Her Last Night of Innocence. India Grey

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      Kate glanced from the envelope to his face, and back down again. Her heart had started to thud uncomfortably in her chest.

      ‘What’s this?’

      ‘An invitation.’ He silently cursed himself for not sounding more casual. He took a deep breath. ‘To a party at the Casino in Monte Carlo to launch the new season’s Campano team…And celebrate Cristiano Maresca’s return to racing.’

      Kate’s cornflower-blue eyes widened, seeking out his and seeming to search them from a face that was suddenly the same colour as the pale grey sky beyond the window.

      ‘Are you going?’

      Dominic couldn’t decide whether it was hope or terror that made her voice crack.

      ‘No. I’m sending Lisa, and Ian from the Campano account. And you.’

      Kate leapt to her feet, shaking her head vehemently. ‘No. You can’t. I can’t. What about Alexander? I can’t leave—’

      Dominic had known perfectly well that this would be her main objection and was well prepared. ‘He can come and stay with us—you know that he and Ruby have been pestering us for a sleepover for ages.’

      Kate didn’t smile. ‘But I—I’ve never left him overnight before.’

      ‘He’ll be fine—just like Ruby was fine when she stayed with you when Lizzie and I went away for our anniversary. You’re doing it for him, Kate. This is your chance to get some answers.’

      ‘No—I can’t.’ She shook her head again, her hand flying to her throat, her eyes wide with fear.

      Dominic felt guilt flare inside him like acid indigestion.

      Losing her father in a car accident had taught six-year-old Kate Edwards that life was fragile, and that happiness and security were precarious—a lesson that had been brutally hammered home fifteen years later, when her seventeen-year-old brother had ploughed his car into a tree on the Hartley Bridge to Harrogate Road and been killed outright. Dominic had met Kate for the first time a few months after that, when he had interviewed her for a job as his assistant at Clearspring.

      She had come back to stay in Hartley Bridge and be near her mother after university, she’d explained. It had been obvious within five minutes that she was capable of doing the job with her eyes closed, but also that she was a girl who was holding herself together by the skin of her teeth. He’d given her the job, and over the next year had watched the anxiety begin to fade from her eyes as her confidence grew. She’d been the obvious person to go to Monaco in his place when Ruby had made her unexpectedly early appearance, and he’d hoped that the trip would do her good—show her that there was a whole world beyond Hartley Bridge, and that aeroplanes were convenient methods of transport rather than plot devices in disaster movies.

      It had all backfired spectacularly, leaving Kate more aware than ever of the risk involved in reaching for happiness. Hence Dominic’s guilt, and his feeling of responsibility to both her and Alexander. Sitting on the sofa with a bottle of wine the other night, he and Lizzie had decided that the Campano party was an opportunity to break the cycle once and for all. Tough love. That was what they’d called it.

      Now it just felt cruel.

      ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ he asked gently.

      Looking out over the dingy car park, her eyes were huge in her pale face. ‘For once, I don’t even know where to begin to answer that,’ she said with a brave attempt at a laugh. ‘What if he doesn’t remember me? What if I got it totally wrong and to him I was just another anonymous, meaningless one-night stand? What if he’s there, surrounded by beautiful, adoring women, and he completely blanks me?’

      ‘Then it’s his loss.’ Dominic sighed. His caffeine craving was starting to bite, and this was the kind of conversation Lizzie was so much better at. ‘And you’ll know he was never worthy of your heart, or the time you’ve spent waiting for him, and you can finally move on.’

      ‘And Alexander?’

      ‘Look—here’s what I suggest.’ Frowning, Dominic got to his feet and shoved his hands into his pockets in what every member of the Clearspring marketing department would recognise as an indication that he meant business. ‘I think you should write Cristiano a letter, containing the basic facts about Alexander’s birth and leaving the name of your solicitor where he can contact you. If he doesn’t acknowledge you at the party, you can leave it with a member of his staff and come home knowing that this time you really have done all you can.’

      Stunned into a moment’s silence, Kate blinked. ‘You’ve thought it all through, haven’t you?’

      ‘I’ve thought of nothing else since this damned invitation arrived.’

      ‘I haven’t got anything to wear.’

      Despite her defensively tensed shoulders, Dominic recognised the final protest of a woman who knew she was defeated. He felt a small glow of tentative triumph.

      ‘So buy something. I’ll look after the kids at the weekend, and you and Lizzie can hit the shops in Leeds.’

      ‘I can’t afford it,’ Kate protested weakly. ‘I’m a single parent, remember?’

      Reaching into the drawer again, Dominic took out his chequebook and began to scribble. Tearing it out, he handed a cheque to her with a grin. ‘Take this and buy something stunning, and hopefully you won’t be for much longer.’

      ‘It’s going to be quite a party.’

      Dr Francine Fournier looked up from the invitation in her hand and raised a perfectly shaped, brutally eloquent eyebrow. ‘I’m just sorry I can’t be there, but unfortunately tonight is—’

      ‘Please—there’s no need to explain.’ Cristiano got up from the chair and walked a few paces across the thick carpet of Dr Fournier’s consulting room before turning back to her with a bleak smile. ‘I think we both know that the whole thing is a complete sham. I wouldn’t be going myself if I had any choice.’

      Outside, the February dusk was falling early over Nice, and a thin slick of rain made the pavements glisten. In here, the lamps cast a soft glow over serious seascapes in oil, and a huge bowl of white hyacinths on the desk perfumed the centrally heated air. There was nothing remotely clinical about the room apart from the lightbox on the wall with its illuminated display of cross-sections of Cristiano’s brain.

      Dr Fournier sighed, slipping the invitation inside the cover of the file of notes that lay open on the desk in front of her. ‘It’s not a sham, Cristiano,’ she said, in the grave, low-pitched voice she used for breaking bad news to families. ‘It’s just a little premature, perhaps.’

      ‘Premature?’ Cristiano echoed hollowly, thrusting his balled fists into his pockets and walking over to look more closely at the X-ray images, as if he might be able to see something in the intricate whorls and dark spaces that Dr Fournier had missed. ‘By how long? A year? A decade? A lifetime? Because, from what you’ve just told me, I’m never going to be able to race again.’

      Francine Fournier was forty-eight years old, and had been happily married to her second husband for six years. She was also one of Europe’s most senior and well-respected СКАЧАТЬ