gaze up at a yellow and white sundress with thin straps, which hung from tiny collarbones to fall above dark green cut-off Capri pants.
The last time he had seen an outfit like that was at a Christmas charity concert his company has sponsored at a local primary school in Sydney.
He was looking at Peter Pan. Or perhaps it was Tinker Bell?
Lifting his sunglasses with one hand, he risked looking into her face and a pair of shockingly pale blue eyes smiled down at him above a button nose and bow lips.
Her straight light brown hair was tied back from a smooth forehead with a broad green headband the same colour as her trousers.
He changed his opinion. Peter Pan was never this pretty, or petite. She was tiny! Tinker Bell.
And for a moment his voice did not seem to work as she took one more extra look at him without the slightest bit of concern, then turned to play with the dogs, who had clearly learnt not to jump up on the hand that fed them.
‘Hello, gang!’ she said in French. ‘How are you doing? Sorry that I’m so late! Have you missed me?’
Her knuckles rubbed each of the dogs in turn, and then she flung the stick down the road away from the car—’Go on. Meet you back at the house!’ Then stood back and smiled as they raced away.
Only then did this lovely apparition smile down at Seb and switch back into English.
‘Don’t worry. You can play with them later!’
Play. He had no intention of playing with them! Seb sighed out loud and shook his head. Her cheery tone was too infectious for him to be angry with her for the ridiculous position he was in.
‘Are they always so…welcoming to strangers?’
‘Oh, no. Only men. Especially men in suits. They just love men in suits.’
Her eyes locked onto his shoes then his trousers and she shook her head from side to side.
‘On the other hand you are never going to get the stains out of those trousers. Maybe that wasn’t the best choice of outfit for rolling about with the hounds!’
Choice! He hadn’t been given any choice at all!
‘Do you need some help with the car, Mr Castellano? We don’t have a garage but I’ve cleared a space in the barn for you to use during your stay. There is a mistral forecast.’
Staying? How did she know that? Maybe there was more to this girl.
‘What makes you think that my name is Castellano? Miss…’
‘Mrs Martinez. Ella Martinez.’
She cocked her head to one side for a moment and gave him a smile that created little dimples in each cheek as though she could read his mind as easily as a book.
‘Relax. I’m not a journalist, or a mind-reader. Just Nicole’s housekeeper. This means that I’ve been dusting your photographs on top of the grand piano every week for the past three years.’
She paused, then glanced sideways at the sleek red car blocking the lane. ‘My little boy loves the pictures with all of the pretty ladies from the Monaco Grand Prix, but Nicole prefers the yacht racing. Strange she doesn’t have one of you sitting on your…best pants, in the grass. Shall I run and find my camera?’
Seb dropped his head towards one shoulder before snorting out a reply. Nicole had a housekeeper! That made sense.
‘Pleasure to meet you, Mrs Martinez, and please call me Seb. As for a camera? Thank you, but no. In fact I am highly relieved that you do not have a camera. I am embarrassed enough as it is.’
She chuckled gently before replying.
‘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