French Blue (22 page)

“Olivier…”

He opened his eyes and turned to her. “Hmm?”

His eyes were expectant; then, as she hesitated, they were puzzled. Oh God, no. What the hell was she doing? “Yes? What is it,
cherie
?”

Lisa floundered, struggled for air. Her heart raced; she wanted to tell him how she felt, but she couldn’t face the sudden change in his features that might—that probably would—happen. The horror, the pity, the embarrassment.

The pain of her own misery when she was gently but firmly rejected. Again—but this time by a man she truly loved and who could not love her back.

In the past few months, Olivier had unravelled her physically, but when it came to this moment, she couldn’t let herself go and tell him how she really felt. Olivier’s eyes were serious, mirroring the struggle in her own. “Lisa? What’s the matter?”

“The phone. It’s ringing.”

The buzz came from the nightstand next to the clock. Her iPhone had ridden to the rescue at the very last moment, saving her from making the second biggest mistake of her life after starting her affair with Jody.

As she wriggled to answer it, Olivier’s arm clamped down across her body. “Leave it.”

“It might be important.”

“More important than what you wanted to say?”

Her mouth opened, breath leaving her as the phone’s buzz retreated. When she opened her eyes, he smiled at her from between her legs.

“I thought not.”

A while later, Olivier got up to go to the bathroom, Lisa lay, drenched in post-sex haze, every limb liquid, reluctant to return to reality. The phone buzzed again from the chair by the window. With a sigh, she got out of bed and fished it from her bag. She grimaced as her mother’s name came up, then smiled. Could she speak to her mum while she was naked and still tingling from Olivier’s latest therapy?

The missed call was from her mum too. Twice in an hour; maybe it was important. She pressed the button, ready for a long conversation about some relative’s baby news or neighbourhood scandal.

“Hi. Mum.”

In the bathroom, Olivier sat on the edge of the tub, staring at the mirror opposite. It showed a man clinging by his fingernails to a precipice. Stifling a groan of agony, he put his head in his hands, trying to blot out the world. Lisa was preparing to leave; she’d been on the verge of telling him that this should be their last meeting; he knew it by the regret and sadness in her eyes.

Since that night with Alex and Carla, he’d sensed the change in her, the slight coolness, the emotional distancing from him. She was metaphorically packing her bags and mentally putting her house in order, ready to fly away from him in every sense of the word. Every day, he felt the loosening of the bond, and every time she slackened the knot, he let go a little too. It was pure self-preservation, to somehow lessen the pain of separation.

He’d even—briefly—thought of agreeing to meet a woman who’d been mentioned to him by a former friend from a club. He’d thought that by doing this he could kid himself he was moving on, but immediately he’d phoned the friend back to say he wasn’t interested.

God knows, he ought to know by now that moving on from one relationship to the next wasn’t the way for him anymore. He needed to grieve when Lisa left, to properly recognise that her loss had hurt him, even more than Caro leaving him.

To abandon himself to the pain and to suffer, and to get out the other side.

He shoved his hands through his hair.

But that couldn’t happen until she was physically out of his life and thousands of miles away, because until then, with her in front of him, he nursed hope. He’d been a heartbeat away from blurting out that he was in love with her and that he didn’t want her to leave. That was crazy. She had to leave; she had a career in New York.

But more than that, he was a child about to put his hand into the fire again. Too late. His hand was in the flame, burning. What he’d contemplated was throwing himself in a great fucking bonfire.

His fingers tore at the roots of his hair as he heard her phone ring again. It would be work, calling her, demanding she return even sooner than planned. That was a good thing, wasn’t it? End it now, start the pain right now, and the sooner he could get it over with.

The bathroom door clattered against the radiator. Lisa stood in the doorway, tears streaming down her face. The exact opposite of the woman reining in her emotions like metal bands around a barrel.

“Olivier!”

He snapped to his feet. “What the hell’s the matter?”

Her sob seemed to rent her whole body and shake his as she crushed her face against his chest. He folded his arms around her, shushing her yet at the same time, torn with agony to know what had caused her such pain. What had unravelled her in the way he never could.

His skin was soaked with her tears; his heart felt like it was splitting in two as he let her make her pain part of him.

He staggered against the tub as she suddenly thrust him away from her. “I must go! I have to go to Abi now.” She tore off into the bedroom, tripping over discarded clothes, gulping in air, snatching at bags and shoes.

Olivier grabbed her arm. “Wait. Slow down.”

Her eyes were wild as she glared at him. “No. I have to…go…”

He gripped her elbows. “Lisa. For fuck’s sake, breathe and tell me what’s happened!”

She stared at him as if he was crazy, then let out a massive, shuddering breath. “Bella!” she shrieked. “It’s Bella. She’s in hospital. She has meningitis and… Oh God, Olivier, she might not survive.”

He released the pressure on her elbows. Shock almost stole his breath too, but he knew that more than ever in his life, Lisa needed him to stay calm. “Yes, you must go to her now, but you can’t help anyone in this state. I’ll help you get your stuff and take you to the airport. Where’s your passport?”

Her eyes were wild. “In the flat. In the fucking flat. What if I’m too late? What if there’s no flight? Oh God, it’s nearly midnight. There won’t be any. What if Bella dies and I didn’t answer my phone because we were shagging each other?”

He’d stopped her from answering the call, but his guilt would help no one now. “You won’t be too late. What hospital is she in?”

“I don’t know. Mum didn’t say, or I didn’t hear. I’ll kill myself if Bella dies.”

“Okay. This is what we’re going to do. Get dressed and phone your mother back and find out exactly where Bella is. I’m going to arrange a flight for you and take you to the airport.”

“But when? What about my passport!”

