Karen Aldous - The Chateau

‘In case you’re wondering, I promise, you can trust me,’ he said tilting his head and churning more flurries through her skin. ‘Come on, we’ll have a coffee. You can have my company if nothing else.’

Gina took in a deep breath. What makes him think I would actually want his company? she asked herself. Was he sincere or just immature? She peered at the open door on the lake again, a strange concept inviting people to step into the lake – to drown themselves maybe? As if echoing her thinking, Ollie stepped towards the structure and ran his fingers down the frame.

‘I wonder?’ he said. ‘Is it an open door to opportunity, new beginnings? As one door closes another opens and all that?’

‘Mmm, curious,’ she answered running her finger down her nose. ‘An invite, a way in or, for some, a way out; an exit.’ She turned and face him. ‘What would you want it to be?’

Patting it once more he leant his shoulder against the frame and holding his other palm out lifted his eyes up to hers.

‘Definitely an invitation, possibly a new beginning,’ he said.

Gina’s heart quivered. Those words slipped from his lips so seductively. His dark eyes, so powerfully entrancing. It was hard not to be drawn in. How natural she imagined it would be to dissolve into those strong arms. Her mind drifted.

Out of nowhere, a sharp icy sensation sliced through her and she sensed they weren’t alone; something or someone was beside her again. Her nose and lip twitched at the putrid odour suddenly apparent. This lake must be haunted, she surmised. She shuddered and raised both hands to rub her arms. Her eyes shifted from his to the richly coloured flowerbed in front of the lake.

‘Do you know? I can’t really think.’ She took a deep breath. What was the harm? ‘Let’s have coffee,’ she conceded feeling confused as a rush of blood returned to her arms. Clasping her wrist, she frowned at the peculiar sensations within her. ‘I only have a short time though. I need to get back soon,’ she said finding his gaze again. Her mind unable to comprehend what the sensations meant? Had it been worse so close to the door? Was that significant? Was she meant to exit? Take a way out through the door and into the lake?

Ollie led her along the promenade and sat down at a table outside The Metropole, a café restaurant close to the steamboat terminal. He ordered a coffee and a beer.

He broke the silence. ‘So, I’m still curious about your interpretation of the metaphorical door?’

‘I suppose, being an optimist and an opportunist, for me, it would have to be an invite, or an open door to something new,’ she said, watching his mouth uncurl into a smile.

‘I’m glad you said that. Reading your face down at the lake, for a minute, I was worried it suggested something else.’

She sipped her mug of coffee. ‘Why should it?’ she said, intrigued. ‘You don’t know me.’

‘Well, no, but for us, there are plenty of inviting opportunities. We have much to offer one another.’ His eyes sparkled.

Gina felt a faint rush of blood in her cheeks. Well, at least he wasn’t being as flippant or glib like he’d been previously. One side of her mouth rose as her mind churned. How was she supposed to interpret his suggestion? Did he mean property or relationship? Why did he emphasise the word ‘inviting’? Or was he just being his cocky, and now, smutty self? Or, was she propagating some kind of wish-fulfilment within herself? She rubbed her ear, he was well aware she was in a relationship with Max and she had told him she was having a crisis right now, so it was unlikely he would be making a pass, so she decided to play safe with property.

‘Of course, you did say in your email, to come along and see the villas for yourself.’

‘Yes. Come along when you have time. Here’s my card.’

Chapter 7

Creeping in to the apartment Gina could just hear a clock ticking in the kitchen. She tiptoed down the hall and peeked her head slowly around the bedroom door. She waited a while and watched her mother’s chest take slow, shallow breaths, then gently closed the door.

Again, she tapped her father’s avatar on her phone, letting it ring. He didn’t answer. She blew out a deflated sigh. She texted him again. This time her message was less polite. Reaching for the kettle, she realised it was still quite warm. Her mother had, it seemed, been up and gone back to bed.

She pulled out her phone and the business card Ollie had handed her. Might as well , she thought, keying in his number.

Five minutes later, as she reached the foyer on the ground floor, she was pleased Ollie was standing outside the main door.

‘I’ve probably got an hour or two at most,’ she said, gazing at his untamed hair caught by the breeze. ‘How far are we going?’ she asked as they crossed the road and he led her through wrought-iron gates and down the side of his parents’ large lakeside villa.

‘I can take the car if you’d prefer. It takes about fifteen, twenty minutes to walk along the lake.’

Gina wrapped her hair behind her ear. ‘No, walking will be fine, I love to walk,’ she said and her eyes danced at the site of the house and gardens from the front. ‘Wow, this is impressive. How beautiful.’

‘This is my parents’ place.’

‘It’s vast. And what a magnificent style, traditional.’ She stopped briefly to take it all in.

Although it was just across from her parents, Gina had paid little attention to what was behind the well-tended foliage and walled garden. It was a villa of almost mansion proportions, she observed, with at least four floors if you included the attic rooms and possibly five with the cellar. Its pitched roof was elaborated by a majestic gable leading the eye down the centre of the property. Each window had been decorated with its own small Juliet balcony in black delicate ironwork and shuttered in a pale sage-green, adding to the symmetry of the enormous building.

‘Yes, I grew up here,’ he said, pointing to the other side of the road next to her parents’ block. ‘My own apartment is over there but I have lots of fond memories from my childhood. Did you grow up in Switzerland?’

‘No. Nowhere as beautiful as this.’ She shook her head. ‘Hammersmith is where I grew up. We moved to a house in Fulham when I was about five. Then my parents came out to Switzerland while I was at uni. My brother was in his last year at school. We used to visit my grandparents though. They lived in the centre of Clarens,’ she told him as they strode past a covered swimming pool and towards another wrought-iron gate that led out to the lake path.

‘I’m surprised we haven’t met before now.’

‘Perhaps we have.’

‘Mmm, possible. I did go to school in England. St Edwards in Oxford,’ he said.

‘Oh, Teddie’s.’ Gina gave a nod. ‘I know a few guys from there. Richard Branson’s daughter was the very first female head prefect or something.’

Ollie unlocked the gate. ‘Yes, girls are quite a recent phenomenon for St Edwards.’

‘Such a shame to be locked up in Oxford when you’ve had all this around you,’ Gina said, stepping out on to the path and into immediate warmth. ‘This quayside is such a suntrap.’

‘I liked Oxford, it’s a beautiful city. And it has the Thames.’

‘To be honest, as I recall, I’ve only ever been there once.’

They strolled in the direction of Territet, another small community the other side of the lake, east of Montreux.

Gina couldn’t forget her problems but she could blot them out just for an hour. Even Ollie seemed quite personable right now. She told him how she had started her business and about the London property market. She had to admit, his London site sounded nearly as exciting as the Swiss one and could possibly be months away from completion rather than the years she had imagined.