Faithful (18 page)

The smell was what hit me first. That delicious Daniel smell and then I was greeted by his megawatt smile in all its glory. It hit me out of nowhere how beautiful he was. There wasn’t a part of him that I didn’t want.

“I couldn’t have you in New York and not be here. But I stayed in the car and worked so you can’t be mad.”

All I could do was grin at him as I climbed into the car in a very unladylike way, far too concerned with getting to touch him rather than elegantly entering the car. On my knees on the backseat I pulled his face toward me and kissed him.

“How could I ever be mad at you?”

He grabbed my waist and pulled me onto his lap and pushed his lips onto mine. My hands travelled
around his head and through his silky hair. It had grown noticeably since I last touched it and I momentarily felt a pang of regret. I didn’t want to miss a minute with him. He ran his tongue across my lips, prolonging the moment when he would crash into me. I couldn’t wait and opened my mouth, urging him in. When his tongue met mine, I couldn’t help but moan and collapse against him, feeling his hardness growing against me. I didn’t think I could wait for the 45 minutes it was going to take us to drive into town. We had to talk before anything. I had promised him that I would tell him what was on my mind and he deserved that. I slipped off his lap and grabbed his hand in both of mine, trying to dial it down a notch.

Conscious of being overheard by the driver we made small talk on the journey into town but I couldn’t stop smiling and staring at him and touching him, unable to believe how totally perfect he was and how he was right here beside me. He was like a drug that transported me to a happy place and blocked out anything bad in my life. But blocking out the bad stuff was only a temporary solution. I didn’t want Daniel in my life because he fixed me, I wanted Daniel in my life because I loved him and he loved me.

“Are you taking me back to your flat or do you have to go back to work?” Daniel’s apartment was just off Central Park on the Upper East Side. It made sense because he was in New York so often. He didn’t ever really talk about it, but I presumed that’s where we would be staying.

“No, I’m done in the office for the weekend. I thought we could go back and relax, I guessed you’d want to change after your flight and I wanted to stay in tonight and catch up.”

I released Daniel’s hand as it travelled up my thigh. I felt the familiar heat with his touch and my nipples beaded beneath my white lace bra. Oh god, just the slightest bit of attention sent my body crazy for him. I grabbed his hand and placed it in mine again. I was going to have to be quick if I were going to keep my resolve and tell him how I was feeling.

“Sounds great. I thought it would be good to talk as well. You know
...”

His idea of catching up didn’t have anything to do with chat but we needed to talk or at least I needed to talk. I looked out of the window, trying to avoid looking at him so I didn’t worry him but I felt something shift between us and he kissed me on the top of my head and squeezed my hand.

Daniel seemed to have dialed down his touching me as we made our way into his flat. I was so totally distracted by the apartment I nearly forgot about what I was about to do. The place was enormous with huge windows facing the park in every room other than the kitchen. The decoration was very similar to his London house, just a little bit more modern but still opulent and comfortable in a palate grays and silvers and creams with huge lamps and overfilled cushions finishing the place off. I felt at home despite never having even been anywhere so glamorous.

I shook myself out of the Kelly
Hoppen trance and turned to find Daniel behind me. I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my head in his chest. I didn’t know if I could do what I was about to do.

I took a deep breath. “You know you mean more to me now than ever man ever has ever meant to me don’t you? You have to know that Daniel?”

“Leah,” he said cautiously, “what’s going on?”

“You know, earlier in the week, when we didn’t speak for a day or so?”

I made it back to work on the Wednesday and I seemed to be fully functional so I managed to call him then. We hadn’t spoken since Monday lunchtime when I’d seen Charlie and Fran. I’d texted and emailed him and just said I was stuck on conference calls. And then when I was subdued on Wednesday, I just passed if off as tiredness and tried to be as excited as possible about my flight on Friday and my weekend with him.

“Yes, you were busy at work. What’s going on?”

“Well, I saw Charlie and Fran together. They didn’t see me but I saw them together, across the road, as a couple and her bump is quite big now and they kissed and ... well ... the whole thing kind of freaked me out.”