“I’ll deal with that. Put your clothes on and call your mother.”

Lisa’s legs were leaden as she climbed the short flight of steps that led up to the private jet waiting on the tarmac at Le Bourget. It was barely an hour since she’d taken the call from her mother, yet every second ticking by was agony.

Rain lashed her face, and she stumbled on the wet steps.

Olivier’s hand was immediately at her elbow. “Take care.”

Seconds later, they were inside the aircraft, her fingers fumbling with the buckle of her seat belt.

“Please, let me help.”

“No, I…”

“Accept the help, save your energy for what matters. You must see that makes sense?”

With the briefest nod, she sat back and closed her eyes as Olivier took the metal buckle from her and snapped it home, tightening the strap across her lap. She heard the heavy thud as the cabin door closed and the engine noise deepened as the pilot prepared to taxi. Behind her closed eyes, all she could see was a tiny figure, hooked up to a myriad of machines and tubes; and her mother and sister hunched in chairs at the bedside. She’d called her mother back as Olivier had driven her to the private airfield. Bella was still in intensive care, still critical, still no change.

Warm fingers enclosed hers, and she opened her eyes to see Olivier looking at her, his eyes full of concern. He squeezed her hand. “She’ll be okay.”

“Thank you for trying, but you can’t possibly know that.”

“No, but you mustn’t give up on her. You need to give hope to your sister. If you give up, she’ll feel it the moment you walk into the hospital. That’s the last thing she wants now.”

“I know. It’s so hard not to think of the worst that could happen. Bella is so small.”

“She’s young and strong and in the hands of experts, from what you tell me.”

“It’s such an unpredictable thing. Anything could happen to Bella. Even if she pulls through there could be brain damage or blood poisoning… I’m sorry, I’m thinking the worst. I am so grateful that you’ve come with me and arranged this jet—thank you.”

“Please, you have nothing to thank me for. I’ll do anything I can to make things easier for you. I called in a favour from a client of the gallery with the jet. It was the fastest way to get you home.”

Lisa squeezed his hand. “It means everything to me to be with my family, but I wish I could have been there when Bella was taken ill—or before. Maybe I could have done something to help or spotted that something was wrong.”

“If Bella’s own mother and GP initially didn’t realise how serious it was, then you couldn’t have helped. We’ll be at the airfield in less than an hour. I’ve ordered a private car to wait for us. I know you’re in agony, and I do understand what you’re going through. You mustn’t give up on Bella.” His voice was fierce.

Lisa felt the plane start to accelerate, ready for take-off. “You’re speaking from experience, aren’t you? Caro gave up on you when you were very ill, and you can’t forget she abandoned you—or forgive her?”

He glanced away from her, down at their interlinked fingers as the wheels left the tarmac. Lisa’s stomach turned over and over, the familiar feeling of being about to drop from the sky intensified by her ragged emotions.

“That’s for another time. Let’s concentrate on Bella and your family for now.”

“How is she?”

Olivier stood as Lisa walked into the waiting area of the hospital. His face was creased with anxiety, dark shadows under his eyes. God knew how she looked herself, not that she cared.

“The same. They’re still pumping antibiotics and steroids into her and saying the next few hours will be crucial. Just like this is some TV drama, except it’s real. It’s horribly real.”

A sob racked her body, and she sought refuge in his open arms, burying her face in his shoulder.

“Do you want me to take you home?”

“No. I want to stay here until…in case there’s a change, but you should go to your hotel.”

“I’ll wait with you.”

Lisa shook her head. It was so tempting to lean on Olivier for support and comfort. Perhaps she’d done far too much of that already tonight. She had dragged this man—a man who, God help her, wasn’t even her boyfriend but a virtual business arrangement—into one of the most intense and intimate family moments. Embarrassment and shame and guilt coursed through her. She’d been fucking him while her niece had been close to dying and her mother had been trying to get hold of her. And she’d be leaving him soon, not tying him to her with shared grief and pain.

“Please, go back to your hotel. Thanks for staying, but it might be easier if you left now.”

“Do you really mean that?”

“Yes. You’ve already done more than anyone could expect a friend to do.”

A flicker of emotion cast a momentary shadow over his face; perhaps hurt at her use of the word friend, or maybe relief. Who knew? She had no capacity left for finely judging people’s feelings tonight, beyond the rawness of her own.

“I’ll be at the hotel, then, if it helps you, but swear you’ll let me know how Bella is.”

“Of course I will.”

She spared him a brief kiss, slipped from his arms and headed for the ICU without looking back. Even as she walked away from him, she was telling herself that this would probably be the last time she saw him, whatever happened with Bella. They would have had to part in a couple of weeks anyway; time had simply run out sooner than either of them had expected. She knew that her overwhelming fear of losing Bella acted like an anaesthetic to every other feeling. She was too numb to process the significance of parting from Olivier. If Bella pulled through, the numbness would evaporate and she would realise the full significance of having loved and lost Olivier.

Losing both didn’t even bear thinking about.

Chapter Nineteen

Olivier snatched up the phone, heart racing when he saw Lisa’s name flash up on his mobile screen. He’d just got back from an evening walk around the city to try to distract himself from worrying about Lisa and her family. He’d spent the day in his room, trying to sort out his university classes and conduct his gallery business via Skype, but his focus kept wandering back to his phone.

“Lisa?”

“Good news. Bella’s shown some signs of improvement.”

Olivier could feel the relief underlying the exhaustion in Lisa’s voice. “That’s wonderful news.”

“Well, it’s only the start of the recovery process. We’re not out of the woods, and we can’t be sure there’s been no long-term damage, but the treatment does seem to be working. They’ve taken her off the critical list, but she might be here for a week.”