Page 55 of You Can't Hurt Me

I busy myself chatting with another reporter I recognize standing near the wall, and we swap pleasantries until I feel my phone vibrate again.

I’m two floors up on the terrace. It’s no entry at the top of the stairs but ignore that and take a right through the double doors.

I smile in spite of myself, breath catching in my throat. I don’t rush, take pleasure in letting him wait for a bit while I finish my champagne, observe the scene. Then, heading for the stairs, I duck under the red rope barrier at the top and turn right as he directs. I open the doors into an empty banqueting space that has yet to be cleared up, with the melancholy feel of a celebration abandoned too early.

I weave my way around tables littered with empty wineglasses, bottles and dirty plates, napkins are strewn on the floor, a dinner jacket hangs on the back of a chair. At the far end, Nate is outside, leaning over a small balcony, watching his guests milling around below. In the distance a tawny strip of the Thames glints through a line of silver birch trees.

He turns around when I reach him and we face each other for a moment. “I wanted to get away for a moment,” he says. “Talk to you without being distracted by a lot of boring guests.”

“Boring?” I smile. “Your valued fundraisers?”

He shrugs, moves closer. “Deadly boring,” he murmurs. His hand grazes my shoulder, his other arm curves around my back. Back in his study with the book to focus on, I was full of resolve. A voice in my head screams at me to make my excuses and leave. But my body won’t obey. I lean back against the wall, out of view, and Nate moves closer.

He pulls me to him and we kiss. For a moment or two I am lost in the emotion of it all. But then I freeze, scorched by the memory of Eva’s journal. All those insights and reflections flash up before my eyes. What a terrible fraud I am.

Does he know what she’s written about me? My head spins. Nate’s arms loosen around me, as if he intuits something off, and then a sharp peal of laughter rises up from one of the guests on the terrace below.

I turn and he follows my gaze. Priya is standing down below, her face tilted up toward us, an indecipherable expression I can’t make out from here. We duck farther into the shadow.

“Shit,” Nate says.

“She can’t have seen us, can she?” There’s a ripple of alarm in my tone. “I shouldn’t have come up. This was a bad idea.”

I think of my job, all I could lose so close to the finish line. I wait for Nate to reassure me, but he doesn’t. He’s distracted. How quickly his body language shifts. He rakes his fingers through his hair, adjusting his shirt. Guilty, furtive.

“You’re right. I...I should really get back down there,” he says, turning abruptly toward the door. Retreating, as always. I stand for a moment, aching with the inevitability of it all. How did I allow this to play out? Following him up here, compromising myself, everything I’ve worked for, everything he thinks he knows about me.

“Ah, so you’re here,” Priya greets me as I step out onto the terrace about five minutes after Nate’s exit. Fairy lights twinkle on the balustrade and guests shiver, valiantly pretending it’s summer in the stony April chill. “I’ve just been looking for you.”

“I’m all yours,” I say, dryly.

She looks at me, strangely jubilant. “I was just saying to Nate earlier how brilliantly you’ve done—we both want to thank you really—for being such a star with this punishing deadline. I know it was a rough start. None of it has been easy, but it’s all come together. The timing is going to be perfect for America.” She arches her eyebrows.

“America?” I echo.

“I know, exciting, right? Your sample pages you shared were so great, an American publisher wants to pick it up. He’s been hoping to do research in New York for ages, applying for fellowships and funding, and this gave him a way in. We can release the book over there just before he moves to New York.”

“A way in.” I barely register my parroting. My mind starts spinning.

“Columbia University. Nate’s starting there next month. Didn’t he mention it?” I catch an unmistakable glow of satisfaction in her eyes, her lips twitch with triumph.

“It’s an amazing opportunity for him. You probably read thatNew York Timespiece last month about the new neuroscience center, the largest of its kind in the world?”

“Yes, I think I did,” I manage. I nod and smile, each muscle in my face aches with the effort.

“They’re keen to work with him on a new laboratory there, similar to the one here but much bigger, newer. His new baby. And, it’ll all be thanks to you.”

My body reacts before my brain, a thud of despair in the pit of my stomach, heavy like stones. It really is a game to him. Why can’t he ever be honest?

As I watch Priya float toward Nate, I’m struck with a new idea. There’s one person out there who may hold some answers, the only woman who appears to be stubbornly resistant to his charms, who doesn’t seem to like him at all. She could at least shine a light on the real Dr. Nate Reid, what he really wants, who he really is.

21

Kath’s bookshop on Brick Lane is easy enough to spot with its bright green paintwork and white mullioned windows.

Books—the original handheld device!is chalked in jaunty pink-and-yellow bubble writing on the blackboard outside. Priya had forbidden me to make contact but it was too late now; I needed to talk to her. It was surprisingly easy. I emailed her via the shop website on the pretext of asking her to verify certain dates from Nate’s memoir, and she replied almost immediately.

Anna, at last someone has got in touch with me. I’ve read bits and pieces and I’m extremely concerned, so much so I’m consulting my lawyers. I tried to contact Nate and Priya, but no response. Really useful if we could meet at the shop later today. Kath

---