I wait.
He’ll know I’m there. He’ll have sensed it too. And I’m in no rush. Maybe I’ve done enough rushing in.
“If you’ve got something to say, that spit it out before you choke on it.” He doesn’t look at me as he speaks.
“I was hoping you had something to say.”
“Everything I need to pass on I can do in an email. Or letter. Or via Franklyn.”
“But not to me in person?”
“That was pretty much summed up.”
I nod. I don’t cry easily. I keep things in nice neat tidy boxes and act appropriately in front of other people. Right now I want to kick and scream and sob because the fire inside me is burning too hot.
“If I made a mistake, I’m sorry. I saw you with a woman – I didn’t even know you were going to be in Edinburgh.” It’s starting to rain, coming down hard, hitting my skin and making the thin material of my shirt transparent.
Ben doesn’t even look at me.
“Apology not necessary.”
I should walk away. I don’t need to be here. Every sinew is inert, incapable of moving.
“It is. I’m not saying I over reacted, but I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”
“There’s nothing to trust. We’ve just been fucking. Not like it’s going to go anywhere.”
I think my heart fractures.
“Do you want it to go somewhere?”Because I do.
He’s the son of a groundsman. I’m the daughter of a king. In some rule book, we’re not allowed. I should be with someone who can enhance our unstable country, enrich the people.
Ben turns to look at me. He’s tired, his stubble longer than I’ve ever seen it.
“No.”
It’s one word. I could ask why. I could demand an explanation of how he can fuck me so well and then discard me like an old Christmas card after twelfth night.
I don’t.
I walk away, carrying a tattered heart.
* * *
My skirt and blouse are suitably respectable and even my mother makes a comment that I look like a repressed secretary. I’ve gone as far as to wear glasses even though I don’t need them, and my hair is tied up in a thick ponytail rather than lose.
I don’t want to be here; in fact, I’d rather be anywhere else, but there’s nowhere else to be.
“Thank you for meeting me.” William Goldsmith is ten minutes late to our ‘date’. He sent an apology to the restaurant, where I was seated in a private room, being offered a glass of red wine that was from a vintage brought in especially, so I was told.
Business has kept him late.I didn’t believe him. He was beaming a signal that he was a busy man, setting himself up as someone too important to be on time.
I sit back down after receiving the required air kisses and take a sip of my wine, cursing my brother.
We struck a deal: I’d have dinner with the Prime Minister and he’d take over my duties as patron of a society for retired golfers, or so we nicknamed them. It was a group full of lecherous old men who donated a great deal in order to get their status.
My dinner companion would probably join them in the future.
