lies. ‘It’ll be a funny story we’ll tell our children when they’re old enough, of course.’
My heart beats like a punchline—ba-dum-cha!—a dozen things going through my head. Who talks about children this quick? Children with Remy’s green eyes and my dark hair, children with golden skin, and platinum futures. Children loved to infinity—and then I realise he’s still watching me, and I have nothing but gushing to return.
‘And don’t forget glittery!’
His smile is so wide and so sudden, it’s like I’ve just told him a joke.
‘But perhaps next time, you might spare Madam Bisset’s blushes by directing it be opened by me,’ he says, standing the base against his desk.
‘Oh, my God. No wonder she couldn’t look me in the eye.’
‘No, but she did look something else in the eye.’
‘Maybe I should’ve chosen the chocolate assholes.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Forget I said that.’
‘Where are you going?’
I turn and look over my shoulder. ‘To apologise to Madam Bisset.’
‘And what am I meant to do with this enormous erection in front of me?’
‘I could tell you exactly where to shove it, but I don’t think you’d be happy!’
30
Rose
Thursday afternoon, week four, I’m in the middle of helping Charles load a trolley filled with packages of deluxe doggy party favours into the service elevator when my phone beeps with an incoming concierge request.
‘Lover boy?’ Charles asks, his tone a little piqued, mostly because Olga suggested he supervise the doggy party planner this afternoon, even going as far as to hand him a pink poop-a-scoop. So I don’t bite; we all have our limits.
‘Apparently, he’s left his gym bag at his apartment, and this flunky right here has to pick it up from the penthouse and deliver it to his office.’
‘It is still more fun than my afternoon,’ he grumbles, using his hands as though he were a balancing scale. ‘A beautiful man ’oo wants you or puppies ’oo want to ’ump your leg.’
‘You booked the dog walker to come along, right?’
He nods. ‘Dog walker, party planner, Charles, and a poop-a-scoop.’
‘It sounds like a joke.’
‘Like my life.’
I leave a dramatically morose Charles to his afternoon and collect the key card from reception; I gave him mine back after . . . well, just after, and take the elevator to the penthouse. At the door, I experience a pang of something like nostalgia, though choose not to indulge myself in the what-ifs and what could have beens, swiping the key and stepping inside. It’s hard to ignore the temptation to snoop around a little, so I don’t. I’m not sure what I’m expecting to find, though I know what I dread as the list runs through my head.
An empty bottle of wine.
Two glasses, one of them with lipstick.
Discarded underwear.
Condom wrappers.
A girl still in his bed.
I find none of those things, on the ground floor, at least, and I plan to have a little snoop-de-snoop to discover if what he says is true. Namely, that he is living here and not in the house he shared with her. And he is living here, according to yesterday’s Le Monde newspaper discarded to the dining room table, the bottle of wine on the kitchen counter, along with the singular glass in the dishwasher, and the coffee stain on the fancy machine. They’re all small signs but enough to make me feel oddly gratified as I begin to climb the stairs, halting halfway.
You’re forty-seven floors up. No one is going to see you come.
No one but me.
The aural memory curls around my ear, causing a tiny explosion of fireworks deep in the pit of my belly. I know I’ll be old and grey and in a nursing home and I’ll still remember the way he held me against him. The way he carried me up this staircase as though I’d weighed nothing. I’ll never forget the way he made me feel like a goddess.
I shake away the memory and the sadness that always seems to follow and make my way to his room.
What if he’s here?
Shut up, stupid brain. Also, not helpful and not likely.
What if the room is filled with shiny balloons and rose petals leading to the bed and—
I should not have had that third coffee. Clearly, I’m high on caffeine. I push the door open, smiling to myself as I step inside, knowing that Remy isn’t lying in the centre of his bed with a rose clenched between his teeth.
His bedroom looks exactly the same, little signs of my presence still lying here and there. A hair tie lies on