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‘Don’t be. In fact I can see you are quite comfortable there,’ Ella replied with a small bow. ‘So I’ll meet you back at the house whenever you feel like it. Your room is all ready for you. Bye for now. And it’s Ella!’
With one small finger wave she strolled back behind his car and pulled a very strange-looking ancient bicycle with a child seat through the bushes, gracefully pushed off with one foot on the pedal and calmly cycled down the lane towards the house, leaving him sitting there surrounded by birdsong, the buzz of insects, dogs barking somewhere close and the ping, ping, ping of condensation dripping onto hot metal from the air conditioning in the car.
He watched in silence as a yellow butterfly landed on his outstretched hand, cleaned its feelers, and then lifted away.
‘Well, you are a long way from Kansas now, Toto,’ he mumbled before chuckling to himself, then chuckling louder, the ridiculous nature of his position hitting him right in the funny bone.
So much for the millions in his private bank accounts! Thank heavens the ‘suits’ at PSN Media could not see him now! They might think twice about buying a company from a farm boy.
This was turning out to be quite a day! And he had only just arrived.
It was almost a shame that he would not be staying long enough to find out more about Nicole’s housekeeper!
A few minutes later, Seb stepped out from the car and felt the small hairs at the back of his neck stand on end.
The outside of the house had not changed that much in eighteen years. The farmhouse had been built from sandstone, which he already knew took on a golden-pink hue at dusk in the long summer evenings. The long wooden shutters that covered the windows and patio doors used to be painted a 5lavender-blue shade that he had never seen anywhere else except in this part of the Languedoc. Now they were dark blue with a pale yellow trim, which to his untrained eye was too harsh a colour contrast below the old terracotta tile roof spotted with patches of moss.
Any fears he might have had about his old home being a ruin were gone, replaced by a general sense of unease that brought a crease of tension to his forehead and a strange quiver of anxious fear in his gut matched with a cold sweat in the small of his back, despite the warmth of his shirt and suit jacket.
He had not expected to feel this way.
He had formed his own company, which had grown into an international multimillion-dollar business, he thought nothing of giving presentations to hundreds of strangers and yet here he was, standing in the warm sunshine, and nervous of taking those few steps through the tall and, oh, so familiar wooden door that led inside the house where he had grown up.
Suddenly a light breeze picked up through the resin-heavy poplar and plane trees and carried the scent of lavender, roses, honeysuckle and sweet white jasmine. Instantly his mind was flooded with so many memories that he sucked in a breath to help steady himself.
Thousands of moments and images that all called out the same message. You’ve come home.
After almost a lifetime away from the country of his birth, this area, this village and this farmhouse…he was home.
And the very thought shocked him more than he thought possible.
Home was the apartment in Sydney with the stunning views over the city where he slept some of the time and kept his clothes. Sydney was his home. Not here. Not any more.
He had decided eighteen years ago that he would never again rely so much on one person for his happiness. The agony of being dragged away from this house had destroyed that kind of childish sentimentality for good.
He did not do sentimental.
Indeed the notion shocked him so much that when Ella sauntered around the side of the house and stood next to him looking up at the window, he barely noticed her presence until her light sweet voice broke the silence.
‘Has it changed much since you were here last?’
He half turned and blinked in confusion as he fought to regain the connection between his brain and his mouth. Had she been reading his mind?
She tilted her chin upward and looked at him eye to eye. ‘Nicole told me that you grew up here. I was just wondering if the house is still the same as you remember. That’s all!’ And with that she turned away to pick off dead flower heads from the cascades of stunning blossoms billowing from two giant stone urns that stood either side of the main door, giving Seb a chance to put together a sensible reply.
‘Er, no. Not much. I noticed the gates are down—’ he sniffed ‘—but the house itself looks pretty much the same.’ He raised one hand toward the shutters with a nod. ‘The colour scheme is different. Not sure it works.’
There was an exasperated sigh from Ella who twirled around to face him and planted a fist firmly on each hip.
‘Thank you! Nicole hired an “interior designer”—’ at this point she lifted her hands and made quotation marks with her fingers ‘—to remodel the old place in the spring.’
Ella nodded towards the shutters and shuddered with her shoulders. ‘He was a lovely charming man who had a wonderful eye for textiles but had no clue about the local style. I mean none. Zip. De nada. Zero.’
She bent towards Seb as though confiding in him. ‘I may be from London but I have lived here long enough to know that this house does not need navy-blue shutters!’
Then she stepped back to the flowers and expertly snipped off a perfect half-open pink rose bud with a few glossy green leaves with a fingernail.
Before Seb could reply she skipped up, stood on tiptoe and slipped the rose into the buttonhole of his made-to-measure suit jacket, smoothing it into place on his soft cashmere collar with the fingertips of one hand.
‘There. That’s better. No thorns, you see. I planted a rose without thorns. Do you like it?’
Ella raised her brows and looked Seb straight in the eye with an intense look and suddenly her mouth twitched as if she was only too aware that as he looked down to admire the new addition to his wardrobe he had a delightful view down the front of her yellow and white sundress.
