Chapter Nine

Lexie walked a few paces behind Mike as he led the group through the Biovès Gardens—the main point of interest in the Lemon Festival, where there were giant sculptures, all made out of lemons and oranges. Among them was a sculpture of a woman throwing a javelin, a man holding a torch, a gorgeous horse. And some of them were huge. At least thirty feet tall. Around the gardens people were posing with the sculptures, queueing up to get the best spots. Lexie had a moment of wishing she was more of the arty type—what must it be like to build a sculpture out of lemons of all things? Pretty bloody cool was the answer.

The smell was incredible, the sharp and sweet citrus filling the air. The sun was beginning its descent, but it was still light—not like the dark winters of England. Still, it was getting cold, and Lexie was glad of her winter coat as the breeze tugged at her hair. The whole group of them were ambling through the sculptures together, Mike chatting to the two men who had been sitting on Lexie's right at lunch, while Theo had the attention of the woman in the blue blouse with the bored husband.

Theo glanced over at her, noticing her looking his way, and she turned determinedly away, catching sight of the nervous-looking redhead she'd been sitting next to at lunch. She moved a little closer to her.

"Hey. Lucy, right?"

"Oh, yes, right." Lucy had been holding her phone and nearly dropped it, before stashing it in her coat pocket. "Hello. Mike introduced you, but I'm so sorry, I've forgotten your—"

Lexie smiled. "Lexie."

"Lexie, of course. I'm sorry, it's just if we had a conversation and then I still couldn't remember, it would be even more awkward to ask, so I thought I'd better get it out of the way." She let out a laugh that was a little too high-pitched. "Are you here on your own too? Or, no, sorry, you're with your boyfriend, aren't you?"

"My…You mean Theo?" Lexie shook her head. "He's not my boyfriend."

"Oh. It's just you came in together—to lunch, I mean. That's all."

"Right. But he works…I mean, we both work at the company. We sort of…Well, it was my dad's company and now…" Lexie huffed out a breath, annoyed at herself for floundering. "Well, anyway, we're with the company."

"Oh that's wonderful. How amazing, that he started up something like this. I always admire anyone who starts up a business; it must be so tough."

And it took determination, didn't it? Determination to start something, to see it through. How had Richard had the perseverance to build a successful business, yet not been able to stick with either of his two families, in the end?

"How about you?" Lexie asked, wanting to change the subject. "What brings you here?"

"Well, I came on my own." She made a face. "Recent breakup." Then she sighed. "Well, not that recent now. But I've never been anywhere on my own before—I know, don't laugh—and I thought, France can't be that hard, can it? And it's nice being in a group. So if you work for the company, does that mean you know all about the festival?" Lucy's eyes brightened, and Lexie felt the urge not to let her down.

She cleared her throat. "Well, ah, the idea behind the festival can be traced back to 1928—to bring back some winter business, one of the hotel owners had the idea to host an exhibition of flowers and citrus fruits in one of the hotel gardens. It was so successful that they did it the year after—and made it bigger."

"That's cool," Lucy said, glancing around at the sculptures.

"Yeah. The official Fête du Citron didn't begin until 1933, though."

This was all stuff you'd find in a brochure or on the internet, but Lucy was nodding along.

"Ah…Every year is based around a different theme—last year was rock and opera, this year is the Olympics."

Lucy shot her a look, then nodded toward one of the sculptures. "Hence the massive hoops."

"It would probably explain that, yes." The two of them laughed, slipping into an easy conversation after that.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" Lexie asked.

"Well, we've got that crêpe-making thing, don't we? Presumably we're supposed to have them with lemon and sugar—they'll get the lemons in somehow, I'm sure."

"Oh right, yes." Lexie nodded, trying to pretend she knew all about the schedule.

"You're coming, aren't you?"

"Yes, of course." Was she going? She had no idea.

"Good. Because I was a bit nervous, coming alone. It can be hard, sometimes. So it's been really lovely talking to you."

"Lucy, darling!" The woman in the blue blouse, the one who seemed to find Theo a bit too interesting, called over, and both Lexie and Lucy looked in her direction. She was standing by one of the stalls at the edge of the garden, which were set up Christmas-market style. "These are the candles I was telling you about! You must come and see."

The smile Lucy gave back, to accompany her "I'll be there in a minute" wave, seemed to take a bit too much effort. To be fair, Lexie would have felt the same. That woman managed to make the word "darling" sound like an insult. Not that she could comment on that out loud, given the woman was a client.

"I better go," Lucy said. "I promised myself I would give everyone a chance and make the most of everything, so…"

"So you're off to look at candles. Got it."

Lucy laughed, and Lexie couldn't help but feel a little proud that she seemed more relaxed than at the start of the conversation.

"You're a natural!" Mike's booming voice made her jump and she spun to face him. "Like father like daughter, hey?" It made the breath stick in her throat a little. Because she didn't know what he'd been like, did she? Had he been the chatty sort? For a moment, she wanted to ask Mike what he meant by that—how, exactly, was she like her father? But she couldn't bring herself to. She wasn't sure what the right answer would be. She didn't want to be like him—didn't want to be the type of person to leave a family like that, to miss birthdays and break promises. But he was gone now. It hit her occasionally, for the briefest of seconds. He was gone, and she'd never see him again. So did she want a small part of her to be like him? She honestly didn't know.

