‘Of course I do,’ Satoshi said, overhearing her on his way past our table. ‘This is not a snobby establishment, my friend. It is a business! I love to make money! I make a point of keeping that section well-maintained.’
‘You’re a prince,’ Sadie said, as Satoshi grinned and headed back up towards the bar.
Her phone started vibrating on the table. ‘It’s Julia,’ she said. ‘It’s probably about the campaign. I should take it.’
‘Go,’ Chess and I said at the same time.
‘I’ll grab some food menus on the way back, so we can order dinner,’ Sadie promised, and disappeared.
Which left Chess Shaw and I alone, for only the second time in recorded history.
I took a sip from my champagne flute. This was my sister-in-law. For Sadie’s sake, I needed to exhibit some restraint. I needed to shove down every bit of toxic argumentative programming my dad had ever jammed into my head. I needed to let it go.
‘Spit it out,’ Chess said.
I looked at her.
She took a sip from her own flute. ‘Don’t give me the mock innocence. I know there are things you’re dying to say to me. So spit them out.’
‘I have no interest in starting a fight with you,’ I said. ‘Sadie would hate that, and the only thing I care about is her being happy.’
‘On that,’ Chess said, ‘we can agree.’
‘Sadie loves you,’ I said. ‘If you’re important to her, you’re important to me. I know you’ve never particularly liked me, but we’re family now, and… I don’t know how much Sadie’s told you about this, but I’ve been rebuilding my relationship with my own sister, and that means a lot to me. I want Sadie to have a good relationship with you.Iwant to have a good relationship with you. Genuinely.’
‘We can agree on that too,’ she said. ‘You’ve been good to her. You’re clearly good for her. Keep doing that, and you and I will be absolutely fine.’
‘That goes for you too, though.’
My grip on my restraint slipped. I was only hanging on with one hand now, dangling over the cliff as I stared her directly in the eye.
‘I want us to get along, Chess,’ I said. ‘But if you ever do something like this to Sadie again – if Ieverhear my wife crying herself to sleep over you again – I will ruin you.’
How I would do that, I had no clue. I was a tweed-wearing academic on the brink of unemployment with precious little experience of the world outside the ivory tower. I had no idea how one went about ruining someone.
But I was an intelligent man. If I had to, I would figure it out.
‘That’s fair,’ Chess replied. ‘If I hurt her like this again, I deserve to be ruined.’
Her gaze went far away for a moment, as if she were looking into some other world just over my shoulder, misery flashing across her face. Part of me wanted to turn around and see what she was looking at. Another part wanted to reach across the table, touch her arm, and ask her if she was all right.
‘It sounds like we have a deal, then,’ I said instead, as lightly as I could, offering her my hand.
Chess shook it. It was obvious where Sadie had learnt her assertive handshake. ‘Deal.’
Then she let go, leaning back in her chair and taking a sip of sparkling. ‘I got your email.’
‘I figured. The timing of when you sent your letter to Sadie… it checked out.’
She teased her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment. She didn’t bite it, but the mannerism was still so similar. ‘There were some things in there,’ she said at last, ‘that I needed to hear.’
And yet you chose to respond in a way that was unbelievably easy for her to misinterpret,I did not say. No one would benefit from me arguing the point, even if therehadto be more to the story than she was saying.
‘I love Sadie more than anything else in the world,’ she said. ‘I might never stop being angry about you riding her coat-tails, no matter how much she insists that you deserve this job as much as she does.’
That was fair enough. I might never be over the guilt of that myself.
‘But the fact that you’re willing to give it all up for her if you have to – that means a lot,’ Chess said. ‘That goes a long way with me.’
