‘Are you hungry?’
‘Is that a euphemism?’
‘Ha. Noooo, but I wish it was now.’
‘I’m always hungry,’ I said.
‘Well, I’m going to feed you and, if you like your dinner, maybe you’ll think about staying the night?’
‘Well, I have to sleep somewhere, I guess.’
He kissed me reverently, pulling me into his chest, and I felt desire stir again, so I pressed myself into him further. He pulled away from me suddenly.
‘Just so we’re clear, sleeping has nothing to do with what I am thinking of.’
I laughed – a throaty, feline sound I could not ever remember hearing from myself – and then kissed him with enthusiasm. It had been an age since I felt sexy or desired. I liked the feeling very much. I liked Nick Northby even more.
We dried off, heading back into the lounge. Dinner was in a warming-cupboard contraption that was a part of the trolley, which turned into a dining table. Nick whipped it out with great fanfare, doing an excellent impression of Antoine in the restaurant, which had me in fits of giggles. There were tender slices of steak covered in salsa verde, there were sweet potato fries and a simple rocket, pear and parmesan salad. He poured us out another glass of Shiraz each.
Later that night, he took me to bed and we took our time. He looked into my eyes and told me again how he had not expected me, that I was beautiful. I breathed breathy smiles into his unshaven cheek, marvelling at our bodies and the feelings we were both able to give and take. We fell asleep fitfully, tucked into each other.
We spent the rest of my holiday together, holding one another’s hands, staring into one another’s eyes, moving in unison, answering for one another, constantly in contact – just like one of those annoying couples you see on holidays.
Nick
I felt the emptiness of the room after Abbey had left. I could still smell her.
Earlier, I had taken her to the airport and brushed away her tears as we said goodbye and then watched from the terminal as she walked to the plane.
My heart was being traitorous. It ached for her. Nick Northby didn’t do things like this. He didn’t date random women he met on holiday. He certainly did not develop feelings for them. It was a holiday romance, and it was over.
It was time to get back to work; to focus my mind on the one thing I was good at. The company was where I found the structure and endless hours to fill my time. I had inherited it from my mum and in the time I’d been at its helm it had grown exponentially.
A therapist once told me that I could not continue to use the business to provide me with the tools to ignore any emotional crisis I experienced. She was so wrong.
I closed my eyes, taking one last lungful of Abbey’s scent. Her image appeared, her blonde hair caught in the warm breeze, her oceanic-blue eyes. I had become addicted to her, that’s all it was. Abbey was all easy smiles, self-deprecating humour and honesty. God, she did not give a fuck about what I thought about her. Why was that so appealing?
We had had plenty of conversations, getting to know one another, but none of them had focused on work … ever. She had never pressed me for details, always happy just to let me unfold in my own time. I told her I owned a company, a family business. She told me she was an executive assistant. Every day I waited for the questions that inevitably would come from women about what I did for a living, the size of the company and how much money I had. Abbey Parker never asked me anything remotely like that. Abbey did not see the business. She seemed to only see me.
She’d told me that she did not use social media. I knew this was true because it was absolutely clear she had not googled me. Abbey had said that she thought life was better without it. She was a teenager in the nineties and deeply wished she could return to 1996 when the world was a better place and people didn’t stare at their phones constantly. I’d told her I thought that was naïve, and she had giggled at me. Every time I’d picked up my phone, she’d said, ‘Put your fucking phone down, Nick.’
I will admit, I was going to miss her. But I did not make plans to see her, even though I knew we would be in the same city next week. If I saw her, I would want to be around her, I would want to hear her laugh, I would want to touch her hair, my body would crave her. I needed to not see her, to protect her, to protect myself.
There were two types of people in the world: people who respected boundaries and people who didn’t. Abbey respected boundaries, but she had this way of cruising past mine. As though they were invisible to her. Everyone else saw the clear, unmountable walls I had built.
It was a holiday romance, a great holiday romance, and now it was over. Time to get back to work. Time to get back to reality.
Chapter Four
Abbey
Home. The holiday joy had left me by the time I came into the arrivals gate at Sydney Airport. My tears started at the sight of my daughter and sister. Ella was ginormous, having somehow grown several inches in two weeks. There they stood, my little family, holding a handmade, glittery, cardboard ‘Welcome Home’ sign.
Ella, seeing me crying, burst into tears herself and ran to hug me. I could not remember a hug that huge from her since she was four, and I felt the loss of the little girl she once was, who had been replaced by this teenager. Kate joined in a second later, throwing her arms around us. My sister looked at me closely and then took pity on my fragility by bundling us all into my white Toyota Corolla and getting us home to our shared house in the not-quite inner-city suburb of Tempe.
I had an overwhelming joy flare up from being in my house. Being home. After Peter had left, I became obsessed with making it a place that reflected me. We’d started outside, ripping out the English cottage garden, which my mother-in-law, Henrietta, had planted. Neither Peter nor I enjoyed gardening and so the entry always looked like shit. Kate had sensibly selected some agaves, succulents and plants that could handle the pollution and saltiness of Sydney air, without needing anything from us but a once-a-week water, which was about the only kind of commitment I was prepared to make with a plant. The garden looked chic now – and, okay, my renovation commitments had eventually stopped, mostly because I could not afford them – but standing outside it, the place really did feel like mine, and not mine and Pete’s.
I walked arm in arm with Ella. Kate carried my bag inside and then topped the list of my favourite people ever by pouring me a massive glass of red wine. I dumped my suitcase onto my bedroom floor. The room was exactly as it had been when Pete lived here and, returning to it after a break, I suddenly felt within myself that the time had come to change that, as a massive priority. Being with Nick these past two weeks had taught me that I wanted someone in my life, eventually. And that meant letting go of the past.
