Chapter Ten
Ten
The following afternoon, Harriet was gathering the things that she would need for the big theater cleanup. Last night she had created—with their permission—a WhatsApp group for her and the famous five called “The Bah Humbugs,” which she thought was inspired, but which had only received a series of groaning memes in the chat. Still, they had all promised to meet her at the theater at half past five, which she counted as a win.
It was almost dark already, cold too, and she could do without spending her Friday evening cleaning, but this was going to be her life for the foreseeable, so she might as well resign herself.
Usually, she would still be at school at this time, trying to catch up on admin or having meetings with parents—the hours of free labor that anyone employed in education had to work to maintain any kind of balance! Ali, kind soul that he was, had forced her to delegate some of her load to other members of the team so that she could leave on time. Still, a niggle of unease squirmed in her stomach.
When her doorbell rang at four fifteen, she was surprised to hear James’s voice crackling through the intercom.
“Hello, Harriet? It’s James. Knight. I think we got off on the wrong foot yesterday. I’d like to clear the air before we get to the theater.”
She froze. Many conflicting emotions buzzed around inside her torso, all of them sending confusing messages to her brain. When she didn’t say anything, he added, “May I come up?”
“Oh. Yes, of course.” She pressed the door release. She couldn’t very well say no when he’d clearly come here as a conciliatory gesture. She didn’t want to appear churlish. Also, it was kind of thrilling to have a handsome man at her door.
“You live above a library,” he said when she opened the door to her apartment. He was holding a poinsettia plant with a red ribbon in one hand and a bag in the other.
“Yes,” she agreed.
“That’s very cool.”
She eyed him to see if he was making fun, but he seemed genuine. “Thank you. I think so too. It’s wonderfully quiet.” She arched an eyebrow.
He smirked. “I’m sure it is.” He held out the bag to her. “You left this at my apartment.”
Folded neatly inside was her third-favorite cardigan. Welcome home . She smiled.
“And this”—he held out the plant—“is a peace offering.”
“Thank you. That’s very kind of you.” She placed it on the console table. It looked rather lovely with its crimson petals and dark green foliage.
Dammit, he’s like good cop/bad cop all in one package!
“Now I think it’s customary for you to apologize too?” he said.
“Too? You gave me a plant, you didn’t apologize.”
Her phone rang; she looked down and then back up at James. “Sorry, it’s the parent of one of my students, I have to take this. Come in.” She invited him into her hallway and slipped into the sitting room, closing the door behind her to take the call. Five minutes later, she came back into the hall.
“Sorry, where were we?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Is that what you’re wearing?” She eyed his suit.
He looked down at his suit as though seeing it for the first time. “I came straight from the office.”
“Are you planning a more directorial approach to cleaning up the theater?”
“Are you always this rude to people who bring you gifts?”
Great! I’m an ungrateful cow. Well played, Mr. Knight.
“I’m just a little confused. You have a whole Jekyll and Hyde thing going on, and I’m struggling to keep up.”
“Right,” he said. “Yes, I can see how I might be coming across. My apologies, I find myself out of my comfort zone. I’m not accustomed to wearing more than one hat at a time, as it were.”
Presumably he was referring to his bedroom and business hats.
“Ours has not been a traditional ‘get to know you,’?” she agreed.
Harriet didn’t usually let men into her home, not unless she’d been dating them for a while, vetted them fully. It was a rule that had allowed her flat to remain a haven for her and Maisy. She’d never wanted her daughter to have to worry about getting up in the morning to find a strange man sitting at the breakfast counter. A few men had passed the test and made it into the inner sanctum over the years, but most hadn’t, and she had always been pleased, when those relationships inevitably came to nothing, that she’d kept her sanctuary free from drama. And here she was breaking her own cardinal rule by letting in a one-night stand.
Her front door opened into a generous hexagon-shaped hallway that housed a console table—on which the poinsettia sat—a mustard clamshell chair, a white-painted French armoire for coats and shoes, and doors that led off to all the other rooms.
“You have a lovely home,” said James.
“Well, it’s not as swanky as your waterfall apartment, but I like it.”
“I’m surprised you can recall my apartment, you ran out of it so fast.” His sarcasm took her by surprise.
“Was that a dig? Or an accusation?” she asked.
“That was a statement of fact.”
Okay, we’re doing this, then. She had assumed “clear the air” meant sweep it under the carpet and start afresh; apparently not. Harriet pulled her ninth-favorite cardigan on over her eighth. She was cleaning a theater—this was not a time for best knitwear.
