The Baby Who Saved Christmas

But the two men were talking to each other again. In low voices, as if they didn’t want to be overheard. They were still attracting attention, though.

‘Come with me.’

‘No... I think it might be better if I come back another time...’

But Alice was being firmly ushered forward. Towards the gate and the uniformed guard. Another rapid conversation followed, with the second reporter providing translation.

‘He wants to know who you are.’

‘My name is Alice McMillan. I’m...’ Suddenly, this was terrifying. She was in a strange country and couldn’t understand a word of what was being said around her. Something was going on and there was a grim note in the atmosphere. How was it that she hadn’t noticed the presence of the police on the outskirts of this group? What if she found herself in trouble simply by having arrived in the wrong place at precisely the wrong time?

She seemed to have unwittingly walked into a nightmare situation and maybe the only way through it was to be honest.

She swallowed hard. And then she stood on tiptoe and spoke quietly enough that only the security guard could hear what she said.

‘André Laurent is my father.’

* * *

The phone would not stop ringing.

You would have thought that after this morning things would have settled, but there had been no sign of things calming down the last time he’d checked.

Without altering the stride of his pacing, Julien Dubois flicked a sideways glance at the floor-to-ceiling windows of the grand salon. Not that he could see more than a glimpse of the driveway between the trees edging such a private garden but he knew it led to the massive gates that locked the property away from the rest of the world. And he knew what was waiting on the other side of those gates.

What were the vultures outside the gate waiting for, exactly? A clip of a celebrity looking grief-stricken? Or better yet, not looking grief-stricken, which would give them permission to go digging into a background that was dripping with juicy topics.

How old was he when the mother died?

How long is it now since the tragic death of his sister?

What had caused such a family rift?

What reason could he have to hate a national icon like André Laurent so much?

Who are the people in the house with him?

What’s going on?

On the other side of a room big enough to easily host a ball was a corner of the house that had a view of not only the main garden and the pool complex but a glimpse of the private beach with the background of the bay and Villefranche beyond.

Of course the owner of this house would have chosen this jewel as his man cave. The rich red of the Persian carpets was as sombre as the dark glow of the enormous mahogany desk. An entire wall was a gallery of trophies and photographs with a gilt-framed monstrosity of the man himself behind a dense spray of champagne as he celebrated one of his early wins in the Monaco race.

Julien’s jaw tightened as he deliberately ignored the real reason he loathed the image but really...it was a shameful waste of a magnum of Mumm Champagne.

The muscles of the rest of his body were as tense as his jaw by the time he’d taken two steps into the room. He didn’t want to be in here at all but he’d discovered it was a place that contained some particularly useful technology. Not the huge screen that had an endless loop of overpriced cars racing through the streets of Monaco. No...it was the smaller screen that provided a live feed to every security camera the property boasted. He knew which corners of the screen came from the cameras on the gateposts because checking them was becoming a half-hourly ritual.

He only needed the crowd to thin out enough and he would be able to escape a property he’d never intended setting foot inside in the first place. It wasn’t as if he was getting anywhere on the mission that had brought him through the gates. It was clearly a stalemate.

The media interest didn’t seem to have died down at all yet, unfortunately. And what on earth was going on right in front of the gate?

A girl looked, for all the world, as if she was kissing one of the security guards. No wonder he looked so shocked, stepping back and staring at her as if she was completely crazy.

Julien found himself leaning closer to the screen, as if that would help him see the image more clearly. The woman was nothing like any journalist he’d ever seen. Was it because she wasn’t holding a camera or microphone? Maybe it was the odd accessory of what looked like a child’s schoolbag on her back. Then she turned enough for him to see her face and he realised that his impression probably had more to do with body language than anything else. The confidence was missing. The pushiness...

Yes. She looked like a fish out of water. Bewildered even, as the guard moved further away from her, reaching for his phone.

Frightened?

The urge to offer protection was instinctive. Well honed. And quite enough to trigger a wave of a grief that he’d believed he’d come to terms with by now.

He’d tried, so hard, to keep Colette safe...

And he was failing her again, even now...

If only the tears of grief would come, they might wash away some of the anger building today but it wasn’t going to happen here in this room of all places.

And it wasn’t going to happen now. Not with a phone ringing yet again. And this was his personal mobile, not a house landline, which meant that it was a caller he needed to take notice of. His solicitor, probably. He’d walked out on the argument still going on in the small drawing room on the other side of the foyer but decisions had to be made about which legal documents had precedence. Was he going to win the battle he’d come here today to fight?

But this call was not a summons back to the tense meeting. It was coming from outside the gates, from a member of his own entourage.

A glance at the screen gave him the odd feeling of a breath of wind that targeted only the hairs on the back of his neck. As he answered the call, his gaze went straight back to the security images. He could see his caller. The bodyguard his solicitor had deemed necessary for this potentially volatile visit.

‘Sorry to disturb you, Monsieur Dubois.’

‘What is it?’

‘There’s a girl here...an English girl...’

His gaze shifted fractionally. Yes, he could still see her. Just standing there, looking lost. He wasn’t the only one looking her way either. In the boring hours of waiting for something newsworthy, any distraction for the reporters was probably welcome.

‘And?’

‘And...’ The security guard muttered something incomprehensible.

‘Pardon? You’ll have to speak up.’

‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’ On the screen, Julien could see the guard turn his back on his audience and step even further away. He spoke in a hoarse whisper that hissed over the line.

‘She’s saying that Monsieur Laurent is her father.’

Julien’s breath came out in a derisive snort. ‘Of course she is. She won’t be the first to turn up with a convenient claim like that now. Send her packing.’

‘But...she wants to talk to him...’

‘What?’

‘I know. It’s bizarre but she really doesn’t seem to have any idea what’s going on. I thought it might be better to deal with it away from prying eyes and ears.’