fanciful, and I may have put Viviene and Max on their birth certificates, but Venus and Mars are names which gave them good luck when they really needed it.’
‘Venus and Mars,’ Luc repeated with a sardonically curled lip.
Cheeks warm with angry colour, Star scooted past him to fetch the car seats from the twins’ bedroom. As she emerged, Luc lifted them from her hands with easy strength. ‘I’ll take these outside.’
* * *
As the limousine drove towards London, Star worked hard at not looking in Luc’s direction. But she remained agonisingly conscious of his all-pervasive presence. Their relationship, it seemed, had turned full circle. Once again, Luc was taking her to Emilie Auber and then planning to walk out of her life again. Her mind roamed back to their first fateful meeting eleven years earlier…
Her stepfather, Philippe Roussel, had died when she wasnine. In his will he had named Roland Sarrazin as her guardian. Since Philippe hadn’t had contact with the Sarrazins since his own childhood, he could only have chosen Luc’s father in the hope that the wealthy banker might feel obligated to offer his widow and her child financial help.
By then, Juno and Star had been living on the breadline in Mexico. Philippe had been charming, but hopelessly addicted to gambling. Only after his death had Juno shamefacedly admitted that she had fallen pregnant with Star
before
she’d met Philippe, and that he had not been Star’s real father.
Roland Sarrazin had sent Luc to Mexico to track them down. At the time, Juno had been feeling a failure as a mother.
‘I had no job, no money, no proper home for you, and you were missing out on your education. I thought that the Sarrazins would take care of you until I got my life sorted out. Then I would bring you back to live with me,’ Juno had shared painfully years later, when mother and daughter had finally been reconciled after their long separation. ‘How could I ever have dreamt that it would be nine years before I saw you again?’
Juno was still very bitter about that. Roland Sarrazin had applied to a French court to gain full custody of her daughter.
Luc had only been twenty then, but he had had an authority and a maturity far beyond his years. Star had waited outside their shabby one-room apartment while Luc talked to her mother. Within a couple of hours of that meeting Star had found herself accompanying Luc on a flight back to France.
Luc hadn’t had a clue how to talk to a child, but he had made a real effort to be kind and reassuring. He had also appeared to believe that she was coming to live with his family, and he had described Chateau Fontaine, their fabulous seventeenth-century home in the Loire valley.
But on their arrival there his father’s air of frigid disapproval had frightened and confused Star. Apart from commentingthat she was a astonishingly plain little girl, Luc’s beautiful mother, Lilliane, had displayed no more interest in her than she might have done in a stray cat.
‘My parents are very busy people.’ Luc had hunkered down to Star’s level to explain when she’d looked up at him with big hurt eyes welling with tears.
‘They don’t w-want me,’ she had sobbed helplessly. ‘Why did you bring me here?’
‘My father is your legal guardian.’
‘What about my mum?’
‘Right now your mother can’t look after you the way you need to be looked after, and she wants you to catch up with your schooling.’
The following day, Luc had flown her over to Emilie in London. She had been greeted with open arms and homemade lemonade and biscuits.
Of course, how
could
Luc have explained that his father had been outraged at being landed with responsibility for her? A formidably correct man, with immense pride in his own respectability, Roland Sarrazin had had a pronounced horror of scandal. Years earlier, Philippe Roussel had disgraced his own family. The circumstances in which Star and her mother had been living, not to
‘Venus and Mars,’ Luc repeated with a sardonically curled lip.
Cheeks warm with angry colour, Star scooted past him to fetch the car seats from the twins’ bedroom. As she emerged, Luc lifted them from her hands with easy strength. ‘I’ll take these outside.’
* * *
As the limousine drove towards London, Star worked hard at not looking in Luc’s direction. But she remained agonisingly conscious of his all-pervasive presence. Their relationship, it seemed, had turned full circle. Once again, Luc was taking her to Emilie Auber and then planning to walk out of her life again. Her mind roamed back to their first fateful meeting eleven years earlier…
Her stepfather, Philippe Roussel, had died when she wasnine. In his will he had named Roland Sarrazin as her guardian. Since Philippe hadn’t had contact with the Sarrazins since his own childhood, he could only have chosen Luc’s father in the hope that the wealthy banker might feel obligated to offer his widow and her child financial help.
By then, Juno and Star had been living on the breadline in Mexico. Philippe had been charming, but hopelessly addicted to gambling. Only after his death had Juno shamefacedly admitted that she had fallen pregnant with Star
before
she’d met Philippe, and that he had not been Star’s real father.
Roland Sarrazin had sent Luc to Mexico to track them down. At the time, Juno had been feeling a failure as a mother.
‘I had no job, no money, no proper home for you, and you were missing out on your education. I thought that the Sarrazins would take care of you until I got my life sorted out. Then I would bring you back to live with me,’ Juno had shared painfully years later, when mother and daughter had finally been reconciled after their long separation. ‘How could I ever have dreamt that it would be nine years before I saw you again?’
Juno was still very bitter about that. Roland Sarrazin had applied to a French court to gain full custody of her daughter.
Luc had only been twenty then, but he had had an authority and a maturity far beyond his years. Star had waited outside their shabby one-room apartment while Luc talked to her mother. Within a couple of hours of that meeting Star had found herself accompanying Luc on a flight back to France.
Luc hadn’t had a clue how to talk to a child, but he had made a real effort to be kind and reassuring. He had also appeared to believe that she was coming to live with his family, and he had described Chateau Fontaine, their fabulous seventeenth-century home in the Loire valley.
But on their arrival there his father’s air of frigid disapproval had frightened and confused Star. Apart from commentingthat she was a astonishingly plain little girl, Luc’s beautiful mother, Lilliane, had displayed no more interest in her than she might have done in a stray cat.
‘My parents are very busy people.’ Luc had hunkered down to Star’s level to explain when she’d looked up at him with big hurt eyes welling with tears.
‘They don’t w-want me,’ she had sobbed helplessly. ‘Why did you bring me here?’
‘My father is your legal guardian.’
‘What about my mum?’
‘Right now your mother can’t look after you the way you need to be looked after, and she wants you to catch up with your schooling.’
The following day, Luc had flown her over to Emilie in London. She had been greeted with open arms and homemade lemonade and biscuits.
Of course, how
could
Luc have explained that his father had been outraged at being landed with responsibility for her? A formidably correct man, with immense pride in his own respectability, Roland Sarrazin had had a pronounced horror of scandal. Years earlier, Philippe Roussel had disgraced his own family. The circumstances in which Star and her mother had been living, not to
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