Читать книгу Cathy Kelly 3-Book Collection 1: Lessons in Heartbreak, Once in a Lifetime, Homecoming - Cathy Kelly - Страница 14

Izzie’s Manhattan apartment was cold and looked bare after the warmth of the New Mexico hotel. Even her beloved New York was coolly impersonal today, she decided: the cab driver who’d picked her up at the airport hadn’t been classically eccentric, just dull, and it was raining too, the type of flash flood that could drown a person in an instant.

Wet and tired, Izzie slammed her front door shut and set her luggage down, trying to put a finger on the sense of discontent she felt. There was something about the friendliness of the pueblo, a small-town kindliness that Izzie missed from home. She was a small-town girl, after all, she thought, feeling a rush of homesickness for Tamarin. She thought about home a lot these days. Was it because she felt so alone when Joe left late at night and her thoughts turned to her family, the other people who cared for her?

Or was it because she felt a growing anxiety over what was happening: a relationship that was so hard to explain that she hadn’t tried to explain it to anyone, not Carla, not her dad, not Gran.

She stripped off her dripping jacket and only then allowed herself to look at the answering machine. The message display showed a big fat zero. Zero messages.

Horrible bloody machine. She glared at it, as if it was the machine’s fault that Joe hadn’t rung.

Turning on the lamps to give her home some type of inner glow, Izzie stomped into the bathroom, stripped off her clothes and got into the shower to wash away the dust of the mesa. She was becoming obsessed with cleaning herself. Was Obsessive Compulsive Disorder a product of tangled love affairs? She’d never had so many showers in her life, always showering and scrubbing and oiling in the hope that, once she was in the shower, the phone would ring. It always used to. But not now. Joe hadn’t phoned in five days.

Five days.

‘I’ll talk to you,’ he’d murmured the morning she flew to New Mexico.

‘You do that,’ she’d murmured back, wishing she could cancel, wishing something would happen so she’d be close to him, because there was a cold, isolating feeling from not being in the same city as him. What was that about?

But he hadn’t phoned.

Not even on the last night when they all let their hair down, when the noise of partying would have made any normal absent lover slightly jealous – which was why Izzie had hoped he’d phone then, just so she’d have the chance to move away from the hubbub and casually say that Ivan was playing the limbo-dancing game, and make it all sound fabulous. So fabulous that he’d be jealous of her being there without him…Except he hadn’t played the game. He hadn’t phoned.

Izzie clambered out of the shower, still irritated.

No, a shower wasn’t the right thing. A bath, that would be perfect.

She started to fill the tub, poured in at least half of her precious Jo Malone rose bath oil, opened a bottle of white wine and made herself a spritzer for the bath, and finally sank into the fragrant bubbles.

She sipped her spritzer, laid back with her eyes closed and tried to relax. But the blissful obliviousness baths used to bring her, a sinking-into-the-heat-thing that made her forget everything else, evaded her. As ever, since she’d met Joe, he was the only thing in her mind.

For that first lunch, they’d met in a small, quirky Italian restaurant in the Village, the sort of place Izzie hadn’t imagined Joe would like. She’d guessed he’d prefer more uptown joints where the staff recognised every billionaire in the city. It was another thing to like about him, this difference.

Over antipasti, they chatted and the more he talked, the more Izzie felt herself falling for him.

He’d got a business degree, then joined J.P. Morgan’s graduate-trainee programme.

‘That’s when the bug hit me,’ he said, scooping up a sliver of ciabatta bread drenched with basil-infused olive oil. ‘Trading is all about instant gratification, and I loved it.’

‘Isn’t it stressful?’ she asked, thinking of losing millions and how she’d have to be anaesthetised if she did a job like that.

‘I never felt stress,’ he said. ‘I loved it. I’d trade, lose some, win some, whatever, I’d go home and go to sleep. People burned out all the time – the hours, the work-hard, play-hard mentality, it got to a lot of them, but not me.’

At twenty-nine, he’d been running his own trading fund, a hedge fund.

‘That’s what it means,’ said Izzie delighted. ‘I never knew.’

