Follow Your Star, Jennifer Bohnet [best fiction novels to read txt] 📗

or rather today. She glanced at the bedside clock. ‘I’m sorry I woke you.’

‘If you’re sure you’re OK,’ Patsy said. ‘I could stay with you for a bit?’

‘I’m fine. Go back to bed,’ Nanette ordered. ‘But leave the light on please.’

Patsy glanced anxiously at her before leaving and closing the door.

Once she was alone, Nanette sat on the edge of the bed and took some deep breaths, trying to get her shaking body under control. It was never easy to banish the apprehension and terror that the nightmares brought.

Sitting there, watching a moth seemingly mesmerized by the bedside light, flying frantically round and round, Nanette’s thoughts ricocheted in a similar manner over her latest nightmare.

These terrifying dreams had been an irregular part of her nights for nearly three years now. Ever since the car accident in which she – and Zachary Ewart – had nearly died.

The therapist, whom Vanessa had persuaded her to see when they began, had been right when she’d said they would happen less and less as time went on. But tonight’s nightmare had been truly terrifying. As bad as any she’d ever had. Slowly, as she sat there, the shaking stopped and the feeling of devastation retreated into her subconscious. But she knew there had been an extra dimension tonight – something that had disappeared as she’d woken up.

As she’d hurtled down that slope in the path of the avalanche, screaming in terror, she hadn’t been alone. A shadowy figure had been alongside urging her on.

‘Faster, faster. Remember, remember.…’

Remember what? Despondently Nanette replayed the nightmare in her mind, trying to come up with some positive memory from the dream. But her brain refused to co-operate.

Wearily, she slipped under the duvet and reached out to turn off the light. Hopefully the rest of the night would pass peacefully. Now the decision was made and she was going to return to Monaco, she would need all her strength to cope with the coming weeks.

The Mediterranean was sparkling under a warm March sun as the plane landed and taxied along the landing strip of Nice Cote d’Azur airport that ran alongside the edge of the sea. Nanette took a deep breath.

After several weeks of frenzied preparations, Vanessa and Ralph had left for Brazil and she was finally back on French soil. Whatever the next few months had in store for her she could only pray that the turbulence of her past wouldn’t intrude into the future.

She undid her seatbelt and began to gather their things together. The twins were already on their feet excited at the prospect of the next part of the journey.

Walking through the arrivals hall Nanette put on her large sunglasses. She knew from experience that there was always the odd photographer, or even a group of paparazzi, lurking around the airport in the hope of snapping someone famous on their way out to the helicopter pad for transfer to Monaco.

She knew she was unlikely to be of any interest, but hiding her eyes behind the dark glass made her feel better.

But it wasn’t the paparazzi who greeted her as she walked towards the helicopter check-in desk: it was a large billboard advertising the Monaco Grand Prix standing next to it. A smaller one alongside had a film-star-style close-up of the Heel’s face and the words ‘Is this Zac’s year?’ emblazoned over it.

Nanette handed over their flight reservation tickets to the desk clerk, turning her back on the poster and trying to shut its image and the memories it evoked out of her mind.

‘Great,’ Pierre said excitedly. ‘We’ll be here this year for the Grand Prix. Do you think Dad will be able to get us some passes for the pit lane?’

‘I shouldn’t be surprised,’ Nanette said, with a sinking feeling. She’d totally forgotten their time in Monaco would clash with the Grand Prix. That local hero Zachary Ewart would naturally be in town.

‘Well, I don’t want a ticket,’ Olivia said. ‘I hate the noise those cars make. It hurts my ears.’

Inwardly Nanette agreed with Olivia. The last thing she wanted too was a ticket to anything that involved Zachary Ewart.

The twins clambered happily into their seats in the helicopter leaving Nanette to sit alongside the pilot. As the turbines screamed, the rotors beat the air and the helicopter took off in a rush of noise, Nanette took some deep, steadying breaths.

The pilot glanced at her sympathetically.

‘First trip? You look a bit nervous. It’s only fifteen minutes.’

Nanette shook her head. ‘No. It’s not my first trip but I am nervous.’

Staring out through the window at the coastline that had once been so familiar to her, Nanette didn’t add that it wasn’t the flight she was nervous about, but the direction her life was taking.

After landing at the heli-pad in Fontvielle, a downtown extension of Monaco built on reclaimed land, Nanette and the twins took a taxi to Mathieu’s apartment on Boulevard Albert 1st overlooking the old port. Within minutes the twins were knocking on the door of Mathieu’s ninth floor apartment.

To Nanette’s surprise, it was his father, Jean-Claude, who opened the door to them.

‘Bonjour mes petits and welcome,’ he said, hugging the twins and giving Nanette a light kiss on each cheek.

‘Where’s Daddy?’ Olivia asked disappointedly.

‘He’ll be here later, poppet,’ Jean-Claude said. ‘He’s had to take care of some business this afternoon. You two can take your things through to your rooms while I show Nanette hers. Tea and biscuits on the balcony in ten minutes.’

Once the twins were safely out of earshot, Jean-Claude said to Nanette, ‘Mathieu offers his apologies but something came up that he couldn’t get out of. He hopes to be here later this evening. In the meantime, he’s asked me to take care of things. Help you settle in, give you keys and things. And I’ll stay tonight in case he doesn’t get back.’

He picked up Nanette’s suitcase.

‘You haven’t been to this apartment before, have you?’

Nanette shook her head. ‘No, Mathieu had a place up in Monte Carlo itself the last