The Baby Who Saved Christmas

She nodded slowly and then bent her head, a thick curl of her hair falling across her cheek. She pushed it back as she looked up again.

‘But they would have to match it, wouldn’t they? It’s too late to get a sample from my...from André. Monsieur Laurent,’ she added quickly, as though she didn’t have the right to be so familiar.

‘M’sieur.’ Without thinking, Julien corrected her pronunciation to make the ‘n’ silent. She really didn’t know a word of French, did she? Then he shrugged. ‘It seems that there are many items that may suffice. Like his toothbrush. Someone is coming who is an expert. He works with the police.’

‘The police?’ A look of fear made her eyes look huge against that pale skin.

It was like that moment after he’d hurled the paperweight at the image of the man he’d despised so much and he realised he’d scared her enough to make her cry. A shameful thing. He didn’t treat women like that. He didn’t treat anyone like that. This whole disaster was turning him into a person he really didn’t like and this woman was making it that bit harder to sort out the issue that was so personally—and urgently—important. This made her someone he needed to remove from his company at the earliest opportunity so it shouldn’t matter at all how she was feeling.

But it did.

It made him want to reassure her. Comfort her even.

He turned away so he didn’t get trapped in those eyes. He shrugged off the unwelcome sensation that something very private was being accessed. Like his heart? How long had it been since he’d felt the urge to protect a woman? Maybe he’d given up on trying to care after Colette had made it so clear he’d been wasting his time. That he didn’t understand. All those years and, in the end, they had counted for nothing.

‘A coincidence,’ he said, the words coming out more sharply than he might have chosen. ‘This man also runs a private paternity testing company.’ A sigh escaped that had a whisper of defeat about it. The need to reassure was too powerful. ‘You are not being accused of anything.’

Yet, he added silently. But then he made the mistake of looking at her again. No. She wasn’t here to chase five minutes of fame or a share in a vast fortune. There was no mistaking her sincerity. Or her vulnerability. She not only believed that André was her father, it held a huge significance for her. It had to be simply another coincidence that she had arrived with such unfortunate timing.

It could be an hour or more before the DNA expert arrived from Nice with his testing kit and it would be extremely impolite to leave her waiting here alone and it would be imprudent to antagonise her. For everybody’s sake, this matter had to be kept as private as possible.

‘So...’ Julien lowered himself onto a couch facing Alice. ‘You are a teacher?’

‘Yes.’

‘You like children, then?’

‘Of course.’

‘Do you have any of your own?’

That startled her.

‘No... I’m not...um...married.’

‘Neither was your mother.’

Maybe she wasn’t quite as vulnerable as he’d thought. A flash of something like anger crossed her face and her chin lifted.

‘She suffered for that. There are communities where it’s still considered shameful to produce an illegitimate child.’

Julien blinked. If the mother had suffered, it was logical to assume that the child had as well.

‘Why did she go back, then?’

The stare he was receiving made him feel like he’d asked a very stupid question. There was something even more disturbing in that look, however. Pity? Was he missing something fundamental?

‘Brannockburn was her home. She was very young and her heart was broken. She needed her mother.’

A broken heart? Well, she probably hadn’t been the only woman who’d believed that she might be the one to tame André Laurent. He could hardly brand her as a complete fool when his own sister had fallen under the same spell decades later.

‘I’m sorry...’ Her apology was unexpected.

‘What for?’

Alice was twisting a lock of hair in her fingers as she shifted her gaze to the doors that led back into the house. ‘You’ve lost your sister. You must have family here. Your mother perhaps? I’m intruding on a very personal time. I’m sorry. Obviously, I wouldn’t have come if I’d had any idea of what had happened.’

‘My only family was my sister,’ Julien said quietly. ‘And I lost her three months ago. She died in childbirth.’

* * *

A heavy silence fell but Alice didn’t dare look back at him.

Had the baby died as well? Had they both recently lost their only living relatives? Not that there was any real comparison. He’d known his sister and she’d only lost the potential of knowing her father. But she knew what it was like to lose the person who was the emotional touchstone in one’s life. Her mother had seemed far too young to be taken but how old had Julien’s sister been? Probably only in her thirties, as he looked to be himself.

This was a tragedy in anybody’s terms and Julien clearly blamed her father and hated him for it. She had come here claiming a close relationship to André so it was no wonder she wasn’t welcome. Had André been as reckless on public roads as he’d been on a racing circuit? That would give credence to the idea that the crash had been his fault but Julien had said his sister had died in childbirth months ago. How could André be blamed for that?

A cold chill ran down Alice’s spine. Had it been an abortion that had gone horribly wrong? That was part of her own history, in a way. The only reason she existed had been because her mother had refused to go along with what had been deemed compulsory.

The silence grew heavier. And more awkward.

And then it was broken by something totally unexpected.

The wail of a baby.

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