Chapter Sixteen
Sixteen
Ricardo cleared the dessert plates and topped up our glasses. We’d both gone for the disappearing coconut foam and true to its name, there’d been nothing to it; melting on the tongue with an exotic fizz of flavour.
‘Was everything to your liking?’ he asked, beaming. ‘No better place to celebrate your anniversary than the Azores I think. Is it true?’
Those crossed wires were now tied in a bow.
‘Dinner was excellent, Ricardo, thank you,’ Leo said.
I joined in, enthusiastically. ‘Perfect table, delicious food…’
‘…and wonderful company!’ Ricardo said, with a wink. ‘I can see it.’ I was going to say wine, but same-same. ‘I bring liquors and coffees for you, in uno momento, please.’
He fluttered off and Leo and I were left looking at each other across the table.
‘Our anniversary now, is it?’ I said, feeling giddy under his gaze. Guitar music floated in from the bar and the balmy air was scented with jasmine.
‘It must be ten years since we first met – maybe that’s what he means?’ Leo said with a chuckle.
‘It’s been nice to spend some time together. I’m sorry for cutting you off after Engelman. I was devastated and wasn’t thinking straight. That job was important to both of us and one of us had to get it. I was a sore loser and shouldn’t have blamed you. It wasn’t your fault – of course it wasn’t.’
He reached over and put his hands on mine. ‘I appreciate you saying that.’
‘Feels like forever ago we were sitting in reception on our first day, doesn’t it?’
‘Another lifetime,’ he said, with a wistful smile. ‘I loved it there. Until you left.’
‘What? I always imagined you spinning around in your leather chair feeling like the big winner.’
‘Not at all. I missed my work bestie. It wasn’t as fun without you there.’
How cute. ‘Was I fun? I can’t remember. I’m not sure my team would say I’m much fun now.’
‘You were a lot of fun. You still are. I had a massive crush on you and it took me a while to recover after you left. The rest of the team really missed you too.’
My stomach flipped at that. I’d assumed it was an agency-wide rejection.
I’d taken it so personally that I’d cut everyone off.
It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone would care or want to see me again.
Least of all Leo. I’d never known anyone to have a crush on me before; men always treated me as the ‘wham bam thank you ma’am’ type, so it was touching to think of Leo harbouring a crush.
I’d liked him too, but I’d been wary of getting involved with anyone at work – I’d been so obsessed with winning.
Which made me feel even worse. Leo had felt a genuine connection while I was praying he’d fail.
I didn’t know where to look while my brain tried to work it all out.
There was nowhere to hide from his confident gaze.
‘Did it? Did you?’
‘Yes! Wasn’t it obvious? You promised we’d stay in touch no matter what happened with the job, then iced me out the second they offered it to me.’
I had no recollection of any such promise but I’d been so distraught when HR told me the bad news, I’d iced the entire world out. I’d felt too humiliated to go back and say goodbye.
‘What?! I did not!’
Leo’s expression went from confused to annoyed to hurt. ‘Come on, Kat. You know you did. And I was gutted. I thought we were friends at the very least. I really did miss you when you left.’
I blinked at him, too stunned to speak. What the hell was he even talking about?
‘I called, text, sent emails – tried to connect on LinkedIn with no reply. Eventually I took the hint and stopped trying. Either you’d deliberately given me the wrong phone number and email and had a fake LinkedIn profile, or you’d blocked me.
Either way, you didn’t want to speak to me, and I didn’t want to be accused of harassment. ’
‘No one likes a quitter,’ I murmured, in shock.
Although, now he mentioned it, this did all sound kind of familiar.
Had I misremembered our entire connection and every one of our interactions?
Could it possibly be that I’d been the rude one?
That I’d been jealous and childish, and he’d been perfectly nice?
Had my memory distorted the facts to protect me from my own bad behaviour?
‘I could never be accused of that,’ Leo said, staring at me intensely.
‘You must have moved on fairly quickly to already have a one-word ex-wife. What happened there?’ I asked, to give me some thinking time and deflect the conversation. I needed to absorb this new information. That time in my life was such a blur.
‘A silly and, as it turned out, very expensive mistake. Financially and emotionally. Victoria was my first official client at Engelman, and she was a junior as well, the pair of us were just starting our careers when we met. I was convinced she was the love of my life, but I was wrong. We were engaged, married and divorced in three years.’
He looked so forlorn, I was sorry I’d asked. I wasn’t doing very well on the conversation front here.
‘Wow. That’s very… efficient.’
‘Incredibly efficient. A word synonymous with true love,’ Leo said with an eye roll. ‘How about you? Married? Kids?’
I bristled. ‘No. No weddings so far. Or children.’
‘Anywhere close?’
It was a casual enough question, and no more intrusive than mine, but I felt a sadness in my gut, which caught me by surprise.
The answer was easy enough; it was a straight no, but it felt like an admission of failure somehow.
I’d never been anywhere close to having a significant other or anything other for myself – even my flat was rented.
I’d been to friends’ engagement parties and weddings and now we were onto the christenings, but I’d never had any of those celebrations myself.
Just the birthday parties as I got older, and older.
