Dominic waited for Claire outside The Glass Bottom Boat. He couldn’t go inside, because there was some kind of private party going on, and he couldn’t see her anywhere. He’d tried texting a few times and had even left a voice message, but she wasn’t answering her phone.
Finally, after he’d been standing there ten minutes, he saw her walking up the street towards him. She was wearing a simple yellow dress and she looked like a ray of sunshine in gloomy shadow cast by the tatty old pub.
She spotted him and smiled. His stomach lurched, half in anticipation, half in fear. He had no idea how the end of this evening would turn out.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, sounding a little breathless. ‘Had a bit of a crisis.’
He frowned. ‘Everything okay?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. For now, anyway. But what about you?’ There was concern in her eyes and it made everything about her look soft. ‘You said you needed to talk. Has something happened?’
He shook his head. ‘Not really. Look, this isn’t a great place to chat.’ Loud music was pumping from inside the pub and noisy party guests kept spilling out or barging their way back in again. ‘There’s that new wine bar a couple of minutes away. Shall we go there?’
The wine bar was also busy, but thankfully, instead of The Glass Bottom Boat’s dingy yard, it had a large garden outside, filled with tables and chairs, potted olive trees and topiaries. They found a recently vacated table in the far corner, just big enough for two. A large row of lavender bushes gave them a little privacy.
‘I still owe you that wine,’ he said, as she sat down.
‘Wine would be lovely.’ She smiled, but he could see the worry in her eyes. It didn’t help that he knew things were going to get even tougher here on in. He headed off to the bar and his nerves grew the whole time he was standing there.
When he returned to the courtyard, Claire was staring into space. To the casual observer, she’d look perfectly content, he supposed, but there was something about the way she was so still that told him things weren’t right. Usually, she looked bright and alert, ready to break into a smile at the slightest opportunity. This evening she looked as if something invisible and heavy was sitting around her shoulders.
He put a glass of questionable Pinot Grigio down in front of her. ‘What was this crisis? Can I do anything to help?’
She inhaled sharply, as if he’d surprised her, and turned to face him. ‘What?’
He sat down and placed his pint on the table. ‘You look as if something is bothering you.’
She shook her head. ‘No. Tonight’s crisis wasn’t mine, thank goodness, but you’re right – I have been feeling a little off-kilter for weeks, but you’re only the second person who’s seen beneath my attempt to cover it up.’
‘Who was the first?’ For some reason he was instantly and intensely jealous of that person.
‘My grandmother’s best friend.’
‘Ah.’ He dialled his memory back, remembered a feisty little old lady who’d often visited Laurie – he’d remembered her name now – and had once given him a flea in his ear for leaving muddy bike tracks in the hallway. Suddenly, he wasn’t quite so jealous any more.
‘So what is this thing you’re trying to cover up?’
She shook her head. ‘I thought I was supposed to be here to listen to your problems, not the other way round.’
‘And I thought friendship was supposed to be a mutual thing, share and share alike?’ Okay, that wasn’t quite the right expression, but she got his meaning. At least, he thought she did, as her elusive smile made a brief appearance.
‘We’re friends?’
Yes, he realised. They were. He nodded.
He wasn’t quite sure how that happened. Usually, he had girlfriends and he had girls who were friends. Women fell into one camp or the other with him. Somehow, it didn’t surprise him that Claire had been the one to straddle the line.
His non-verbal answer seemed to be good enough for Claire, because she started to talk. She started to tell him about what she’d done the day before, a visit to a nursing home to meet a man she hadn’t seen in more than twenty years, and then the whole story of her childhood came out, thick and fast.
‘I just can’t seem to stop being angry with him,’ she finished quietly. She’d been staring at the table, and when she looked up at him he could see that her eyes were large and glossy. On instinct, he got up, circled the table to where she was, crouched down and put his arms around her. She burrowed her face into his neck.
For a while they stayed like that, breathing together, and then Claire pulled back. ‘So,’ she said, trying to surreptitiously wipe a bit of moisture away from the corner of her eye with her finger. ‘That’s my life story. Now it’s your turn. Starting with this good news of yours.’
Dominic didn’t answer straight away. For some reason the residual sheen of a mopped-up tear on her cheek hit him like a punch in the gut. He tore his eyes away from that damp patch and refocused.
The words were there in his head – the truth – but he couldn’t seem to unlock his teeth and let them out. He returned to his seat, where he inhaled and then slowly exhaled. ‘My good news is that I don’t have a girlfriend.’ He searched her face, looking for a sign that he hadn’t read her all wrong. ‘At least, I hope that’s good news for you.’
‘Oh.’ Claire couldn’t have looked more shocked if he’d told her he did lion taming in his spare time. ‘You broke up?’ Dominic started feel queasy. ‘Not exactly.’
Okay, this was it. Now or never.
How he wished he had a magic remote control, one that would let him fast-forward over the next few minutes so it would all be over. He leaned forward, made sure he looked Claire squarely in the eyes.
‘I never had a girlfriend.’
Claire almost choked on her wine. ‘You mean you’re a – that you’ve never even …’
‘No! I mean, not that. I mean I have had girlfriends. In the past. Lots of them.’
