All right, time for him to do what he did best: fix thesituation.
A change of topic was the best tactic. “May I order for you?” He reached across the table and took the menu gently from her hand. “How about something to make up for the interrupted main course?” He winked. “Are you a cold-pudding or a warm-dessert kind of lady? They make an exceptional salted caramelfondant.”
Unexpectedly, she cracked up.
“What now?”
“Nothing. You just reminded me ofsomeone.”
“But I hope not the same person who compared you unfavourably to other women.”
“No, not him.” The wordhimcarried a darker cadence, as if the three little letters had turned hardand black.
He’d clearly stumbled into private territory and should retrace his steps. A half-smile remained on her lovely lips, but the laughter had faded. Probably the memory of that day—It’s not a day I like to remember. He ought to change the subject, find a new topic. He watched her as she watched the Rocco Borghese light sculpture in the centre of the restaurant. Yes, Italian lighting designers, he could talk about that, a safe topic.
“Will you tell me abouthim?” To hellwith safe.
Millie didn’t answer.
He ordered their dessert and poured her another glass of wine.
“We were at school together,” she said at last. Her voice had gone very quiet, and she kept her eyes on the Rocco Borghese as the story came out, slow,hesitant.
A mournful saxophone solo played in the background; the lights had dimmed, making the dinner tables look like little private islands of soft glow. He listened in silence, not wanting to interrupt her.
She kept to the simple facts, no details, no emotion, no self-pity. She even made it sound like just one of those things that could have happened to anyone. He suspected she was holding back a lot more. But even without reading between the lines, he was shocked. Bloody hell, the ex-husband sounded like a twenty-four-carat bastard.
What astonished him even more was how little Millie blamed her ex. She told the story with no accusation, giving herself equal responsibility for allowing the marriage to deteriorate. She even tried for a little humour.
“Isn’t it typical, too late you think of what you should have said? I had lots of angry things I wanted to tell Henry, and my boss, but they weren’t there and you were. So you got the sharp end of my ten-year silence. Lucky you.” Her lips twisted in a wry smile. “I was hoping you wouldn’t remember the shouting woman in the street, or the gibbering wreck inthe café.”
“You weren’t a gibbering wreck. Far from it. My memory is of someone with tremendouscourage.”
“Courage? Sitting in a café, shivering and drinking tea? I thought your world was filled with tougher people thanthat.” She tilted her head, gently teasing, clearly wanting to move off the difficult subject.
“In the middle of what you say was the worst day of your life, you were ready to give me your insurance details, to put yourself in my power. I could have claimed thousands off you for a scrape of paint. That’scourage.”
“Thank you.”
She reached for her wine, then changed her mind and took the water glass, sipped, then leaned back in her chair and looked around. But he wasn’t ready to drop the subject. An injustice had taken place, and keeping quiet felt like closing his fist on a thorn.
He sat forward, placed his elbows on the table and laced his fingers under his chin. “What can I doto help?”
Her smile widened. “You’ve already helped by leaving your newspaper behind.”
What was she talking about? “My newspaper?”
“Don’t you remember?” There were bright stars in her hazel eyes. “You had a newspaper with you which you forgot inthe café.”
Oh, that. “How did that help?”
“I found this job.” She said it as if it should have been obvious.
“My newspaper?” It took a moment for the penny to drop. Of course, she had said she’d seen the job advert in a newspaper, and he’d suspected her of lying. What he’d sensed, the hint of concealment, must have been her worry about being recognized. He had been suspicious over nothing.
He topped up her wine glass and her ice-water glass. A tiny thing to make up for his mistrust. “Would you believe I never read that particular paper? I only bought it to check if the recruitment agency had advertised the vacancy correctly.”
“That’s a mind-blowing coincidence, because I’d just been told I was ugly, so your advert fit the bill. If it wasn’t for your paper, I might now be working in some dead-end job and living ina bedsit.”
