Free The Little French Guesthouse by Helen Pollard Page A

in a fit mental – if not physical – state today. I needed his interpreting skills to help me communicate with Madame Dupont, and he would have to get his head around a menu for tonight – assuming I could find my way to the supermarket and back without ending up in Paris.
    As I walked back into the bedroom and dropped my damp towel on the floor, I caught sight of my reflection in the ornate full-length gilt mirror and glared at it. I may have been on the untoned side (that gym membership was definitely a waste of money) and had a tendency to go pink and freckled before getting a tan, but I didn’t think I looked much worse than any other woman in her early thirties.
    It’s easy to sympathise with fifty-something women whose husbands leave them for someone younger, traded in for a newer model. What sickened me was that my thirty-three-year-old man, somewhat on the young side for a midlife crisis, had left me for a woman at least a decade older than him – a woman who, although glamorous and well-preserved in an artificial sort of way, surely couldn’t compare to still-reasonably-fresh me.
    I stared at the offending image in the mirror. Nathan hadn’t just slept with Gloria – he’d run off with her. What if it wasn’t only about looks or make-up or calorie-counting? What if it was just... me? I didn’t think I’d changed since we first met, but perhaps in his eyes I had. Was I more impatient? A tad grumpier? Less fun? Less caring? Less interesting?
    Pulling on a long, baggy T-shirt, I let out a heavy sigh. There was a three-person, twelve-hour day ahead to share between an ancient cleaner, a novice and an invalid. I already had a headache and felt sick. Getting depressed wasn’t going to help.
    Deciding coffee and breakfast might be of more practical use, I staggered downstairs, my hair still dripping from the shower. I’d guessed – correctly – that Rupert wouldn’t be up and about yet, but in my hung-over state, I’d completely forgotten about the Hendersons until I was in the kitchen. Belatedly remembering my state of dress, I glanced through the window in a panic, letting out a sigh of relief that their car wasn’t there. Presumably, they’d already left to forage for their own breakfast because their irresponsible host had failed to get up early enough to prepare one for them. Another black mark against Rupert.
    I groped for the espresso machine, made a strong one and, clutching it in my hands as if my life depended on it, trundled to the patio doors to look out over the garden.
    And there he was.
    At least six feet tall, strong but not too beefy, over-long sun-streaked blonde hair, work jeans – and no shirt. As he chopped at the hedge with shears, his muscles rippled and a slight sheen of sweat covered his tanned torso. What a sight for sore eyes. After the last few dreary months, it was like stumbling onto an oasis in the desert of my suppressed senses.
    Somehow aware of my arrival, the vision turned and smiled – and what a smile. White teeth, blue eyes, chiselled jaw... Okay, forget the “chiselled” because yes, I knew it, I was beginning to sound like a romance novel.
    I smiled back, then remembered how little my T-shirt covered and how bedraggled my hair was.
    He put down the shears and started towards the house. Uh-oh. Too late to run away and slip into something more suitable. Since he’d already seen what there was to see, I opened the patio door a fraction.
    He held out a tanned, rather soily hand. ‘Morning. You must be Emmy. I’m Ryan.’
    I shook his hand. My fingers went numb, and I wasn’t sure whether it was because he had a grip like a vice or because all the blood had rushed from my hands to other departments.
    ‘Er, yes. Hi. I – er – I’m sorry, I didn’t expect anyone to be here.’ I gestured apologetically at my sparsely-clad person and, to top off my embarrassment, blushed like a schoolgirl.
    ‘No, so I see.’ There was no way of knowing whether the amused