Special Relationship (36 page)

“It was the first time – and last time – that we'd slept together. It was before I slept with you...”

“Oh yeah, what three or four days before?”

“Please listen. I don't know how it happened. She was going through a bad time and both of us were feeling lonely and...well...it happened and it can't be undone. But I love you Alex, like no one before, and I want us to have a future and if you deny me that chance I will...”

“What. Go and find yourself some other tart to play around with?”

He tried to take her hand but she pulled away.

“Nick, did I not tell you what happened and how some evil bastard's dick or prick, or whatever you call it in this stupid country, ended up ruining my life – and, more importantly, that same dick denied a beautiful, wonderful human being the chance of seeing her seventh birthday, going to high school, university, getting married, having kids herself.

“I mean, what part of my daughter being murdered did you not understand?”

“I did not know that when I slept with Katherine.”

“And if you had known you wouldn't have fucked her out of pity for me?”

He looked at her. It was like the maze at Hampton Court with seemingly no way out.

“And she sent her first fucking message when I barely knew you – the night after the first day I'd met you.”

“It was a crush, nothing more. Tavis told her at the party that I had a thing for you – which I did from the very first time I saw your photo and read your background – and she decided to act, however badly. Also – in defence of her - with the knowledge we shared that you were not the person you purported to be.

“None of us at that time knew why you made up a new identity.”

“Get out of my flat,” she said blankly.

He got up and walked towards the door feeling more like a scorned child than one of Britain's most successful bankers.

“You need to think, Alex, you really do.”

“I do think all the fucking time. Don't you see, that's the problem,” she yelled at him.

“And it'll never stop. But you are giving up your life for a past that can't be changed. Do you thing Megan would want this?”

“You know fuck all about Megan, so shut the fuck up and get out of my flat.”

They were flying back from a conference in Madrid when Katherine promised Nick she would “sort it”. He didn't ask 'how' because he didn't want to be involved in whatever she had planned.

Two more weeks went by and he had still not heard from her. He was trying hard to get used to the idea of a life post-Alex Anderson.

Alex found it difficult to immerse herself in work even though Suzanne had pointed out the company's increasingly perilous financial position. Kerry was finding it difficult to concentrate on work too, upset with herself over the encouragement she had offered to promote the
relationship. Adrian worried about how long the company might last and missed the jokes and the banter of what had now become a sullen group.

It was on leaving the office
one Friday evening that in her side vision she caught the blaze of silver hair on the opposite side of the road. It was Katherine. She tried to hide her face but the PA was there with a purpose, and determined.

“Alex, we need to talk,” she said, collecting her breath after running across the street.

She was shocked to see her again and, unprepared, quickly became flustered. “Nick sent you?”

“No, he doesn't know I'm here. I've come to apologise. And I'd like it if you would just give me the chance to explain.”

She walked quickly but Katherine matched her stride. “I don't want to be rude, but what is there to explain? You sent me quite scary text messages, one in the middle of the night. I don't know how that can be explained.”

Katherine kept walking beside her. She pushed back her hair. “I just want to try. I owe it to Nick...and to you...to try to put the record straight.”

Alex stopped and looked at her. “Nick and I had a fling, it's over now. It doesn't matter. You can go back to your shiny office and fuck each other silly – but I'd prefer it if you, him and everyone from Hensen stayed out of my life.”

She held up her hand for an oncoming cab but it stopped twenty yards before it got to her to pick up a group of men in suits.

“Do you think if I wanted to be with him – and if I thought Nick wanted it – I would be here now? Just a coffee, ten minutes and then you can tell me to get lost?”

She looked up. There was a café opposite. “I really don't know, Katherine.”

“You can decide on everything afterwards, at least be in possession of the facts.”

She again looked up and down the street to give her time to think. She wondered what Kerry, her rock, would advise. But what harm could there be if she listened for just a short time?

“You promise he didn't send you?”

“Absolutely. He has no idea I'm here.”

“Over there,” she said, nodding towards the café.

After they had sat down, Katherine stirred her coffee slowly even though it was unsugared.

“From the beginning,” she said, taking a deep breath.

“I remember your file coming through with your photo when you were pitching for the contract and I remember saying to Nick scornfully that you looked more like a model than a business woman. I know, a really disparaging remark, particularly from another woman.”

She played with the spoon, looking down to conceal the embarrassment she was feeling.

“If I'm totally honest I was hoping you wouldn't get the contract, though at the time it was just something in the back of my mind. The thought even surprised myself.

“There was no big plan to try to snare Nick, but obviously, looking back, there must have been something in my subconscious that was telling me to get away from my unhappy home life and try something new, and Nick might be the way out.”

Alex looked at her, trying to understand the defence she was making. “Not very professional, to want someone to lose a contract on the basis of appearance, is it?”

“Of course it's not – it's totally juvenile, but I'm being honest.”

Katherine went on to confess that the time when whatever thoughts she was having breached her subliminal to enter the forefront of her mind was after she, Alex, had left the post-race party.

“I had a conversation with Tavis. You know, he'd travelled back with Nick and he told me that you were the sole topic of the conversation.

