Leo looked at me with a glint in his eye. ‘Obrigado, Ricardo,’ he said and sat down.
It was against Scouse law to pass up a freebie – Mum would never forgive me. So, I followed Leo’s lead and sat silently as Ricardo popped the cork.
Sixteen
Ricardo cleared the dessert plates and topped up our glasses. We’d both gone for the disappearing coconut foam and true to its name, there’d been nothing to it; melting on the tongue with an exotic fizz of flavour.
‘Was everything to your liking?’ he asked, beaming. ‘No better place to celebrate your anniversary than the Azores I think. Is it true?’
Those crossed wires were now tied in a bow.
‘Dinner was excellent, Ricardo, thank you,’ Leo said.
I joined in, enthusiastically. ‘Perfect table, delicious food…’
‘…and wonderful company!’ Ricardo said, with a wink. ‘I can see it.’ I was going to say wine, but same-same. ‘I bring liquors and coffees for you, inuno momento, please.’
He fluttered off and Leo and I were left looking at each other across the table.
‘Our anniversary now, is it?’ I said, feeling giddy under his gaze. Guitar music floated in from the bar and the balmy air was scented with jasmine.
‘It must be ten years since we first met – maybe that’s what he means?’ Leo said with a chuckle.
‘It’s been nice to spend some time together. I’m sorry for cutting you off after Engelman. I was devastated and wasn’t thinking straight. That job was important to both of us and one of us had to get it. I was a sore loser and shouldn’t have blamed you. It wasn’t your fault – of course it wasn’t.’
He reached over and put his hands on mine. ‘I appreciate you saying that.’
‘Feels like forever ago we were sitting in reception on our first day, doesn’t it?’
‘Another lifetime,’ he said, with a wistful smile. ‘I loved it there. Until you left.’
‘What? I always imagined you spinning around in your leather chair feeling like the big winner.’
‘Not at all. I missed my work bestie. It wasn’t as fun without you there.’
How cute. ‘Was I fun? I can’t remember. I’m not sure my team would say I’m much fun now.’
‘You were a lot of fun. You still are. I had a massive crush on you and it took me a while to recover after you left. The rest of the team really missed you too.’
My stomach flipped at that. I’d assumed it was an agency-wide rejection. I’d taken it so personally that I’d cut everyone off. It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone would care or want to see me again. Least of all Leo. I’d never known anyone to have a crush on me before; men always treated me as the ‘wham bam thank you ma’am’ type, so it was touching to think of Leo harbouring a crush. I’d liked him too, but I’d been wary of getting involved with anyoneat work – I’d been so obsessed with winning. Which made me feel even worse. Leo had felt a genuine connection while I was praying he’d fail. I didn’t know where to look while my brain tried to work it all out. There was nowhere to hide from his confident gaze.
‘Did it? Did you?’
‘Yes! Wasn’t it obvious? You promised we’d stay in touch no matter what happened with the job, then iced me out the second they offered it to me.’
I had no recollection of any such promise but I’d been so distraught when HR told me the bad news, I’d iced the entire world out. I’d felt too humiliated to go back and say goodbye.
‘What?! I did not!’
Leo’s expression went from confused to annoyed to hurt. ‘Come on, Kat. You know you did. And I was gutted. I thought we were friends at the very least. I really did miss you when you left.’
I blinked at him, too stunned to speak.What the hell was he even talking about?
‘I called, text, sent emails – tried to connect on LinkedIn with no reply. Eventually I took the hint and stopped trying. Either you’d deliberately given me the wrong phone number and emailandhad a fake LinkedIn profile, or you’d blocked me. Either way, you didn’t want to speak to me, and I didn’t want to be accused of harassment.’
‘No one likes a quitter,’ I murmured, in shock. Although, now he mentioned it, this did all sound kind of familiar. Had I misremembered our entire connection and every one of our interactions? Could it possibly be that I’d been the rude one? That I’d been jealous and childish, and he’dbeen perfectly nice? Had my memory distorted the facts to protect me from my own bad behaviour?
‘I could never be accused of that,’ Leo said, staring at me intensely.
