Chapter 16
ONE MONTH LATER
Chloe
It’s been a tough few weeks since I got back from Japan.
I’ve spent a lot of time disentangling myself from the things I’d shared with Adrian and rebuilding my life into a different shape, which has been painful, but necessary.
I’ve needed this time to pull the ragged edges of my life back together and start to feel more whole again.
But I’m aware there’s still a gap left. And that it’s Kit shaped.
Every day, since I walked out on him, I’ve checked his social media, expecting to see pictures of him with Katya. But every day there’s been no sign of her on any of his feeds. I guess she’s still busy working on her new modelling campaign.
When he has posted, he’s mostly put up things about a place he’s visiting in Japan, looking like he’s having a blast.
He’s not posted for a couple of weeks now though.
It makes me wonder whether he’s met someone new. He didn’t seem to use social media at all when he was with me. I know. I’ve checked.
Yesterday, in a moment of weakness, I actually went to look up his number on my phone, just to see his name, and was confused to find it wasn’t in my list of contacts.
It took me a minute of scrolling up and down to find him.
I knew immediately it was his number when I saw he’d chosen Best Ex for his pseudonym.
It was so Kit.
I burst out laughing at that, then inexplicably started to cry.
Unfortunately, I was at work at the time. Luckily my colleagues assumed my red puffy eyes were something to do with Adrian and the aborted wedding, so I’d not needed to give them an excuse.
I really am incredibly lucky to be working with such amazing people.
They’d all been so kind to me when I got back from Japan and gave me the space and unquestioning support I needed so I could get on with my job and have some sort of normalcy back in my life.
Speaking of kindness, I’ve thought back a lot to my time at the hotel with Kit. To the compassion he’d shown me. The patience and the warmth.
He’d helped me out repeatedly, without making any kind of deal about it. And he’d been respectful about my wants and needs without letting me walk all over him.
In fact, he’d propped me up there in all sorts of ways without complaint and hadn’t once run for the hills when things got sticky and uncomfortable.
Because he has integrity.
And okay, he’s not exactly the humble type, but honestly, who cares about that really? In reality, I actually like and appreciate his self-assurance. And no-one’s perfect, right?
It occurred to me that the rambling list of traits and character strengths I’d outlined in the hot tub, when we’d first danced around each other at the beginning of the holiday, were there, in him, all along. I was just too self-centred and short-sighted to see them.
But I see them now.
And that we were good together.
Kit made me happy and encouraged me to be myself in a way that Adrian never did.
That’s what I want in a partner.
Kit’s what I’ve always wanted. I was just too na?ve to realise it.
I know it now though.
But I’ve got a horrible feeling I might have missed my chance. My second chance.
Even if I have, I hope we’ll always be able to be friends. If he’s amenable to that. I wasn’t exactly friendly towards him at the end.
I half want to know and I half don’t, because I have a horrible feeling it’ll hurt more to be rejected by Kit than it did by Adrian.
But if I don’t get in contact with him I’ll always wonder.
At the weekend I take a walk to the place I’ve visited a lot in the last month. A park I’d never been to before I went to Japan, but now can’t seem to stay away from.
The sun is shining, so I sit down on a bench and take a couple of pictures with my phone of the magnificent scene in front of me: of the cherry trees, which in Japan are thought to represent not only the transience of life but also hope, renewal and new beginnings, the intensity of the dark red maple trees against the vibrant greens of the foliage, the waterfall cascading into a large pond of Japanese fish and even a peacock strutting past, reminding me of Kit and his pretend preening at the dinner table that first night we spent together.
The memory makes me smile.
This place was a gift from Japan to London and it seems more than fitting to be sharing pictures of it with Kit.
So I take a breath, attach the photos to a message and send them to the number he put into my phone, with the text:
Guess where I am right now?
Then I slide my phone into my pocket, sit back on the bench and admire the view for a while, trying not to constantly check for a response.
* * *
Kit
I’ve been coming to Kyoto Garden in London’s Holland Park every day for the last week. Drawn here for some reason. I guess it’s probably pretty obvious what that reason is.
And now I have the best reason of all – to see Chloe Dasher again. This time at her invitation.
I stroll through the grounds and make a beeline for the bench next to the koi pond that I’m pretty sure she must have been sitting on to take the pictures she sent me. I’ve spent a bit of time on that bench recently, thinking about the time we spent together in Japan and missing her.