The higher up the chain he went, the more risk but also bigger percentages to be earned, until finally he ended up as head of trading for a huge bank. ‘Basically, you’re trying to systematically beat all the markets through math,’ he explained. ‘You name it, we traded it. We were a closed fund.’

Izzie, mouth full of roasted peppers, looked at him quizzically.

‘Means we only reinvested profits and no new investors could get in.’

‘Oh.’ She nodded. This was like a masterclass in Wall Street. How many years had she known all those money guys and never had a clue what they were talking about?

Finally, he and a friend named Leo Guard had started their own closed hedge fund, HG.

‘Eventually, we were doing so well, we changed the fee structure from two and twenty to five and forty.’

‘I add up using my fingers,’ Izzie explained. ‘I have no idea what that means.’

He grinned and handed her some more bread.

‘That’s the typical fee structure: two and twenty means you get two per cent for management and twenty per cent of profits from performance.’

‘Wow,’ she said. ‘And you were trading in millions?’

He nodded. ‘Imagine having six hundred under management.’

Izzie hated to look thick. ‘Six hundred million dollars?’ she said, just to check.

He nodded.

‘You’re rich, then,’ she said, hating herself for eating all that antipasti as she already felt full and the main courses would be coming soon.

Joe laughed.

‘You’re the real deal, Izzie Silver,’ he said. ‘I like that.’

‘Honest,’ she said, pushing her plate away. ‘Not everyone likes it.’

‘I do. Yes, you could say I am rich.’

‘You don’t own a super-yacht, though?’ she asked, with a twinkle in her eye.

He laughed again. ‘No. Do you want one, or do you simply want to date a guy with one?’

Izzie smiled at his innocence. ‘You haven’t a clue, do you?’ she said coolly. ‘I am so far away from the type of woman who wants a man with a super-yacht that I am on a different continent.’ She rearranged things on the table, pushing the salt and pepper around. ‘The pepper is me.’ She stuck it at the edge of the table. ‘And the salt –’ she moved it to the other side completely, ‘– is the sort of woman who wants to know a guy’s bank balance before she meets him for a drink. See? Big gap, big difference. Enormous.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Just don’t do it again,’ she joked. ‘I have never in my entire life gone out with a guy because of the size of his bank balance. Ever. I did briefly – one date – go out with a guy from next door in my old apartment because he knew how to work the heating, and he’d fixed it for me one day when the super wasn’t around and I went out on a date with him, but that was it. A one-off.’

‘You came out with me because I gave you a ride back to the office, then?’ he teased.

‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘Keep going with this life story of yours. Tell me some personal stuff.’

He was forty-five, his wife was a couple of years younger and they’d married young, kids, really. Izzie was sorry she’d asked for personal stuff.

‘Then, Tom came along quite quickly,’ he said proudly. ‘It all changes then, you know. Do you have children?’

Yes, in my handbag, Izzie wanted to say. ‘No, ‘fraid not. So I don’t know how it changes everything.’

‘Take my word for it, it does. It changes the couple dynamic, you get so caught up in the kids. But, hey, I didn’t come here to talk about my boys,’ he said.

‘OK, what did you come here for?’ she asked. She wasn’t sure why she was here. He was too complicated, there was too much going on in his life. She needed a rebound guy like she needed a hole in the head.

Besides, he wasn’t even at the rebound stage: he was still in the nursing-the-broken-relationship stage. A man on the hunt for a rebound relationship didn’t necessarily want to talk about his wife and kids.

Pity, she thought sadly. He was lovely, sexy, made her stomach whoop in a way she could never quite remember it doing before.

It just proved what she knew and what Linda had confirmed to her: all the good ones were taken. But he was a charming guy and she could enjoy lunch and mark it down to experience.

‘You still don’t know what I came here for?’ he asked.

Izzie shot him a wry look.

‘I might want to know more about the modelling industry so I can invest in it,’ he continued.

‘You might just want to be introduced to long-legged models?’ she countered. ‘I’m normally quite good at working out if a man is interested in me only as a means to get to the models. Although you –’ she surveyed him ‘– aren’t the normal type. You’re too nice.’

He pretended to gasp. ‘Nice? That’s not a word people usually use about me. I’ve been called a shark, you know.’

