Rags To Riches: His Wish, Her Command: The Last Summer of Being Single / An Enticing Debt to Pay / A Navy SEAL's Surprise Baby

Seb paused before replying, her question resonating inside his head.

He had survived the traumatic events in his life by keeping everything personal bottled up inside himself. But here, in this kitchen, it somehow made perfect sense to give Ella the explanation she needed. And perhaps by talking through the issues out loud, he might make sense of them. Just as he had planned to do with Nicole.

This could be the only chance he would ever have to tell his story to a disconnected person and know that it would be heard sympathetically. Somehow, somewhere in the last day, he had found someone he could trust with his personal problems. And that was special.

Ella watched Seb’s heavy dark eyebrows come together, his frown as deep as his heart.

She might have pushed him too far.

And in that instant she reached out and touched his hand and smiled to break the tension.

‘I am the nosiest person in this town. Please excuse me.’ Ella laughed. ‘You are a guest in this house and your personal reasons for staying around are none of my business.’

In a moment she was on her feet, reaching out for the cups and plates and desperate to change the subject. ‘Would you like to try the apricots before you leave? Yvette picked them at dawn.’

Only Seb caught her hand and kept it, calm and still. Something flicked across his face as though he was struggling to come to a decision.

‘Six months ago my dad—’ and at this Seb sighed a little too loudly ‘—had what the doctors described as a mini-stroke.’

She gasped and sat back down again. ‘Oh, no. I’m so sorry. Is he okay?’

He nodded slowly. ‘It was very small, and he was back on his feet in a few days.’

He looked up at her and his upper lip twitched. ‘It shook me up, I can tell you. My job demands regular health checks, but nothing specific. Nothing where I needed a detailed family history and blood work.’

Seb’s eyes were focused now on the palm of Ella’s hand and he spread out her fingers, moving his fingertip along the life line on her palm before speaking again. ‘I asked my company doctor to test me, in case there could be any hereditary problems. He’s a friend. A good friend. So when he came to my office and closed the door behind him I knew it must be something serious.’

Ella thought that her own heart was going to stop. ‘Oh, no. What did he say? Please?’

Seb meshed the fingers of one hand through hers as he resisted saying the words out loud.

‘He said that I needed to talk to my dad. Because he had been through our blood work three times and there was no mistake. Luc Castellano cannot be my biological father.’

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_41dc3fb8-7c4a-52f0-a210-6a22544946d2)

‘WHAT did you do?’ Ella whispered. ‘I mean, that must have been a terrible shock.’

Seb nodded. ‘It was. There were two options. I had either been adopted, or my mother had a relationship with someone else before she married my dad. Either way I knew that I had to ask my dad face to face and ask him to tell me the truth.’

‘Of course! The wedding photographs! She was pregnant with you when she married.’ Ella paused. ‘But you didn’t expect that, did you? What did he tell you?’

Seb sat back in the hard kitchen chair, arms stretched out on the table, but his fingers slid out from hers.

‘I waited until dad was out of hospital and recovering back at home for a few days. He was feeling good and planning a holiday. And trying to pass his health problems off as just some minor problem. Anything to avoid the real issue.’

He made a rough chuckle in the back of his throat. ‘As if I didn’t know what he was up to. So I bypassed the chit-chat, showed him the lab-test results and mentioned the fact that I was old enough to hear the truth, and would rather hear it from him.’

Seb rose and started pacing the floor. When he turned back to Ella his face was dark, controlled anger only too visible.

‘He told me to leave it alone. Water under the bridge. And he did not want to discuss it ever again.’ He snorted and shook his head. ‘I told him that I had no intention of leaving it alone. He told me that I was a stubborn fool and that I should get on with my life.’

Seb was holding onto the back of his chair so tightly that his knuckles were white in sharp contrast to the thunderous look on his face. ‘And then we had a fight. I blamed him for taking me away from everything I loved to a country where I didn’t even speak the language. He blamed me for driving Nicole away. And then it got worse.’

