The Chateau of Happily-Ever-Afters: a laugh-out-loud romcom!. Jaimie Admans

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СКАЧАТЬ was hoping to catch you. I wouldn’t want us to get off on the wrong foot. Wendy, right? I’m Julian.’

      He holds his hand out but I turn away and carry on walking down the steps. I hear him sigh behind me and he catches up as soon as I’ve hit the pavement. ‘Can we talk?’

      ‘I have nothing to say to you.’

      ‘You don’t even know me.’

      ‘Exactly.’ I turn to face him. ‘And neither did Eulalie, and yet you still think you’ve got some right to waltz in and claim what isn’t yours.’

      ‘I’m family,’ he says, fiddling with his tie again.

      ‘If you cared so much, maybe you should have been part of her life while she was alive. I’m the closest thing she’s had to family for years.’

      ‘I didn’t know she existed.’

      ‘You… didn’t?’

      ‘No. And I doubt she knew I did either. I’ve been looking into the family history since I heard about the will.’ He adjusts his tie yet again, and it makes me wonder why he’s put so much effort into dressing smartly when the suit is clearly making him uncomfortable. ‘Eulalie had a brother, right?’

      ‘Yeah, but—’

      ‘But they had a huge argument about seventy years ago and never spoke to each other again?’

      ‘Yeah…’ I say slowly, not wanting this to go where I think it’s going. Eulalie probably mentioned her brother twice in all the years I knew her. The fact he knows about him means he’s probably genuine.

      ‘He was my grandfather. He died years ago now, but what I gather from my father is there was some massive disagreement and the family split in two. My grandfather went to Scotland and settled there, obviously Eulalie married this French duke and did pretty well for herself.’

      It suddenly makes more sense than it did earlier. She did have a brother who she hadn’t been in contact with for decades. She wouldn’t have known if he had children and grandchildren, her nephews and nieces. I feel myself softening towards him and have to stamp it down. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re really her nephew or not. Nothing changes the fact that she left the château to me.’

      ‘Maybe she’d have left it to both of us if she’d known I existed.’

      I glare at him, but he’s probably not wrong. Eulalie would have loved a nephew, even if he lived miles away in Scotland. She might’ve had a grudge against her brother, but that wouldn’t have extended to his children and grandchildren. If she’d known this Julian existed, she’d have been asking me to teach her how to use Skype and enquiring if pensioners got a discount on rail fares to go up and meet him.

      ‘So, what do you want to do with the old place then? Should we sell? We’d get half a million euros each. Even with the exchange rate, we’d do pretty well out of it. I don’t know about you but half a million euros wouldn’t go amiss in my life.’

      ‘It’s not for sale. Eulalie left it to me because she knew I wouldn’t sell it,’ I say, every bit of softness I was feeling towards him disappearing in an instant at the mention of money. Of course that’s all he’s bloody interested in, like all bloody men.

      ‘What do you intend to do with it then?’

      ‘I don’t know. This has come as a shock to me. But I will never sell it, no matter how much it’s worth. It’s nothing to do with money. Eulalie loved that château. She talked about it all the time, I just never had a clue that it was an actual place.’

      ‘And this whole riddle-y, treasure-y thing… She was a looney, right? That’s just the nonsensical ramblings of a mad old fogey? Lost a few marbles?’

      ‘No, she hadn’t lost any bloody marbles, she was…’ I trail off as I realise what he’s doing. He’s trying to wheedle information out of me without asking outright if there’s some kind of treasure hidden at the château. ‘I mean, she had a vivid imagination and was prone to fantasies. She told so many grand stories, you could never be sure of what was real and what wasn’t…’

      ‘And you obviously think there’s something in it.’

      ‘I doubt it. If Eulalie had treasure of any kind, she wouldn’t have lived in the flat she did. She had no money. She lived hand to mouth on her pension.’ This isn’t a lie. Eulalie’s riddle is surely just another one of her stories. If she had money hidden away anywhere, she would have used it years ago.

      ‘Are you going to open your letter then?’

      I raise an eyebrow at the cheek of him. ‘What, here? In front of you? My private letter, to me personally?’

      ‘She could’ve given you coordinates or something. It’s not right if you have an unfair advantage.’

      ‘An unfair advantage to what?’

      ‘Finding the treasure, of course.’

      Oh, for God’s sake. The money-obsessed git. ‘There is no bloody treasure.’

      He nods. ‘Right.’

      I bet he gets punched a lot. He seems like the kind of person who would get punched a lot.

      ‘I’ll remind you of that when I find it before you and use it to buy you out.’

      ‘I won’t sell.’

      ‘I’d make you an offer you can’t refuse.’ He raises an eyebrow in a way he probably thinks is sexy. A three-day seminar on the history of plumbing would be sexier. Really, it would.

      ‘I doubt that. Some people aren’t soulless bastards obsessed with money.’

      He lets out a laugh that sounds genuine, making his eyes crinkle up. ‘Wow. You really don’t like me, do you?’

      I plaster on a false smile. ‘Put it this way, if you were on fire and I had a bottle of water, I’d drink it.’

      That makes him laugh even harder and I frown at him, unsure whether he’s being patronising or just has a terrible sense of humour. ‘On that note, goodbye,’ I say, pushing past him and stalking off down the street, hoping he doesn’t follow me this time.

      Of course, I’ve gone the wrong way and have to hide behind a corner until he leaves before I can double back and find the train station for the next train home.

      I don’t know what’s got into me today. I can’t believe I called him a soulless bastard. I’ve never said anything like that to a stranger before.

      Men bring out the worst in me. Particularly this one, obviously.

Chapter Two

      There’s a little thrill of excitement growing in me as I sit on the train home. I try to stamp it down because this doesn’t change anything. Owning a château in France makes no difference to my life.

      Well, СКАЧАТЬ