“Start this up again, Daan.” He hears the accusation in her voice.
“Well, yes.” He shrugs and hands her the plate of eggs and toast. He hasn’t made one for himself. He hasn’t got any appetite at the moment. He watches her eat, which she does unhurriedly and deliberately. He thinks she is drawing out the process on purpose, which annoys him. He glances at his watch.
“Are you going somewhere?”
“What?”
“I saw your case in the bedroom. I wondered if you are going on holiday.”
“No, well. Probably. I was thinking of it. Maybe I’ll take off next week. I need a break.”
“Because of the stuff you are going through?” she asks, smiling.
“Right. Do you want to take a shower?” He’s struggling to be polite now. He needs her to take the hint.
It appears she finally has when she replies, “I think I’ll shower back at my place.”
He watches her start to slowly gather up her clothes, her bag, get dressed. He counts the seconds. He’s never good with women who want to outstay their welcome, but he’s finding it particularly trying today. It takes all his self-control not to shove her down the lift shaft.
“Daan, tell me something, and be honest about it. Are you married?” She throws out the question when she is at the door. She has clearly sensed his impatience, his indifference. He sighs; what does he have to lose now.
“I was,” he replies. “Yes, Fiona, I was but I’m not anymore.”
33
Fiona
Fiona had wanted to die the moment she realized she had been having an affair with her best friend’s husband. Literally, she wanted to curl up in a ball and stop breathing. Stop being. It was too much. It was so unfair. So cruel. She didn’t know what to do with the information. Who should she tell? Who could she tell? Under the circumstances, who could she trust?
She first met Daan when she went to pitch for Mrs. Federova’s interiors project. It was in the foyer, just as she was leaving, he was arriving. “Met” is probably a generous description of the interaction. She clapped eyes on him as he swept past her; he gave her a polite nod of acknowledgment that she was sharing his space. It took everything she had not to openly gape. It was as though he cast a spell.
The moment she left the building she’d started searching through her dating apps that made suggestions based on geographical vicinity. She didn’t really hold out much hope that he would appear on any of the listings. Not a man like that. Too rich, too handsome. He wouldn’t have to try to find women online—they would be queuing up to date him in real life. Yet she searched because she felt compelled. Even a minuscule chance was some sort of chance. She swiped past face after face; ruthlessly her finger moved left, left, left behind. Then, when she was searching her third app, she found him. She could hardly believe her eyes, but it was definitely him. She might have seen him for only a moment, but he was hard to forget.
He had posted three pictures. One of him on a boat, all tanned and vibrant; another in a suit, serious but no tie, open-neck shirt, the suggestion of rebel; the third a close-up. She zoomed in. Examining his perfection in every pixel. She didn’t use this particular app that often. It was known to be one where people looking for uncomplicated hookups tended to post. Fiona wanted more than uncomplicated, despite what she told Leigh and all her other friends, despite her insistence that she was married to her job and was way past “all that romance nonsense.” The truth was, Fiona remained hopeful that she would find a proper boyfriend, a soul mate, a partner. Yeah, it was a case of optimism over experience, but she had never quite been able to crush the dream. Fiona ached for what Leigh had. A devoted husband, a cheerful home, maybe even kids. Not biological ones, not anymore, that was unlikely as she was in her forties but there was adoption, fostering, stepchildren. She was open. So, Fiona didn’t often use this app because while it wasn’t advertised as such, her own experience and anecdotal evidence from her other single friends suggested the men on this site didn’t want commitment. Worse, some already had it, elsewhere. Fiona chose to ignore the red flag, and she swept right.
She waited outside the luxury apartment for over an hour hoping against hope that he might respond. She stared up at the building shimmering in the sunlight and marveled at the fact he was inside, so close, but felt thwarted that he was still so far. Unless he responded, he would remain forever out of reach. Would he respond? If so, when? Should she wait here or go about her business? A watched kettle never boiled and yet wasn’t this fate? What were the chances of seeing someone as delicious and then being able to track him down so swiftly? Slim. Negligible. But she had; she felt it was meant to be. That is what people said, didn’t they? In their wedding speeches and things. In the end. It was meant to be. The feeling was bolstered by the fact that particular day she happened to be wearing a very flattering dress from Reiss and high shoes. She rarely bothered with heels in London nowadays, but her legs were her best feature and she’d been waxed yesterday. That all seemed a lot like fate. Or at the very least luck. She would take either. Her profile picture was flattering. Her hair fell in waves across half her face, which was at once slimming and provocative; she peeped out from the curtain of hair, like a burlesque dancer might peek out from behind heavy scarlet velvet drapes.
She really needed to get back to her desk, start thinking about tackling Mrs. Federova’s pitch proposal, but she held her faith, screwed up her courage and stayed put. She waited patiently for a further twenty minutes, telling herself she would give up at half past. There had to be a cut-off point. She almost exploded with delight when she saw the tick and the icon asking if she was available to chat.
Did we just meet?
She dithered. Would he think she was some sort of stalker if she admitted they had? Would he be scared off? Or would he admire her efficiency, her opportunistic nature? No one was overly syrupy about dating apps nowadays; pragmatism beat romanticism every time, so she replied:
Yes. I was in your foyer earlier. I have a client there.
She didn’t, not strictly speaking, she had a potential client, however, that level of nuance had no place in dating-app chat. She wanted to present herself as successful and purposeful, trusted. She waited a moment, but he didn’t respond. She wondered whether she had lost him. Already? It was possible. Bitter experience had shown that the first few moments of online chat could smother things before they had even spluttered into life. People were ruthless. Impatient. Quickly she tapped:
I saw you in the foyer and thought you were worth hunting down.
The use of the word hunt was a gamble. Would it excite him? Intrigue him? It was a thin line between sexy, go-getting woman and desperate weirdo.
Are you a genuine redhead?
She did not hesitate. Yes.
I suppose I have to take your word for that.
I can prove it.
He replied with two love-heart-eyes emojis. One might have shown some level of sincerity, two showed appetite.
Are you free now?
It was hard for Fiona to tell herself that their first liaison met her expectations, which while only recently formed, were crystal. On the plus side, he was polite, he offered her a drink, she accepted even though she normally avoided drinking through the day. She accepted because she needed something to calm her nerves; yes, she was game, but she was also human and this whole encounter while entirely exciting was vaguely terrifying. He made her a gin and tonic. A strong one. He was breathtakingly handsome, and the apartment was one of the most impressive she had ever seen even in her professional life, and so much more impressive than anything any of her other dates had ever lived in. She knew she was getting ahead of herself, yet she could not help imagining waking up to the view, making supper in the kitchen, drawing a bath in that onyx bathroom and sharing it with him.