A single, lonely tear slipped from her eye, trailing a slow path down her cheek. I wiped it away before she could, choking on the urge to taste her pain.
“Thank you, James,” she said, squeezing my hand. “That means a lot.” She leant forward to land the softest little kiss on my cheek. I closed my eyes to blank her out, fearing I’d kiss her back. “I think I’ve done enough talking now,” she said. “Can I have another wine?”
I released her tiny hands from mine and reached for the bottle.
I didn’t pull my chair away from hers, not even when the conversation lightened and we were back in the realms of friendly colleagues. Lydia perked up well, firing off a couple of text messages to her vampiric mother with the promise that she’d sort her life out in the morning. I could have throttled the woman. The image of a scared little girl peeking through the bannisters at her drunkard mother twitched at my fists. The girl was made of steel, steel housing a whole load of pain, years of pain and fear and desperation. It made her all the more beautiful to me.
Cat’s eyes danced in the candlelight as we finished up the second bottle. She leant forward in an uncharacteristic display of closeness, resting her forehead on my shoulder. “I’m drunk,” she said. “But I had a great night.”
I rested my chin on her head, breathing in the scent of her hair. Coconut and lavender. “As did I.”
She sat herself back upright, smiling. I knew something was coming before she even opened her mouth. “Was Rachel your true love? The only one for you?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Hell would usually have to freeze over for me to answer that question.”
“But not tonight. You’ll tell me tonight, won’t you? It’s that kind of night, and I told you about my mum.”
“So, it’s tit-for-tat now, is it?”
She laughed. “Kind of. I dunno.”
“I loved a girl before I loved Rachel, a crazy girl who dreamt of running away with the circus. She was a livewire.”
“Tell me about her.”
“She was young, crazy, reckless, gifted... free... passionate. Beautiful.”
“She sounds quite special.”
“She was very special.”
“What happened to her?” she asked, eyes boring into mine, eyes just like the woman she spoke of.
“She ran away and joined the circus as far as I know,” I smiled. “I went to university, and she flew away. She begged me to go with her, I begged her to come with me. Neither would have worked, not really.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. I thought it was a shame for a long, long time, until I met Rachel.”
“Where did you meet?”
I sighed. “It’s time for bed, we have meetings in the morning.”
She pouted, and the urge to suck on her bottom lip made my mouth water. “Can’t you just answer that one final question?”
“What difference will it make?”
“It will make a difference to me,” she said. “Just one short answer, please. Indulge me.”
In my mind I saw Katreya’s smile as she disappeared out of sight, goading me to follow her. I took a breath. “I met Rachel at work. We worked together.”
“At work?” I could see the surprise in her face, as surprised as everyone else had been by my deviation from the corporate persona.
“Yes, at work. It was a mistake, it’s always a mistake.”
“But she was worth it? Worth making a mistake for?”
I smiled, standing to leave and pulling her with me. “Sometimes mistakes are worth making, Lydia Marsh, but only sometimes.”
***
We rode just three floors in the elevator, but it took forever. Lydia leant gently against my side, her hand curled around my waist to burn at my ribcage. I knew I should push her away, regain at least some marginal distance as professional associates, but I didn’t. She felt too fucking good; her soft form melting so perfectly against the hard lines of mine. She’d be sleeping in the room next door, mere metres away. The thought made my dick twitch, but my resolve held firm as she rooted her bag for her keycard, placing my own firmly in the lock and preparing to say my goodbyes.
She looked over, eyes pale as moonlight and so fucking pretty. Her toes were turned in, one foot tapping gently on the spot.
“I guess this is goodnight, then,” she said.
“I’ll see you bright and early, Lydia. Breakfast at seven-thirty.”
“Sure, yeah, seven-thirty.”
I turned away, destination my empty hotel room, but in a heartbeat her hand was on mine, pulling me back to her.
“James, wait. I just wanted to say that I’m not a talker. Nobody knows that shit about my mum, not apart from my friend Steph, and Stu, he knew too.”