‘What are you doing out here?’ he said finally.
She was glad he had spoken first, because everything she had planned had suddenly escaped her.
‘Waiting for you,’ she said as he took a step closer.
He reached out an unsure hand and she took it, and then she was in his arms, her head against the soft wool of his suit jacket, and she could feel his hands settling into the small of her back.
‘I’ve missed you,’ he said into the top of her hair.
She drew away from him. She knew she hadn’t come all the way to the City not to discuss Josie Price.
‘Why was Josie at the house last night?’ she said.
‘She said she’d forgotten some things. She didn’t stay long.’
Amy nodded.
&
nbsp; ‘It’s the truth,’ said David quietly. ‘She can’t have been there more than twenty minutes. I think she realised I wanted her to leave.’
‘Can we just forget she ever came into our lives? Forget she ever existed?’
‘Only if you believe that nothing happened between us. Nothing at all.’
‘I believe you,’ she said, for the first time almost accepting it as the truth. ‘I’ll believe you if it means we can just get back to where we were.’
‘Believe me because you understand how much I love you,’ he said, holding her hand. ‘I’ve always loved you, even before the moment I saw you on Threadneedle Street in that other red dress.’
She didn’t say anything, wanting to let him just talk. It was true that before Josie they’d had a good marriage and often told each other that they loved one another. But it was why people loved that was perhaps not vocalised enough. Everyone wanted to hear why they were special, why they had been picked, and Amy was desperate to hear his reasons now.
‘I knew I loved you the night of the Commem Ball,’ he said finally. ‘Maybe even before then. You were always the one I wanted to sit with at the kitchen table, the one I wanted to talk to when I got home from the pub. If you ever wondered why Annabel didn’t come round to the house much, it was because I didn’t want you to see me with anyone else.’
Amy remembered those days too. Remembered going out to buy a Christmas tree with him from Oxford’s covered market and decorating it over mugfuls of home-made eggnog. Suddenly she just wanted to do all those simple things again. She pulled her jacket back on and raised her arm for a cab.
‘Let’s go home,’ she said, her face breaking into a smile. ‘Let’s go and see our daughter and make some hot chocolate.’
Chapter 29
The platform was packed. Steam rose from the polished black engine and a buzz of voices filled the air. Dozens of partygoers were dressed to the nines, the women in gowns and faux-fur coats, the men in DJs or wide-shouldered suits, some even sporting capes and rakish hats. The scene was like a particularly glamorous Agatha Christie adaptation, while the atmosphere was light-hearted, excitable, like the start of a school trip to the zoo.
‘You’d have thought none of them had been on a train before,’ said Amy.
David smiled. ‘I shouldn’t think they have,’ he said, raising his voice as the engine gave a screeching lurch, sending up a delighted flutter of squeals from the crowd. ‘I mean, imagine you’re Jack Nicholson. I wouldn’t think he’s been on public transport since the sixties.’
Amy grinned. Jack Nicholson wasn’t on the guest list, but a smattering of Hollywood A-listers were, along with TV stars, singers, artists and at least half of fashionable London. A handful of invitees had pulled out after the short-lived Miranda scandal, citing prior commitments, children’s birthday parties or sudden illnesses, and Miranda herself had declined to come, which was disappointing if understandable.
Amy knew she would have worried about it more if she hadn’t spent the last week in a state of constant panic, dealing with every last detail of the party from the light bulbs to the forks. Everything that could go wrong did on a daily basis. A shipment of gin went missing, the temp agency providing waiters went bankrupt, and a shrimp shortage in the North Sea meant they had to rethink the nibbles. Some days it felt as though they were cursed. But little by little it had all come together.
‘You look at home in that suit,’ she said, touching David’s arm with one finger. It was true. He had always looked good in pinstripes, but in this navy Savile Row three-piece, he looked like a 1940s heart-throb; Cary Grant in his prime. He didn’t often attend Verve events, not because she didn’t want him there, but because it was invariably ‘just work’, but today, it seemed important that he was by her side.
David tugged at his cuffs modestly. ‘You don’t look too bad yourself.’
Amy glanced down at her peacock-blue Dior gown. It was vintage, one of a kind, and accessorised with pearl earrings and a midnight-blue overcoat draped off her shoulders. She knew she looked better than she had in years. Perhaps it was because she felt good too. Going to David’s office last week to resolve their problems had been the best thing she could have done. They had gone home to a delighted Tilly, who was thrilled to see her parents back so early, and made hot chocolate and cuddled up on the sofa, the sub-zero atmosphere slowly rising click by click until it actually felt as if they were back to normal. Almost.
And now here he was, standing at her side, supporting her on her big night. On the outside they were the very picture of a glamorous power couple, but inside? Only time would tell.
‘You’d better not have put me next to that idiot MD of yours at dinner,’ said David, looking around.