I’d almost given up hope that she’d contact me, so the minute her message appeared on my phone I dropped everything I was doing and hared it over to the park in the hope she’d still be here.
I just had a feeling I’d be lucky.
And there she is, exactly where I imagined she’d be. Looking as serene and sexy as ever. She’s staring into the depths of the pond as if her thoughts are a million miles away. Or maybe six thousand.
My heart is in my mouth as I walk quickly towards her, willing her to look up and see me.
‘Hello, stranger,’ I say, as she seems to sense me approaching and raises her head, her gaze meeting mine.
The look of delighted surprise on her beautiful face takes my breath away.
‘I thought I was hallucinating there for a second,’ she says, by way of reply.
I grin. ‘Nope. It’s really me. In the flesh. Bumping into you, on the other side of the world, after not seeing you for, what? A month?’
‘Six weeks, three days, actually,’ she says with a sheepish sort of smile.
‘You’ve been counting?’ I’m surprised, though delighted by this. It suggests she’s been thinking about me as much as I’ve been thinking about her.
She shrugs. ‘I just have a good memory for dates,’ she says, but I see a tell-tale colour rise to her cheeks.
‘So how have you been?’ I ask.
‘Oh, you know, surviving.’
We smile at each other awkwardly.
But I’m not going to let a bit of weirdness get in the way. I want this to work out too much. So I’m just going to launch straight in.
‘Actually, I’m glad you got in contact,’ I say, sitting down on the bench next to her.
‘I’m setting up a charitable foundation to disseminate my wealth.
’ I quirk an eyebrow. ‘How much money does one person need, right? And I was hoping I might be able to persuade you to consult for me. It’d be a fully paid gig, of course. ’
‘A foundation?’ she says, looking stunned.
‘Yeah. I want it to invest in protecting and re-establishing woodland in this country. I hear it needs a huge injection of cash and a concerted effort to reach the goals that have been set by 2030,’ I say.
‘As luck would have it, I currently have the means to do that. So I’m setting up a foundation to do it through. ’
‘Wow. I’m… lost for words. You really listened to what I said.’
‘Yeah, I did. I listened, thought about it a lot after you’d gone and decided you were right. I need to use this obscene wealth I have for good. And you’re right about something else too. I’m not built to be a billionaire. It’s going to destroy me if I’m not careful.’
‘Huh. Okay, well, good. The last thing I want is for you to be destroyed.’
‘Thanks. That’s good to hear,’ I say with a smile.
‘You’re really going to give it all away?’ she asks, as though she can’t quite believe it.
‘Well, most of it. I’ll keep some back to help run my new start-up business venture and invest some for my future.’
‘Right. Okay. Well, that’s obviously amazing. I’m blown away to hear it. Good for you, Kit.’
‘Thanks. You know, while I was travelling round Japan, once you’d left, it hit me that the things that have made me the happiest recently are things I’ve not paid for. They’ve been the spontaneous stuff. Things I’d not even imagined being on the cards. Like hanging out with you.’
Her eyes seem to spark at that, but there’s wariness in her expression too.
‘What does Katya think about the foundation?’ she asks.
I shrug. ‘No idea. I haven’t spoken to her since she turned up at the hotel in Japan and I sent her packing.’
She sits up straighter. ‘Oh! I just kind of assumed the two of you would get back together when she’d made the effort to travel all the way to the other side of the world to patch things up with you.’
I press my mouth into a line. ‘Well, we didn’t. I wasn’t interested in working things out with her. There wasn’t anything to work out, to be honest.’
‘Oh.’ She stares down at the ground. ‘When you got that message from her it looked like you were really pleased to hear from her.’
I frown, remembering the fear that had rushed through me when I’d only read part of the messages, then the relief when they were just about her trying to reconciliate.
‘I thought the message she sent was going to tell me she was pregnant, so I was smiling because I was so relieved she wasn’t contacting me to say that. Just that she wanted to talk to me about getting back together.’
‘Ohhhh,’ she says on a long breath, then turns to flash me a look of embarrassment. ‘I guess my head was so messed up after the wedding fiasco it triggered my fear of being out of the loop and rejected again. Sorry.’
‘Understandable.’ I’m actually relieved to hear this. It makes sense of why she left so abruptly.
‘So it’s completely over between you?’ she asks.