“And?”
“She barely looked at me. She wouldn’t meet my eyes, and she wouldn’t speak to me beyond anything relating to the suit. It was as though there was no conversation to be had, and that was that. It was like…” She took a shaky sip of her drink. “Like she’d scrubbed me from her mind and didn’t want any trace of me left.”
“Oh, Deb.”
“And then she told me…” Her voice broke, but Debra continued. “That I should just forget about her now that I’ve got my suit.”
Maeve reached her hand across the table and squeezed Debra’s. “Look at me.”
Debra swallowed as she lifted her head.
“You did nothing wrong.”
“I must have?—”
“No.” Maeve squeezed her hand a little more firmly this time. “Whatever’s going on with her, it’s for her to deal with. It’s certainly not something you caused or something you could have prevented.”
Debra shook her head as a tear slipped free. “It’s just…it’s been so long since someone made me feel like that.”
“Desired?” Maeve asked softly.
“Alive.”
Maeve’s eyes flickered with empathy. “Sweetheart, you’ve been a wife, a mother, a caretaker, and a fucking diplomat for decades. You’ve forgotten what it feels like to be wanted without condition.” She brushed a thumb over Debra’s knuckles. “And then along comes this—” She gestured vaguely, “—this butch tailoring sex goddess with cheekbones sharp enough to commit murder, and she actually sees you.Reallysees you. Of course you fell a little.”
Debra scoffed. “A little?”
“Fine.A lot.” Maeve smiled.“But listen to me. Women like Billie, women who live inside their own armour… They don’t pull away becauseyoudid something wrong. They pull away because they’re terrified of wanting something real.”
Debra slumped back against the booth. She was fed up with feeling exhausted all the time. “I just wish she’d said something to me. I wish she’d told me why she’s no good for me, or why it’s ‘safer’ if we don’t see one another anymore. All the cryptic conversations are just fucking with my head.”
Maeve nodded. “You deserve someone who shows up. Not someone who panics and bolts the first time things become real.”
Debra chewed her lip. “But what if she didn’t bolt? What if she’s just protecting herself?”
“Then she needs to come back and tell you that herself.”
Aware that it was never that simple with Billie, Debra forced the tension from her shoulders and reluctantly started to accept that maybe they just weren’t meant to see one another again. “I don’t think she will.”
“Maybe she won’t, but if she does…you’ll know it’s because she chose to and not because you chased her.”
Debra nodded and swallowed past the ache. For the first time since she’d stepped out of Brown & Co., she felt herself straighten with the faintest hint of resolve. And then sheknocked back her martini and caught the server’s attention across the room. “She told me to forget her.”
“And are you going to?”
Debra considered it for half a second. Even though their paths would never cross again, it wasn’t possible to forget someone like Billie. “No. I’m not.”
Maeve smiled and finished her own drink. “Good. Now, it’s time for another round and then we’ll decide if we’re keying her car or sending her flowers.”
Debra woke before her alarm,just as she had for the last week or so now. She lay there, gazing towards her bedroom window where the grey morning bled through the edges of the curtains. She drowned everything out and focused only on the quietness, then her senses wandered to the distant sound of London rush hour traffic. It was her ordinary and her safety. It was the kind of noise that should have anchored her, but her chest still felt hollow, as though someone had come along and scooped out every emotion she possessed…and had forgotten to put it all back where it belonged.
She pressed the heel of her hand to her sternum, willing the ache to soften. She wasn’t going to cry. She’d done that enough yesterday…in public, no less, which she still couldn’t think about without heat flooding her cheeks. Maeve had held her before they’d said their goodbyes, confused and furious on her behalf, insisting she wasn’t going to let ‘this Billie woman’ haunt her like some beautifully tailored ghost.
Debra had laughed in response, but Maeve’s words hadn’t stuck.
Now, in the pale morning light, Billie’s absence felt like an imprint. “This is ridiculous.” Debra pushed herself upright. “You knew her for five bloody minutes.”
But that wasn’t true. Billie hadn’t been a five-minute woman. Billie had slid into every corner of her life and reminded Debra that she still had so much to look forward to post-divorce. Lunches, texts, the museum. And that night.