‘You’re nice,’ Izzie said, smiling back at him. It was true. For all that he was an alpha male, with all the in-built arrogance and intelligence, he had a solid, warm core to him, a devastatingly attractive bit that said he might be a rich guy but he’d been brought up to take care of people, to protect his family and his woman. Izzie felt a pang that she would never get to be said woman. There would be something wonderful about being with a man who’d take care of her.

‘You might pretend to be a shark but you’re a pussycat,’ she went on, teasing a little. ‘Besides, I know you don’t need me to get you introduced to the supermodels. You’re rich enough to buy all the introductions you need. Money is like an access-all-areas card, isn’t it?’

‘My but you’re cynical for one so young,’ he grinned.

‘I’m not young, I’m nearly forty,’ she said. If she’d thought he was interested in her, she’d have said she was thirty-nine. ‘It’s creeping up on me every day. I’m going to be over the hill soon.’

A few days ago, it might have been a joke. But since the Plaza and Linda, Izzie no longer felt complacent at the thought of her approaching birthday.

‘You’ll never be over the hill,’ he said in a low voice that made her think, ridiculously, about being in bed with him and having him slowly peeling off her clothes.

‘Are you flirting with me, Mr Hansen?’ Izzie squawked to cover her discomfit. ‘I thought this was a friendly lunch.’

‘Cards on table,’ he said, ‘I am flirting with you.’

‘Well, stop,’ she ordered. ‘You’ve just told me about your wife and fabulous kids. I don’t know what sort of women you’re used to meeting, but I’m not in the market for part-time love. I’ve got through thirty-nine years without dating a man who’s still tangled up with his wife and I’m not planning on starting now.’

‘Do you think I’d be here if my marriage was still viable?’ he asked in a low growl. ‘Give me some credit, Izzie. Yes, I have a wife and kids, but we’re separated and we’re only living together for the sake of those kids. Didn’t you listen to me? I told you Elizabeth and I married young. We haven’t been a couple for years, nobody’s fault, it just was inevitable. We finally agreed a few months ago that it wasn’t working on any level and we needed to formalise things.’

‘Oh,’ said Izzie, waiting. Was he serious? Or was he really still in that awful post-break-up stage where he was trying to convince himself it was over and that a rebound would sort him out?

‘I love her, I’ll always love her,’ he said, ‘but it’s like loving your sister. We’ve had twenty-four years together and counting; it’s a lifetime, but the marriage part is long over. We try to appear together for the younger boys. Tom would be able to cope with it if we split up, but Matt and Josh, no. The New York house is so big, it’s not a problem. Lots of people do it: if you have enough space, you can all exist happily together. I have my life, she has hers. Elizabeth’s parents divorced and she didn’t want our boys to come from a broken home. That’s why we stayed with each other, I guess, but it’s too hard. I can’t do that any more.’

‘What if one of you fell in love and wanted to be with another person?’ Izzie asked, trying to understand this strange arrangement. She felt like she was standing on a cliff and was about to fall. She didn’t want to fall without knowing he was going to be holding his arms out.

‘That’s never happened. Before,’ he added the last word deliberately slowly. ‘If it happened, then everything would have to change.’

‘Do people know about this?’

‘Most of our circle know. We’re not broadcasting it, but it works for us. Matt and Josh are still so young. They think they know it all now they’re twelve and fourteen, but they’re still kids. Now they can see their parents living amicably in the same house, they’ve got stability. That’s our number one priority.’

‘I see,’ she said, thinking with a sudden flash of sadness of her life when she was between twelve and fourteen.

‘Do you?’

She nodded and somehow he instantly picked up on the fact that she’d become suddenly melancholy.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘I was thirteen when my mother died,’ she explained. ‘Cancer. It was sudden too, so there was no time. Six weeks after we found out, she was dead.’ She shivered at the memory. It had taken her years to be able to say the word cancer: it had held such terrifying connotations, like an unlucky charm, as if just saying it brought danger and pain. ‘My father and my grandmother tried to protect me from that, but they couldn’t.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It must have been tough.’

