Page 43 of Best Laid Plans
‘Oui, I might. But I can’t make that promise and it wouldn’t be fair to ask you to wait in the hope things would change for me. I need my freedom right now and you need something I can’t give you – stability. I’m sure the best person for you will walk into your life when you most need him to.’
‘You already did, Julien.’ Her voice broke on his name.
He shook his head and backed away from her, the expression in his eyes hard with determination. ‘Non, Indigo. I think you’re an amazing woman and at another time in my life maybe we could have had something really special, but not now.’
She moved towards him, desperate not to leave things this way between them. ‘You can’t beat yourself up forever because of one bad relationship.’
‘I’m sorry. I have nothing else to offer you right now.’ He held up the envelope, then dropped his hand again as if he felt frustrated to still be holding it.
The pause seemed to go on forever as she swallowed – again and again – forcing down the pain.
‘Okay then, go, if that’s what you think best,’ she finally managed to say.
He gave her one last nod, then turned and walked away, taking her very last hope for a future together with him.
She wanted to weep – for what could have been if only they’d met at another time.
How was it possible to feel like this for Julien after such a short amount of time? It seemed incredible that it was only a week since he’d come storming into her life with his reluctant heroism and inimitable strength.
But who you fell in love with wasn’t something you could control.
And shehadfallen in love with him. Desperately and completely.
But now she had to let him go.
* * *
There was something very fitting about the rough assault of waves against his boat, Julien reflected as he fought to keep the vessel on course through a sudden and ferocious storm that had swept in without warning the following day. It harmonised well with the raging confusion of emotions in his head.
This holiday was meant to punctuate a difficult and painful time in his life, to give him a definite end to the way it was then, but, to his utter frustration, it only seemed to have started a new chapter.
During his time with Indigo, he’d begun to sense a difference in himself. Somehow, she’d managed to pop the bubble that had been preventing him from feeling anything, bringing things into razor-sharp focus.
The flip side of that was that he now felteverything. So acutely it made his chest ache.
He spent the next couple of days after the storm taking mental breaths whilst gliding slowly through the now peaceful waters, sailing past the looming greatness of Vesuvius, then onward towards his final destination, Naples, where he was to leave the boat and board a plane back to Paris.
Back to reality.
Not that this holiday hadn’t been very real. In fact, it had probably ended up being more stressful than a week’s worth of work would have been, just for very different reasons.
Or, more precisely, one reason.
Not allowing himself to be with Indigo.
When he’d seen the look of appeal on her face, just before he’d turned away from her, he’d known in that split second what was causing the painful ache in his chest.
Love.
A fierce and irrepressible love for her.
It had shaken him to his core. Which was why he’d walked away and kept on walking until he was back on his boat, then back out to sea, putting a whole body of water between them.
He’d told himself at the time that he was leaving so she didn’t get hurt, but he knew he’d only hurt her more. He’d seen it in her eyes and in the slump of her shoulders – the grief for something that could have been so good.
Thinking about it now, he realised he’d treated her with a total lack of respect by trying to buy his absolution.
How could he have thought that the way to make her happy was to give her money? How crass and unthinking he’d been. He knew now he couldn’t buy her happiness or respect; he had to earn it with his actions, by giving her something of himself.