“I thought you’d be grateful not to have the entanglement. Isn’t that what most men want?” she asked honestly.
“Why would you think that? I thought we’d hit it off.” He sounded hurt. He sounded like she’d sounded after similar encounters.
This made her fluster. She wasn’t used to this kind of role reversal, and it caught her off guard.
“We did. It. It was…great,” she stammered. “But I’d assumed it was a onetime thing. Aren’t men usually champing at the bit to get rid of their conquests?” Her words came out snippier than she’d intended as previous experiences sprang to her mind. There was nothing more demeaning than being given the cold shoulder by a lover while their sweat was still damp on your skin.
“ A conquest? ” His features contorted in chagrin. “Is that what you thought was happening? Like I’m some lowlife predator?”
This was too much.
“Don’t act so pious!” she snapped. “You can’t tell me you went out that night looking for a life partner. We both knew what we were getting. You don’t get to sleep with me and then slut-shame me for not expecting a promise of marriage afterward. That’s just another fudged-up form of sexism.”
He stared at the ceiling.
“You know, women like you make it harder for men like me to do better.”
Wow!
“ Women like me? ” Her high horse was rearing up on its hind legs. “What kind of woman am I like, in your humble opinion?”
James, clearly playing his words back in his head, shook his head and held his hands up. “I’m sorry. That came out really badly.”
He at least had the grace to look horrified.
“Yes, it did. For a lawyer you are surprisingly careless with your words.”
“Please, can I explain myself?”
“I don’t know. You can give it a try.” She folded her arms.
“What I was trying to convey, badly, is that I have been careless with women’s feelings in the past…I have been careless with people full stop. The fault is mine entirely. I’m trying to do better, and part of that is not being the type of man who sleeps with someone and then ghosts them.”
Heavens to Betsy! How could she argue with that?
“And instead”—Harriet spoke slowly, choosing her words—“you feel like you got ghosted?”
“I’m not saying I didn’t deserve it; what goes around comes around and all that. And please understand, I am not suggesting that you owe me anything. I have the utmost respect for you. This is my personal journey, and I have no right to drag you along with me. But I thought we’d connected on more than merely a physical level. I’d hoped that might continue. And then I came out of the shower…”
“In my defense, I kind of thought the whole being-in-the-shower thing was my cue to leave. I thought I was doing you a favor.”
“Why would you think that?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she’d looked at his phone and seen a message from someone called Lyra, but she felt like admitting to reading his private messages might make things worse.
“Because in those situations, in my experience, that’s what men usually want. Easy breezy, no strings.”
James looked at her. He took a breath in through his nose, his lips pressed together as he listened. Good crikey, if only men knew how sexy they are when they actually listen.
“You’re right. Obviously, I can’t speak for other men, but for myself I have been guilty of being that person. Which is why I was hoping to do things differently this time. With you. I am trying to create more meaningful connections. Granted, inviting you straight into bed wasn’t exactly taking things slowly, but I had hoped that our night together might be the beginning rather than the whole story.” He looked embarrassed. “I can see now that that’s not your responsibility.”
Harriet puffed out a breath. She was, as a rule, cautious of meaningful connections, because once made she was all in. It was one of the reasons she’d found it so easy to keep Pete as a genuine friend. She originated from loose connections, her roots severed when she was removed from neglectful parents at three years old and placed into the care system. It had made her scrupulous with her choices and fearlessly loyal to the people she did let in. But she wasn’t about to divulge any of this to a practical stranger, so she summoned her humor shield.
“I mean, I am all for personal growth. Like, ‘You go…guy.’?” She reached forward awkwardly and gave him an encouraging bump on the shoulder. “My job is encouraging people to be the best version of themselves. But it is unfair for you to suddenly change the fundamental rules of the one-night stand as we know it and expect me to just instinctively know. That sort of societal restructuring requires a memo, at the very least.”
James’s face cracked into a smile. “Duly noted.”
“We have a real problem with getting our wires crossed.”
“Something to work on.” His expression was serious, but his eyes held a kindness that began a thaw somewhere deep inside her.
“Are we good?” Harriet asked. “We’re going to be working together for the next few weeks. I don’t want you to experience wrath every time you look at my face.”
He laughed then, and it was easy with unmistakable relief. “We’re good,” he assured her. “I’m sorry about the way I was in the police station too. There’s professionalism, and then there’s being an arsehole.”
