Page 97 of Midnight Enemy

She drops her gaze to her champagne flute. “Mm, well, I was in a bad place and needed to do something different.”

I see Orson and Kingi exchange glances. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” I tell Marama softly.

She rubs her nose. “No, it’s okay. I’m much better now. I was living with my fiancé—we’d been engaged for six months and were due to get married. This was over a year ago. Then a friend of mine told meshe’d seen him at a conference, and said he went to his room with another woman.”

I press my fingers to my lips as both men frown. “Oh no.”

She continues, “He denied it and got really angry with me for suggesting he’d been unfaithful. We had an uneasy Christmas while I tried to tell myself my friend had gotten it wrong. But on New Year’s Eve I was wearing his jacket, and I found an earring in his pocket. He denied it again, but long story short, it eventually turned out he’d been having an affair with a work colleague for several months.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say with feeling.

“Cheating on her was bad enough,” Kingi says, “but gaslighting her like that was just awful.” His eyes flash. “I wanted to break both his legs.”

“Too obvious,” Orson says. “I told you poison would have been easier to hide.”

We all chuckle, but it’s clear that the two men are mad about what happened, and I understand why.

Marama sighs. “It’s terrible when you know in your heart that something is wrong, but the other person won’t admit it. I thought I was going mad. Anyway, I was angry and upset when I realized what he’d done. I took it really hard. The apartment was his, so I had to move out. My father suggested I go somewhere completely different to recover and concentrate on my art. So I visited some of the big European art galleries, trying to heal and regain my inspiration.”

“Did it work?” I ask.

She nods. “I painted lots of beautiful landscapes. I’m much better now, thanks.” She smiles. “Anyway, enough about me. Come on, why don’t we get something to eat?”

“Now you’re talking.” Kingi gets to his feet, and the rest of us follow.

We cross to the tables next to the barbecue where the food is laid out, and a waiter hands us all a plate. I was concerned that there wouldn’t be much for me to eat as I’m a vegetarian, but I’m relieved to see they’ve included some veggie kebabs with zucchinis, bell peppers, mushrooms, and baby tomatoes, and a whole heap of various salads, including a pasta one, a rice one, two different potato salads, and a gorgeous Greek salad with green leaves, olives, and feta cheese. There’s also freshly baked garlic bread and herb bread.

We heap up our plates and then return to our table. On the way, Orson introduces me to a few people, including a woman who turns out to be his sister, Helen. I would think she’s a year or two younger than him, elegant and graceful, despite the fact that she’s heavily pregnant. Is this what his mother looked like?

“Oh, hello,” she says, shaking my hand. Her eyes, the same blue as his, are alight with curiosity. “So you’re the girl who has him all a flutter?”

“Don’t you start,” he mumbles, putting his plate down with a thump.

She grins. “Callum wants to know if you’re definitely coming to his birthday party?”

“Of course! Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“I’ll let him know. Good to meet you,” she says to me, then heads off back to her table.

“Callum?” I ask as we sit.

“My nephew. He’s three next week. I promised him I’d go to his party and get my face painted with him.”

I smile, warmed through at the thought of Orson having his face painted as Spider-Man or something. “Is he here today?”

“No.” He’s distracted by a man who approaches to wish Kingi happy birthday, and he and Kingi shake hands with him and start talking business.

Marama leans closer to me and murmurs, “This is a child-free resort.”

I look around the pool, realizing she’s right, and there are no children here today. The youngest person present is maybe twenty, so there aren’t even any teens.

“How weird,” I say, then suddenly realize how rude that must sound. “Oh, um…”

“It’s all right,” she says softly. “It takes some getting used to.” She nibbles at a seafood kebab. “It’s just how we’ve been brought up—children are seen and not heard. When I was traveling through Spain and Italy, it shocked me initially to see children with the adults at the dinner tables, and they don’t tend to have kids’ menus—they eat what the adults are having. The children are often up very late. But then I’m guessing that’s your experience too, at the commune?”

I nod. “My mother was Maori, and she was keen to include children at all meals and social events.”

“The Midnight Club is marketed to the rich as exclusive, a place you can come to escape the noise and frustrations of the family,” she says. “We hold lots of conferences here, too, so a lot of business is done, and you don’t really want little kids running around screaming, or teenagers causing havoc.”

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