She nodded. Tougher than anyone could imagine. In a way, she’d dealt with it by not dealing with it: locking herself up tight inside so nothing could hurt her, not crying, not talking much to anyone, even darling Gran, who was so devastated herself and was trying to hide it for Izzie’s sake.

Dad, Uncle Edward and Anneliese had all been there for her, ready to talk, laugh, cry, whatever she needed. Only her cousin Beth – quirky, irritable, easily upset – had been her usual self. Beth had actually helped the most in the first year. She’d made Izzie cry one day by screaming at her and that simple act of one person in her life not tiptoeing around her, brought Izzie back.

‘Is your father alive?’ Joe asked gently.

Izzie smiled. ‘Yeah, he’s great, Dad. A bit dizzy sometimes; runs out of sugar and cream endlessly and has to rush over to my aunt Anneliese’s house or to my gran’s. Between them, they take care of him – not that they let him know or anything. He’d hate that. But they do. They tell me how he’s getting on.’

‘Coffee, dessert? More wine?’ asked the waiter.

When he was gone, having cleared their plates and taken coffee orders, Joe leaned forward again.

‘Tell me more about you,’ he urged.

But Izzie felt she’d revealed enough about herself. She rarely talked about her mother, certainly not to someone she’d just met.

‘Hey, that’s enough of me,’ she said, trying to sound perkier. ‘You’re more interesting, Mr Mogul. So, tell me – are you interested in buying a model agency?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘I didn’t think you were but –’

‘But you needed to know where you stood?’

‘Convent education – it gets you every time,’ she sighed.

‘Would Sister Mary Whatever approve of me?’ he asked. She could feel his foot nudging hers under the table.

‘I think you’re probably the sort of guy they had in mind when they told us to bring a phone book out with us on dates,’ Izzie quipped.

When he looked puzzled, she filled him in: ‘If you had to sit on some boy’s lap, you placed the phone book down first, then sat. An inch of paper barrier.’

‘More like five inches if you lived in Manhattan.’

‘Don’t boast.’ She was smiling now.

‘So you might see me again, Ms Silver, now you know I’m kosher?’

‘I might,’ she said.

‘Listen, I have an art collection in my office building –’

‘You didn’t bid on that Pasha picture at the charity lunch,’ she interrupted.

‘I might have, except I was distracted,’ he growled. ‘I have to go to an artist’s studio to look at some paintings tomorrow afternoon. Would you like to come?’

Izzie took the plunge. Looking at art – where was the harm in that? ‘Sure. What time?’

‘Say eleven o’clock?’

‘You said “afternoon”,’ she said, confused.

‘He lives in Tennessee, in the Smoky Mountains. We’ll have to fly.’

Izzie had never been on a private jet before. First, she and Joe were picked up by helicopter and flown to Teterboro airport where a Gulfstream sat waiting on the tarmac. Inside, apart from the crew, there were just the two of them.

‘It’s fabulous,’ Izzie said in awe as she stepped into the cabin. On the inside, it looked smaller than she’d imagined but the luxury was something she couldn’t have dreamed up. Entirely decorated in calm cream shades, there were only eight or nine vast cream leather seats.

The light oak cabinets were topped with marble instead of airplane plastic. It was luxury cubed. Even the blankets laid on the seats felt too soft to be ordinary wool.

‘Cashmere?’ she asked the stewardess standing to attention with a smile fixed to her face.

The stewardess nodded. ‘The seats are a blend of wool and leather, for added comfort.’

‘There’s nothing you can’t do on this plane,’ Joe said, sitting down and reaching out for the glass of cold beer the stewardess had ready for him, without him even asking for it. ‘Watch DVDs, phone outer space – you name it. They’ve even got a defibrillator on board. Have you had to use it, Karen?’ he asked the woman.

‘Mr Hansen, you know I can’t tell you that,’ she said, grinning.

They flew into Gatlinburg but Izzie could only glance at the pretty streets of the historic town before they were driven out of town for twenty minutes to a property set on its own in the foothills of the Great Smokies.

‘I can see why a painter would want to work from here,’ Izzie said, taking in the sweep of powerful mountains ranged all around her as they walked to the door of the ranch-style house. The greenery reminded her a little of home, but there were no mountains in Ireland like these, no giant peaks that dominated the landscape.

