Free Vicki's Work of Heart by Rosie Dean Page B

bothers you – I’m thinking you’d rather not have to…’
    ‘No. Not at all,’ I said turning the heat down and stepping back. Before I knew it, some latent, Catholic desire for confession pulled an invisible chord in my back so I was spewing my story in bite-sized phrases, like a walky-talky doll. ‘Izzy hasn’t told you, has she? About my wedding day. Or rather, non-wedding day. My fiancé stood me up. He made off with my life’s savings. He gambled money he didn’t have. He used money I didn’t have. There. Now you know why I’m here. It’s a fresh start. Something for me. Nothing and nobody is going to screw it up. Not this time.’ I drew a deep breath. ‘That’s it.’ I took a gulp of wine, picked up the spatula and batted mushrooms from one side of the pan to the other.
    ‘I’m very sorry to hear that. It must have been difficult.’ His voice had dropped to a cosy, comforting level. I’d heard him muttering words of affection to his dogs in the same tone.
    There was a tingle in the back of my nose. I lined up the bowl and whisk, ready for the eggs.
    ‘Good for you, Vicki. You’re making a change, you’re moving forward.’
    I walked across the kitchen to find something, anything, so I could blink the tears away before he saw them. I opened the napkin drawer. ‘Well, I don’t much fancy the alternatives. He’s done me a favour, really.’
    ‘I guess it didn’t feel like that at the time.’
    ‘No. And I could have done without the debts he left behind, too.’ I slapped the napkins down on the table. By the time I’d put the cutlery out, I was back under control.
    ‘Did he actually leave you waiting at the church?’ he asked.
    I looked across and was consoled to see his eyebrows dipped in a frown of concern rather than in that arched, are-you-shitting-me? way that so many others had adopted.
    ‘Yes. Dad and I were shivering under a brolly in a horse and trap outside. His best man came up to us with this terrified look on his face, poor guy, and I knew.’
    He shook his head. ‘The man’s a coward, huh?’
    ‘Yes.’ I had formed quite a list of other adjectives but coward was definitely on it.
    ‘So, I’m guessing you don’t trust men now. All of them are bastards, non?’
    There was a twinkle in his eye so I guessed he was trying to lift the mood rather than flirt with me. ‘Well…after my recent and, it has to be said, most disastrous attempt at choosing a partner, I’ll take my time and wait until I can identify someone with all the right qualities.’
    ‘So you wouldn’t have him back?’
    ‘Marc?’ I thought for a moment. Marc’s mercurial character had fascinated me. No run-of-the-mill dependability there. Oh no. How had I described him? Enigmatic. Yes, well, it was a quality that didn’t pay the bills and didn’t turn up at church. But he’d probably love it here in France, with the new me. I wondered just how boring I had become; always banging on about school, or trawling through solid wood flooring brochures – not to mention adjusting seating plans for the wedding a hundred times. Maybe I’d moved so far from the girl he’d fallen in love with, he couldn’t face the thought of spending the rest of his life with who I’d become. ‘No. I don’t want him back.’ I cracked the eggs into the bowl with one hand and stirred vegetables with the other.
    ‘So, you have come here to paint and to cook for me.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And after that…how are you going to set about finding your perfect man?’
    ‘I have no idea. I’m off men. For now,’ I added out of self-respect. No woman wanted to be thought of as perpetually frigid.
    ‘When was this wedding?’
    ‘Last year. August.’
    ‘Really? How long a break are you going to take?’
    I stopped multi-tasking and stepped back to look at him. ‘I don’t feel the need to set a schedule.’
    ‘No, but you seem like a woman who wouldn’t wait around for too long.’
    ‘Do I?’ I asked, putting my hand