Page 43

FORTY-TWO FOUR YEARS EARLIER

Amanda’s sister, Bella, comes through. Five thousand pounds. “No need to pay me back,” she’d apparently said to Amanda, which I can tell upset Amanda more than Bella asking her to return it would have.

Tara was a different undertaking, I know that now. I never really worked out how to breach her defenses, or at least, every time I got close that daughter of hers would tug her back the other way, and Tara didn’t love me enough to resist it.

Amanda sees me off on Friday morning. She touches my chest with her hand and says, “I hope it goes OK. Just call if you need anything. And here.” She hands me a Tupperware box. Inside the box is what looks like a homemade sandwich, a banana, and a bag of crisps. “For the train.”

I smile and draw her to me for an embrace. “You are so thoughtful,” I say. “You are literally just the best.” I kiss her on the forehead and then I head down the road toward the spot a ten-minute walk from here where my Tesla has been parked at a charging port all this time.

I collect Martha from St. Pancras station.

She’s standing outside the terminal in a soft blue overcoat, jeans, and boots, a pair of oversized sunglasses tucked into her curls and a smart weekend bag looped over the crook of her arm.

She breaks into a dazzling smile when she sees me and almost runs toward the curb.

She looks beyond adorable, and I cannot believe my luck.

“Oh my goodness,” she says, leaning in to kiss me hard and urgently on the lips, “I have missed you so much. I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to this. It’s literally all that’s kept me going the past week.”

She’s aglow. I love it. I love the energy that spills from her. It’s golden and it’s contagious and it immediately lifts me up and out of the gloomy place in which I’ve been dwelling since Tara kicked me out.

We listen to music as we drive. The sun shines and Martha’s hand sits on my leg. She says, “So, how’ve you been?”

“Busy,” I say, throwing her a warm smile. “I’ve been busy. I’ve got a new job. Director of client liaison for a hospitality training company.”

This is a real job. I did really apply for it. I didn’t get an interview, but the description was tantalizing:

We are looking for a dynamic and charismatic people person with a plethora of experience working in the hospitality sector, to lead a team of twenty-five hardworking professionals traveling all four corners of the UK to recruit, oversee, train, and advise some of the most exciting new hotels, restaurants, and bars in the business.

Hours are flexible, with a lot of working from home and last-minute traveling.

This position would suit someone without too many domestic commitments, who has a can-do attitude and can be both a leader and a friend.

Car required. Salary ￡88,000 p/a plus benefits and annual bonus.

It was perfect. Absolutely the dream job, in every respect. But the holes in my CV are always going to be a problem when it comes to conventional work.

“Wow!” says Martha now. “That sounds incredible. When do you start?”

“Next week,” I reply. “Monday. So I am going to make the most of every minute of the next few days.”

“I’m really happy for you, Al, truly. That’s brilliant. But God, how the hell are we ever going to see each other now, between your fancy new job and my shop? It’s going to be crazy!”

The question is asked lightly, but it absolutely gives me my perfect opening. I sigh heavily. “I have been worrying about that too. It almost made me turn down the offer.”

She cocks her head at me. “Seriously?”

“Yes,” I answer softly. “Seriously.”

She squeezes my leg and smiles. “Sounds like you’re getting serious, Mr. Grey.”

“Well,” I say frankly, “I am. Aren’t you?”

She doesn’t reply, but I can tell by the way she smiles as she turns to look out of the window that I’ve just made her heart sing.

Later that evening, we sit side by side in the cocktail lounge at our beautiful hotel.

Martha is wearing a black sweater with short puffed sleeves and a pair of fitted black trousers.

Her hair is in a topknot, and she has on big golden drop earrings and red lipstick, and she looks, in the soft light of the boudoir-style table lamps, like a Hollywood starlet.

I glance around and see immediately that we are by far the chicest, most beautiful couple in the place.

Martha has ordered a Dark and Stormy and I have ordered a Negroni and I’m not looking at the prices.

Not tonight. Not at all. This is all paying for itself, ultimately.

It’s all for the greater good, to get me out of Amanda’s sad, poky South London flat and into Martha’s glossy-magazine Kentish cottage.

“So,” I say, after we’ve made a toast to each other, “how are we going to navigate around our working hours now that I’ve got a proper job?

It is mainly working from home, but a lot of it will be on the road, nights away, quite often short notice.

And listen, we could make it work, I know we could, but it would be a compromised existence.

And I was thinking…” I glance at Martha, just to make sure I’m not jumping the gun, but I can tell by the way she’s staring at me so hopefully with her huge blue eyes that she’s willing me to say it.

“We could try a bit of… living together? Hmm?”

“You mean at mine?”

“Well, I guess it would have to be? Because of the boys. Because of the shop.”

She nods and looks thoughtful. “Yes,” she says, tempering her response.

“Yes. It would have to be. And I guess… I mean, the boys know you now. They seem OK around you. And there are two basins in my en suite.” She tips her head toward me and smiles.

“And actually, I do kind of hate it when I’m not with you, if that doesn’t sound pathetically codependent and needy.

” I see a soft pink flush flood her cheeks and I take her hand and smile.

“Er, yes, actually that sounds horrific, and I am about to run for the hills because the last thing in the whole world I want is for a beautiful, loving, brilliant woman to tell me that she misses me when I’m not around.”

Gratifyingly she laughs and I get a lurch in the pit of my belly as I sense the deal about to close, the door to the next room of my life starting to swing open.

“I have to be honest,” she continues. “I had already thought about it. I’d been thinking of suggesting it. I’m glad you asked first, though, so I can feel at least a little bit cool about how much I like you.”

She laughs again and I lean in toward her so that my forehead is touching hers, and then I gather her hands into mine and I say, “There is no way on earth, Martha, that you like me more than I like you, because I like you so, so much. More than I have ever liked anyone in my life.”

She tips her head up so that her lips touch mine and I swear, I am not a sexual being, I really am not, but the charge that passes between us at that moment nearly explodes me in half from the inside out and it’s all I can do not to drag her up to our room, but I don’t because I have put down a ￡100 deposit on our six-course dinner.

She pulls away after a moment and I look at her through narrowed eyes. “This is going to be amazing,” I say. “You and me. The future. We are going to light up the world.”

“You think?”

“I don’t think. I know.”