Page 24 of Gideon (Finding Home #3)

“No, it doesn’t matter,” he says quickly. “I don’t mind telling you stuff.” He pauses, looking out to sea, and I turn in the same direction, hoping to relax him as it’s horrible to talk with someone making an X-ray of your face.

“I’m not sure my home was what everyone else had,” he finally says slowly. “I went to boarding school when I was seven.”

“That’s early,” I murmur, and Gideon shrugs.

“Not really. Not for the people my parents knew. It’s about average.” He pauses. “I didn’t want to go. I’d have loved to stay at home. I wanted to be with my mother, but she was very busy with charity commitments, so it wasn’t to be.”

“Did it get better when Milo came to the school too?”

He stares ahead, sitting very still. “Milo didn’t go to boarding school. My mother wanted him at home and my father does as my mother wants.”

A silence falls as I grapple with what he just said. “And she didn’t have you come back too?”

His long, thin fingers tighten on his coffee cup. “No,” he finally says slowly and wearily. “She didn’t. I was older anyway by then, but I stayed where I was.”

“I’m sorry.” My stomach feels like it’s full of snakes, writhing and making me feel sick at how rejected he must have felt.

Incredibly, he laughs. “It was slightly awkward sometimes because I had friends who were boarding because their parents lived abroad. Mine only lived about ten miles away from the school. I used to pretend that my mother was a mountain climber and my father a mountain guide. I told some incredibly elaborate stories about their daring adventures when I was ten, but they were slightly spoilt when my mother and father actually came to a swimming gala. She had a panic attack because of the height of the stands, and he made a fuss when he got tomato sauce on his jacket.”

I can’t smile, and he looks confused for a second before he shrugs and gives me a thin smile.

“No need to be sorry. It is as it is. Milo had an accident when he was five which left him with a stutter. That took up the last of my mother’s attention.

There wasn’t anything left after that and really, she did me a favour. ”

“How?” I whisper.

He grins. “It was very freeing not having to worry about parents’ evening, for a start. I could behave as badly as I wanted and school put up with it because of the fees, and my parents didn’t want to know.” He grimaces. “I was a bit of a monster.”

“ No, ” I say lightly. “I can’t believe it.”

He smiles, and it’s more natural this time. “I had friends, so I was okay.”

“Are Niall and Silas your family, then?” I say, remembering the name of the other boy from Gideon’s stories.

He shrugs. “I suppose so,” he says in an unsure voice.

“Did you enjoy school?”

“Not really.” He sighs. “I didn’t feel at home there either, you see. I’m a bit of a nomad. Not at home anywhere.”

“I think nomads are at home everywhere,” I say softly, and he shrugs again.

“I’m a renegade nomad. I’m obviously a trendsetter.

What can I say?” Then he brightens. “Everything changed when Frankie came along.” He shoots me a look.

“I know you don’t have a high opinion of him.

” I snort and he smiles. “I know you don’t have a single good opinion of him at all, but he was good to me.

He discovered me when I was at school, and everything I am is because of him. ”

“I think everything you are is because of you,” I say steadily. “Your talent. Your personality. You.”

“Don’t say that,” he drawls. “Now I’ve got no one to blame.”

I look at him askance and then, incredibly, we burst into laughter, leaning into each other. We rest against each other, and his hand touches mine for a brief, precious second. Then he pulls back and looks down the promenade.

“Let’s get a hotel room,” he says.

I start. “ What ?”

He gives me his half smile which has a wicked twist to it.

Out of all his smiles, I like this one best because it’s like he’s showing a hidden side to me.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but not for any nefarious reasons,” he says.

“The beach at the Belle Rives in Juan-les-Pins is the best around, but you have to be a resident to go on it. I feel like sleeping in the sun while you will probably want to do something appallingly energetic.”

“There’s posh, then,” I say wonderingly. “Does it rent by the hour? Because I just can’t stop in anything less.”

“I’ll endeavour to descend to your standards. Although it’s probably better if I just fall.”

“Sarcastic,” I say happily and nudge him.