He flexed his fingers for a few seconds, trying to restore some of the circulation. ‘I won’t bore you with what happens when two Frenchmen start an argument where neither of them have any intention of backing down, but it was lucky that a couple of his friends turned up to play golf before things got out of hand.’

He shrugged. ‘I admit it. I was angry. He had completely refused to answer any of my questions. So I told him he was a coward. His final words of comfort and consolation were along the lines of: “You can’t bring her back,” and then he slammed the door behind me. That was the last time we spoke.’

‘Oh, Seb. That’s horrible. You haven’t spoken to him since?’

He raised his head and stared at her in disbelief. ‘What would be the point of that? I know my dad. He won’t change his mind. If I want to know who my father is then I’m going to have to find out on my own.’

‘And that’s why you want to follow up what you found today?’ Ella raised her hands. ‘Because he is right, you know. You’ll have to decide what to do with any information you do find. There is a good chance that your father may not want to be part of your life, even if you want to be part of his.’

Seb nodded in agreement. ‘I know it. There is a very real chance that André Morel let my mother down. But I don’t want to make that judgement without knowing the facts. Perhaps she left him to be with my dad? It might help to explain his reaction.’

‘Wait a moment. Did you say that his name was Morel?’ Ella asked in a voice bright with curiosity.

Seb reached deep into his trouser back pocket and tugged out the newspaper clipping he had found that morning and passed it to Ella, who was now standing next to him as he looked out of the window into the garden where the trees were swaying wildly in the wind.

She scanned the few words, then let her shoulders drop. ‘André Morel. Well, that cannot be a coincidence.’

Ella’s hand slid down and her fingers clasped around Seb’s, forcing him to glance down at the sudden sensation of her fingers on his as she spoke.

‘I think that you had better come with me. There’s something that you need to see!’

Ella half dragged Seb the few steps from the kitchen to the living room, then used her free hand to rummage around in a wicker basket of cards of all sorts.

‘Mind telling me what I’m supposed to be looking at?’ Seb asked impatiently as he tried to slip his hand away from hers, but she was not having any of it.

‘This,’ Ella replied, waving a party invitation in the air. ‘I’m working this evening at my favourite hotel in town. Private birthday party for…wait for it: Madame Morel and family,’ and she held the invitation behind her back. But Seb just scowled at her from his great height and lifted the card from her fingers.

‘Is this for real? And what do you mean when you say that you are working at the hotel?’

‘It is absolutely for real. And you may recall that my parents are professional musicians. Well, until I had Dan I earned my living as a performer. So tonight I am going to be playing and possibly singing for my supper and Madame Morel. And—’ she shrugged her shoulders ‘—Sandrine told me that the Morel family are originally from Montpellier but have retired to their holiday home around here. I know that they might be a completely different family and it could lead to nothing, but isn’t it worth taking the time to ask a few questions?’

‘Maybe,’ Seb replied hesitantly. ‘And this is all going a little too fast for me to keep up. You are a professional musician working as a housekeeper, in the middle of nowhere. Is that right?’

‘My choice. And no, I had not made the connection between the name Morel and your family until you mentioned it.’

Ella waited, watching his face, begging him to agree to follow this up. But patience was never her strong point, so she leapt in while he was still thinking about it.

‘Come to the party tonight as my guest. I’ll introduce you and tell the family that you are trying to trace an old friend. See what happens! There could be someone there who can put you in touch with this André Morel or may even have known your mother in person. You don’t have anything to lose except a few hours in the city.’

Seb slid his hand from hers, and sank down onto the sofa. Ella perched next to him and brought her bare feet up onto the sofa cushions. Waiting.

Seb slowly raised his head to look up at the portrait of his mother before turning back to Ella.

‘I can’t be satisfied with the fact that my parents loved me.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s just great. What an idiot, eh?’