Perhaps she could do steak with a peppercorn sauce and some lovely fresh seasonal vegetables. And Dauphinoise potatoes. Her sister loved it when she made that dish – which wasn’t often because it was pretty labour intensive.
Yes, something like that perhaps. And she’d make a dessert from scratch too. Something with lots of fresh fruit, like a summer pudding.
Her spirits rose again.
While she was out shopping for all the ingredients she could pick up a couple of board games for them to play this evening too. Games that might lead them to interesting discussions and help them to get to know each other a bit better.
With a sense of positivity and purpose surging through her now, she sat down at the table and began to make a list, planning a wonderful evening of food and entertainment for her and her new husband.
It would be great to finally feel as if she was on top of things and acting like the kind of daughter her father always wanted to have.
Yup, she was a grown-up now and determined to prove to Xavier that he’d made a good choice in her and that it would be money well-spent.
He was going to be so pleased he’d married her.
* * *
It was ten-thirty before Xavier made it home that evening, after having to deal with the crisis at work that had kept him, his PA and his financial director in the office, scrambling to close a property deal that they’d been working on for the last three months.
It had been a taxing day, but Xavier was pleased with the way it had gone in the end. He felt buzzed with success as he let himself in through his front door and made his way across the entrance hall towards the back of the house.
Striding into his kitchen, he experienced a shiver of disquiet as something niggled at the back of his brain.
He’d not even had a chance to let Soli know he’d be back late; in fact, he’d been so engrossed in what he was doing he’d not noticed how late it was until his PA had jokily pointed out they should eat before all the takeaway outlets shut for the night, but he’d figured it wouldn’t matter. Soli had plenty of things to entertain her here in the house and she seemed like the resourceful type.
After flicking on the kettle, he leant back against the kitchen counter and took a moment to look around the kitchen. There was something different in here, he was sure of it. It smelt different. A bit like the French restaurant he loved to go to on the bank of the Thames in Southwark. Garlicky and delicious.
The kettle boiled and he made himself a cup of tea, lifting the teabag out with the spoon after swishing it around in the boiling water for a few seconds. He never had the patience to let tea brew properly. When he lifted up the lid of the food-waste bin to dispose of the teabag, the garlicky smell grew even stronger and he paused, staring down inside the bin’s depths. It looked as though there was a whole meal in there – what looked like Dauphinoise potatoes and cooked vegetables. What was Soli doing throwing so much food away? How wasteful.
And then it struck him and his stomach turned over with unease. She’d made dinner for him, and he’d not turned up for it. He hadn’t even messaged to let her know he’d be too late to eat with her.
He snapped the bin lid shut and stepped away from it, feeling a strange mixture of self-righteousness and guilt. It wasn’t as though he’d deliberately not turned up for the ‘getting to know each other’ dinner, he’d just forgotten about it. Work had had to take precedence today; it had been imperative to get on top of the problem before it had snowballed.
He’d explain all that to her tomorrow and apologise for missing dinner. There was no point in feeling guilty about it though. They had plenty of time to get to know each other and she’d have to get used to him having to work late without giving her any notice. That was how his life worked, and he wasn’t about to change it for someone who was fundamentally in his employ.
She’d understand that.
Frankly, he was paying her a hefty chunk of money to understand and accept that.
With that assuring thought in mind he added a splash of milk to his tea then took it through to the sitting room to drink it, determined to enjoy a few minutes of his evening before he had to retire to bed.
* * *
When Soli turned up in the kitchen at seven o’clock the next morning, hoping to catch Xavier before he went to work, she was frustrated to find he’d already been and gone.
Had he done it on purpose, so he didn’t have to see her?
She’d been disappointed and a bit hurt when he hadn’t come home in time to eat the food she’d spent so much time and energy on, but she’d tried not to take it to heart. She’d decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he’d just forgotten about it.
And her.
The uncomfortable twisting sensation that she’d experienced when she’d finally accepted he wasn’t coming home last night reappeared.
She needed to get a grip. There were bound to be a few misunderstandings until they got to know each other better. He was a very busy man who ran his own company, so of course he was going to be working long hours and would be prone to forgetting she was at home, waiting for him.
But the dissenting voice in her head whispering that he was deliberately avoiding her wouldn’t shut up.
She felt wired and restless now, as if there was something portentous in the air.
