“He used to get up before anyone else when he stayed over at my house,” she continues. “He’s been my brother’s best friend forever, you see. My mom would go down to the kitchen to make breakfast and scream because she’d find him doing his homework on his laptop in the dark. On a Sunday morning.”
“Brother’s best friend, eh?” Merrick strokes the white stubble on his chin, looking at me.
“Yeah, Monty’s my oldest and best friend. Olivia and I did happen to reconnect very recently. I can certainly see why you’d be suspicious.”
She weaves her fingers with mine, leaning into me.
After a beat, Merrick pats me on the arm. “Forgive me. My wife makes me watch so many romantic comedies when she’s home, I see plots everywhere. Fake relationships happen to be a favorite.”
I have to hold my breath to prevent myself from breathing a loud sigh of relief or making a weird choking sound.
“Tell me about it!” Olivia says, although I know she’s struggling to come up with the name of a fake-relationship romantic comedy and she’s drawing a blank because Baryshnikov never starred in one.
We sit down for tea, little sandwiches, and scones with clotted cream and homemade strawberry jam. When I pull out my iPad to show Merrick photos from the vertical farm in London, he looks past me and says, “Ahhh, there she is. Gertrude dropped you off, did she?”
Olivia and I turn to find Merrick’s granddaughter walking toward us, wearing a pink leotard, tutu, and flip-flops. “Yeah. Are there any scones left for me?”
“No, I ate every last one,” he says, teasing her.
“Grandad!”
“Ginny, say hello to our guests, John and Olivia.”
“Hullo,” she says. Her face lights up when she sees Olivia. “Oh, are you the real ballerina?!”
“I am! It’s so nice to meet you. Did you just come from a ballet class?”
Ginny frowns, nodding. “Yeah. It’s a shit class, though. Teacher’s a twat.”
“Ginny,” Merrick scolds her while spreading cream and jam onto a scone for her.
“She is! She’s very mean.”
“I’ve had a mean ballet teacher or two,” Olivia says. “I still learned a lot from them, though.”
I wish I knew what to say to this little girl, but I’m not good at talking to children, and I’d probably just start choking again.
She takes a huge bite of scone and says to Olivia, “Grandad made me a ballet studio—wanna see?!”
“I would love to!” Olivia stands up and wipes her fingers on a napkin. “Excuse me, gentlemen.” She gives me a little wink as she holds her hand out to take Ginny’s.
“John and I will go for a stroll around the garden,” Merrick tells Olivia. “Don’t let my granddaughter keep you too long now. She has to make me dinner.”
“Haha!” Ginny says, leading Olivia toward a glasshouse near the edge of the property.
Merrick groans as he pushes himself up out of his chair. “That right there is why I won’t live in London, Mr. Brandt.”
“Understood. As I’ve told you before, we’d only ask you to visit the site in London once a month, and if you’d care to visit Amsterdam too, we’d be grateful.” I reach for my briefcase.
“Leave that there, my boy. The rabbits won’t steal it. But that girl of yours… Don’t let that one go. Life is long, and success is empty without someone to share it with.”
“I have every intention of hanging on to her, sir.”
“Good, good. You remind me of a young man I mentored at Oxford: Brilliant mind. Burnt out by the age of thirty-five,” he says. “I won’t waste my precious time working with people who are on that path. I would have gone down that path myself if it weren’t for my wife.” He taps me on the arm as we stroll toward a vegetable garden. “I can tell you think I’m the key to everything. The missing piece. Meanwhile, that girl looks at you like you hung the moon. Why are you pretending not to notice?”
“I…” I have no idea what to say to that. I’m not pretending not to notice; I can’t say that I have noticed.
“Listen, I’ve got nothing against bachelors or single people—don’t get me wrong. But a man who’s in love with a good woman, one who treats him right, tends to make better long-term decisions.”
