He came up behind her and she felt his hands on her shoulders. ‘Are you sure? You seem very troubled.’
How had he divined that merely from her back view? she wondered. How and where had he gained such insight?
‘What are you thinking?’ he asked softly.
‘I don’t know. My thoughts come and go so quickly I can’t keep up with them.’
‘Me too,’ he agreed. ‘We must have many long talks.’
‘But not now,’ she said. ‘I feel as though I’m choking. I need to go out into the fresh air.’
‘Fine, let’s go for a walk.’
‘No, I have to be alone.’
‘Cassie—’
‘It’s all right, I won’t vanish again. I’ll return, I promise.’
‘It’s dark,’ he persisted. ‘Do you know how late it is?’
‘I have to do this,’ she said in a tense voice. ‘Please, Marcel, don’t try to stop me.’
He was silent and she sensed his struggle. But at last he sighed and stood back to let her pass.
Without even going to her own apartment, she hurried directly down to the entrance. The hotel was close to the River Seine, and by following the signs she was able to find the way to the water. Here she could stand looking down at the little ripples, glittering through the darkness, and listen to the sounds of the city. Late as it was, Paris was still alive. Far in the distance she could see the Eiffel Tower reaching up into the heavens.
She turned around slowly and that was when she saw the man, fifty yards away along the embankment, standing quite still, watching her. At first she thought he was a stalker, but then she recognised him. Marcel.
When she began to walk towards him he backed away. When she turned and moved off he followed.
‘Marcel,’ she called. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
At last he drew close enough for her to see a slightly sheepish look on his face.
‘I was just concerned for your safety,’ he responded. ‘I’ll keep my distance, and leave you in peace. But I’ll always be there if you need me.’
Her annoyance died and she managed a shaky laugh. ‘My guardian angel, huh?’
‘That has to be the first time anyone’s mistaken me for an angel,’ he said wryly.
‘Why do I find that so easy to believe? All right, you can stay.’
Recently she had forgotten how much charm he had when he was set on getting his own way. Suddenly she was remembering.
He completed the effect by taking two small wine bottles from his pockets and handing her one. ‘Let’s sit down,’ he said.
She did so and drank the wine thankfully. ‘It’s a lot to take in all at once, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Yes, I guess so.’
‘These last few years must have been terrible for you. The man who had me run down—was that the man I saw you with at the airport?’
‘Yes, that was Jake. I’d spent the previous few days at his house, “entertaining him” as he put it.’
‘You don’t need to say any more,’ Marcel said in a strained voice.
‘No, I guess not.
‘We were travelling to America that day. After he’d seen you he kept on and on at me, demanding to know if I’d been in touch with you. I swore I hadn’t, and in the end he believed me because he said if you’d known the truth you wouldn’t have called me “Whore”.
‘I didn’t know what to believe. I thought perhaps you’d read my letter and were pretending, or maybe you hadn’t been home yet and would get it later. But I told Jake that he must be right about that.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘It was always wise to tell Jake he was right. He’d already destroyed my cellphone so that nobody could get in touch with me.’
‘So you were his prisoner?’ he said, aghast. ‘All that time you were suffering and I did nothing to help you.’
‘How could you? I must admit that I did hope for a while, but in the end I realised you’d accepted our parting and that was the end. So I married him.’
‘You married him?’
‘Why not? I felt my life was over. I just went with the tide. When I found he’d been fooling around with other women it gave me the weapon I needed to divorce him. Suddenly I wasn’t afraid of him any more. I accepted some money from him because I had people who needed it, but I didn’t keep any for myself. I didn’t want anything from him, even his name. I used Henshaw because it was my mother’s maiden name.’
‘What’s happened to him since? Does he trouble you?’
‘He’s in jail at the moment, for several years, hopefully. I told you how I took business courses after that, and started on the life I live now.’ She raised her wine bottle to the moon. ‘Independence every time. Cheers!’
‘Independence or isolation?’ he asked.
She shrugged. ‘Does it matter? Either way, it’s better to rely on yourself.’
He sighed. ‘I guess so.’
He was glad she couldn’t see his face, lest his thoughts showed. He was remembering one night, a lifetime ago, when she’d endured a bad day at work and thrown herself into his arms.
‘What would I do without you?’ she’d sighed. ‘That rotten photographer—goodness, but he’s nasty! Never mind. I can put up with anything as long as I know I have you—’
‘And you’ll always have me,’ he’d assured her.
Three weeks later, the disaster had separated them.
‘Better rely on yourself,’ he repeated, ‘rather than on a fool who thought it was funny to conceal his real background, and plunged you both into tragedy.’
‘Hey, I wasn’t getting at you. Nobody knows what’s just around the corner.’ She laughed. ‘After all, we never saw this coming, did we?’
‘And you’d have run a mile if you’d known. I remember you saying so.’ He waited for her answer. It didn’t come. ‘How long ago since your divorce?’ he asked.
‘About five years. Since then I’ve been Mrs Henshaw, bestriding the financial world. It suits me. Remember you used to joke about my having a great brain?’
‘It wasn’t entirely a joke. I think I was a bit jealous of the way you could read something once and remember it like it was set in stone.’
‘There now, I told you I was made to be a businesswoman.’
‘But that’s not your only talent. Why didn’t you go back to modelling? You’re still beautiful.’
‘Not really.’
‘I say you are,’ he said fiercely.
‘I won’t argue about it. But it takes more than beauty and I’ve lost something special. I know that. I knew it then. I’d look in the mirror and see that a light had gone out inside me. Besides,’ she hurried on before he could protest, ‘I wanted to try something new. It was my choice. Life moves on, we don’t stay in the same place.
‘Cassie was one person. Mrs Henshaw is another. I became quite pleased with her. She takes people by surprise. Some of them are even scared of her.’
‘And you like people being scared of you?’
‘Not all the time, but it has its uses. She’s a bright lady is Mrs Henshaw. Lots of common sense.’
‘Now