The artist, a man named AJ, made them drinks and ambled round his studio, talking in a laid-back Tennessean drawl. Izzie had worried that the artist might wonder who she was and she imagined an awkward conversation ensuing, but no such thing happened. It was as if, once she was with Joe, she was instantly a member of whatever club they were in at the time. She found that she liked that.

Joe wanted to buy a lot of paintings.

AJ hugged him in a loose-limbed way. Izzie wondered how much it had all cost, but decided against asking. She wasn’t sure if she could take it.

On the flight home, over Cajun blackened fish, a Gatlinburg favourite recipe that the galley staff had prepared in honour of their destination, Izzie idly mentioned her initial anxiety that AJ would wonder who she was.

‘Who cares what other people think or wonder?’ he said, genuinely astonished at such a concept.

‘No reason,’ Izzie said cautiously. ‘It’s just –’

She stopped. She was scared of so many things around Joe: how intensely she liked him, how powerfully attractive she found him. But there were all those complications to consider. Izzie felt she was on a slippery slope now – she didn’t want to fall in.

Also, she was afraid that, just by being with him, she’d appear like the sort of person she disliked: the all-purpose rich man’s girlfriend. Not that she was his girlfriend or anything yet. He hadn’t so much as touched her, and she wasn’t sure if this was on purpose or not.

I have a career and my own life, she wanted to yell. I like him for who he is, not for how much money he’s got.

He dropped her home in the limo. Neither of them moved. Izzie felt so conflicted: on one hand, she wanted to invite him in and see what happened next. On the other, she wanted to go slowly because this felt so special, so different.

If only he’d do something, say something, then she’d know how to respond.

But he seemed to be playing some gentlemanly game, waiting for her to do something.

‘Have you talked to your wife about meeting me?’ she asked. Why did you say that? she groaned inwardly. How to kill a romantic atmosphere in ten seconds flat.

‘We don’t talk about the people in our life,’ he said brusquely. ‘It’d weird me out.’

‘Because you’d be jealous?’ Izzie asked tentatively.

‘Because we’re trying to keep a reasonable family unit together for the sake of the boys and that might add extra pressure,’ he replied.

And then, he leaned over and kissed her softly on the lips, not a Mr Predator kiss but a gentle, till tomorrow sort of goodbye. Izzie closed her eyes and waited for more, waited to sink into the kiss. But there was no more.

‘I’ll call you tomorrow and thanks for coming with me.’

‘Thanks for asking me,’ she said coolly. She was still trying to work out why he hadn’t kissed her properly. ‘I’ve never been to Tennessee before. Does a two-hour flying visit count as being somewhere?’

He looked at her thoughtfully.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Cheerio,’ she said, getting out as the driver opened the door. Cheerio? What’s wrong with you, Izzie? First the weird question about his wife and then ‘cheerio’.

He phoned the next day.

‘Would you like to go on another date?’ he asked.

Date? It had been a date, after all. Izzie hugged herself with delight.

‘Yes,’ she said and squashed the feeling that she’d just fallen down the slippery slope.

From the comfort of her bathtub, sipping her spritzer, Izzie thought about those first days when she felt like the luckiest person on the planet.

Joe was in her head all the time, edging more mundane matters out of the way, like a problem with a model sinking into depression because she’d been dropped from a beauty campaign or a big screw-up which saw five models miss a plane to Milan because they’d been out late partying.

It was a fabulous secret that she hugged to herself. Izzie found herself behaving as if her life was a movie and Joe would be watching her every move.

She wore her best clothes every day, so she’d look fabulous on the off chance that he’d phone. The spike-heeled boots she moaned about were hauled out of her wardrobe to go with the swishy 1940s-inspired skirt that hugged her rear end and made construction workers’ mouths drop open.

They had lunch and dinner twice a week, holding hands under the table, and kissing in the car on the way back to her office or to her apartment. They talked and talked, sitting until their coffees went cold.

But she’d never brought him to her home, had never done more than kiss him in the back of the car. Something held her back.

