Nell （Present）
NELL
PRESENT
As I get ready in the office cloakroom for dinner with Alex, I think back to the day I met him at a party I almost hadn’t gone to.
Parties were a necessary evil as far as I was concerned and I’d been calculating when I could leave without causing offense when a man had appeared at my side holding two glasses of still-fizzing champagne.
“I couldn’t help noticing that you don’t have a drink,” he’d said, offering me one of the glasses. “And also that, like me, you don’t seem to be enjoying yourself as much as everyone else is.”
I’d tensed at the trace of an American accent. In other circumstances, I would have found an excuse to smile and move away. But he was drop-dead gorgeous and I was horribly bored.
“I’m not really a party animal,” I’d replied with a smile.
I wasn’t arrogant enough to have taken his gesture at anything other than face value—one person coming over to talk to another to ease the boredom of being somewhere neither wanted to be.
In truth, I’d spotted him as soon as he’d walked into the room, mainly because he towered over most of the others there, and I’d been watching him surreptitiously ever since, attracted by his easy manner as he mingled with the other guests.
“You’re from the US?” I asked, hoping he would say that he wasn’t.
“Partly. My father is American, my mother is French, and I was born and brought up in Paris. When I was ten years old, my parents separated and my father moved back to the US while I stayed in Paris with my sister and mother.”
“And where do you live now? France or the US?”
“I have a flat in DC, where I spend most of my time.”
It was probably just as well, I’d reflected. It would be easier to walk away if he lived abroad.
“What do you do?” I was aware that I was asking too many questions but I had an innate need to know everything about him. “Sorry, I don’t mean to interrogate.”
He smiled. “It’s fine. I work as an independent advisor to US companies wanting to export to Europe.” There was a pause. “I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. Alexandre—Alex—Stanton.”
“Nell,” I said. “Masters.”
He raised his glass and looked at me with eyes that were a perfect match for the threads of gray just beginning to show in his dark hair. “Delighted to meet you, Nell Masters.”
“Likewise.” I waited until we’d both taken a sip of champagne. “Are you in London on holiday?”
“No, since Brexit, I’ve been spending a week here each month, working as a consultant for UK companies who export to France. It’s become a lot more complicated since you left the EU.” He paused. “What about you? Are you a journalist?”
It was a fair question. It was, after all, a media party.
“No, I’m only here for the contacts. I work for a charity in Brixton and I’m trying to raise its profile by persuading one of the mainstream newspapers to write an article about the work we do.”
“And have you succeeded? In getting the article?”
I looked over to where Jane Stopes from The Guardian was chatting to a group of fellow journalists. “I think so.”
“Good work. I’m only here because my sister Béatrice invited me along.” He turned and indicated a beautifully chic woman with the same dark hair as Alex, who gave him a little wave. “She works for the French news channel BFM. And that’s her husband, Victor.”
I glanced at a dark-haired man with a close-cropped beard who was standing a few feet away, chatting to a group of people.
“Is he a journalist?” I asked.
“No, he works for the French Embassy here in London. Like me, he’s only here because of my sister.”
I’d never before wished for a man to ask me for my phone number but I began to wish it so much that when it came to saying goodbye, I found myself asking Alex for his.
“My main role is obtaining sponsorship and donations for the charity,” I explained.
“Would you be interested in meeting up at some point so that I can explain what we do? Perhaps one of the companies you give advice to would be interested in a sponsorship,” I added, wanting to give weight to my request for his number.
“Sure.” He took out a business card and handed it to me. “I look forward to hearing from you, Nell Masters,” he said, and the formality of his words made me smile.
I’d made myself wait three days before calling him. My last brief relationship—by choice, I’d only ever had brief relationships—had ended a year before. I hadn’t thought I’d missed having sex but all I could think of during those three days was what it would be like to go to bed with Alex.
“I thought you were never going to phone.” The relief in Alex’s voice when he answered my call made my stomach flip. “I’m going back to the US on Saturday and I was hoping to see you before I left.”
We arranged to meet at a bar in Soho after work the following day and by the end of the evening, I knew he was different from any other man I’d met.
“Any significant others I should know about?” he asked lightly, at one point.
I shook my head. “No. A few short-term relationships but nothing serious,” I said, wondering what he’d say if I admitted just how short term those relationships had been because, as soon as they’d begun to develop into anything meaningful, I’d walked away, repeating my internal mantra: You don’t deserve to be happy, you’ve ruined too many lives. “How about you?”
“I was married, but I’ve been divorced for six years. I have a son, he’s twenty years old. Unfortunately, I don’t see him anymore.” My heart went out to him at the sadness in his voice but it wasn’t enough to keep my surprise to myself.
“Twenty?” I squeaked. I hadn’t thought him to be over forty. “You have a son who’s twenty years old?”
Alex laughed. “I was twenty-four when he was born, my wife was twenty-six. She was my first real love and I thought it would last forever. Sadly, it didn’t. Parenthood turned us into the adults we were destined to be, which wasn’t the same as the young people we’d been, and we grew apart.”
I wanted to ask him why he didn’t see his son but it was early days and I was more interested to hear about his significant others.
“And since then?” I asked.
Alex took a long drink of wine, as if he was psyching himself up, and I prepared myself mentally to hear something I wasn’t going to like—that he’d been with someone until recently and they were sorting things out, or that they still saw each other from time to time because it was complicated and she, he, they, couldn’t quite let go.
When he went on to say that two years before, his girlfriend had died, the first emotion I felt was relief, that I wasn’t going to have to compete with anyone, quickly followed by shame, that I could have found consolation in the fact that someone was dead.
“I’m sorry.” Being human, I wanted to know more, whether it was illness or an accident that had robbed his girlfriend of her life but the stricken look on his face quickly silenced my questions.
Besides, it was only our first real meeting and I didn’t know if there would be a second.
But there had been, and a third, and now, after denying myself the chance to love and be loved for so many years, all I want is a future with the man who’d walked unexpectedly into my life four months before.