Page 56 of I Knew You Were Trouble

‘Hah!’ she barks, breaking into loud laughter. ‘Good one, Kate,’ she says, pretending to wipe tears from under her eyes.

The lift dings and the doors open, and I usher her inside, stabbing at the button for the ground floor. ‘You’re incorrigible,’ I tell her when the lift starts to descend.

‘Yep, and you’re deluding yourself.’

I blow out a sigh but I’m not sure who I’m more annoyed with – Margot for speaking the truth or me for denying it.

14

POPPY

I’ve spent two days intensively swotting up on Jon Dunn and it’s left such a bad taste in my mouth, it’s as if I’ve gargled with curdled milk.

It’s calculated, what he’s done, creating two distinct personas – twolives– with zero overlap. With one fiancée in London and one across the Channel, there is no chance of running into one while with the other. The same with his ‘professions’ – zero overlap between a pilot and a diamond dealer.

And who knows what he’s told the third woman, Lucia. Maybe he’s also an astronaut.

Cleverly, he’s carried some specifics across his dual personas, likely to avoid slipping up. His favourite drink is a Negroni, for one. I’ve always steered clear of Negronis – far too potent for me – but tonight, I will pretend to try one for the first time, then make it my fave too.

I’vecreated a persona named Penny for this ‘chance meeting’, a bubbly and effusive, wide-eyed woman I compiled as a stark contrast to Kate’s stoic, pragmatic nature.

I’ve also been coached extensively by the odd duo of Ursula and Marie. I swear, if Ursula were my age, she’d have raised her own hand for this assignment, rather than volunteering me. She seems to get a kick out of schooling me on various ways to ‘bag the mark’ – her words, not mine. Either she’s watched a lot of film noir, or matchmaking was a whole different ballgame when she started back in the nineties.

Marie’s advice has been on the subtle art of ‘choreographed bumping’, AKA how to make running into someone seem natural. And I mean that in the literal sense. If Dunn doesn’t show up to the hotel’s bar around 8p.m. per his typical MO, I will need to fashion a clumsy interlude in the hotel lobby. This afternoon, I’ve practised crashing into someone and dropping my handbag so the contents spill onto the floor so many times, I could get a role in slapstick comedy.

I’m now at home getting ready, ripe with nerves as Tristan hovers nearby. It was all very well us joking about my assignment a couple of nights ago, but now it’s actually happening, we’re both on edge.

‘Can I get you something to drink, darling?’ he asks.

I turn away from my makeup vanity and give him a smile. ‘That’s okay, babe. I should probably keep my wits about me.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?’ he asks, frowning.

‘He’s notdangerous. I’ll engage him in conversation, charm him with “Penny”, and get him to exchange contact information. Think of it as an acting gig.’

He exhales a long breath and runs one hand through his hair. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I just… I didn’t expect to feel like this.’

‘I know. Me neither.’

‘You look pretty, by the way,’ he says, his frown deepening. ‘Maybe too pretty – even though you don’t exactly look likeyou.’

‘It’s just arole, Tris. You are the only man I want to look pretty for, okay?’

He nods sharply. Though we both know this isn’t entirely true, as the common thread between Kate, Adriana, and Lucia is that they are all very attractive women. Kate is a classic beauty like Saoirse Ronan and Emily Blunt, Adriana is a tall, blonde goddess, and Lucia is petite and dark-haired, and reminds me of Imogen Poots.

I need Dunn to be attracted to me – well,Penny.

I’ve played up my grey eyes with lashings of mascara to appear particularly wide-eyed and have pulled my reddish-brown hair into a high ponytail. I’m wearing a floaty, floral chiffon dress and my ubiquitous ballet flats, the one thing Penny and I have in common besides my Aussie accent. She will be sweet, slightly naïve, and splurging on the Langham after a stint in London for work.

It’s a risk dangling an Australian in front of Dunn. Will he go for it, or will he think Melbourne istoolong-distance for a romantic undertaking? If he balks, I’ll switch gears and tell him that Penny is moving to Munich with her job.

I check the clock on my bedside table. The car is due soon. ‘Want to walk me down to the lobby?’ I ask.

Tristan’s smile is tight-lipped. ‘Of course.’

A few minutes later, we’re in the lobby waiting in tense silence when a town car pulls up. Tristan has asked his regular driver to take me to the Langham and wait for me.

He turns towards me, running his hands down my arms and clasping mine in his. ‘I love you,’ he says.

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