“Why didn’t you say? Of course it must have been upsetting. Are you
OK?”

“Well, it just brought a few things up for me.” I didn’t need him to know what a complete wreck I had been, how I’d been unable to function for 24 hours, how I’d thrown up until I thought I might pass out.

“So it occurred to me that Charlie and I haven’t even spoken since I found out he was cheating. I mean, come on, you have to admit that is a little crazy. What’s even crazier is that I haven't even wanted to talk to him. I haven't even really thought about him or us or what happened between us. I’ve just moved on as if he never existed.”

“What are you saying? That you want to speak to him? That you want to try and resolve things, get back with him?”

“Oh my god no. I don’t want him. At all. And I don’t want you any less than I have done from the moment we met. It’s just I doubt myself, I doubt my judgment because of what happened between Charlie and me and it’s that I need to resolve, not my relationship with Charlie. Don’t for one moment think that this is about him.”

Daniel didn’t say a word he just stared out onto the city.

“It’s just that since we met my mind has been full of you and that has been wonderful but there has been no room for anything else. No room for me to finish up my old life in order to start a new one. No room for lessons to be learned. It must be at least part of the reason why I have all these insecurities and why I’m a ‘headcase’ as you put it.”

I moved in front of him, putting my arms around his neck but he still didn’t look at me.

“I want to be able to see me the way you see me and I want to love you the way you deserve to be loved but I don’t think I will be able to any of that until I sort some stuff out. And this time while you’re in New York seems to be the perfect time to do that.”

“Leah, what are you trying to say?” He pulled me away from him and held me out in front of him by my shoulders, finally trying to look me in the eye.

This time I couldn’t look at him, so I just stared at his chest as his eyes bore holes into me. “I’m just saying I think we need to take this time, when I go back to London and you are here in New York, we kinda just need to take a time-out for me to get myself together.”

“But
... I don’t understand, what do you mean time-out?”

I paused, this was it. I had to say it but I just didn’t know how.

“Like, a little pause, a break.”

Daniels arms dropped from mine and he sat on the sofa behind us and ran his fingers through his hair and slumped forwards, his elbows on his knees.

“You’ll be back in London before you know it and I will have had time by then.”

“I’ll come back to London
. I’ll fly back with you on Monday. I’ll manage things from there somehow.” He didn’t raise his head, he wasn’t looking at me.

“No
, Daniel, I don’t want that responsibility. You said yourself you need to be here and anyway, I don’t need this time because you are in New York, even if you were in London, I would still need to get my head together.”

“But if I hadn’t left
...”

“Daniel, this was going to have to resolve itself one way or another and this way, hopefully we have more of a chance.”

“You seem happy when we are together. I just don’t get it, Leah.”

“I am happy. You make me so happy. You transport away from anything remotely bad in the world and that is fabulous but it doesn’t mean the bad stuff isn’t there. It just means it seeps back into my head when I’m not expecting it.”

“So, what you don’t visit while I’m here but we still talk, we’re still friends?”

I paused. No, that wasn’t how I needed it to be. How could I tell him? I walked over to him on put my arms around him.

“We’re not just friends though, Daniel, we never were. My feelings for you are far too strong to be just your friend. Let’s just take a break until you come back to London after the results are published.”

“Fucking hell
, Leah, that’s exactly the point isn’t it? We are so much more than friends. I don’t want a break from you. I want you all the time.”

I couldn’t argue with him, I felt the same. Maybe I was just forcing something I didn’t need to? Maybe just the physical distance would be enough. I sighed knowing I was trying to convince myself. I knew that if we were in contact, I would still have a head full of him, full of worrying who he was
with, who was flirting with him. I would still have that feeling of him saving me and it was time I saved myself.

“I guess you want a chance to be single. To play the field, after Charlie. I should have expected it and I can’t judge you for it after what I did when I split with George.”

