of the desk was less so. This was his space, the action suggested. Alice was the intruder.
Another piercing stare and then a blunt question. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Alice McMillan.’ It was the first time she had spoken in his presence and her voice came out more softly than she would have liked. A little hoarsely even. She cleared her throat. ‘And you are...?’
The faint quirk of an eyebrow revealed that his bad manners had only just occurred to him.
‘My name is Julien Dubois. Who I am doesn’t matter.’
Except it did, didn’t it? He was a gatekeeper of some kind and he might have the power to decide whether her quest had any chance of success.
‘Where are you from, Miss McMillan?’
‘Call me Alice, please. Nobody calls me Miss—even the children in my class.’
‘You are a teacher?’
‘Yes. Pre-school. A nursery.’
‘In England?’
‘Scotland. Edinburgh at the moment but I was brought up in a small village you won’t have heard of. Where it is doesn’t matter.’
Good grief...where was this urge to rebel coming from? The feeling that she’d done something wrong and had been summoned to the headmaster’s office perhaps? It was no excuse to be rude enough to fling his own dismissive words back at him in exactly the tone he’d used.
That eyebrow flickered again and he held her gaze as another silence fell. Despite feeling vaguely ashamed of herself, Alice didn’t want to admit defeat by looking away first. His eyes weren’t as dark as they’d appeared in the shadows of the entranceway, she realised. Much lighter than her own dark brown, they were more hazel. A sort of toffee colour. He had a striking face that would stand out in any crowd, with a strong nose and lips that looked capable of being as expressive as that eyebrow, but right now they were set in a grim line, surrounded by a jaw that looked like it could do with a shave.
‘And you claim that André Laurent is your father?’
The disparaging snap of his voice brought her drifting gaze sharply back to his eyes.
‘He is.’
‘And you have proof of this?’
‘Yes.’
‘Show me.’
Alice slipped the straps of her backpack from her shoulders. She sat on the edge of the uncomfortable chair to make it easier to open the side pocket and remove an envelope. From that, she extracted a photograph. It was faded now but the colour was still good enough to remind her of the bright flame shade of Jeannette McMillan’s hair and that smile that could light up a room. A wave of grief threatened to bring tears and she blinked hard, focusing instead on the man in the picture. She raised her gaze to stare at the oversized portrait again.
With a nod, she handed the photograph to Julien.
‘My mother,’ she said quietly. ‘I wouldn’t have known who she was with except that she kept these magazine clippings about him.’ She glanced down at the folded glossy pages still in the envelope. ‘Well hidden. I only found them recently after she...she died.’
If she was expecting any sympathy for her loss it was not forthcoming. Julien merely handed the photograph back.
‘This proves nothing other than that your mother was one of André’s groupies. It’s ancient history.’
‘I’m twenty-eight,’ Alice snapped. ‘Hardly ancient, thanks. And my mother was not a “groupie”. I imagine she was completely in love...’
‘Pfff...’ The sound was dismissive. And then Julien shook his head. ‘Why now?’ he demanded. ‘Why today?’
‘I... I don’t understand.’
‘Where have you been for the last week?’
‘Ah... I went home to my village for a few days. And then I’ve been travelling.’
‘You don’t watch television? Or read newspapers?’ He raised his hands in a sweeping gesture that her grandmother would have labelled foreign and therefore ridiculously dramatic. ‘How could you not know?’
‘Know what?’
‘That André Laurent crashed his car three days ago and killed himself. That his funeral was today.’
‘Oh, my God...’ Alice’s head jerked as her gaze involuntarily flicked back to the huge portrait. ‘Oh...no...’
From the corner of her eye, she could see that Julien was following her gaze. For a long second he joined her in staring at the image of a man that was so filled with life it seemed impossible to believe that he was gone.
But then, with the speed of a big cat launching itself at its prey, Julien snatched up the paperweight from the desk and hurled it towards the portrait, creating an explosion of shattering glass, leaving behind a horrified silence that only served to magnify his chilling words.
‘I wish he’d done it years ago... If he had, my sister wouldn’t have married him. She would still be alive...’
THE SHOCK WAS MIND-NUMBING.
The pain this stranger was feeling was so powerful that Alice could feel it seeping into her own body to mix with the fear of knowing that she was alone with an angry man who was capable of violence. Compassion was winning over fear, however. His sister had been married to André Laurent. Presumably she’d been in the car with him in that fatal crash. She wanted to reach out and offer comfort in some way to Julien. To touch him...?
No. That would be the last thing he would accept. She could see the agonised way he was standing with every muscle clenched so that male pride could quell the need to express emotion. With a hand shading his eyes to hide from the world.
And self-pity edged its way into the overwhelming mix.
Alice had lost something here, too.
Hope.
She’d tried to keep it under control. Ever since she’d finally found the courage to return to the cottage that had been the only real home she’d ever known because it had been time she faced the memories. Time to accept that she’d lost her only family and that she had to find a way to move forward properly from her grief. To embrace life and every wonderful thing it had to offer and to dream of a happy future.
It had been time to sort through her mother’s things and keep only those that would be precious mementos.
She’d grown up in that tiny house with two women. Her mother and her grandmother. Strong women who’d protected her from the disapproval of an entire village. Women who had loved her enough to make her believe that the shameful circumstances of her birth didn’t matter. That she was a gift to the world simply because she existed.
Maybe it had been a bad choice to make the visit so close to Christmastime, when the huge tree was lit up in the village square and the shops had long since decorated their windows with fairy-lights and sparkling tinsel. The sadness that this would be her first Christmas with no family to share it with had been the undercurrent threatening to wash away the new direction she was searching for, and finding that envelope that had provided the information about who her father was had given that undercurrent the strength of an ocean rip.
Had given her that hope that had exploded into something huge the moment she’d walked into this room and seen that portrait. She had been ready to love this man—her unknown father.
She’d still had a family member. Someone who’d been denied any connection with the women who had raised her but with a connection to herself that had to mean something.