your way through?’
Already? ‘Oh right, sure, thanks.’ This was what came of arriving late. She looked back at the others. ‘I’d better say hi to the boss before we sit down. I’ll catch up with you upstairs.’ So what if he was talking still to Sam? She might be freelance, but 60 per cent of her work was for his magazine – she had to network.
‘Sure.’ Matt’s eyes lingered on her as she walked over towards the man responsible for signing her pay cheques, and the other one responsible for her disrupted sleep patterns.
‘Hi,’ she said brightly, interrupting their flow and coming to stand beside Sam. It was a defiant gesture, to show him she wasn’t cowed by his rejection, and he seemed startled by her sudden proximity, tensing in exactly the same way she just had with Matt. Did he feel the same antipathy, then? She fixed the smile on her lips. ‘I thought I’d better come and say hello before we sit down to eat. Apparently they’re ready for us upstairs.’
‘Lee, great to see you,’ Rubens said, leaning across to kiss her. ‘You look impossibly chic as ever. The whole androgyny thing looks great on you.’
‘Thanks, Rubens.’ She looked at Sam – direct, quick, no hesitation, back on her game. ‘Hi-Sam-how-are-you?’ she asked with a faux cheeriness, as though he wasn’t the man who’d helped her to stand in a cafe, who’d kissed her on her doorstep in her pyjamas three days earlier, who’d walked out of her house rather than get in her bed.
‘Lee.’ They air-kissed politely.
Politely. She felt the new distance between them, a contraction in her stomach as their eyes fleetingly met – but she couldn’t read him. He was an enigma to her.
She turned to the blonde. ‘I’m Lee. I don’t think we’ve met?’
‘Hi Lee, I’m Veronika,’ the girl replied as they shook hands; she was slender as a reed in a strapless ivory crepe midi column dress. She couldn’t be more than twenty-three but she had the cool, steady composure that young women have when they believe the world to be at their feet. ‘I’m Rubens’ new PA.’
‘Ah right, yes, we’ve spoken on the phone.’
‘Yes, I think so.’
There was a little pause; the power dynamic was completely tipped in Lee’s favour, and yet Veronika’s youth, beauty, flaxen blondeness, the way Sam had spent this entire early part of the evening talking to her . . . Lee adjusted her glasses.
‘Lee, before I forget, my congratulations on the launch of your new exhibition the other week. I’m sorry I couldn’t get there. I was in New York. I understand it was a triumph?’ Rubens said.
‘Well, it seemed to generate a conversation on the issue, which of course was always the point.’
‘I saw the party shots, we’re giving over a page to it. It looked great. Just like this – but wilder.’ He chuckled.
‘Well, give us time. The night is but young,’ she quipped, her eyes darting towards Sam as she smiled.
‘There’s a wonderful one of you with . . . Matteo Hofhuis, I think it was, doing the flamenco.’
‘The flamenco?’ she repeated, completely surprised and mildly horrified as a vague, indistinct memory began to press into focus. The flounces on her sleeves, the swirl of the skirt on her dress as he twirled her . . . ‘Well, you won’t use that, I hope,’ she said quickly.
‘Why not? You look great in it.’
‘It wouldn’t sit well with the message we’re trying to get across. I don’t want to hijack my own work on account of . . . high spirits.’
‘High spirits,’ he repeated, sounding amused. ‘Ah yes. Leave it with me. I’ll take a look at it again. You might be right.’
She took a sip of her drink, aware of how silently and still Sam stood beside her. ‘So tell me, are you pleased with how the feature’s come together?’ she asked into the silence. Did anyone else detect the tension between her and Sam? Did anyone else see that he’d fallen quiet after having been a convivial guest only moments before her arrival?
‘Lee, it’s the best yet,’ Rubens enthused.
‘Really?’ She felt a thrill of disbelieving delight. ‘I can’t wait to see it.’
‘You’ve surpassed yourself. What you achieved with Matteo and Sam here, particularly. Your vision for them was so singular.’
She didn’t glance at Sam, but she could feel his stare, how he had heard that they’d been bracketed together . . .
‘I was just telling Sam what a devil of a time we