Daisy James - The Summer House of Happiness - A delightfully feel-good romantic comedy perfect for holiday!

‘The thought of spending eighteen hours a day in a lab, disconnected from our customers, was never part of my dream. I’m sorry, Marianne. I will always be grateful for everything you’ve taught me, but it’s time for me to move on. If Monsieur Gasnier is serious about his threat, then it looks like my future career will not be in France!’

As the realisation dawned that her sojourn in the perfume capital of the world had come to an end, tears collected along her lower lashes, but she brushed them away, uncomfortable with the sympathy on her colleagues’ faces. She knew her reaction was just the shock of everything that had happened that day rather than regret at her decision.

‘I suggest you go home and spend a few days pondering your next step. If I can help in any way, please just ask. Fleurette will accompany you.’

‘No, there’s no need. Jasmine will be there – it’s her day off today and she’s waiting to hear about… well, about what’s happened. I’ll be fine, and thank you for intervening on my behalf. It was very kind of you.’

‘I did nothing you didn’t deserve.’

Gabbie followed Marianne and Fleurette out into the corridor where Jean-Pierre loitered, looking almost as distressed as she felt. She leaned forward to deposit kisses on his cheeks, unable to formulate words of goodbye for fear she would succumb to a deluge of sobbing. She hugged Marianne and Fleurette and, with mixed emotions and a final wave, left the cathedral of fragrant dreams on the Rue de Bouvier for the final time.

It was lunchtime and the pavement cafés buzzed with hungry diners in search of a tasty morsel and a little something to wash it down with. To Gabbie, this part of the town had always seemed to be bathed in a splash of gold, lighting up the shops and restaurants with warmth and welcome. In these picturesque surroundings, she really should have taken advantage of the glamorous social whirl Jasmine seemed to be consumed by, but she’d become so engrossed in her work that she’d had little free time.

Initially, that had suited her fine because she wasn’t in France to gather a wide coterie of like-minded friends with whom to party the night away, only to crawl into the lab the next day to find solace at the bottom of an espresso cup. In fact, the fewer people she let into her life the better as far as she was concerned.

She’d had a number of dates, the most persistent being motorbike fanatic François, but as soon as he’d suggested moving their relationship on to the next level, she had panicked. She’d explained that it wasn’t him, it was her, and refused any more trips along the Corniche on his Harley Davidson. After that she had limited her increasingly infrequent liaisons to just three dates before gently explaining that things weren’t working and suggesting they might want to take someone else to the beach party in Antibes or the cocktail party on their father’s yacht. Occasionally, there had been a guy whom she had thought she could connect with on a deeper level – Rafael for example. But the shattering truth was that loving someone meant getting hurt when the inevitable happened – and top of her list of life skills was self-preservation.

She wished her attic lodgings were further away so she had more time to process the events that had taken place at House of Gasnier that morning. But before she knew it, she was inserting her key into the sunflower-yellow front door and collapsing onto the vintage sofa Jasmine had acquired from the brasserie downstairs when it was being renovated.

‘Hey! You’re back early! How did it go? Am I looking at the new Coco Chanel? What did Monsieur Gasnier say about your fragrance?’ burbled Jasmine, appearing at the door in a pink silk peignoir before heading straight to the fridge for the bottle of champagne she had hidden there the night before.

As tall and slender as a shop-window mannequin, with a choppy, pixie-style haircut that emphasised her sharp cheekbones and ski-slope nose, Jasmine really should have considered a career in fashion rather than as a part-time hostess at the casino in Cannes. Gabbie struggled to understand her friend’s choice, especially when she had graduated top of their class at GIP. Instead, Jasmine had elected to follow her heart and apply as much of her time as possible to following her wealthy boyfriend around the globe as he competed in every yacht race known to the nautical world in search of his elusive first win.

However, as Jasmine often told her, winning was not the point – it was the taking part, especially in the fabulous locations where these races seemed to be held. Marco was chasing his dreams without so much as a backward glance and was one of the most cheerful and generous people Gabbie had met in France – not to mention the fact that he made Jasmine happy too.

‘You don’t need to open the champagne, Jazz, but thanks for the thought.’

‘Why? Did the famous Jules Gasnier have a spectacular lapse of judgement and choose someone else’s fragrance?’

‘No, it’s not…’

Gabbie was suddenly ambushed by a wave of emotion and struggled to formulate a brief synopsis of how she had tossed her future away in the space of five minutes.

‘Gabbie, what’s wrong? Tell me! What’s happened?’

The fear in her friend’s voice brought Gabbie to her senses. Whatever had happened, it was not the end of the world and no one had died. In fact it was the opposite; it was the beginning of something new, something fresh and exciting! She quickly spilled out every detail of her early morning drama in the presence of the eponymous head of the company she no longer worked for.

‘Oh, darling, I’m so sorry,’ sighed Jasmine, her dark eyes scouring Gabbie’s face, distress and sympathy written clearly across her expression. ‘So, what are you going to do? You’ll walk into another job, I’m sure of it. Hey, why don’t you come with me and Marco to Antigua next month for the Caribbean 600 yacht race? We’ll have a ball!’

Gabbie’s heart squeezed at Jasmine’s support and generosity. It was a kind offer, but even if she had wanted to join them, she couldn’t afford the flight and nor did she have enough funds to cover her half of the rent for any length of time. While she knew Jasmine wouldn’t even blink an eye at paying the full cost herself until she got back on her feet, she couldn’t allow her friend to do that. She had always paid her way and that wasn’t going to change.

So what was she going to do?

It wasn’t hard to come up with the answer. She would go home to Devon, a place she loved but which, after her mother’s death, held so many painful memories. Apart from the last couple of months, when she had been working flat-out on her summer fragrance, she had made it a priority to meet up with her father in London, because she knew how difficult it was for him to leave the garage and fly to France. She missed him tremendously, and some of the best times she’d had were when he had flown over to Nice and they’d spent the weekend together, sitting at a pavement café, sipping espressos and soaking up the sunshine, watching the beautiful people promenade and the sleek, shiny yachts glide across the sparkling water of the bay.

She knew he too was still grieving for her beloved mother, but the last time she had seen him, at the beginning of summer, she’d noticed that the sunken shadows underneath his crinkly blue eyes had softened. Relief had rippled through her – after all, he was the only family she had left and she worried about him all the time; about how hard he worked, how much he fretted about his car-maintenance empire and the maelstrom of paperwork and red tape that went with running a small business. When she had mentioned his more relaxed demeanour, her father had told her he’d taken on a new mechanic to help him meet increased demand and to step up as his deputy while he was sunning himself on the French Riviera.