Page 88 of Not in a Million Years

I picked up my bag and slung it over my shoulder. There was no good way to do this, so I might as well do it quickly.

‘Claude,’ I said, ‘here’s the thing. I’m not great at stuff like that. I hate taking risks. I’m scared of heights. When we went on that amazing date in the hot-air balloon I was so frightened I almost passed out.’

He stopped, turned to face me and put his hands on my shoulders. ‘Oh no. I had no idea, Kate. You should have said. I’d have never expected you to do something that made you uncomfortable.’

‘I know. I should have told you at the time. But I didn’t. I didn’t want you to think I was as much of a wuss as I am.’

The megawatt smile flared out again. ‘You’re no wuss. I’ve seen you in action at work. You’re a lioness. But lionesses don’t climb, right? So we’ll do something else. What would you like? Theatre? Dinner?’

I looked up at him. All the future I’d imagined for us – the luxury, the companionability, the kudos of being with a man who was such a prize by any measure – was promised to me in his handsome face.

‘No,’ I said. ‘You deserve someone who’ll go up in a hot-air balloon with you or climb six storeys and love it. You deserve a girl you can skydive and bungee jump with. You want to have adventures with someone as adventurous as you. And that’s not me. I’m sorry, Claude. But I’d cramp your style, and I don’t want to do that.’

And besides, I’m in love with someone else. But I didn’t say that, not yet. I would if I needed to, but I suspected I wouldn’t.

‘I see,’ he said, and I suspected he understood not only what I had said but also what I hadn’t. He turned away from me and we fell into step, making our way back to the office together. ‘I appreciate your honesty. But we’ll still be friends, yes?’

‘Friends. Of course.’

I knew – at least, I hoped – we would be. At least until he met some ballsy, daredevil woman who’d challenge him as much as he challenged her, and I’d fade into a distant memory – just someone he knew from work and briefly dated before realising it wasn’t going to work out.

And I realised that I, in those few minutes between eating sandwiches and returning to my desk, had taken a leap into the unknown, setting aside a future I thought was mine for the taking in favour of one that could hold anything at all.

Thirty-Four

As is always the way when starting a new job, I didn’t want to look like a shirker and be the first to leave, even though I still had very little actual work to do. So I lingered in the office until six thirty, perusing the HR manual and brand guidelines and reading emails I’d been copied into for no discernible reason other than that cc’ing multiple people apparently made the sender and their message feel more important.

At last, enough of my colleagues had logged out, gathered up their things and headed for the lift for me to feel able to do the same. I emerged into the warm summer evening and walked home, feeling the familiar tension across my shoulders from sitting at a desk all day, yawning from the unaccustomed fatigue of concentrating on important things and pretending to concentrate on unimportant ones.

A nice, quiet evening at home was what I needed, I told myself. A healthy, solitary dinner and an early night. It was what the rest of my life held, so I might as well get used to it again.

But, just as I was slipping the key into my front door, a woman emerged from the next-door flat. She was wearing jeans and trainers, and her hair was scraped back off her face. She was carrying an overflowing bag rattling with cans and bottles in one hand and a mop and bucket in the other.

Next-door’s cleaner, I thought. Poor woman must have had quite a job on her hands.

‘Evening,’ I said, with a friendly smile.

But I was met with a stony glare. ‘You.’

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. ‘Can I help you?’

‘It’s you that needs help,’ she snapped. ‘Sex addiction is a real thing, you know.’

Light dawned. Not the cleaner, then, but Jintao’s tenant, who’d broken the terms of their contract by subletting the apartment. When I’d checked the Airbnb listing earlier, I’d discovered that it had been removed – either Daniel’s and my cunning plan or Jintao’s strongly worked email had done the job.

There was no point getting into an argument with her – whatever fight there’d been between us, I’d clearly already won.

So I smiled confidingly. ‘You know how it is. Sometimes passion just gets the better of you.’

‘Three hours,’ she said. ‘Night after night. I’m amazed you can walk.’

‘I am a bit stiff, now you mention it. Although not as stiff as my partner’s going to be when he comes round later, haha.’

‘Jesus,’ she muttered. ‘Inflicting your sex life on other people. It’s just disgusting.’

‘Pure filth,’ I said brightly. ‘Speaking of which, this corridor could do with a going-over, while you’re about it. Have a lovely evening – I certainly intend to.’

And, with a cheery smile, I swung open the door and stepped into the blissful silence of my flat. But my quiet evening in didn’t go quite according to plan.

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