“No! That is not what I’m saying! At all! I don’t want anyone else, really. Anyone. This isn’t about me finding someone else. This is about me finding myself. And I know that sounds cheesy but truly, that’s what this is.” God I was explaining myself so badly. “But I can’t ask anything of you, I can’t ask you to be beholden to me while we are apart. You shouldn’t wait for me if you don’t want to.” I took a deep breath. I’d thought about this, it was only fair, but it was going to kill me to say it. “You can consider yourself single while I’ve asked you for this time. You don’t owe me anything, including your fidelity.”

“Fucking hell
, Leah. I don’t want anyone else.” Daniel grasped his hair tightly in his hands and stared at the floor.

“And I don’t want you to want anyone else
, but I can’t have myself being consumed with jealousy, not knowing who you are with because
I’m
not with you. I need to be able to tell myself that you are free to be with whoever you want to be while we are apart.”

Daniel stayed silent. God, it would kill me if he found someone else while we were apart. Maybe I was crazy for saying what I did. Crazy for asking for a time
-out. What was I doing?

“Please
, Daniel. I need this. We need this. I don’t want to be a paranoid headcase waiting for us to fail, making us fail. I don’t want to doubt you, doubt myself. It’s exhausting.”

“Whatever you want
, Leah. Always.” Daniel slumped back on the sofa, his head tipped back, defeated.

I shrugged off my blazer and shifted my weight so I was straddling him. He hands went to my hips and his head snapped forward.

“What are you doing?”

“I just want to enjoy our time together this weekend.” I started to undo his tie.

“So you are going to use me for sex and then dump me?” The corners of his mouth turned up just a fraction and I grinned at him.

“I’m not dumping you, but the sex thing sounds like an
excellent
suggestion.”

“As I said, anything you want.” And he pulled me forward,
brought my lips to his.

***

The weekend together was incredible. Difficult but incredible. We took in some sights, ate at amazing restaurants, wandered around the park hand in hand, and spent a lot of time in bed. I was sure that he was trying to convince me to change my mind, but he never said anything and I was grateful. Even so he succeeded in convincing me a hundred times. I doubted myself for the entire trip. I was genuinely happy with him. He made everything so much better.

Every now and then I would get a reminder of why I needed our
time-out. Women took him in everywhere we went, blatantly looking him up and down at times and at other times openly flirting with him right in front of me when I was clearly with him. It left me feeling unworthy of him and I found myself imagining the possibilities he would have when I returned to London. That paranoia and insecurity was something I’d never experienced with any man. It can’t have just been because Daniel was so handsome, so perfect. Charlie and Fran crept into my mind at various points, too. That box of emotions was well and truly open and although there were no more tears, there was a deep dark pit at the bottom of my stomach that never left me.

On Monday, after breakfast, I insisted Daniel went into the office. I was being picked up at 10 a.m. for my flight and I couldn’t bear the thought of an emotional airport goodbye.

“So this is it.” He clung to me as if were the last time he was ever going to see me.

“It’s just two months Daniel.”

“And at the end of two months, if you need more time or your feelings for me have changed or you’ve fallen for someone else? There are so many uncertainties, Leah.”

“None of that will happen. It’s much more likely you will run off with a Victoria Secrets model.” The thought sucker punched me in the gut. That was the risk I was taking. The risk that if I gave him up for two months, so I could be sure of me, sure of my feelings for him, that I would lose him forever.

I pulled him closer. He didn’t respond. He knew the possibilities; he knew before he flew out two weeks ago. That’s why he’d been so upset. He placed a firm kiss on my forehead and without looking at me again headed out of the door.

Oh god. What had I done?

***

I got back to London with a plan. It was raining
. Of course it was. I came in drenched and pissed off at the world and Anna was on the sofa channel surfing. It was just after midnight, so I knew she was only waiting up for me. I poured myself a glass of wine and collapsed on the sofa next to her.

“You
OK?” she asked.

“Yes, I think I’m going to be.”

She smiled and patted me on the leg. “Wanna talk about it?”

“Actually no. I’m good. Or at least I will be. Let’s talk tomorrow, I need to unpack and get to bed but thanks for being so fantastic.”

“Well, in the words of Scarlett O’Hara, tomorrow is another day.”

Indeed it was and that’s when my plan would kick in.