That something was her feeling that Joe and his life was more complicated than he’d told her. Why else were they having this low-key relationship, she asked herself? It only made sense if Joe wasn’t being entirely truthful about everything and she couldn’t believe that. He was so straight, so direct. She didn’t want to nag him like a dog with a bone. She said nothing and just hoped.

They’d had a month of courtship – only such an old-fashioned word could describe it: walking in the park at lunchtime and sharing deli lunch from Dean & DeLuca’s.

And then, on a sunny Thursday, they’d visited another artist in a giant loft apartment in TriBeCa and Izzie had wandered round looking at huge canvases while Joe, the artist and the artist’s manager discussed business. Izzie felt a thrill that was nothing to do with admiring the artist’s work: the fact that Joe had brought her here showed that she wasn’t a dirty little secret in his life. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have brought her along, would he?

Silvio Cruz’s giant abstract paintings had prompted some critics to compare him to the great Pollock. Even Izzie, who knew zip about art, could see the power and beauty of his canvases, and she loved listening to Joe talk about them.

Joe hadn’t grown up with art on the walls, he’d told her: food on the table in his Bronx home was as good as it got. So she loved hearing him talk passionately about a world he’d come into late thanks to his sheer brilliance.

Finally, she, Joe and Duarte, the manager, took the creaking industrial elevator down to street level.

‘The Marshall benefit for AIDS is on tomorrow night,’ Duarte said to Joe. ‘You and Elizabeth going?’

Izzie froze.

‘Yeah, probably,’ murmured Joe.

‘I hear Danny Henderson’s donating a De Kooning. I mean, Jeez, that’s serious dough. Danny’s been here too, but he just doesn’t get Silvio’s vision,’ Duarte went on, oblivious to the sudden temperature shift in the elevator.

Elizabeth was probably going with him? What happened to the separate lives thing?

On the street, Izzie looked around for Joe’s inevitable big black limo and then realised she couldn’t possibly sit in it with him. She wasn’t sure what was worse: the feeling that Joe had wanted to shut Duarte up and not talk about the party, or Duarte’s assumption that she, Izzie, wouldn’t be going.

If Joe Hansen was officially unattached, then why would anyone assume he’d take his wife to a benefit? And why would he say ‘yeah, probably’ when asked?

There was only one answer and it made Izzie feel sick.

Without saying a word, she turned and walked briskly away from the two men and the limo which had slid noiselessly into place.

‘Izzie!’ yelled Joe, but she kept walking.

He caught up with her, hurt her arm as he grabbed her roughly and turned her to face him.

‘Don’t go,’ he begged.

‘Why not?’ she demanded. ‘You’ve been lying to me. It’s not over with your wife. You lied to me.’

‘It’s over with me and Elizabeth,’ he insisted.

‘Fuck you and your lies!’ Izzie threw back at him.

‘They’re not lies.’ He let go of her and his hands dropped limply to his sides. ‘It’s deader than any dodo, Izzie, it’s just hard to end it all. Elizabeth’s different to me, she finds it difficult to let go. I’ve told her she can have the house here, the place in the Hamptons, whatever she wants. It was over long before you, that wasn’t a lie. But she’s trying to get her head round the fact that I want to leave.’

‘So you’re leaving now? First, you were all staying together for the kids,’ Izzie said, trying not to cry.

‘We did try but it didn’t work. Elizabeth kept getting upset about it, she wants all or nothing, and now it’s a matter of her accepting it and us telling the boys. I promise, Izzie. Don’t go, please.’

Izzie stared at him. She was a good judge of character, damnit, and he wasn’t a liar, for all he pretended to be a shark in business.

‘Why didn’t you tell me the truth straight up?’ she demanded.

‘You wouldn’t have gone out to lunch with me,’ he said, with a small smile that recalled the Joe she knew and loved.

Loved. She loved him, Lord help her, she loved him. Without meaning to, she’d got tangled up in this mess and now she couldn’t just walk out. Still, she needed time to think.

‘I’ve got to go back to work, Joe,’ she said. ‘I’ll call you later.’

‘Let me drop you,’ he said.

‘No, I’ll get a taxi.’

