Life is a Cabernet by Jan Moran

Author:Jan Moran [Moran, Jan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jan Moran

7

For days Juliana ignored Henri’s telephone calls, despite her landlord’s pleading to call the ‘nice gentleman’ back. Henri Laurent was many things, but he was not that, Juliana assured her.

Juliana lay on her chenille-covered bed staring dully at the ceiling. Caterina had brought an extra set of clothes to her at the hotel and drove her home the following day after work. Her friend had listened to her rant about Henri, commiserating with her as good friends do.

Henri had misled her—surely for devious motives, she decided—and she’d lost a client because she’d crossed the professional relationship line. She had only herself to blame. Her glamorous world didn’t seem so dazzling anymore, and she wished she could crawl into a cave until her bruised pride and broken heart mended.

Now, with her anger spent, Juliana blinked back tears of despair, wishing Henri had been the man she had imagined he was.

She began to feel sorry for herself. Her sweet Alfonso, the only man who would probably ever love her, had died. However, she was not alone. Many men and women had given their lives in the Second World War and the Korean War, so the country was full of women like her who were widowed or would never marry.

The radio often blared statistics of unmarried women, and it was sobering to her. Would she end up like Mrs. Morales, running a boarding house and trying to mother every young woman who passed through her doorway?

Turning on her side, Juliana punched her feather pillow with a vengeance. But was a life like her landlord’s really so bad? If the alternative was a man like Henri, she’d be just fine on her own. She didn’t need a man in life, thank you very much.

She huffed in disgust. It was official; she was twenty-seven and now entering old-maidsville.

That was far better than being married to a duplicitous man.

She felt sorry for Anne and Beatrice, for having a father like that. Recalling the day she’d been at Chateau Laurent, she thought he had seemed genuine around them.

But if she were honest with herself, she’d had several questions along the way. Why had he appeared so suddenly in the valley and bought one of the largest properties around, only to hide his family away behind locked gates and doors? No one locked up their homes like that here. Well, hardly anyone. What was he hiding?

Restless, she turned over again and laced her fingers behind her neck, studying the ceiling. How had he acquired that strange French-American accent he had? And why had he left Boston?

He’d told her he’d gone to boarding school and then joined the war effort in Europe. Yet, he never talked about the war, his rank, or his branch. Every other man she knew who’d been in the armed forces had something to say about it. There had been nothing in his home to suggest he’d ever been at war.

Nothing.

That was suspicious in itself. No, there were too many clouds around Henri Laurent, and she didn’t want to weather the storm.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.