The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance. Annie West

turned to stone, so statue-still he became. His eyes reflected shock. Horrified, disbelieving shock.

       ‘Non, il n’est pas possible!’

      His lips barely moved with the denial, but his fingers tightened painfully on her shoulders.

      ‘That is not possible, Ana. She came to Verbier with the express purpose of...’ His words trailed off and he swallowed, his eyes darkening with remembered pain.

      Ana’s heart twisted. ‘You weren’t there, Bastien. You were in the gazebo. She asked me to get pills from the housekeeper for her headache. Lily always kept a bottle of pills on her bedside table. She...she told me they were for her headaches. Oh, God, I didn’t...couldn’t read the label. I...I gave them to your mother—’

      ‘How many did she take?’

      ‘I don’t remember—’

      He thrust her away from him, surged to his feet. He stalked to the window, his movements stiff, wooden. For several seconds he said nothing, then he whirled to face her. ‘Mon Dieu!’ The hand he shoved through his hair shook badly.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered brokenly.

      ‘And all this time I’ve believed—’ He stopped, fists clenched at his sides.

      A deep shudder raked through his frame and her heart twisted anew.

      ‘I’m so sorry... Oh, God!’

      He crossed the room and caught her arms. ‘Stop apologising, Ana. You were eight years old and you couldn’t read. You are not to blame for this!’

      ‘But if I’d called someone instead of just handing her the pills...’ She clamped her hand over her lips, racked with horror. ‘The repercussions of that day have shaped your life, Bastien. What I did has coloured the way you see your mother for the last sixteen years...’

      He shook her once, the act almost one of desperation. ‘No, it hasn’t. Don’t forget the things she said before she took the pills. You had nothing to do with that. That was her...all her.’ Renewed pain threaded his voice.

      Ana wanted to offer something, anything to soothe his pain. Except she was the cause of his pain.

      ‘Let me go, Bastien.’

      ‘No, you wanted to talk, so we’ll talk about this.’

      ‘There’s nothing left to talk about. I ruined your life—’

      ‘No, dammit, listen to me.’

      ‘There’s nothing you can say that’ll make me forgive myself, Bastien. Nothing.’ She pulled away and ran to the door.

      Thankfully, he didn’t follow.

      Her whole body trembled with the force of her emotions as she climbed the stairs to her room. She collapsed on the bed, her legs unwilling to support her as renewed shock ripped through her. She drew a pillow to her face to muffle the sound of the wrenching sobs that rumbled through her chest.

      She had caused Solange Heidecker’s overdose.

      She had ripped Bastien’s life apart!

      Her tears fell faster, her insides quaking with the force of her pain. His father’s affairs had made Bastien bitter, but Ana realised it was his mother’s rejection and suicide attempt that had flayed him. Discovering he’d spent the last sixteen years hating his mother for something she hadn’t meant to do had rocked him. Ana had seen his shock when he’d realised this.

      How could Bastien ever forgive her?

      * * *

      She woke bleary-eyed and heavy-hearted the next morning to the sound of knocking on her door. Her heart lurched, but it was Chantal who greeted her when she wrenched open the door, not Bastien.

      ‘Bonjour, mademoiselle. Your crew...they have arrived.’

      ‘Oh...okay. Thanks,’ she murmured, licking lips stiff with dried tears. She caught Chantal’s quick scrutiny before she started to turn away. She’d fallen asleep in her clothes and still clutched a tissue she’d used some time during the night. ‘Wait! Is Bastien...is he awake yet?’ She didn’t know how to begin to repair the damage she’d done but she’d lain awake knowing she had to start somewhere.

      Chantal shook her head, her eyes solemn. ‘Non. Monsieur—he left last night.’

      Misery and pain spiked through her, their bite so ferocious she folded her arms around her middle in self-preservation. ‘Left? When will he be back?’

      The housekeeper shrugged.

      Dazed, Ana closed the door. Bastien had left, and taken with him any opportunity to ask for his forgiveness.

      The thought of him suffering because of what she’d done brought fresh tears. But Ana brushed them away and sucked in a deep breath. He was gone. She couldn’t do anything about that. What she could do, though, was throw her every last skill at making the ad campaign the best it could be. That she could control.

      Trudging to the bathroom, she undressed and showered.

      * * *

      The crew’s arrival threw the château into a whirlwind of frenzied activity. Ana gladly submerged herself in the organised chaos, helping to unload equipment and assisting Chantal in setting up the crew in their allocated rooms. Anything to stop herself from revisiting that desolate place inside her that threatened to overwhelm her every time she thought of Bastien.

      The first fracture in her false façade came when her phone beeped with a text. Thinking it was from Bastien, she jumped on it—only to find it was from Lily, wishing her luck for the shoot. The hope she’d been trying to stem since that phone call with her mother refused to die, no matter how much she tried to stave it off.

      Her composure slipped even further when, at midday, a lawyer from a local firm turned up. He’d been hired by Bastien the day before and instructed to help her redraft new terms for her contract.

      The short, moustachioed man was visibly startled when tears welled in her eyes. Bastien had shortened the twelve-month contract to two, and given her first refusal for any serialised campaigns. She signed the documents, her heart aching.

      ‘Ana—there you are.’

      She turned from the late-afternoon sunlight streaming through the tower window to find Robin Green, the director, behind her.

      ‘Okay, that forlorn look you were wearing just now is great for when we shoot the scene downstairs, moments before you meet your handsome prince again after seven years apart. But not for the tower scene. Remember—this room is where love finally triumphs. I want radiance, ecstasy, unforgettable passion. Yes?’

      She nodded, although deep inside she despaired about how she could pull off everlasting love when her insides were anguished, raw.

      All through hair and make-up her mind drifted, wondering where Bastien was, what he was doing. How he was coping with the bombshell she’d thrown into his life.

      Her emotions were so on edge a lump rose in her throat when the two security men guarding the Heidecker diamonds stepped forward. The white diamonds selected for the first scene were dazzling. As always, Ana was awed at the beauty of the pieces the Heidecker jewellers had produced. She’d modelled countless pieces of jewellery before, but none as stunning as the award-winning Diamonds by Heidecker collection.

      She held her breath as the necklace was fastened. Against the royal blue of her floor-length strapless Dior gown the stones of the diamond collarette set in platinum stood out so vividly even the seasoned make-up artist gave a murmur of appreciation. Matching teardrop earrings went on next.

      Xander Bryson took the role of her childhood love, the prince, but the scene they were shooting now required her to play alongside her current lover, on whose arm she was to arrive at a ball.

      Robin