Seriously, the only lipstick I would wear is Chantecaille, Han. Or Nars at a pinch. Number Seven just doesn’t cut it—I mean, what’s it made out of? Engine oil? And barely any pigment.
Hannah looks down at the lipstick she’s holding, the worn stub of the deep rose Chantecaille that April gave her for Christmas so long ago, and for a moment the stabbing pain of the past feels very close and very real. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath.
Then, she snaps the cap back on the lipstick, shoulders her bag, and shuts the door of the staff room behind her.
“Big night out?” Robyn says in surprise as she passes the till. Hannah smiles and shrugs.
“Not really, just a quick drink with an old friend. But he’s very smart, I always feel dowdy whenever we meet up. He’s a cosmetic surgeon.”
“Probably earns a packet?” Robyn raises an eyebrow, and Hannah grins and nods. “Well, if he’s single…”
“He’s single,” Hannah says, but she can’t imagine Hugh and Robyn together. Truth to tell, she can’t really imagine Hugh with anyone—he’s just… Hugh.
“Well, have a good one,” Robyn says as Hannah moves towards the door. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“What does that rule out?”
“Not much,” Robyn says, and grins, and Hannah laughs and opens the shop door, setting the bell jangling, and makes her way out into the chilly night air.
It’s been raining while she was in the shop, and now the pavement is dark and slick, reflecting the jeweled shop lights back at her, and the glitter of the streetlamps, and the moving car headlights.
At the end of the road she crosses, then turns right, and then left, feeling her breath frost in the night air. At the junction she stops, waiting for the Walk signal. There is a limousine idling at the lights on the opposite side of the road, two cars back, blacked-out rear windows, and Hannah is just wondering whether it’s a celebrity or a hen party when the rear window opens a crack and someone peers out, wiping condensation from the glass. And Hannah’s heart almost stops.
The woman inside—the woman inside… it’s April.
For a moment Hannah just stands, frozen, staring, and then she realizes that the lights have changed and the green man is blinking in her face, telling her it’s her last chance to cross.
April. April. It can’t be. But it is—surely it is?
“April!” she calls, but the woman has wound the window back up. Her heart racing, Hannah almost runs across the pedestrian crossing. She reaches the pavement and instead of turning right, to Hugh’s practice, she turns left, hurrying up the line of cars to where the limousine is waiting. But before she reaches it, before she can knock on the glass, demand to speak to the occupant in the back seat, there is a revving of engines and the line begins to move.
Damn. Damn.
“April!” she calls helplessly as the limousine shifts into second gear and picks up speed, but it’s too late. The car is gone. As it disappears around the corner, though, she knows. It wasn’t April. It never is. For this is not the first time this has happened—not the first time she’s seen a cropped blond head through a crowd and hurried towards it, her heart pounding, to find a teenage boy or a forty-something woman looking at her in surprise.
It is never April, she reflects as she turns slowly on her heel and retraces her steps back to the junction, back in the direction of Hugh’s practice. It never will be. But she will never stop looking.
* * *
IT’S EXACTLY SIX AS SHE rounds the corner and finds herself in front of Hugh’s practice—a discreetly shiny black front door that could be just a residential address, were it not for the small brass sign that says THE PRACTICE, and underneath it the names of Hugh and his two partners in engraved Garamond font.
She pushes the bell and when a receptionist answers says, into the grille, “Hannah de Chastaigne, here to see Hugh Bland.”
“I’m afraid he’s finished for the day.” The woman’s voice crackles back through the intercom. “Did you have an appointment?”
“Oh, I’m not here for a consultation. This is personal. He’s expecting me.”
“Just one moment,” the voice says, and then the line goes dead. Hannah stands there, waiting, for a surprisingly long time. Just as she is wondering if she should try the front door, or ring again, there is the noise of feet on the stairs inside and the gleaming black door swings open.
It’s Hugh, tall and immaculate in a long camel-hair trench coat, tweed waistcoat, and perfectly tailored herringbone suit. He is smiling, and when he sees Hannah he opens his arms.