Page 77 of The Honeymoon Affair

‘Huh?’ I look at her bewildered, but Charles laughs and his eyes meet mine.

‘It’s not her first rodeo,’ he says.

‘You’ve been married before?’ I stare at her.

‘Engaged,’ she says.

‘And very recently too.’

‘Well.’ I reach out and grab a glass of champagne from the tray a waiter left on one of the side tables earlier. ‘Nothing is ever as it first seems.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Charles says to her. ‘We’ll get you a perfect ring and make an official announcement.’

‘I rather think that news will be out before you have a chance to do any jewellery shopping,’ I say. ‘There were journalists here tonight, after all. As for social media . . .’ I take out my phone and see I already have loads of notifications. ‘Yup. It’s all over social. So you need to have everything in the open, Charles. Everything.’

‘I will,’ he says.

‘I’ll call my parents as soon as I get home,’ Iseult tells him.

‘Taxi’s here,’ says Celeste. ‘C’mon, Izzy, let’s go.’

Charles wraps his arms around her and kisses her, and I have to turn away. I stare at the fairy on the top of the tree. The lights around her are going on and off so that it looks like she’s winking at me.

Chapter 21

Ariel

Realism can break a writer’s heart.

Salman Rushdie

I’m surprised Iseult left. I’m sure Charles is too. He must have expected that his newly proclaimed fiancée would stay the night with him. The night he and I got engaged, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. We made love three times. But she’s heading home with her cousin and doesn’t seem to care what Charles might want. Everything about this engagement is weird. Everything about this relationship is weird.

Since our split, both Charles and I have seen other people. He went out for a few months with a singer he’d met at an arts festival, and was seeing a music critic for a short time too. But there was certainly no suggestion of him being in love with either Daria or Rowena, and both times the relationship just fizzled out. As for me, I’ve had a busy social life and have met lots of men. But despite going on occasional enjoyable dates, I’ve always compared them to Charles and found them wanting. He once said the same to me.

Maybe that’s why we never actually got around to finalising the divorce. Maybe, deep down, we always expected to get back together.

But if that was ever the case, it’s not now.

He walks back in from the front door, where he was saying goodbye to his new fiancée. I leave him in the living room with a glass of whiskey while I supervise the departure of the catering staff, who’ve already packed up all their equipment. When I return, he’s sitting in one of the comfortable armchairs, his shirt unbuttoned and his bow tie abandoned.

‘One of us had better get a solicitor to file those papers asap,’ I say.

‘That’ll be me,’ says Charles. ‘I’ll get on it right away.’

He’s bursting with the kind of excitement he usually only has on publication day. As for me, I’m still in shock. Perhaps I was wrong to think, however fleetingly, that one day we might get back together, but being married to him, connected to him, has meant we’ve had each other’s backs in a way that no other relationship between us would. There’ll be another relationship now. Him and Iseult. Husband and wife.

But not until we get a divorce.

‘Well, you’ve certainly brought the new year in with a bang.’ I pour myself a glass of red wine from the bottle beside me. ‘I wish you’d warned me.’

‘I didn’t know myself.’

‘You didn’t know?’ I can hardly keep the disbelief from my voice.

‘I mean, I wasn’t sure I’d actually do it. Not because I don’t love her,’ he adds quickly. ‘Because I didn’t think she’d like a fuss. But it was such a lovely opportunity . . .’

‘For her not to say no.’