For a few moments he completely forgot his troubles as he admired the tanned skin and soft curves under the thin yellow and white cotton. A white lacy bra peeked out either side of the dress, which had slipped down over one shoulder, and he felt the sudden urge to lift the strap of her sundress back into position. But that would have meant touching her skin and finding out if it was truly as soft and smooth as it looked.
It was very tempting but also totally prohibited.
Oh, no. Not going there. Bad idea! He liked city-smart women who knew how to run multimedia servers and could make orbiting satellites obey his commands. Not elves in green pants. Especially when she released her hand from his jacket and he saw a diamond and sapphire wedding band on her left ring finger.
Mrs Martinez! A married housekeeper. Okay. Very prohibited! That made sense. He vaguely recalled that she mentioned a little boy. A married woman with a family. The perfect housekeeper and gardener and maintenance man team to look after the house when Nicole was away.
Mr Martinez was a very lucky man.
He brought his attention back onto the trellis of roses above her head before croaking out a reply. ‘I do like it. It’s a stunning display. Thank you, Mrs Martinez.’
She gave his jacket a small final pat and smiled back at him before dropping back onto her heels.
‘You are most welcome. The main rose garden is still at the back of the house.’ She paused for a second, then gestured to the car and flashed him a half-smile. Then it was back to business. ‘Even in that mobile sofa you call a car, you must be tired after your long drive. Ready to see what he did to your old bedroom?’
This had been his room. The ancient bathroom with the cracked enamel basin had been in the room next door. The wall must have been knocked through to create this stylish tiled ensuite. But the room itself had not changed that much and the floorboards certainly creaked in the same places.
The rush of memories threatened to overwhelm him again as he looked out from the square window onto the walled garden at the back of the house where he had played and learnt to love life.
And then it hit him.
Ella Martinez had made up this room for him. Not the spare room his grandmother had used when his mother was terminally ill, but his old room. How had she known that this had been his room?
He turned back towards the door. Ella was standing at the top of the stairs simply watching him and her smile was like sunshine inside the dark cool shade of the corridor.
Seeing the look on his face, she said, ‘I worked it out,’ then pointed to the wall behind his back. ‘From the wallpaper.’
Then she grinned and took pity on his confusion. ‘Relax. I’m not psychic. When the decorators stripped off the layers of wallpaper they found some interesting blasts from the past.’
Ella glanced back over each shoulder, and then peeked down the staircase, as though checking that they were not being overhead, before leaning closer.
‘I’m sure lots of teenagers back then plastered their bedroom walls with posters of their favourite pop groups. In fact—’ and at this she leant back, pursed her lips, and nodded before going on ‘—I’m willing to bet that you would sing along to your favourite records holding a hairbrush as a pretend microphone. Am I right?’
Seb felt the back of his neck flare with heat and embarrassment, only then he looked at Ella and the laughter that had been teasing the corner of her mouth bubbled through into a full warm giggle.
Nobody had dared giggle at Sebastien Castellano for a very long time, only there was something in Ella’s voice that told him that her comments were not insulting or meant to embarrass him. She was simply sharing a joke.
And suddenly the irony of his old posters being found almost twenty years later hit him hard and he made the mistake of looking back at Ella. He started to laugh, really laugh, the sound so unfamiliar to him that he realised with a rush that he had not laughed like this for a long time.
‘Quite wrong,’ he eventually managed to reply, wiping the tears from his eyes. ‘It wasn’t a hairbrush. It was a can of my grandmother’s hairspray. And the old wardrobe had a full-length mirror so I could admire my new denim outfit in its full glory.’
‘In that case consider yourself lucky. My parents are full-time musicians and I was actually born above their jazz club in London. Can you imagine what the noise was like every evening?’ Ella paused and looked up at the ceiling before sighing out loud. ‘Actually it was amazing and I adored it.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Hey ho. On with the show. I’ll leave you to get settled. If you need anything I’ll be in the same place as the coffee and cookies.’
Seb nodded. ‘On with the show? Okay, that sounds good. One question. What time are you expecting Nicole today? I need to catch up with her as soon as she gets back.’
Ella’s brows came together and her mouth twisted in surprise. ‘Nicole? Nicole isn’t here. Didn’t she tell you?’
Seb’s frown deepened as he looked up at Ella.
‘Not here? I don’t understand. She emailed me a few weeks ago to make sure that my plans had not changed. Has something happened? Is she okay?’
Ella raised and lowered both hands. ‘Fine. As of this morning she is just fine. A little wet maybe, but fine. What is not so fine is the weather in Nepal. The monsoon rains have come early and she is finding it slow going walking back from Everest Base Camp. They’ve already missed their original flight. So, you see, Nicole won’t be back for at least another few days.’
Then she added with a small shoulder shrug, ‘Until then you are stuck with me.’
CHAPTER THREE
ELLA peeped out of the kitchen window to see if Seb had woken from his nap yet.
She had hoped that he would be awake in time to move the very fine example of Italian design he called a motor vehicle that was still half parked, half abandoned, on the round driveway at the front of the house, before Dan’s schoolteacher tried to squeeze her tiny car through.
Everything in the garden was quiet and tranquil. A normal summer afternoon.
