One Stolen Kiss (25 page)

“
Am I the last to know?” Christie asked, when she could finally speak.

“
One of the first,” he corrected. “Except for a few – and the priest, who I spoke to earlier from the car. He wants to see us before tomorrow, obviously. I’ll contact everyone else tonight. Unless you’ve changed your mind by then.”

“
No, no…” Christie reached for her own drink with a shaky hand. “I haven’t changed my mind… I’m just in shock, that it’s so soon. How can everything be ready?”

“
Trust me. It’ll be ready.” Adrik reached under the table, and retrieved her menu for her.

“
In Bern?” she asked, trying to fathom out how one arranged a wedding in Bern at two days’ notice.

“
No – about an hour away,” he said. “We’ll head there next, after meeting the priest. I’ve got someone coming over with our stuff from Eileen’s – we’ll have dinner, you’ll stay the night, and I’ll go to sleep over at one of my uncle’s holiday places nearby. Some traditions I think we should stick with.” He passed the menu back across. “And it gives you a chance to have your second thoughts in private.”

Christie was having trouble keeping up with her first thoughts. Second thoughts were going to take some working out, if any were going to emerge.

“Are you still hungry?” he asked, gently, as the waiter came over, and she confirmed with a mute nod. Adrik ordered two schnitzels with sautéed new potatoes, and the menus vanished again. “Christie, you can say something now, if you don’t want to do this.”

“
I want to do this.” It came out as a whisper.

The rest of the answer remained unspoken, in her head.

But I want it to be real…

* * * *

“I think we used to come to this church for services when I was in elementary school,” Christie said, a note of wonder in her voice.

Adrik knew it for a fact, because it had been one of the random things he’d picked up from her parents in one of their phone conversations, prior to the engagement party. The medieval church in the old part of the city of Bern was having some restoration work done, cleaning and refurbishing of the incredibly detailed stained glass.

“The old priest we’re meeting isn’t doing the regular services here anymore,” he told her, rather than reveal the extent of his premeditation and planning to her just yet. “But he still does weddings at various locations, and was available at short notice. Maybe he’ll turn out to be one of the priests you might remember. They like it if you’re familiar with their place of work.”

Christie grinned, and they went inside.

* * * *

Back in the parking lot afterwards, Adrik set up her navigation system again.

“I’ll try to make them different,” he said. “They may turn out to be very similar – it’s a shorter journey. No racing, if I see you en route.”

“
I’ll try not to scare you,” she replied, and he shot her a meaningful look. “I won’t – I promise. About an hour, you said?”

“
Give or take.” He got back out of her driver’s seat. “It’s gone five now, so traffic might be slow. You go first this time.”

He gave her a hug, and a kiss on the temple.

“See you there,” she said, feeling his hug last a little longer this time.

“
I hope so,” he repeated, and it sounded more concerned than earlier this morning. “Drive safely.”

Christie climbed back into the car, and followed the prompt by the sat-nav to exit the parking lot. In her rear-view mirror, she could see Adrik watching her leave, looking slightly nervous himself, before turning away to get into his own car.

Once she was out of the lot, and joined the road again by instruction, she dared to look at the navigation screen.

Journey Two: Bern, Switzerland – Montreux, Switzerland.

So that was it.

They weren’t just going somewhere else, to get married.

They were going back to the beginning.

To Lake Geneva.

* * * *

Adrik sat in his driver’s seat, and his face dropped into his hands.

He so wanted to tell her. Everything that had been eating away at his mind – and at his heart. Not to mention his soul.

But there were two sides to it. And she was still holding out on him.

He was going to have to go through with it. Even though now, after all this time he’d had it weighing him down, he wanted what was happening to mean something else.

“
That’s if she turns up,” he muttered to himself.

She must know where they were going by now.

He rubbed his eyes, and started the car.

* * * *

She knew the route, so the navigation system was merely a comfort. The stream of additional traffic commuting home felt like her mass escort. As if she too was commuting home. If she had stayed in Switzerland, or returned after University, perhaps that was indeed what she would be doing right now.

This could have been my reality.

She’d never have been to Manhattan, or planned her own gallery, or met Derek in the process of courting various new artists to show their work, in her boutique, bijou space. What a joke, that it had been her own art which made her a success – under an anonymous disguise…

And maybe Adrik wouldn’t have found her.

Would he have come looking for me if I was a nobody? A librarian in Bern, perhaps?

He’d arrived back in her life at the very point when she had the most to lose, and the first strike had been her relationship. Unconsummated, and out of the public eye – but still the only relationship she ever considered to have had ‘serious’ potential.

She had to admit now, that at least she was glad to be rid of.

* * * *

The smart navigation directed her through the town of Montreux, and a few miles beyond – finally, to the chateau at the lakeside, a short distance from the former finishing school her parents had run all those years ago.

The school itself she knew was now a private property, the holiday home of a famous Hollywood couple and their ever-growing brood of children. She knew less about the fate of the chateau, just that it had remained available for private functions, which before included being at the school’s disposal for its regular graduation ball. It had always been for hire, so far as she knew. Spying on its various visitors and their events had been a highlight of attending finishing school.

As she drove around the site of the castle after leaving the main road, for some reason she turned the car off onto a small lane before the front entrance and headed the fifty yards or so down it for the shoreline, where she knew there was a small private beach that she and Roksana used to escape to if a class was particularly tedious.

