Hot Basque: A French Summer Novel 2 Read Online Free PDF Page B

months could well turn out to be crucial. She needed to be free to act, not overwhelmed with responsibilities that would hamper her movements. Something was happening that she hadn’t planned for, she sensed it, felt a shiver of premonition that she was on the brink of a new, unexpected chapter in her life, in which timing would be of the essence.
    She walked into the bedroom, grabbed her tablet from the bed and clicked on the photo album. There. The evening at the concert. Julian, Klaus, Susie, the rest of the gang. And a new member, a recent arrival, a different face in their glittering circle. He was thirty-five, divorced, the chief executive of a car manufacturing company. But not just any old cars. Dream-mobiles, cars that made every man’s eyes light up like little boys in front of the Christmas tree. His clients were Hollywood stars and Arabian sheiks.
    He was Italian and his dark sexy eyes had followed Annabel the whole evening. His name was Claudio.
     
     
     

4 TOULOUSE, FRANCE. MARCH
     
    Caroline had done an hour’s work, then grabbed a quick sandwich.
    Now, mug of coffee in her hand and determination on her brow, she walked briskly into the living room where her laptop was set up on a small writing desk near the window. She cleared a space. The laptop went onto a chair, the vase of freesias was removed to a shelf. She picked up the photograph of herself and Edward at Villa Julia, pressed it to her chest, made kissing noises in the direction of the ceiling, and carried it into the kitchen out of sight.
    Good. She opened her briefcase, took out notepads, copies of past exam papers and several pencils. She liked using pencils to write. She’d read somewhere that Ernest Hemingway used to have specially sharpened pencils lined up on the café tables in Paris when he was writing his novels.
    Focus Caroline. You are not Ernest Hemingway. You are a student preparing for exams.
    The first thing she did was to make a list. Then she leaned back in the chair, chewed a pencil and stared at it.
    Last August when she had put her proposal to the Willowdale Approval Committee, they had been unanimous. Margaret’s opinion was ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’; the Rayburns thought the idea was a stroke of genius; Birdie informed everyone for the umpteenth time that Caroline, being gifted with superhuman intelligence, could succeed at whatever she put her hand to. Caroline was tempted to say she’d changed her mind and decided to set up as a high class escort girl just to see how far Birdie’s loyalty would stretch.
    ‘So darling? What do you think? Am I cut out to be a teacher?’
    Edward’s response had been to bound across the terrace and swing her round three times.
    ‘I take it that’s a ‘yes’?’ said Caroline when she’d got her breath back.
    The summer drew to an end. September arrived and Edward and Caroline fell into a new routine of weekend visits. It was usually Caroline who would get the plane to Toulouse on a Friday night, going to the airport straight from her TEFL classes in London and returning by the early flight on Monday.
    She had found herself enjoying being a student again. The linguistic theory fascinated her scientific side, and after her initial nervousness at stepping into a classroom she discovered she was able to relax into the practical part as well. True to form, she was diligent and hard-working, getting high marks in her essays and preparing her lesson plans with meticulous attention to detail. The months had flown by. And now the moment of truth was looming.
    She frowned. Why had she doodled an exotic flower around the first item on her list? The flower had crept up to the top of the page, turned into a branch and sprouted three pairs of high-heeled shoes. Shoes. Maybe she needed to buy some new shoes, her first job interview was coming up next week, right here in Toulouse. The thought set her nerves jangling. Would it be in English or French? Should she wear a suit, or