It was exactly as Pascal had intuited last night, and she hated to admit that. It had been so hard, coming from a family of successfully married siblings, to be the only one to fail and to cause her parents such concern. Her monumental lack of judgement haunted her to this day. She obviously couldn’t trust herself when it came to character assessment, never mind another man. And Pascal Lévêque was ringing so many bells that it should make it easy to reject his advances.
Alana brusquely pulled on her coat and got her keys. She refused to let her mind wander where it wanted: namely down a route that investigated the possibility of giving in to Pascal Lévêque’s advances. Alana reassured herself that by now he’d have forgotten the wholly unremarkable Irish woman who had piqued his interest for thirty-six hours.
Thirty-six hours. That’s all it had been. And yet it wasn’t enough. Pascal stood at the window of his Paris office and looked out over the busy area of La Défense with its distinctive Grande Arche in the distance.
Alana Cusack was taking up a prominence in his head that was usually reserved for facts and figures. Ordinarily he could compartmentalise women very well; they didn’t intrude on his every waking hour. They were for pleasure only, and fleeting pleasure at that. The minute he saw that look come into their eye, or heard that tone come into their voice, it was time to say goodbye. He enjoyed his freedom, the thrill of the chase, the conquest. No strings, no commitment.
But now a green-eyed, buttoned-up, starchy-collared, impertinent-questioning witch was making a hum of sexual frustration throb through his blood. He had to get her out of his system. Prove to himself that his desire had only been whetted because she was playing hard to get, and only because she seemed to be a little more intriguing than any other woman he’d met. The fact that she’d been married intrigued him too. Her marriage had obviously left her scarred. That had been clear from a mile away. Was that why she was so prickly, so uptight and defensive, so wary? Was she still grieving for her husband?
Pascal ran a hand through his hair impatiently. Enough! He turned his back on the view and called his PA into the room. She listened to his instructions and took down all the details, and she was professional enough not to give Pascal any indication that what he’d just asked her to do was in any way out of the ordinary.
But it was.
‘There’s something for you on your desk, Alana.’
‘Thanks, Soph,’ Alana answered distractedly as she flipped through her notes on her return from a lunchtime interview and walked into her tiny cubbyhole office just off the main newsroom. She looked up for a quick second to smile at Sophie, the general runaround girl, and her smile faltered when she saw the other girl’s clearly mischievous look. With foreboding in her heart, Alana opened her door, and there on her desk was the biggest bunch of flowers she’d ever seen in her life. Her notebook and pen slid from her fingers onto the table. With a trembling hand, she plucked the card free from amongst the ridiculously extravagant blooms.
She cast a quick look back out the door, and seeing no one, quickly shut it. She ripped the envelope open and took out the card, which was of such luxurious quality that it felt about an inch thick between her fingers. All that was written on the card in beautiful calligraphy was one mystifying letter: ‘I…’
She was completely and utterly bemused. Her dread was that they would be from him. But the card was enigmatic. They could actually be from anyone.
Not one person looked at her oddly afterwards, though, not even the junior reporter who covered current affairs who had drunkenly admitted at the office party last Christmas to having a crush on her. It wasn’t her birthday, and she hadn’t done an especially amazing babysitting-stint lately for any nieces or nephews, which sometimes resulted in flowers as a thank-you.
For the rest of the day Alana was like a cat on a hot tin roof. Distracted. She only left and brought the flowers home once she was sure nearly everyone had left the office.
The following day, as Alana walked in, flicking through her post, Sophie again said, ‘Morning! There’s something for you on your desk.’
Alana’s 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.