As if sent by an angel, a taxi with a lit sign appeared in front of her and Izzie stuck out her arm. She waved at Joe as she sat in the back and the driver sped off.

‘What’s up with you?’ snapped Carla at work that afternoon. ‘You don’t listen, you don’t talk, you stare into space like a moony high schooler. What gives?’

Izzie hesitated. She and Carla had sat up nights talking men, dissing men and generally deciding that no man at all was better than changing who you were in order to capture one.

‘Surrendered wife, my butt! Why pretend to be Pollyanna to get him, so you can go back to being Mama Alien once he’s married you? Who needs a man that much?’

They knew each other. But something had stopped Izzie from telling Carla about Joe. Perhaps it was a sixth sense or else it was her feeling that this was all too good to be true.

She’d had a feeling that explaining Joe’s complicated family set-up would trigger Carla’s internal Men Are Assholes alarm and there would be no stopping her. Carla wouldn’t understand the nuances of it all.

Well, she would now, Izzie thought bitterly. Now it wasn’t so complicated at all – just another guy trying to mess around on the side, only Izzie Silver, who’d never done the married man thing, was the person he was messing around with.

And how could she explain all that to Carla, along with how she felt about him, despite today? That thinking of Joe made her burn with heat. That his voice made her want to melt. That she was falling for him like the sort of soppy woman she’d never been in her life before. That she was furious with him for lying to her, but somehow her traitorous mind kept thinking What if she stayed with him anyway…?

No, she couldn’t tell Carla until she knew what she was going to do next.

‘Was I staring into space?’ Izzie said. ‘I was only thinking about Laetitia. We’ll need to keep an eye on her because her acne has flared up again and it really upsets her. I told her about the facialist who did wonders with Fifi’s skin, but she says she’s thinking of getting a prescription for something…’

Models using anti-acne drugs to combat skin problems were guaranteed to occupy Carla’s mind. Carla felt that skinny girls who lived on cigarettes and diet drinks didn’t need more medication.

‘She doesn’t need drugs!’ Carla went off on one, yelling and being angry.

Izzie was able to tune out of her job and into Joe.

Carla’s instinctive reaction – if she were told – would be the correct one. There was no future in this relationship. Izzie had to end it, tonight.

The sad thing was, she believed Joe. She believed his feelings for her, but it was all too complicated, too tangled, and he wasn’t ready to walk away from his past yet.

If Izzie stayed, she’d be the evil woman who’d ruined his marriage. The evil woman story played better than the marriage-falling-apart one.

‘Izzie, you’re tuning out again. What’s up?’ demanded Carla.

‘Just tired,’ Izzie said, flustered.

It wasn’t enough that Joe was messing up her heart, he was messing up her job too. She had to get out because, somewhere deep inside, Izzie knew that Joe had the power to hurt her like no man had ever hurt her before.

She was grateful now that their relationship had never become physical. Ironically, she’d thought that tonight might be the night that it did. Still, she was grateful for small mercies. It was as if some psychic force had kept her from making love with him because, once that happened, there would be no going back. Now she had to get out, fast, while she still could.

Before the fight in TriBeCa, they’d discussed going to dinner somewhere fancy at half nine. Izzie couldn’t wait that long. She needed to do this soon, after work, or else she’d explode. She had to get Joe out of her life and try to forget him. Although quite how she was going to do that, she had no idea.

She left a message on Joe’s cell phone for him to meet her at seven in a small bar at Pier Nine. Anonymous and quiet, it would be the perfect setting for telling Joe she never wanted to see him again.

At seven that night, the bar contained a mixed crowd, with studenty types, men and women in work clothes and people for whom fashion wasn’t a mission statement. The walls were jammed with non-ironic movie posters like Love Story and Flashdance, and there wasn’t a cocktail shaker in sight.

Carla would love this place, Izzie thought briefly, then realised she couldn’t tell Carla about it because there would be nothing to tell after tonight.

There was no future in this for her except heartbreak. God, she earned her living telling young beautiful girls that there was no future in it for them with the moguls they met at parties. They were just fodder for the rich; disposable people in a world of disposable income.

Look who’s talking now. Stupid, stoopid.

