‘Believe me, he’s crushing hard on her.’ She picked a bunch of grapes from a vine as we passed, putting one in her mouth. ‘He’s been showing off to try and impress her since we got here. Climbing onto that rock face at the Gorges d’Héric? That whole standing on the edge of the cliff thing, the day we arrived? He was trying to impress her. Why else would he do something like that?’

‘He’s always been a little bit strange, I suppose.’

‘And letting Daniel tag along with their little gang?’

‘I thought that was quite sweet of them, allowing him to join in.’

‘But you know they’re only doing it to get in Lucy’s good books, right?’

‘Oh.’ I felt a protective pang for my son, always the last to be picked for every team. ‘I thought they were just being nice.’

‘Afraid not.’ She popped another grape into her mouth. ‘It’s all about the hormones.’

Chapter 46

46

I thought about that for a moment, fanning my face with my straw hat.

‘She doesn’t fully realise it yet, you know. The effect she has on boys.’

Izzy turned to me with a raised eyebrow, chewing a grape.

‘You sure about that?’

‘Yes,’ I said, with more conviction than I felt. ‘She’s still only a couple of years on from being a little girl. My little girl. People look at her now – the way she looks now – and tend to forget that.’

We separated when we got to the arched gateway that led from the vineyard into the gardens, Izzy heading straight up to the villa and the kitchen. I promised to join her after checking on Sean and the kids and took the white gravel pathway to the right, towards the pool. I had been gone for more than twenty minutes and no doubt my husband would be wondering where I had got to.

He was in the pool, splashing around with Daniel, Lucy and Odette plus an assortment of inflatables, the kids squealing and laughing as they played a game of piggy-in-the-middle. I took the long way around the infinity pool, to pass by where Russ was stretched out on a lounger with a John Grisham novel and a small green bottle of French beer.

‘Nice to see the kids playing so well together,’ I said.

‘Hmm,’ he said, taking a swig from his bottle.

‘Oh, where’s Rowan? I was going to ask her something.’

‘She went to make some calls, I think.’ He gestured vaguely in the direction of the house. ‘Work stuff.’

I went back to my sunlounger on the other side of the pool. Sean surfaced from the deep end, brushing his hair back off his forehead.

‘You were gone a long time, Kate,’ he said, batting a beach ball back towards the children.

‘Had a bit of a lie down in the bedroom. To cool off.’