The next morning I felt OK, in control. I took a deep breath and pressed send on the familiar number. He answered after just one ring.

“Hello?” the voice sounded uncertain.

“Charlie, it’s Leah. I was wondering if you had some time after work this week to meet with me?”

He was clearly shocked but he quickly agreed to meet me on Thursday evening. Good. Step one was in place.

The next thing I did was book some therapy. I wanted to do this properly. I would go every a week. Working it around David and my clients was going to be difficult but I was determined to make it work.

I wasn’t sure what to do about Fran, whether I wanted or needed to confront her. I knew I had to see Charlie but with Fran I wasn’t sure. I put that on hold.

Despite me thinking I was just going to be able to press pause on Daniel and have him drift out of my mind, it wasn’t that easy. I thought about him every day. For the first few days I thought about little else. I wondered if he would be able to stop himself contacting me. I convinced myself that he wouldn’t find it difficult. Men were so much better at compartmentalizing things. Then I wondered if I would be able to stop contacting him. That was the real question. I nearly picked up the phone, texted him, emailed him a million times. It was like those early stages of dating when you really like someone and you want to tell them everything but you know you have to hold yourself back. Having made a big fuss about a time-out I couldn’t exactly change my mind after a few days.

Gradually it got easier, not just because I managed to contain my thoughts about him to a few times a day rather than all day but because I focused on seeing him in just a few weeks. It made it easier somehow knowing that if I kept my resolve now, it would be all the sweeter when out time was up.

One of the times I allowed myself to think of Daniel was reading the daily alert I had set up for the Gematria group. I justified the google alert that I set up as because of the Palmerston deal but on the basis I only set it up after I came back from New York, I’m not sure who I was trying to kid. I wanted to know if any more bad news came out about the New York office. I’m not sure what I would do, whether I would reach out to him, but I wanted to know.

The following weeks were tough. One by one all my boxes were opened and all the feelings about so much stuff that I’d not thought about in months, years in some cases, came out and raged through me as if brought to life by the sunlight I revealed them to. There were plenty of ups and downs, lots of tears and anger and swearing and wine drinking. I tried to balance out the wine drinking with running and that helped with the emotional weight that I felt, it made me feel lighter and stopped me thinking about all the sex with Daniel I was missing out on. It felt like I was in training for a marathon, physically and mentally. Daniel’s return was D day and I wanted to be as ready, as fit as I possibly could be.

Meeting Charlie was difficult. I don’t know if I expected seeing him to magically make me feel better but I don’t think I expected how odd it would be. In so many ways it was like it always had been between us. I knew him so well and I’d forgotten that somewhere. He ordered my wine for me before I arrived and we traded information about parents and jobs as if we were chatting at home while making dinner together. I don’t think I’d expected that familiarity to still be there. Since I’d let myself think about him, I’d turned him into a monster in my head but here he was, same as ever, his monstrous parts well hidden.

Eventually we navigated the elephant in the room. I didn’t scream or shout or swear or punch him, which I thought was remarkably restrained of me. He apologized. He said that he had probably been trying to make me hate him by sleeping with a friend of mine but it hadn’t been conscious. I said he’d succeeded. He said he wanted out of the relationship and should have never proposed I agreed but admitted I should have never accepted. I knew things weren’t right between us when I accepted
. I’d just been on a road, wanting to get to the end of it rather than asking myself if I was going in the right direction. I had to take some responsibility for that. We talked about when it went wrong, but I don’t think either of us knew. Maybe it had just never been right. There were lots of apologies and regrets on both sides. In the end he thanked me, and I believed it was a genuine thank you, for picking up the phone. It felt like it had been the right thing to do.

When I relayed it all to Anna, almost word for word, she agreed our meeting had probably been for the best but said she still would hate every bone in his body until the day he died. She really was the perfect friend.

Three weeks into the eight week separation I got called into David’s office. I was worried I was going to get a bollocking for taking up so much of Brendan’s time. He was really proving himself working with Deb on the disclosures and he was so enthusiastic I couldn’t do anything but reward him by giving him more and more to do, which he loved. Although he said he could balance my work with the PA stuff David required, I had my doubts. David was almost certainly feeling neglected.

