A French Affair - Jennifer Bohnet Page 0,16

sigh of relief. Thank goodness for that, a truce. Hopefully it would last. ‘Your English is very good by the way.’

She gave into temptation and took a croissant out of the bag. All the aggro had given her an appetite.

‘Did Nigel outline his plans for the campsite to you when he was over here?’ she asked before biting into the flaky patisserie.

‘No. We ’ave a brief telephone conversation when he offer me the job, but we’ve not yet met face to face to discuss things. Basically after I’d accepted, he told me to do what was necessary to get the site back up and running in the shortest time span possible, but nothing significant was mentioned,’ Alain said. ‘Other than warning me he was sending his right hand woman over to assist.’

Belinda let the interesting fact that Nigel and Alain had not met up to discuss things slip into the back of her mind. ‘Okay. The brief he gave me was to go upmarket. He wants to get into the glamping business.’

‘What the ’ell is glamping?’

‘Seriously? I can’t believe you haven’t heard of glamping. Where have you been for the last few years? Outer Mongolia?’

‘Africa,’ Alain muttered.

‘Oh. Anyway, I liken glamping to camping with attitude,’ Belinda said, wondering what he’d been doing over there. Working for Médecins Sans Frontières? Possible, although his bedside manner would have needed some tuition. He was fit enough to have been a mercenary in some war-torn state. But whatever had taken him to Africa was none of her business. ‘Permanent tents with modern-day equipment, self-contained facilities and comfortable beds,’ she continued. ‘A couple of modern luxury pods.’

‘Is he serious?’ Alain raised his eyebrows as he looked at her.

‘Oh yes. He reckons that’s the way to go – aspirational and upmarket.’

‘I don’t—’ Alain stopped. ‘The campsite does not need pods. The site, it ’as always been a family-friendly one, nothing upmarket about it. A place for families to relax. Kids to be carefree and run wild.’

Belinda looked at him, waiting for him to add the phrase ‘when my parents ran the place’, but he didn’t. Briefly she wondered why? Time to let him know she knew.

‘How long did your parents own the site for?’

‘About fifteen years.’ The look Alain gave her was defiant. ‘They bought it when they retired and enjoyed running it.’

‘Must be difficult for you, seeing how run-down it is now. Did it all just become too much for them?’

Alain nodded. ‘The fact I wasn’t around for some years made it worse. The so-called manager they employed basically took the money for five years and ran. To say they were pleased when Nigel offered to ’elp—’ He shrugged.

‘The thing is, these days most people have homes full of stuff: TVs, computers, dishwashers, power showers, fridges, hot tubs, everything on tap. The idea of coming away on holiday and roughing it—’ Belinda shrugged. ‘Well, that appeals to some people, but there is definitely a market for more comfortable holidays. For being at one with nature in comfort. It’ll still be a great family holiday destination when we’ve updated it – only better,’ Belinda said.

‘It’s going to cost tens of thousands of euros,’ Alain said. ‘Not to mention months of work. Much longer than the agreed agenda.’

‘Is that a problem for you?’

For no longer than a split second, a look of discomfort flitted across Alain’s face, gone so quickly that afterwards Belinda wondered if she’d imagined it.

Alain nodded. ‘Yes. We ’ave to open as quickly as possible. Said that’s why he was sending you over, to speed things up.’

‘Nigel is a businessman, he knows it takes time to recuperate an investment. I doubt that he’s expecting this place to turn any sort of profit for at least three to five years. With the amount of money we’re going to spend on new equipment and facilities, personally I’d say it’s probably going to be even longer.’

Alain muttered something under his breath that Belinda didn’t quite catch, before forcing a smile on his face. ‘You ’ave details in that folder of yours?’

‘Yes. Is your plan on the computer?’

Alain nodded.

‘Let’s print it out and then we can take both of them with us when we do a site inspection,’ Belinda said, relieved when Alain opened up the plan on the computer and pressed the print button without grumbling at her.

Before they started to walk the site, Belinda insisted Alain show her the house she’d seen yesterday. ‘Manager’s house? Is it habitable?’

Alain nodded. ‘Yes. Needs a damn good clean though.’