“That sparked near panic in me – again, much to my surprise. Looking back, it was probably the fear of losing the only chance I could see of escaping my own problems.

“And there was also the office talk about your background which to me provided the justification for trying to derail any romantic relationship you might have with him.”

“Even now
Tavis tells me that you are not Alex Anderson from New York and if you weren't playing by the rules then, I thought, why should I?

“I set out to stop anything happening between the two of you in a very silly and clumsy way. Maybe to protect him, maybe to try to improve my own life. I stupidly thought the text messages would be enough.”

“And, again, I behaved stupidly and I'm ashamed, and I can't say how sorry I am.”

“And in New York?” Alex asked.

Katherine didn't know how to respond, not knowing what she knew and whether Nick would approve of her telling the truth but she was beyond not being honest and the question itself suggested Alex was already aware of what had happened.

“We slept together, but it was instigated by me and, do you know, I don't think it would have happened had he not been, well, so interested in you. To put it bluntly, his libido surge was down to you, not me.

“We've worked together for six years but he has never shown any interest in me in the past. He was just into making money, after the Olivia thing which I think you know about.”

“Yeah, heard it from her and one of your text messages.”

“I'm sorry.”

“So why don't you just carry on, chasing him?”

“We are not in love. He likes me but he doesn't love me and, maybe I had a bit of an infatuation for a time, that's all...while in a confused state of mind.”

“It's a bit generous of you to give him up, though, wouldn't you say?”

“I like him - very much - and think he is a really good person. And obviously he is attractive and very eligible. But I am simply not the one for him.

“I've thought about it long and hard and I feel terrible guilt not only for the text messages but how I might have destroyed his future. I don't want to grow old thinking that I was responsible for that - I like him too much.

“Do you know, I have spoken to him and he basically said that my position in the company would depend on you, once he'd told you that I sent the text messages. But that's not why I'm here...to save my job. I'd resign at any time either of you asked.

“Call him, get me fired, whatever...now the only person that can put back the wrong I did is you.

“What I did was a stupid, childish thing...but then you...” She paused.

“...hired a private detective,” Alex said, finishing her sentence.

“You did and that was stupid as well, but is shows that none of us is without our flaws.

“We slept together before you – and I do know you both went to Sandbanks – and whether you disappear out of his life permanently it's not going to change anything – he won't come to me.

“You can't wallow in self pity for whatever reasons you have. I'm trying to put right things that I've obviously done wrong – and, believe me, it isn't easy - and I need to go.”

She grabbed her bag. “I can't say how sorry I am” were her last words before she walked purposefully out of the bar.

Self pity. The two words stayed with her long after she had left. How much of this had she brought on herself, she thought. What if she had just told the whole story from the beginning? No it would have been too painful and she was surviving today because of the 'Alex Anderson' role she had taken on. Alex Anderson was her protective shell.

“
Err, madam, we will be closing shortly.”

After she hadn't responded the young waiter looked at her and smiled as he cleaned the table in front. “Madam?”

“Sorry, I'm going now.”

“Back to your man?”

“Yes, back to my man.”

“Pity,” he smiled.

She rested against the railings on top of the hill in Greenwich Park. Below her new London glistened in the glass-tower financial firms of the mini-Manhattan that was Canary Wharf. In the park itself, but far below her, the simple, white 17
th
century facade of the Queen's House stood proudly, seemingly disdainful of its big neighbour.

She was early, so did what all the tourists did at this spot and stood astride the Meridian line marking the longitude centre of the world. Part of her was in one half of the world and part her of her in the other. An allegory for her life, she thought.

She checked her watch before returning to the viewing platform where she looked westwards along the river to the old city and the Shard and its 'look-at-me' boastfulness. Two kids squealed as they descended the steep hill on a toboggan haphazardly constructed from what looked like a fruit box and a baby seat from a supermarket trolley.

“This time we need to go faster,” the girl said to the boy as they pulled the cart back to the top. “Be careful,” Alex called, worried about them on such a steep incline. “We will,” the boy shouted back before they hurtled back down the hill shrieking hysterically as their transport gathered momentum.

“Maybe sometimes we have to take chances?” said the man who had rested against the railing beside her.

“Maybe we do,” she replied without looking round.

“If we stayed at the top of the hill and never went down?”

“But what if we crashed and got badly hurt?”

“Happiness and heartbreak are, I'm afraid, inextricably linked, as you know more than most.”

She turned to face him and held him tightly. “I do love you, you know.”

He raised her chin so that he could look into her eyes. “I promise we aren't going to crash.”

They walked along an avenue of trees to the spherical tea house where, after they had sat down, Alex explained about Katherine's visit.

“You didn't know, did you?”

“No, she said something like 'I'll sort it' but I didn't ask how. And I'm really glad she did – apparently - 'sort it.'”

She looked studiously into his eyes without speaking.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“Just how I've fallen in love with a man I've known for such a short time.”

“You know, this park is quite big and there is quite a lot of shrubbery around...”

“Nick! Not with all these tourists!”

“Yours?”

“I think my place is a bit basic and, at present, I have to confess, unusually untidy. Don't want the rich guy having to slum it.”