GIDEON

The Belle Rives is as gorgeous as ever. It’s my favourite hotel to stay in around here because of the art deco interior and the association with F Scott Fitzgerald, who stayed here with his wife and child when it was a private house.

Usually, I’ll steer straight upstairs to the Fitzgerald piano bar, which serves bloody lovely cocktails.

That’s probably the reason why I can’t remember what the hotel rooms actually look like.

However, it’s different being here with Eli.

We sit outside on the terrace which I don’t think I’ve ever sat on before, usually being far too hungover to eat in the sun.

We eat delicious sea bass and talk and laugh.

I find myself noticing small details so that I can point them out to him.

Like the way the bougainvillea that grows up the walls makes the yellow stones of the hotel glow.

And how the huge pots of lavender fill the air with a heavy and quintessentially French scent.

Once we’ve eaten, we stroll down to the beach where we spend the afternoon lounging on comfortable sunbeds and ordering cold drinks which are sadly non-alcoholic because of my martinet of a nurse.

Later on, I lie in the late afternoon sun as Eli tries his hand at water skiing. I watch him surreptitiously, admiring the long lines of his body and the way his red and navy patterned board shorts hang from his narrow hips.

I’m not the only one to notice him. With his body tanned a golden brown, that riot of wavy blond hair that’s turned nearly white in the sun, and the lazy full wattage of his smile, he’s beautiful.

I’m the only one who has to hide my attraction, however, because this is a celebrity hangout and the paparazzi are never far away.

The thought leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Finally, he comes back and flings himself onto the sunbed next to me.

His body rests against mine for a brief, precious second, and I feel the coolness of his skin as water droplets seem to rain down on my body and sizzle.

He lies back happily, and the next few hours pass the way they always do, with him in a contented sprawl as we sit chatting and laughing and occasionally falling into a comfortable silence.

I’ve never met anyone like him before. His mind is so quick and agile and his humour so warm.

Every moment with him feels easy and right.

However, the afternoon slides into the evening with an awful finality, marking the time we have left before we separate as hours rather than days.

I feel a desperate urge to grab him and demand that we go somewhere else, anywhere we can be together, because I don’t want to be without him.

But I say nothing and we lie in a loud silence.

Finally, I sit up on the lounger looking out to where the sun is setting, a salt-scented breeze blowing my hair back.

It’s that time of evening where everything seems to be touched in gold.

The beach is practically empty now as the guests head into the hotel to dress for dinner.

Beach attendants wander back and forth, picking up rubbish and preparing for the following day.

“We’ll need to meet the car soon or we’ll miss the boat,” I say reluctantly.

Eli comes to sit next to me on my sunbed, and for a second I can feel the heat of his body, but then he moves so there’s a careful and decorous gap between us. I breathe in almost desperately and relax slightly when I smell the familiar scent of coconut.

Silence falls for a long moment and then I sigh and stir. “This isn’t one-sided, is it?” He looks at me and I gesture between us. “This thing. This attraction. I’m not the only one who feels it.”

He looks torn, and I’m just about to take the statement back so he’s not uncomfortable, when his expression turns resolute.

“You’re not the only one.” I sag a little in relief, but he carries on, talking quickly.

“But it can’t be anything while I’m your nurse.

It’s against everything I stand for. It would be totally wrong, and I would worry that I was taking advantage of you. ”

“Makes me sound like the heroine in Poldark .”

He smiles, but it fades quickly. “I’ve been looking after you for a while, and we’ve got close. It’s very common for the patient to mix up feelings of gratitude for something else.”

“I think I’d have had to have felt gratitude for something in my life in the first place.” I shrug. “I’m not terribly good at being grateful. Makes my skin itch.”

He shakes his head reprovingly, but his mouth twitches, and I take that for slight encouragement. I’m coming to realise that I would take anything from him.

“I’m thirty-nine years old,” I say slowly.

“I’m not bedridden, and you and I both know that I don’t actually need you at all, unless we count perennial nagging, in which case you’re irreplaceable.

” He snorts, and I conceal my smile. “I’m grumpy, as stubborn as a donkey, and resistant to all forms of authority.

It doesn’t make me a candidate for romantic dreams.”