“Leah, I need you to send an email out to the team on the
Palmerston deal. The whole thing is on hold.”

I was shocked. Daniel and I had never talked about the deal when we were together but I couldn’t help but think that if we weren’t on our
time-out, I would have known about this before David.

“Oh,
OK, that’s fine. Should I tell people why or whether it’s likely to come back on?”

They were all valid questions but I was fishing for information for my own personal reasons, unconnected with the content of any email I was going to draft.

“I don’t have much info. Just that it’s unlikely to come back on. What is weird is that my wife mentioned that apparently there’s a re-launch of a New York hotel that’s happening this week, she knows they are a client and I think she was hoping we would get to go.” He laughed. “It just seems a little strange that they were refurbing a place that was going to be part of the sale. Who knows what’s going on?”

Leaving David’s office my paranoia ran free. Had the deal been pulled because of our
time-out? Was he punishing me? Perhaps Daniel had found someone else and wanted to cut any links with me. He had never mentioned a re-launch of any of his New York hotels but I guess he didn’t really mention any specifics about work, other than what he’d told me about the New York MD. Were the two connected?

Oh god, I just wanted to speak to him. I wanted him to reassure me that he still loved me and that there wasn’t anyone else and that I was just being paranoid. I grabbed my phone and wallet from my bag and ran out the door. I’d go and get coffee which would be an excuse to get out of the building. In the
elevator, I scrolled down my phone and hovered over Daniel’s number. He would want me to call him wouldn’t he? If he knew how I was feeling? If it was over between us I wanted to know now, I didn’t want to have to wait another five weeks just to have my heart crushed. Better the devastation starts as soon as possible and then it would be over sooner. But I couldn’t make the call. I was the one who initiated this time-out and I had to stick to it. My paranoia would just have to eat me alive.

Anna and I went out for drinks that evening. We drank and chatted
around a table with the buzz of the bar surrounding us rather than on our sofa with the television in the background but it was good to get out. We saw a couple of people we knew which was nice. Catching up on other people’s news really distracted me from my drama. I realized I’d not really seen anyone other than Anna and Daniel for what seemed like months. It probably was months. I was deliberately staying under the radar since Charlie and I split. I didn’t want people feeling sorry for me and I didn’t want to have to put up with people’s sympathy faces. And because Daniel was always there, either physically or in my head, I couldn’t face people because I felt guilty that I didn’t feel worse about what had happened with Charlie. Daniel made me feel better about everything.

About a week later, I was just beginning to convince myself that I was being paranoid and that if Daniel wanted to cut all ties with me he wouldn’t be so cruel as to wait until our
time-out was over. Then I opened that day’s Google alert. David’s wife had been right: One of the Palmerston New York hotels was being relaunched. There were a few press articles covering the unveiling. They all seemed to mention the misconduct of the New York MD and what was now a criminal investigation, although there weren’t many details of what the criminal allegations were and they also showed pictures of the refurbished hotel. Any publicity was good publicity I suppose.

Trailing through the articles, there were photos on the red carpet of various celebrities attending the event. My heart actually stopped when my eyes found a picture of Daniel with his arm
around a woman’s waist smiling into the camera. When I looked closer I could see it was his ex-wife Georgina. What was going on? Was this an old picture? I was scrambling between all the pictures in the different articles and it was clearly a picture from just last night. So that was that. He was with his ex-wife. I was wrong; he had taken me at my word and not contacted me for any reason, not even to tell me he was back with his ex-wife.

I called Anna and in barely understandable English told her what I was looking at. I wanted her to tell me I was overreacting, that it didn’t mean what I knew it meant. Of course she couldn’t do that because what she saw was what I saw.

What had I done? I’d pushed away the person who I wanted to be closest to. It was all my fault. I’d taken a huge risk and it had backfired.

The phone ringing jolted me out of my haze of confusion,
sorrow, and regret. I answered it without thinking but I could barely say my own name.