later.’
She continued, ‘And because I loathed Naomi, and because she wanted only my obliteration and non-existence, I stayed here until my father died within a year of marrying Naomi and… Well, you know the rest. So, here I am. Until…’ she said with resignation, or maybe even acceptance he thought, ‘…you throw me out.’
She’d cleared her plate too and she got to her feet, packing away the dishes back on the tray. Lycos did not help her. He only watched her deft, quick movements. Thoughts were moving inside his head and he was not sure what to make of them. The heat of the day was palpable, even there shaded below the awning. All around, cicadas sang their constant chorus, while birdsong interrupted as if an occasional vocalist. The air was somnolent with fragrance from the honeysuckle winding over a nearby pergola and the lavender lining the stone walls. The heat radiated up from the stone paving of the terrace.
Arielle disappeared indoors with her laden tray. Lycos stretched out his legs, lounged back in his chair and let his gaze rest on the gardens beyond the terrace. His mood was strange. This whole place was strange. Alien to his life.
His life was nothing like this place. This time yesterday he’d been doing a tough workout in the gym at his hotel on the Côte d’Azur, knowing he was heading for the casino that evening to, as he had just told Arielle, keep his hand in. And at that moment, he should be checked into his hotel in Paris, where he should be meeting Marc Derenz of Banc Derenz for dinner at one of the city’s Michelin-starred restaurants. The next morning in his formal review being shown spreadsheets, graphs and forecasts, making decisions, moving money and investments around. Checking out an appropriate realtor to discuss the best price he could get for this latest acquisition. This remote, old-fashioned Provençal mas in the middle of nowhere, with its hens and a pair of over-indulged ducks, and its very own version of Cinderella with a wicked stepmother and decidedly ugly and brutish stepsibling…
And shall I be her Prince Charming?
Charming her into his bed…?
He felt the question take shape in his head. Wondering, considering, how to answer it. He wasn’t yet sure. But there was no rush, after all, to answer it. He wasn’t going anywhere for now. And that, he realised as he flexed his outstretched legs, recrossed his ankles and lounged back in his seat, felt strangely good…
