Nell （Present）
NELL
PRESENT
“So what exactly is it you do?” Marcus asks, looking intently across the table at Alex.
There’s something in his voice—not hostility, but more than simple curiosity—which causes the rest of us to fall silent.
As promised, I’d invited Romy, Rob, and Marcus over to meet Alex.
Sadie and Simon are also present, Kintyre in tow, as I thought it better to get all the introductions out of the way at once.
It’s going well, although it’s obvious—to me anyway—that Marcus hasn’t warmed to Alex as much as the others have and I wish, for the hundredth time, that Romy hadn’t been so obvious in her desire to see me and Marcus as a couple.
All eyes are on Alex as they wait for him to answer.
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” he says. There’s a pin-drop silence, because his voice, until then full of laughter, was—not menacing exactly, but not far off. I will him to smile, tell us he was joking. But he waits another beat before grinning across at Marcus.
“Sorry,” he says. “It was too hard to resist.”
Everyone laughs except Marcus, who gives a small smile.
“I’ll leave you to explain your consultancy job to everyone while I get more wine,” I say, giving Alex a kiss.
“Sure,” he says easily.
It’s eight days since I surprised Alex by turning up at his hotel and I’ve never been happier. Last Sunday, as we lay in bed in his apartment, he asked me if I could some take time off so that we could spend more time together.
“I switched weeks to come over so I’m here until next Sunday,” he said.
I snuggled deeper into his arms. “I would love that. But I need to give Sadie at least a few days’ notice and arrange for one of our volunteers to come in and help.”
“Then how about Thursday and Friday? I can reschedule the meetings I have on those days.” He propped himself up on an elbow and ran a finger down my cheek. “That way we’d have four days to ourselves. My flight back is in the evening.”
“Not totally to ourselves,” I said, pushing away the thought of him leaving. “I promised my friends that they’d get to meet you when you were next here.”
“When are you thinking of inviting them?”
“Saturday evening?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“But there’s one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“That we stay here until Saturday afternoon.” I stretched lazily in the bed. “I rather like living in luxury with Albert to bring us food whenever we want.”
He laughed. “It’s a deal.”
So I went home that afternoon and packed a bag with enough clothes for the week, then returned to Alex’s hotel.
Being away from home for eight days had done me a world of good.
Even though I’d worked Monday to Wednesday, it had been fun staying at the hotel.
And Thursday and Friday had been wonderful.
Alex and I had played at being tourists, visiting art galleries and museums and riding on the London Eye.
I take a bottle of white from the fridge and a bottle of red from where it’s standing on the side, wishing that Alex’s quip had been directed at Rob, who would have taken it well, rather than at Marcus.
Tucking the menu for a local takeaway under my arm, I return to the sitting room, stepping over Kintyre, lying in the doorway.
“Let me open that for you,” Alex says, taking the wine from me.
“Thanks. Who’s hungry?” I hand the menu to Romy and she takes out her phone to register everyone’s orders.
I place mine for a chicken biryani then sink onto the sofa between her and Sadie, letting their chatter wash over me.
Alex refills my glass and hands it to me, our fingers caressing as they touch on the stem.
The rush of pleasure I feel is marred by the knowledge that the following day is our last together for another two weeks.
“So, what do you think of my friends?” I ask, once everyone has left.
“I like them. Romy and Sadie are lovely, and Simon and Rob are great guys.”
“And Marcus?”
“Marcus seems to have a bit of an agenda. I’m wondering if he has a thing for you.”
“Romy used to hint about the two of us getting together and I ignored it. But I think Marcus took it seriously and it was something he was working up to.”
“And then you met me.”
“And then I met you,” I say, putting my arms around him. I look up at him. “I wish you didn’t have to leave. I love you being here.”
He bends to kiss me. “You don’t know how much I want to stay—which is why I’m working toward spending even more time here in future.”
I move back, searching his face. “Really?”
“Yes. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought and what I’d like is to turn it around completely and spend a week in the US and three weeks here.”
“Are you serious?”
He smiles. “Business in the UK has picked up to the extent where I could do with being here more often. Do you think you could put up with me for three weeks at a stretch?”
“You mean you’d stay here with me, twenty-four-seven? No Fifty-four Marlsborough?”
“No Fifty-four Marlsborough,” he confirms.
The breath rushes out of me. “I would love it.”
“I wouldn’t be crowding you?”
“You could never crowd me. But what about you? This house is smaller than your hotel suite. Wouldn’t you miss the space?”
“No. I love it here. It’s my home away from home.”
I move back and lean against the worktop. “Where do you actually consider your home?” I ask, curious to know. “France or the US?”
Alex folds his arms across his chest, contemplating my question.
“It’s a tough one,” he acknowledges. “I would say France because it’s where I lived as a child and where I was educated, where I spent my formative years, if you like.
Whenever I go there to visit my mother, I feel as if I’m home.
But I love the US and feel very comfortable there. ”
“I remember you telling me that you were ten when your parents divorced. Béatrice would have been even younger. That must have been hard.”
“Béatrice was only four. But it wasn’t as hard as it could have been.
It wasn’t an acrimonious divorce. My parents stayed on good terms and they were honest with us about their reasons for separating.
No one else was involved. My mother didn’t want to live in the US any longer because she missed Paris and her family, and my father couldn’t leave the US because of his work.
They explained to us that we would spend term time with my mother in Paris and go to the US during the school holidays and we were happy with that.
Sometimes my mother came with us to the US or the four of us would go skiing and those were the times I liked best, when we were together again.
So their eventual divorce didn’t affect me as much as it could have.
Although—” He paused a moment, reflecting.
“It might be why I married so young. Maybe, deep down, I wanted stability.”
“How is Stephane?”
“Worried about the charge against him, apparently. Delphine asked me to find him a lawyer, which I have. Maybe this whole experience will wake him up a bit. He’s still young, only twenty, so he has time to change. I hope he does, not just for his sake but also for mine.”
“What do you mean?”
His voice becomes bleak. “Just that I don’t want to lose my son, after everything else I’ve lost. Sometimes I think I’m cursed.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I’m sorry. But sometimes it really does feel that way.”
I move to his side. “You’re not cursed, you’re just unlucky.”
“Not anymore,” he says. “Now that I have you.”
Later, as I watch Alex sleeping, his chest softly rising and falling, his eyes sometimes moving behind his closed lids, I’m horribly aware that I still haven’t told him who I am.
There is still time; I could wake him now and tell him about my past. But things are so good between us that I’m scared to.
A tear of self-pity falls from my eye and onto Alex’s shoulder. He doesn’t wake as I blot it gently with my finger. I’d always known that I’d have to pay for what I’d done and I was prepared to, because I deserved to be punished. But I don’t want to die, not now that I have Alex in my life.