It was unchanged. The trees bordering it were taller – that was all. Christie stopped the car and got out, wondering if she would recognise the wet sand and shingle itself. Maybe find the rocks that she had scrawled on with stubs of charcoal and chalk.

The sound of another set of tyres crunching on the lane’s loose chippings made her look around from the rippling water, and the identical dark blue car stopped behind her own.

“
Weird,” Adrik noted, getting out. “We both had exactly the same idea to check out the beach first.”

“
We’ve got more in common than the same car, then,” she remarked wryly.

“
I think so,” he replied.

He walked over to join her at the shore, and they stood in silence, looking out over Lake Geneva.

“Do you remember – we walked down here, after that dance…” he said at last.

Christie nodded.

“We were about to kiss…” she recalled.

“…
And some security patrol shouted at us to go back inside with the others.” Adrik ran his hand down her arm, and a memory seemed to unlock. He moved automatically to stand behind her, and curled his arms around her waist, while they still faced the view. She could feel the two ends of her life joining to form a complete circle in turn. “So we did, and ended up getting ourselves into even more trouble.”

I’m in even more trouble right now
, she thought.

“
Is this where it’s happening?” she asked, and swallowed her nerves back down. “At the chateau?”

“
The castle chapel in the grounds was recently restored,” said Adrik. “It was a ruin when you were last here, I think. That’s for the ceremony. The reception will be in the chateau. But you’re the only one staying here tonight. Except for a couple of staff, obviously. And their guard dogs,” he teased. “I’ll be with my uncle at his penthouse in Montreux.”

“
Okay.” Christie hardly trusted herself to hold a normal conversation.

Being back here, with him, was all too surreal.

She couldn’t count the number of times she’d dreamt it, over the last eleven years. Wished for it.

But never planned for it.

“Think you’re ready to face it?” he queried, adding to her thoughts. He kissed the nape of her neck. “The chateau.”

“
Sure,” she said, at last. “If you can – so can I.”

“
Makes two of us.” He squeezed her a little tighter before letting her go. “Let’s move the cars up to the front.”

* * * *

They drove back up the lane and followed the remainder of the driveway to the chateau’s grand entrance, preceded by an elaborate fountain. Although it was still only early evening, some of the windows were illuminated, bringing the ancient building to life, belying activity in progress within.

Getting out of the driver’s seat, Christie found her gaze dragged guiltily up and across the façade, finding a particular stateroom’s second-floor balcony, bordered by that iron trellis and wisteria creeper.

She gulped. It hadn’t seemed so high up, in the dark.

As she stared up at it, almost unable to tear her eyes away, she saw a light click on, beyond the balcony.

“Looks like our stuff is here,” said Adrik, checking messages on his phone. “I’ll transfer mine to this car for my sleepover tonight. If you want to change or have a rest before dinner, your room should be ready.”

Christie wondered if he meant
that
room, and turned to meet his gaze as he looked at her.

“
Still okay?” he asked, and she nodded. “Good. I’ve got a few calls to make. Go explore anyway – see what you remember about the place. Come and find me when you’re done… ahh. Dogs. Can’t stand dogs…”

Wondering for a split second if his quip about guard dogs had been genuine, Christie looked around again, as two toy poodles tumbled down the steps to greet them, yapping.

“Shoo,” Adrik grumbled, when they headed directly for him, pleased as punch to see a visitor. “Georges! Your pooches are attacking me!”

“
They are just leaving.” A familiar Nigerian voice greeted them, while a slightly-built Frenchman hurried out, jingling a pair of leashes and distracting the pups. Lucas was standing at the top of the steps, grinning his gold-toothed grin. “I knew you would be calling me when you ran out of love-letters.”

“
Where else am I going to find a best man at short notice?” Adrik grinned back at him, as the other member of staff put the dogs into a puppy-cage in the back of a silver SUV. “Paolo has too much on his plate at the moment, trying to keep up with my cousin.”

“
I am pleased you finally admit that I am the best man,” Lucas chuckled. “Elsie is not so sure. She threatened to put super-glue in all of my zippers to make sure I return home uncorrupted. And bastard cat came halfway to the airport with me, hiding in my bag, before I smell him breaking wind. You would never believe your nose. I will be starting to make dinner soon. Christie – this lady Hannah will show you where your bags are…”

Christie was greeted warmly by a very elderly but spry housekeeper, and led inside to the huge entrance hall.

“There is a masseuse here for you,” said Hannah. “She is deaf, but her hands do all the talking you will ever need. She lives with me at my retirement cottage.”

Christie had to admit, a massage sounded incredible after a day involving at least five hours at the wheel of a car, on some heavy-duty mountain roads.

“You’re retired?” she asked.

“
I used to work here, at the chateau,” Hannah smiled. “Many years ago. Now, for most of the year, I live in Bora Bora. But I like to see my old home occasionally.”

* * * *

It was indeed ‘that room’ which Christie would be staying in.

Like everything else, it appeared to be unchanged. Huge, clean, beautifully maintained, and everything sparkling like new – but the same.

Including the antique, wrought iron, gilded and white-painted bed.

Christie felt the strength draining out of her as she took it all in.

There was something that was new, out of place. A massage couch was set up to one side between the lace curtains and the balcony, catching the warm shafts of sunlight as they penetrated the room from across the lake.