She knew this was only a pretence but…ohh… imagine if this manwasactually looking at her as if she was the love of his life. She shouldn’t have worried about not being able to play a convincing role of being in love with Christophe Brabant, because, in this instant with that gentle touch on her skin and the far more intense touch of his gaze, it felt ridiculously real.
But there was a safety net of knowing it wasn’t real.
And…
Dear Lord… it felt sogood…
Utterly compelling.
It was touching a place in her heart, or possibly her soul, that she didn’t even know she had and she could feel herself falling into that feeling.
Wanting more.
Wanting something she had believed she could never dream of – having someone who wanted her. More than anyone else on earth. For that person to be someone like Christophe Brabant was beyond her wildest imagination and Fi knew she was staring up at him as if she was experiencing some kind of miracle.
Because she was?
Wasthiswhat it would feel like to be in love and not simply be caught in the riptide of a crush?
It would certainly look like that for anyone who saw them looking at each other like this.
And someone was.
It was the sound that Flora made that broke the moment. Not quite laughter, more a sound of contentment. Fi realised she had been staring at them as intently as she had been gazing at Christophe and, as Flora started speaking with far more animation than she had up to now, Fi could guess that she was telling her daughter exactly what she thought of Christophe’s choice for his future wife and the mother of his children.
They were all talking around her and nobody was translating the conversation, but Fi couldn’t miss the glances in her direction, including one from Maria that was a mix of curiosity and satisfaction – as if she’d received confirmation that she’d been right all along and that her son, for whatever reason, had been hiding the fact that he was in a serious relationship for the first time since he’d had his heart broken so badly.
She listened to them talking over each other. She watched the smiles and gestures. And Christophe’s increasingly embarrassed expression.
‘Enough,’ he finally said, in English. ‘It’s rude to be speaking in Italian in front of Fiona.’
‘It is,’ his mother agreed. ‘I’m so sorry. And Mamma…’
‘She’s telling Nonna she needs to rest,’ Christophe whispered to Fi as Maria switched back to Italian. ‘That she’s going to get something to eat from the cafeteria in the hospital and then come back to stay the night with her.’ He joined in the conversation briefly and then nodded. ‘We will stay here to keep Nonna company until Mamma comes back, and then she says I have to take you somewhere to eat. Somewhere nicer than the cafeteria.’
He was smiling at her again. Withthatsmile. Andthatlook. He must have had so much practice to be so good at this, Fi thought. How many women had he had in his life, and his bed, since he’d decided to join the elite ‘library’ that was readily available to charismatic, gorgeous men? Perhaps he could even fall in – and out – of love as easily as clicking his fingers and be charming enough about moving on to leave those women feeling privileged instead of heartbroken?
Not that his past mattered at all given the way Nonna was also smiling. And nodding, even though her eyes were drifting shut. She looked from Christophe to Fi and back again, and he clearly received an unspoken message because he leaned close to Fi. Close enough that his lips were tickling her ear and his voice was no more than a hum.
‘Thank you,’ he murmured. ‘She thinks you are perfect for me and she issohappy…’
13
They had succeeded.
This whole plan had been to make Nonna happy in case these were the last hours of her life.
Christophe had never seen her looking as happy as she was, but just as he was breathing a sigh of relief, it suddenly began to look as if these reallyweregoing to be her last hours.
As he and Fiona were keeping watch over a sleeping Nonna Flora so that his mother could get something to eat, his grandmother suddenly woke up, groaning and clutching her chest. The trace on the monitor beside her bed was showing a very rapid heartbeat and then an alarm sounded that brought a doctor running.
It wasn’t unusual, he told Christophe, for someone to feel chest pain and have some irregular beats after the invasive procedure she’d undergone but they would make sure nothing serious was happening, like one of the stents they had inserted into an artery moving. Doing this involved a cardiacCTscan and anECG, blood tests and medication. By the time the event was declared nothing to worry about and pain relief had been enough to get Flora peacefully asleep again a couple of hours later, Maria told her son that it was high time he looked after Fiona. And Heidi.
It wasn’t only the reminder that his dog had been patiently waiting in the car for too long now that broke his reluctance to leave. While Fi had been quietly present as they waited for tests to be done and the verdict given and had shown no sign of impatience to leave, Christophe knew she had to be tired and hungry. She deserved to be treated a lot better than this and not simply for the support her presence had given him.
‘Thank goodness you took Heidi for a walk earlier,’ he told her as they walked out to the parking lot. ‘You are an angel.’
‘I gave her some water and some of her biscuits, too, so she shouldn’t be too hungry yet.’
