At the age of twenty-one, Kate found herself engaged to a man fifteen years her senior. His name was Dominic Groome and he was the most fascinating man she had ever met. Handsome – incredibly handsome, her friends said, clustering around her, exclaiming at the ring on her finger, a large solitaire diamond.
They made a striking couple. He was tall, green-eyed, dark-haired, she almost as tall with blonde hair and deep brown eyes. But it wasn’t his looks alone that had initially attracted Kate – had first made her want to cross the room and stand near him, get a better look.
What drew her to Dominic was the serious look on his face, as if he was standing alone in the room, that the dozen or so women who were all looking at him, gorging themselves on his beauty, didn’t exist, and neither did their husbands in their dark suits and quiet ties with their over-loud talk of mergers and markets.
When one of the women said something to him, he looked at her and smiled, a courteous smile that softened the sharp planes of his cheeks and lit up his green eyes. The woman said something else, touched his arm lightly, and Kate felt jealousy surge hot and strong.
‘Who are all these people?’ she asked her date, a young man whose hopes included impressing his bosses with his beautiful companion and then plying her with enough alcohol to get her into bed later that evening.
‘Let me introduce you,’ he said, and started her on a round of the room, taking her further and further away from the tall, quiet man. She met husbands and wives: Jeremy, Leonie, Bart, Isolde, Buddy, Delia, Monica. No names she wanted to remember, certainly no one she wanted to talk to. Kate remembers the women sizing her up and one man holding her fingers too long in a hot hand.
And then her date was propelling her towards the centre of the room. ‘This is one of the big guys,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘And the youngest partner in the company.’ He couldn’t have sounded more awe-struck if he’d tried.
‘Dominic Groome,’ her date said, ‘I’d like you to meet Kate Cilliers.’
Kate offered him her hand, hoping he’d hold on to it forever.
A brief smile was all she got, a light handshake and a polite greeting. Soon after that, the evening was over for Kate, and for her date too. He was drunk and angered by her insistence on calling a taxi. He was equally insistent that he was fine to drive; his place was just around the corner.
‘It’s only five minutes away.’ He grabbed her hand. ‘Come on, Kate. It’s really close.’
‘No.’ She turned away and came face to face with a man in a white shirt and navy tie.
Dominic’s voice was quiet as he removed the keys from her date’s hand. ‘I’ll ask security to park your car,’ he said. ‘You can collect your keys from them in the morning.’
The drunk young man, abashed now, mumbled a thank you and began to weave his way home.
‘I hope he’ll be all right,’ Kate said, although she really couldn’t care less.
‘He’ll be fine.’ Dominic said. ‘Now, my car’s right here. Can I give you a lift?’
This is the part of their story that Kate will always remember clearly.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, please.’ Gone was the cautionary voice telling her she didn’t even know him, because she did, of course she did. She’d known him all her life. All he’d needed was to appear, and there he was – her boyfriend to be, her fiancé, her husband and the father of her two children, Noah and Maddie. Her family.