I looked from the laptop to my phone. Olivia had been applying her eyeliner as I’d been reading, but now she was looking at me expectantly. “Just a friend.”
“A friend,” she repeated sceptically and gave me a look that warned me not to lie. She knew me all too well—and she didn’t know Kate at all. It was enough to rouse her suspicion. Wealthy people liked to keep to their circles. Everyone knew everyone else, and if an unfamiliar face came along, it often meant scandal.
I sighed. “Her name is Kate.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And we met last week.”
“Ohhh. Where?”
“St. James’s Park.”
“And how did you end up at McDonald’s?”
I hesitated. There was no good explanation. For one, Olivia knew how much I hated that kind of fast-food chain. Not because they were beneath me, but because of how appallingly they treated animals. “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to tell anyone else. Not even your brother. He’ll just tell Ethan, and then everyone will know.”
“I promise,” Olivia said, so I told her the whole story. How Kate had stolen from me, blackmailed me, and more or less forced me to take her to lunch. Olivia listened to me with curiosity, but I couldn’t figure out what she was thinking. She seemed surprised, disappointed, and amused all at once.
“Did you really give her the money?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“She stole from you,” Olivia stated the obvious. She’d finished her makeup and was in the process of taking out her curlers. Her hair fell in gold waves over her shoulders.
“Didn’t you hear the bit where I said that she’s homeless?” I asked, leaning back in my chair. “Kate has nothing. Just a few dirty blankets and an old leather jacket. We’ve had champagne that cost more than four thousand pounds a bottle.”
“OK, OK. I can get behind that. But it doesn’t explain the photo.”
I stopped short. “It doesn’t?”
“No. You look totally relaxed. Almost happy. I haven’t seen you look like that in... no idea. Months, if I think about it. Kate must be special if she got you to lose that brooding frown.”
I hastily smoothed out my expression. “I don’t have a brooding frown.”
“You really do. It’s already given you wrinkles.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t have wrinkles.”
Olivia exhaled heavily. “Fine, you don’t. But you will, if you keep going around looking at everyone—Kate aside—like that. Maybe you should see each other more often, given she has the same effect as an antiwrinkle cream.”
I didn’t know how to respond.
Olivia took her phone from the bathroom shelf and went into the kitchen. “When are you seeing each other again?”
“We’re not,” I replied, turning towards my window. The sky had grown even darker and the wind stronger. “Like I said, I only went to lunch with her because she asked me to.”
It was Olivia’s turn to frown. “But you like her.”
“What makes you say that?”
Olivia laughed. “Henry, we’ve been talking about this woman for fifteen minutes. When I tried to set you up with my friend Sandy a few weeks ago, you got up mid-conversation to make yourself a cup of tea.”
“Maybe, but I don’t have time for something like this,” I said, avoiding the point and deciding it was for the best that I didn’t tell Olivia how often I’d thought about Kate since we’d met. I told myself it was because of my worries about her living situation, but if I was honest, my thoughts about her were unrelated to that.
Olivia tutted. “You don’t have time for anything anymore.”
“It’s true. I have to organise the Pearl Gala.”