Mike saved her from having to think of a response, in any case, by carrying on, talking to those in their group who were nearest. "Now, who wants to have a look at the wish fountain? A wish made during the Fête du Citron"—he put on a cringeworthy French accent to pronounce the festival's name—"is twice as likely to come true, so they say."

"You should ask Lexie—she's big on wishes."

Lexie glanced at Theo as he came to stand next to her, hands in his jeans pockets, casual as you like. So—he hadn't forgotten about the wish jar, then.

Instead of ignoring him this time, she cocked her head as she turned to look at him fully. "Sure, I've got a few wishes I'd like to make about you right now, in fact."

He raised one eyebrow. "Spending time wishing about me now, are you?"

" Oh, Theo." She batted her eyelids. "I don't think you could handle knowing the things I wish for."

It got a surprised laugh out of him, one that softened his features, easing out the sometimes harsh lines of his face. Point Lexie?

Mike had walked away toward the wish fountain, taking a few people with him. Lexie headed in the direction of the stalls, taking her time to browse the lemon soaps, before hitting a stall that was all lemon sweets and deciding to buy some for herself.

"Saw you talking to Lucy Caraway."

Lexie jolted a little as she glanced over her shoulder. She hadn't realized Theo had followed her, all stealth-like. "Huh?"

"Lucy. The nervous redhead. Thirty-three, first time traveling alone. Usually goes for an all-inclusive beach holiday."

"You memorize that, did you?"

He just waited.

"Yes, I was talking to her. Are you going to make me feel bad for that now, too?"

"No, I just…" He pulled a hand through his dark hair. "I tried to talk to her a bit yesterday, because I knew from her profile that she'd probably be a bit worried, but she was on edge the whole time. But you had her laughing and looking like she was starting to actually enjoy the holiday."

Lexie gave Theo a deliberate look. "Well, you do have your whole evil villain face down to a tee. Maybe you should work on that if you want people to relax around you."

"Oh, I save that face just for you, don't worry."

"Flattered, I'm sure."

Theo huffed out an impatient breath. "I'm trying to give you a compliment here."

Lexie raised both eyebrows. "Are you?"

She wasn't sure if he'd heard—he was looking over her shoulder, at where Mike and the others were clustered around the fountain. "Mike's right, you know. Your dad was good at it too—chatting to people, making them feel welcome right away, like part of the gang. It just came naturally to him, you know?"

Lexie studied the side of his face—his dark eyes had turned unfocused, like he was looking beyond what was in front of him. Or looking back into a memory. It hit her again—the fact that he knew Richard so much better than she did. He'd only known her father for five years, but here he was, making comments about what he was like, when all she had were hazy memories or a sense of anger after more recent encounters. She looked back toward the stalls, not wanting to delve too much deeper into that thought right now.

"Anyway." Theo's voice was more businesslike when he spoke again. "It sounded like you know a bit about the festival already. You been before or something?"

"No. I just did my research. You know, shockingly enough, given you seem to think I have the intelligence of an eight-year-old, I actually can look things up online and read them." She kept her voice wry and light, enough so that he knew she was joking. Mainly joking.

He let out a fake gasp. "No! Not both, surely."

"I know," Lexie said, nodding serenely. "It's impressive, a skill I've tried to keep hidden in case it turns me into a circus freak."

"Very wise," Theo said seriously. "No one will ever look at you the same if they know you have skills like that."

Lexie felt her lips tugging, but refused to give in to the smile. A man selling flowers—yellow, of course—came up at that moment, trying to convince Theo to buy one. Lexie left him to it, returning to browsing the nearest stalls. If only she had a garden, then she could take some lemon plants back with her. Although, did they let you take plants on a plane? She could hear Theo trying to say no to the flowers, and then cave, a bit more easily than she'd expected him to.

She shook her head at him as the flower seller walked away. "You'd have thought you'd be better at avoiding all the tourist traps if you run a travel business."

"Yeah. Well, your dad drilled into me the need to support local businesses as much as possible, to the extent that I'm a pushover, apparently." He frowned down at the flower, then thrust it at her. "Here."

"Oh. Thanks." She took it, looking down at it as she twirled the long stem in her fingers. Tried to ignore the stupid little fizzle of pleasure in her stomach at being given a flower. Then she looked up at him again. "Look, I wanted to talk to you."

He gestured, inviting her to carry on.

"About what you said before lunch."

"Which part, exactly?" His voice was infuriatingly mild.

"The part where you said you didn't want to sell the company."

"Is that what I said? I thought I just referred to the fact that we've not actually had a conversation about it—that we haven't, technically, agreed on anything yet."

She shook her head, disbelieving—and the fizzle of pleasure evaporated. "I want to sell it. You know that."

"OK. Noted."

"Noted? Noted? " It reminded her of their little email exchange, and she felt her blood heat. "What is that supposed to mean?" Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lucy glance over at them from a few stalls down.

Theo glanced that way too, then stepped in toward her. Close. So close that she had to tilt her head up to look at him, so that she could see the way the amber had flared in his otherwise dark eyes. That hint of sandalwood washed over her, mingling with the citrus all around them.

"Can I remind you," he muttered in a rough undertone, "that we are supposed to be helping the guests have a good time? Not arguing in front of them."

"I literally cannot believe you," she hissed back. And to think she'd believed they might be finding their way to a more even footing around each other.

He cocked that stupid eyebrow.

"Fine," she bit out, keeping her voice low. "I'll find you later and we can talk about it then."

"Right. You do that."

She glared at him as she pulled back. Then she shoved the flower he'd given her back into his chest and walked away, leaving him to catch it.