I blinked. ‘What? Who? Since when?’
‘Don’t ask me any questions, because I won’t answer them.’ Isamu’s tone made it clear that his word was final. ‘It’s no one’s business but hers and mine.’
Fiona emerged from the ballroom, chatting brightly to some of the people who’d been sitting at our table. She waved at me, eyes creasing at the corners as she smiled. ‘If that’s what you want, then fine,’ I told my brother. ‘But when you’re ready to talk about it, I’m here. Always.’
‘Who do you think it is?’ Fiona asked, as we took the lift back up to my hotel room. She had her shoes in one hand, the other in mine.
‘No idea.’ I set the bottle of champagne I’d swiped on the ground so I could open the door without letting go of her hand. ‘I have no idea where Isamu would even meet someone, to be honest. But I suppose this explains what some of those meetings he kept having were.’
I picked the champagne up again and closed the door behind us. ‘Drink?’
Fiona set her shoes down. ‘Please.’
The cork came out silently – the faintest hiss, pressure released, relief – and I took down the two wineglasses from the minibar. ‘I don’t know why he won’t just tell me who she is. What does he think I’m going to do? Make fun of him?’
Fiona accepted a glass from me. ‘Maybe he can’t bear to tell you because it’s very, very precious.’
I looked at her.
‘I felt like that about us.’ I’d taken my jacket off, and she caressed my shirtsleeve between two of her fingers. ‘There were alot of reasons I wanted to keep it to myself – good ones, real ones – but there was also this feeling that if I said it out loud, then it got to be… the world’s, somehow. Instead of ours.’ She glanced up at me. ‘Does that make sense?’
‘Not really.’ I tucked a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. ‘But I think I understand anyway.’
She smiled. ‘Cheers?’
‘Cheers.’
We held each other’s gazes while we drank. ‘How long can you stay?’ I murmured, tracing her neckline with my finger.
Her laugh was a hum. ‘Elias basically shoved me out the door and told me he’d be furious if I got home before dawn.’ She went up on tiptoes to kiss my pulse point. ‘It’s very disconcerting, being shooed out of the house by your big brother and told you’ll be inhugetrouble if you don’t go and spend the night with a boy.’
I let my lips drift over the sensitive spot behind her ear. ‘Well, I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble.’
Fiona’s hands slid up my chest to loop behind my neck. ‘It’s not going to be sexy, getting this dress off, though,’ she warned. ‘And fuck knows how we’re going to get it back on again. There’s Hollywood tape and one of those stick-on bras and a whole infrastructure under here. It’s very complicated.’
I undid her zipper. ‘That’s all right,’ I told her. ‘I can deal with complicated.’
AUGUST
EpilogueFiona
Tasting today: 2020 rosé, Bandol, France.
Rosé is renowned for being simple and easy, but this wine is all the more compelling and captivating for being complex.
‘Mummy, Satoshi, are you going to bring us home any presents?’ Georgia demanded. She and Rosie were sitting on either side of Lex, squished in tight to fit in frame on the laptop screen.
‘There might be one or two things in my suitcase for you.’ I wrinkled my nose at her. Satoshi had been neck-deep in study for the first few days we’d been in Paris, preparing for his MS theory exam, but I’d made him take an afternoon off to go strolling around Montmartre, and we’d picked up several little gifts for the kids. ‘But tell me what you’ve been doing. Have you been having fun with Uncle Jonah and Auntie Sadie?’
The girls nodded. The kids had spent the first week of mine and Satoshi’s two-week trip to France with Elias, who’d been living with us for nearly six months now, but he’d had to go on a business trip this week, so Jonah and Sadie had taken over. ‘We made crepes for dinner!’ Rosie said. ‘Uncle Jonah said you and Satoshi were probably eating lots of them, so he helped us make them so we could be French too.’
‘Uncle Jonah’s very smart,’ Satoshi said. Even though the European summer had made it a little too warm in our un-airconditioned hotel room, he had his arm draped over my shoulder, fingers brushing my sleeve. ‘That’s exactly what we’re going to do today.’
‘Madison’s mum said she was so jealous of you, Mummy,’ Rosie remarked. ‘When we were at soccer training, she said she wished she had a boyfriend who would take her to Paris.’
It was impossible to resist the urge to lean into Satoshi, so I didn’t. ‘I’m very, very lucky,’ I said, as he turned his head so he could kiss my temple.
‘How did your exam go, Satoshi?’ Lex asked. ‘It was yesterday, right? Did you pass?’