“I’m not used to being in trouble with the law. You could have been the friendly face that I needed.”
“I know. Sorry. You took me by surprise. I’m not good with surprises.”
“No shizzle.”
“Which brings us to yesterday and another surprise sprung, where I behaved like a recalcitrant child, again. I apologize for that too. I will add ‘not being a dick when caught off guard’ to my list of things I need to work on.”
His earnestness caught her off guard. She couldn’t help her smile and found herself feeling shy under his frank gaze. It felt like she was meeting him for the first time, which was ridiculous, considering they’d already had very uninhibited, drunken coitus.
“Apologies accepted. And I’m sorry for any miscommunications that made things harder than they needed to be.”
They stood awkwardly in the hallway; a hug was too intimate, but a handshake felt too formal. In the end Harriet broke the tension.
“Come through, I just need to get my bag of cleaning supplies.”
“Mine are in the car,” he said.
She led him into the sitting room, where he stopped abruptly with a crease in his brow.
“What?” she asked. Was he judging her interior design skills?
“You’ve got no Christmas decorations up,” he said, confused.
“Oh.” She hadn’t expected that. “Well, I mean, it is only the middle of November.”
Never mind that she wouldn’t be putting decorations up in December either.
“Yes, but in the pub, you said you loved Christmas. If I remember correctly, you described yourself as the ‘Christmas fricking queen.’ You told me you were always the first person you knew to get their decorations up. So I’m wondering why Christmas’s biggest fan doesn’t have a single piece of tinsel hung.”
He remembered that? She hadn’t expected to even see him again, let alone have him remember the things they’d talked about.
“Oh. I, um.” James Knight had an uncanny way of dissolving her bull-whoopie. She sighed. “I can’t see the point.”
He frowned at her. “Go on…”
“Why make all that effort if there’s no one here to appreciate it?”
“You’ll be here.”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t get it.” How could he possibly understand, living in his penthouse apartment, a high-flying career man? He’d probably only ever had to put himself first, selfishness coming as second nature. And why shouldn’t he? She could understand how that would work for him, but her life was different; her life was built around being a parent.
“Has it always been just you and your daughter?”
Her wary side reminded her that they weren’t drunk anymore; the rules were different now. And yet she found herself drawn in by his open expression, compelled to answer.
“Since she was two. Pete, my ex, is very present in her life, our life. His wife is my best friend.”
She enjoyed James’s surprise. People were always surprised. Or skeptical. But mostly surprised.
“That’s very…I don’t imagine that’s very common. I know lots of adults but not so many of them that behave like grown-ups. You must all be very sensible.”
She smiled. “I don’t know about that. Pete and I simply weren’t in love. Then he met Emma, and I guess we both fell for her. It’s not that surprising, really. Pete and I are very similar, that was the problem, we were more like siblings than partners.”
“You consciously uncoupled, like Gwyneth and Chris. I’m impressed.”
“Actually, they did it like us.” She gave a wry smile and went into the kitchen, where she stuffed a roll of black sacks and some rubber gloves into a large shopper with several litter-grabbers she’d borrowed from school. “What about you? Any significant exes? Kids? I assume you are single?” she fished.
His brow furrowed.
“My history isn’t quite as clean-cut as yours. Or as amicable. I have an ex-wife who doesn’t speak to me. I met her when I lived in the U.S. I was twenty-six. We got married, I put my career first, she felt neglected, rightly so. I wouldn’t give up my career progression for my marriage, and after three years she called it. She met someone else. Last I heard, she was happily married with a couple of kids, a dog, and a house in the burbs.”
Was there a hint of regret in his voice?
“You’re probably imagining that I’m full of regret for what could have been.”
“Are you?”
“I am sorry that I made her feel unloved. That, I do regret, but you can’t reach your late forties and not have things you wish you’d handled differently. I don’t regret the effort I put into my career. I’ve built a good life for myself.”
There was something else behind the unapologetic sentiment. It felt like he was holding something back, a sadness; she could feel it hiding in the spaces between the truth. He was being careful with his words, but it was the ones he didn’t say that sounded loudest to Harriet.
The sex between them had been easy, but getting to know someone took work. They were, technically speaking, middle-aged, and had naturally acquired some baggage that would take some unpacking. Of course, they didn’t need to share their stories. They could work on this project as colleagues. But Harriet couldn’t ignore the rising desire inside her to know absolutely everything about James Knight.