He closed his eyes. Oh, hell. This was not the clear and precise speech he’d hoped he’d give at this moment. Claire was looking at him, eyebrows raised. He was hoping he could see a glimmer of amusement behind her surprise, but maybe that was just wishful thinking.
He took a deep breath, tried again. ‘I mean that I didn’t have a girlfriend when I came to see you at your shop.’
‘Oh!’ The little wrinkle above her nose deepened. ‘Then why did you say you did?’
There was no way to make himself look good in this scenario, was there? No way to spin it. He might as well just give it to her straight. All his efforts to be clever about it – good news and bad news, and all that rubbish – had only got him into trouble anyway.
‘Actually, I didn’t say that I did. You assumed and I just … Well, I just didn’t correct you.’
Claire looked as if she was trying to do a particularly difficult bit of long division inside her head. ‘Why on earth not?’
He started to laugh, a low, dry sound, and the worst possible thing he could do at that moment, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. ‘Because booking a trip was a good excuse to see you again, but I didn’t realise you specialised in romantic holidays, so when you said that, it kind of caught me on the hop.’ He shielded his eyes with his hand. ‘And I didn’t want you to think I was a complete idiot, so I just went along with it.’
Claire folded her arms. ‘And how did that work out for you?’
He removed his hand from his eyes and looked at her. ‘Fabulously. Can’t you tell?’
His attempt at a bit of self-deprecating humour fell completely flat. Claire just blinked. Her arms remained firmly crossed.
‘Listen, I know it was stupid thing to do and I know I should have told you sooner – I even tried to the day I bumped into you at the newsagent’s, but you got called away …’ He paused, took a breath. Collected himself. ‘But I like you, Claire, and there’s more to the story. I wanted you to see I wasn’t such an idiot before I came clean and you started looking at me the way you are now.’
Claire’s eyeballs moved side to side, as if she was replaying images and conversations inside her head.
‘I’m sorry I lied to you, Claire, even by omission. You know me well enough by now to know that sometimes I jump into things with both feet without always thinking. I don’t do it because it’s part of some big master plan.’ He gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I do it because I’m a total numpty.’
There. Right there. One corner of her lips twitched a microscopic amount. He had no idea why his total and utter humiliation pleased this woman so much. If he was sensible, he ought to run screaming from the pub right now. However, he’d already proved quite nicely that he was nothing of the sort.
She didn’t say anything for a few seconds. For a moment, he thought she was going to make a joke, but then she started frowning again. ‘I don’t get it,’ she said slowly. ‘All those emails … All those questions I sent you! If this girlfriend of yours was a complete invention, who the heck were you talking about?’
He exhaled again and his shoulders sagged. ‘You.’
Claire froze, her eyes wide.
Dominic didn’t know what to make of that. When she didn’t move, didn’t speak, he decided to give her some space. He walked away to the back of the garden, where there was a small raised flowerbed full of plants that smelled nice in the warm evening breeze.
A moment later, he heard movement behind him. He turned round and found Claire standing there. He couldn’t read the expression on her face. She didn’t look confused any more, but she didn’t look cross either. He was just wondering what stupid thing would come out of his mouth next when she saved him from himself.
She did that by stepping forward, closing the distance between them and kissing him.
*
Claire had not planned on doing this. But here she was, kissing Nick, and she had to say she wasn’t regretting her decision much. If at all.
After a second of frozen surprise, his arms had come round her and she’d leaned into him. It had been a long time since she’d kissed or been kissed. The last man had been Philip, and he’d always been a little bit full on – too clingy, too affectionate. Maybe she’d felt that way because there had always been a hidden agenda with him. A kiss had never been a simple kiss.
But this kiss right now? Simply lovely.
Because Nick hadn’t hidden anything from her, had he? Not only did she know there was a better man that hid beneath the ‘wandering soul’ persona he used as a disguise so well, but he’d come clean with her, been totally honest. She’d been able to see it in his eyes. Either that, or he’d chosen the wrong profession and should have been a multi-Oscar winning actor instead.
That’s why she’d kissed him. Because she was attracted to him, yes, but also because he was the first man she could remember in a long time who’d willingly let her see beneath his walls. That alone deserved some kind of reward.
When she pulled away, she rested her forehead against his. ‘Wow,’ she whispered softly.
She felt rather than heard his grunt of gruff laughter. ‘You’re not kidding.’
And then lips met lips again. Claire let go, just sunk into it. It was only as she did so that she realised just how tired she’d become keeping a tight grip of control of everything in her life, of how nice it was to let it all fall in a heap at her feet and forget about it.
She’d been feeling so raw since that meeting with her father, and this was the perfect salve, the perfect way to help her forget about scheming, manipulating men who only wanted to trick women, who only wanted to push them around for fun.
He pulled back. ‘Claire? About the other thing—’
She placed a finger over his lips. ‘No,’ she whispered, looking him right in the eye. ‘No bad news. Not tonight. Please? I’ve had enough to deal with this week already.’
‘But—’
She shook her head and shut him up with another kiss. ‘Save it for another day.’