My throat feels scratchy as I look her over. Her shoes shimmer to match her dress. Her makeup is perfectly natural.
“You look beautiful, Amy.”
She runs a finger down my tie and it makes me shiver. “So do you.” She gives Brutus a scratch behind the ears. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
“A surprise?”
“Yes. A big one, I hope.”
We’ve barely any time before the cab pulls up, and that suits me just fine, because any longer standing with this beautiful creature in my hallway would render me incapable of leaving this house without taking her upstairs with me first.
I set the alarm on the way out. I check the street before I join Amy in the taxi.
I feel ghosts on my shoulder, waiting for me, but I brush them off as I take her hand in the backseat.
“Are you okay?” she asks me, and I’m glad the cab is too dark to see her eyes.
“I am now.”
“I’m going to have an amazing evening,” she says.
“You don’t even know where we’re going yet.”
“I don’t need to.” She rests her head on my shoulder and I close my eyes. Savour this moment.
Savour every moment.
Charing Cross Road is heaving when the cab drops us, but the venue I’ve booked is totally deserted.
She stares around in bewilderment as I stroll up to the bar.
“This is… quiet…”
“It’s by design, Amy.”
“It is?”
I smile as I order champagne from the solitary barman, and she raises her eyebrows as I take one for myself.
“A one-off,” I say. “A celebration.”
She raises her glass. “A celebration of what?”
“Life,” I tell her.
Her eyes flash with pain, and I wonder why the word hurts her so badly. It’s so stark to me in this one moment – how little I know about this woman. How little I know about her life.
But she is life.
She’s everything.
And she’s also a fucking mind reader.
“You are life,” she whispers and clinks my glass.
“I’m quitting my job,” I tell her, just like that. “I think it’s about time I lived a little.” I laugh at my own sick little joke.
Her eyes are like dinner plates. “You’re quitting?”
“I’m a lawyer,” I tell her, like she hasn’t pieced two and two together already. “I spend my life enabling very rich people to do whatever the hell they fucking want. Destroy whoever the fuck they want. But not anymore.”
She dithers as she sips her champagne. “And you can just… resign? These very rich people won’t want you to leave, right?”
“How is your drink?”
She nods. “Really good.”
I finish up mine, and the bubbles taste fucking divine.
“It’s time for the show,” I tell her, and take her hand.
Melissa
I’m scared and I don’t know why. I don’t really understand what’s going on, but I know it’s bad.
I know it’s really bad.
I also know for sure that I was wrong about Alexander Henley.
I was wrong about everything.
I thought I knew every single thing there was to know about this man, but I was a fool.
Because I know things. Stupid little things. Tiny pieces of shattered mirror I’ve been fitting together as I go.
But the mirror doesn’t make the man.
The man is right here at my side, and he’s not a collection of things. He’s not his interests, or his divorce paperwork, or the smell on his bedsheets.
He’s not the man they call the puppet master. He’s not the lawyer who loves his job the way I always assumed he’d love it.
And I’m pretty sure he’s a man who can’t just walk away.
I’m sure you can’t just walk away from those kind of people.
My heart is in my mouth as I follow him through to the back room, and the venue is still empty here. A roomful of empty tables, and only one of them has a candle on it, the one right in the middle with the very best view of the stage.
I can’t make out the huddle of people setting up, not without the spotlights, but I recognise the opening notes the moment they ring out.
I’ve heard this album so many times. On the underground on the way to Kensington and back again. At night in bed while I’m thinking of him.
He squeezes my hand. “I had to pull some strings for this,” he whispers. “Just as well they call me the Puppet Master.”
I feign ignorance, but he’s not even looking at me, he’s looking at them. “The Puppet Master?”
“Yes.”
“Why do they call you that?”
“Because my dirty hands pull everyone’s strings.”