Page 84 of The First Mistake

The barman smiles and sets about slicing a cucumber into a crystal bowl, its cool, fresh fragrance finding its way across the bar.

‘Are you staying here or just visiting?’ asks the man, tilting his head towards the opening into the lobby.

‘We— I’m staying here,’ Alice says, her interest piqued enough to change her story, if only to see how far this game can go.

‘I see,’ he says, his piercing blue eyes never leaving hers. She wonders if he can see straight through her.

‘What about you?’ she asks, crossing her legs and flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder. ‘Are you staying here?’

‘Yep, just for tonight. I’ve been trying to sleep for four hours, but I’m battling horrific jet lag and the harder I try, the more it eludes me.’

‘Where have you flown in from?’

‘I’ve worked a double shift, flying from New York to Shanghai and Shanghai to here.’

She can’t even compute the geography involved. ‘So, you’re cabin crew?’

He nods modestly. ‘Pilot.’

She smiles.Does he think I was born yesterday?

Beth unexpectedly springs into her mind and Alice feels a pang in her chest. She remembers Beth telling her that she’d always fancied the idea of dating a pilot. ‘Imagine that uniform,’ she’d breathed, as they had adopted the downward dog pose in their yoga class. ‘Imagine him walking in with the cap under his arm and picking me up to the sound of “Up Where We Belong” ...’

As Alice had tried to picture the scene, which she’d been able to conjure up all too easily, she’d lost concentration and collapsed into a fit of giggles. ‘But they’re never what you think they’re going to be, are they?’

‘Are you speaking from experience?’ Beth had squealed in astonishment.

‘No,’ Alice had replied in mock horror. ‘I mean, whenever you hear them on the tannoy on the plane, they always sound so gorgeously smooth and authoritative, and then when you get off, there’s a puny little fella who looks far too young to be flying a metal tube thirty-six thousand feet up in the sky. They’re not all Richard Gere, is all I’m saying.’

But looking at the man in front of her now, Alice notes that he isn’t that far off. His dark hair curls ever so slightly at the collar and his steely eyes follow the barman’s every move.

‘Can I get a Scotch and soda?’ he asks.

Alice raises her glass to him and he gives a smiling nod.

‘Will the Scotch do the trick?’ she asks. ‘Get you to sleep?’

‘I’d like to think so, but right now all I want it to do is stop my eyeballs from burning.’

He smiles, and she laughs a little louder than she’d intended. She pulls herself up, then wonders why she should.

‘I don’t know what’s worse – the inability to sleep, or the need to sleep far longer than you’re permitted to. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.’

‘How long have you been a pilot?’ Alice asks, showing herself to be a willing player in his game.

‘Fifteen years,’ he says, with a glint in his eye. ‘So, what brings you here?’

‘Business, actually.’ As soon as she says it, she’s overcome with panic as she remembers that she’s signed contracts for a site worth a million pounds. With a faithful husband and business partner by her side, it had felt manageable; nerve-wracking, but manageable. Now, adrift in the ocean, without Nathan’s anchor, the thought leaves her nauseous.

‘What kind of business?’ he asks.

‘I’m in property,’ says Alice, clearing her throat and sitting up straight in an attempt to shrug off the impostor syndrome that always seems to linger whenever she achieves something she doesn’t feel she deserves. ‘Interiors and development,’ she adds, taking ownership of the words this time.

‘Interesting,’ he says. ‘Are you buying or selling?’

‘I’ve just bought a site today,’ she says. ‘I’m building twenty-eight apartments on it.’

He looks like he’s been given an electric shock. ‘Wow, really?’

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