I had no problem landing a man; I could reel one in every day, twice a day if I needed to.
But holding on to them was a different story and I’d learnt to like it that way.
It was long enough to uncover their quirks (issues), preferences (kinks) and skeletons (crimes) and then I could move on to someone new.
I’d learnt to enjoy men in quarterly bursts and then let them go.
‘Not really. I still feel too young for anything serious,’ I said, brushing the question away.
He frowned. ‘What are you, thirty-five?’
‘Thirty-four. Which is the new twenty-four, right? I’m barely out of education.’
He laughed. ‘That’s one way to look at it. Old enough to be married with fourteen-year-old twins is another.’
I gave a strangled chortle. He was right of course, but no need to say it out loud. ‘Have you been talking to my nan?’
‘I find it interesting to think about the possible paths. That generation – our grans – would have finished having children at our age. It’s all a matter of perspective.’
‘That generation also ate lard on toast and took it in turns to use the bath water, so excuse me for not living my life by their rules.’
‘Garrafeira for you, senhor, and another for your beautiful lady with our compliments.’ Ricardo set down two glasses of ruby-red liquid and two espressos. ‘Our finest port, aged in wooden barrels – we call it a “vintage tawny” –
and it is very famous for its delicious, syrupy taste.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, giving it a sniff and burning my nose hair. Jesus, this was strong.
‘And your bill.’ Ricardo placed it between us and Leo snatched it up, scribbled his signature and handed it back with a fifty euro note.
‘Let me…’ I started.
‘Absolutely not. It can go on my room.’
Ricardo glanced between the two of us confused, presumably thinking Leo’s room and my room were surely one and the same for our anniversary break. He settled on a smile. ‘Obrigado.’
Leo gently swirled his glass. ‘Cheers,’ he said, holding it up. ‘Here’s to making the most of a bad situation.’
‘The very most,’ I replied, looking up at the blanket of stars and the beautiful full moon. ‘We’re lucky aren’t we?’
‘Yeah, we could be queuing for the all-you-can-eat-buffet under pitch pressure.’ A swathe of fairy lights glowed behind Leo’s head, and it looked like he was wearing a halo.
Saint Leonard, himself. Or Leonardo, or Leon.
How strange to have been thrown back together like this.
We clinked glasses, and took a large swig, then both nearly choked.
‘Eurghhh! What the hell?’
‘That’ll clear out the cobwebs,’ he said, with a shudder.
‘Detonate the spiders, more like. It’s not like any syrup I’ve ever tasted, and it smells like meth.’
We looked at each other in disgust, then Leo started laughing.
‘Your face!’ he said, doing an impression of me then laughing again.
The sound took me back to our time working together; it was so joyous and familiar.
He was right, we’d had a right laugh when we’d been work buddies.
It was Engelman that had moved the goal posts on the job and it wasn’t Leo’s fault they’d chosen him.
I just hadn’t been able to stomach the rejection. It was easier to hide away.
I took another sip of my port and tried to keep a straight face. ‘Just to be polite,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to hurt Ricardo’s feelings.’
Leo took a slurp of his. ‘Yes, it would be rude to reject their finest vintage.’
Not to be outdone, I had another mouthful and we silently dared each other to keep going, sip by sip, and by the end of the glass, it wasn’t nearly so bad.
‘Winner!’ I said, feeling light-headed as I finished my port and pushed the empty glass away.
‘I didn’t realise it was a competition,’ Leo said, smiling. ‘I’d have made more effort.’
‘Isn’t everything?’
‘In that case I’ll… race you to the lift!
’ he shouted, jumping up. He was halfway there before I’d even registered what he’d said, but I gave it a go anyway, chasing him through the empty restaurant.
All the other couples had gone to bed without us realising and we’d been left alone. Not that we were a couple of course.
‘You cheated!’ I teased, as the lift doors opened and he waved me in.
‘Ladies first.’
‘Why thank you, sir. A cheat, but a gentleman – and a scoundrel to boot.’
‘I got a headstart to save you the trouble. It is our anniversary, after all.’
The lift was small and we had no choice but to face each other to fit in, both breathless from the run, a magnetic heat in the space between us.
Leo silently reached behind me to press the button and my nose brushed against his neck, his musky aftershave was intoxicating and I felt myself being drawn towards him.
I leant back to counterbalance the attraction, and he reached his hand out to steady me, his touch making me tingle.
He was so tall and strong, and I felt wobbly inside as I looked up into his eyes.
‘Goodnight then,’ he murmured as the lift pinged for my floor.
I tilted my head back to kiss him on the cheek, but he went the same way at the same time and nearly caught me on the mouth.
We stopped for half a second, his silver eyes on mine, and then our lips found each other, tentatively at first, then kissing more deeply as I pressed myself into the corner of the lift and the doors started to close.
‘Goodnight,’ I said, running my fingers through his hair.
He stroked my cheek, kissing me again, deep and slow this time, then pulled back to look me in the eyes.
‘Goodnight,’ he said throatily, and I realised he’d stuck his foot out to jam the doors open.
I held on to his belt as I backed out of the lift, pulling him towards me, and then pushed him back in. ‘Happy anniversary!’