He almost guffawed at himself as he stepped onto the plush carpet of the living area of his suite. It seemed he could see to the very edges of the city from this height. It stretched out beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, glittering against a dramatic sunset of purples, greys and pinks.
It would not be an overstatement to say he’d splurged a bit. But it was nothing to do with pampering himself and absolutely everything to do with being practical. At the beginning of December, he’d drawn up a plan with Ibrahim to give himself the best chance of making it through this evening without a major slip.In the run-up to tonight, he’d been to both Totnes and Dartmouth numerous times, and had even fitted in a trip to Exeter. It had been a hard slog, sometimes feeling like one step forward and two steps back, but he thought he was ready. Hehopedhe was ready. While he still wasn’t comfortable with large crowds for extended periods of time, he did have a variety of tools to help himself cope with them.
Part of the plan for tonight was to limit the triggers, not dealing with packed spaces more than necessary. So, when he’d discovered there was a hotel in the Shard itself, and that it had parking facilities, meaning he’d be able to drive all the way from his front door to the hotel, it had been a no-brainer. It hadn’t mattered how much it cost, which was just as well, because availability on New Year’s Eve had been slim, so he’d ended up with one of the fancy suites.
He was already in the right building, so no need to deal with taxis or crowded public transport, or even herds of excited revellers in the streets below. And if he felt a panic attack looming, maybe he and Anna could come down here to get away. It would solve a dual purpose, because he had something to give her – if his courage didn’t fail him.
In less than seven hours he would meet her, and they would speak face to face the way they talked on the phone. He’d be able to see her frown in concentration as she chewed an idea over, or watch her eyes light up in delight. He’d imagined what her smile would look like a thousand times, but tonight he would see it for real, and that meant he didn’t really care about the £2,000 price tag for this stupidly ostentatious suite. It was worth every penny.
Don’t dream about midnight, though, mate. She’s not Cinderella and you’re definitely not Prince Charming.
Brody nodded to himself and walked through to the immense drawing room of his suite, complete with seating area, dining table laid for six, and a telescope on a tripod. He turned right and headed into the bedroom, then sat down on the end of the sumptuously bedecked bed, stared out the window at the darkening sky, and wondered what to do next.
ANNA EMERGED FROM London Bridge station along with what seemed like half the city. Everyone was in groups. One such sprawling collection of friends flowed around her on the pavement as they joked and sang, dawdling along the road in the vague direction of Borough Market. Anna waited until they’d passed and then she looked up. The height of the glass building above her was dizzying. She was still a little jet-lagged, thanks to her flight home from Canada only two days earlier. Why else would she feel so jittery this evening?
She checked her watch. Ten forty. It might take a while to get through security and queue for the lifts. This was it. Time to go inside.
She flashed her ticket at the man in red livery by the door, then headed up the stairs to the security area. Once through that, she stood in line for the lift to the thirty-third floor. Everyone was dressed up to the nines and in high spirits. Anna couldn’t help being swept along a little with the buzz. She was excited, she realized, more so than nervous, not that it made any difference to her skittering pulse.
One ear-popping ride later, she queued for a second lift to take her all the way to the top. She emerged on the sixty-eighth floor and inhaled deeply as she took in her surroundings. There wasn’t much square-footage when you were this high up in the needle-like structure of Europe’s tallest building. A wide strip of floor ran around a central block that housed stairs and lift shafts, and what little other space existed was filled with people. Some milled around the long bar, others sipped their cocktails and looked out through the overlapping layers of glass and metal to the twinkling city beyond.
Anna turned and faced the stairs. She and Brody had agreed to meet on the top floor of ‘The View from The Shard’, where it was open to the air. She buttoned her coat to the top, took a deep breath, and headed up a few short flights of stairs to the seventy-second floor.
It was busy when she arrived, but not as crammed as it had been below in the warm. Music played and low lighting in different hues illuminated not just the guests but the large glass panels that rose jaggedly into the sky above their heads, cycling through the colours of the rainbow. She stepped forward and peered around. She’d told him she didn’t need a photo, because she already knew what he looked like, but she now realized that relying on the grainy and out-of-date black-and-white photo from his website to make an identification hadn’t been the best idea.
While a couple of the men within view might have fitted the bill, they were all with partners or friends. Anna took a deep breath and headed off in an anti-clockwise direction. A few moments later, in the opposite corner of the structure to the one she’d entered from, she spotted a lone figure staring out across the city skyline.Although he was less than ten feet from the nearest group of partygoers, he seemed separate, totally self-contained.
It was him.
Anna’s heart skipped but she remained where she was, content to study him unobserved for a few moments. He was taller than she’d imagined. Broader too, although not bulky, and he gripped the railing in front of him not so much as if he was resting on it but clinging onto it. It made her feel a bit better that he might be nervous too.
He straightened slightly, as if he’d heard a noise, or had sensed something. Anna held her breath as he turned and looked around. He didn’t spot her straight away. His gaze swept past her, and she could see him scanning the crowd, looking more tense than hopeful.
Now she could see his face properly, she realized he did indeed look very much like the photo on his website. Older, yes. A little more battered around the edges, but pretty much the same. She should have expected that. The Brody she knew would never allow himself to be airbrushed.
What was she doing just standing there? It was stupid. This was the moment she’d been waiting for all year. In a few short seconds, she’d be standing in front of him, and she knew without a doubt that the first thing she was going to do was wrap her arms around him and pull him close. How could she do anything else?
She started walking towards him. He must have sensed the movement out of the corner of his eye because his head turned, and he looked straight at her. Their gazes locked.
Anna stopped, momentarily winded, her smile petrifying on her face.She couldn’t quite describe the sensation that had rolled over her the moment they’d made eye contact. It was like… It reminded her of…
Running into a brick wall at full pelt.
The world shifted beneath her feet, causing her to shoot out a hand to steady herself, inadvertently grabbing onto the arm of a fellow partygoer. She couldn’t think straight. Her head was swimming. Only one thing made sense at that moment. Only one person.
Brody.
This was Brody.
Everything she felt for him – all the emotions she now realized she’d wilfully ignored or mislabelled – erupted from deep inside her, leaving her breathless. She’d only experienced this rush once before in her life, and she’d foolishly assumed she’d been safe, that it had been a one-time thing.
This wasn’t just Brody. It washerBrody.
‘Hey,’ the guy she’d grabbed onto said. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Anna snapped her head around to look at him. That was a very good question. She let go of the arm of his suit, shook her head in apology, and stepped away. Then Anna did the only possible thing she could do.
She began to run.