Strange. From what Nicole had told her, Sebastien Castellano was used to living life at top speed. Rushing here and there, always looking for the next project or the next business deal where he could have fun bringing modern communications to a company or even a city! Burning the candle at both ends with his remarkable workload and high-profile fund-raising events.
She had not been joking about the silver-framed photographs on the piano that needed regular dusting and polishing. Nicole had built up quite a collection.
Although there was something odd about the photographs. Something that she had never mentioned out of respect for Nicole’s personal life.
The collection did not have one single photo of Sebastien with his father or with Nicole. Not one family picture. Seb wasn’t even on Nicole’s wedding photo, and he must have been in his late teens when Nicole married Seb’s father.
It had always seemed strange. Especially compared to her own personal albums of photos. She treasured the family photos with her parents and Dan. Christobal’s family loved formal portraits taken by professionals in a studio, and she was so grateful that she could show Dan what his father had looked like, but she was happy with a spur-of-the-moment shot taken with a cheap pocket camera.
Not for Nicole.
Of course, there was one great advantage in being the person responsible for polishing Sebastien Castellano’s face every week. She could allow her imagination to run riot about what the man himself was like in the flesh. Nicole was not the only one thrilled when Sebastien accepted the invitation to her birthday party—out of the blue!
Ella chewed her lower lip. She had hardly believed her eyes when she saw who owned the car blocking the driveway. How could any man look so handsome sitting on his bottom in the hedge playing with Milou and Wolfie?
Although it did make her wonder what he truly was doing here. From what little Nicole had told her, Seb had gone out of his way to avoid coming to see her in the past, and he never took a holiday so it was more than a little odd that he turned up like this. Perhaps Nicole was correct and he had his own agenda for being in this part of France?
Ella shook her head with a smile.
Silly girl. Speculating her life away!
It was such a lovely day she could hardly blame Seb for taking time away from work to relax and enjoy the garden of his old home after the long flight from Australia.
While it was time for her to get back to work and for one of her favourite tasks, which Dan adored helping her with. Shelling peas under the trees.
Ella went through the house to the kitchen, picked up her colander and a basket of fresh peas in the pod from the local market, and carried them out to the patio table.
And stopped abruptly, the peas skidding in the basket.
Seb was lying on a recliner with a beaker of now-cold coffee and a home-made cookie from Dan’s stash on a tray on the low table next to him.
Fast asleep.
His chest lifted gently up and down under a once crisp formal shirt, now smudged with dog paw marks.
Ella leant as quietly as she could on the edge of the hardwood table and looked at him. Really looked at him.
Dappled sunshine flickered over his skin as the light breeze moved through the branches of the trees, lifting the wide leaves to create a mosaic of light and shade on the patio lounger.
The strong handsome face was a road map of luxurious places where the very rich and powerful people liked to visit in their drive to become richer and even more powerful.
Places where sensitive souls like her own would burn up in the intense heat of that fire and driving passion. And from what she could see Sebastien Castellano was at best a little scorched and at worst exhausted from fighting back the flames.
His dark brown eyebrows were thick, wide and set into a powerful broad brow, which had been designed by nature to make his look fierce and intense even when asleep on the lounger.
His dark brown hair was expertly cut into a formal business look—but just a little longer than the average, leaving dark strands falling across his brow and collar.
He had a strong nose, and as she peered closer a sprinkle of sun-kissed freckles made her smile. Probably from his days spent yacht racing in the tropics. Or scuba-diving trips to the Great Barrier Reef. Something like that. Nothing as mundane as shelling peas in a farmhouse in the Languedoc.
A five o’clock shadow of dark brown stubble stretching down from his sideburns and across his upper lip softened the fierce-looking square jaw, which could have belonged to a prize fighter or matador, rather than a self-made entrepreneur.
His bottom lip was narrow compared to a sumptuous upper lip that photographers loved to capture at prestigious award dinners or business functions.
She could not resist a small sigh. Oh, how she envied him his lifestyle! She had loved her old life on the road! Travelling with her parents from town to town, playing jazz and classical concerts wherever they could. She had lost count of the number of weddings, birthdays, festivals and fairs where the Bailey trio had shared their passion for music.
She had spent so many years on the road since she turned sixteen the countries that they visited sometimes blended into one. Spain and Portugal had been amazing, but it was the three months they spent in southern India that she remembered the most. The colours, the energy, the dusty roads that choked you just before you had to sing for two hours! She remembered every minute. And was grateful that she had those memories to look back on.
That life was very far from this safe farmhouse where she could give Dan the benefits of a settled life.
Yes. You are a very lucky man, Seb Castellano.
Only at that moment Seb’s mouth moved in a charming little twitching action at the side and it hit her hard that Dan did exactly the same thing when he dozed off sometimes.
Ella smiled to herself.
Not exactly the image of the intimidating power-hungry master of Castellano Tech that Nicole kept cuttings about from business magazines!
So this was Nicole’s celebrity stepson! Or was that infamous?
He had reacted so oddly when he found out that Nicole was not going to be back until Monday at the earliest. From what Nicole had told her, they were not close and never had been, but he did seem genuinely concerned that she had been delayed.