She sat there with her drink for fifteen minutes, hating herself, and finally moved on to anger because Joe was late. How dare he?

After everything he’d put her through, how dare he be late now?

Furiously, Izzie moved off the banquette, pulling her handbag after her.

‘You leaving? I’m sorry I’m late.’ His body, solid in a charcoal grey coat dusted with tiny diamonds of rain, blocked her way. He looked penitent, tired. He wasn’t playing a game with her, she knew instantly. But their whole relationship was based on mistruths and she hated that.

‘Joe.’ She slumped back into the seat, suddenly exhausted. ‘I wanted to see you to say I can’t do this any more. It’s not right, it’s not me. I was never comfortable with the idea that you still lived with your wife, split up or not, and today made it plain that I was right about that. I don’t want to be the other woman. I never auditioned for that.’

He’d moved in to sit beside her.

‘I know, I’m sorry,’ he said, sounding resigned. ‘Go, Izzie, you’re right. I’ve nothing to offer you.’

He had something to offer her, she thought, a moment of yearning in her heart. He had. But he was still married to someone else, still involved with someone else because of their children. Why couldn’t this be easy?

Joe was off the banquette and on his feet in one fluid gesture. He moved with such elegance, he was comfortable in his own skin.

When she’d woken up that morning with their dinner ahead of her, Izzie had decided that she wanted to feel that skin naked against hers. She wasn’t a silk underwear sort of woman. She did simple black, white or nude briefs and bras. No frills or lace. Until some invisible magnet had drawn her into Bloomingdales and the lingerie department where she’d gone crazy, doing more damage to her credit card bill. She could feel the results of that craziness, soft and very different under her clothes.

Going to bed with him now, the first and last time, was a strange idea. Yet maybe not. If she could have him, feel him touching her just one time, then perhaps she could leave. Like immunotherapy: one touch and she’d be for ever immune to him. Her heart would send out little antibodies so she wouldn’t want him again.

An anti-Joe shot.

Izzie closed her eyes.

‘Do you want to go?’ he asked. Softer, definitely.

‘Do you want me to?’

‘No.’ Low with wanting her.

‘Really?’

‘Really. I wanted to be honest with you, but when I met you, I knew you wouldn’t see me again if I told you how it really was. It’s over with me and Elizabeth, I promise. But I didn’t think you’d believe me, not at first.’

She kept her eyes closed and thought about his wife, Elizabeth, and the sons, the duplex in Vail, the listing in Fortune, the assistant’s assistant, all the things that were making this impossible. Then she opened her eyes and looked at him, that face she felt as if she’d known in another lifetime because how could you commit someone’s face to memory in such a short time? Reincarnation made sense suddenly. She and Joe had known each other in another life, for sure.

Perhaps he was meant to come into her life sooner, but he was here now. He was the one, she knew it.

‘I don’t want to go.’

He didn’t sit beside her: he bent and took her head in his hands, fingers cradling her skull with passion and gentleness, and crushed her mouth to his. She was just as ferocious, hands digging into his shoulders, dragging him down to her. This was what they hadn’t done, this type of kissing. They’d been so careful, dancing around it, both knowing that if they touched, properly, then there would be no going back.

Izzie moaned, knowing she was lost.

They pulled apart, two sets of bruised lips, two pairs of eyes black with desire.

‘Let’s go,’ Izzie said.

There was a car waiting outside the bar for him: a discreet Town car that smoothly drove up as soon as Joe raised his finger. It was always a different driver, Izzie realised, as he helped her into the leather backseat. Someone like Joe would absolutely have a regular driver, but that driver would know his wife, run errands for her, take the kids to school.

He couldn’t risk that driver seeing her again after the Plaza lunch. She was a guilty secret, to be hidden until it was all sorted out with his wife, the wife who didn’t want it to be over. Izzie, who’d never been hidden in her life and who’d often longed to be small for a day just for the experience, forced herself to brush the thought away. She was a secret. So what? It wouldn’t be for long, just long enough for Joe to end what was already over.

In her apartment, she didn’t think twice about saying, ‘I bet you didn’t know they made apartments in this size, huh?’

‘I didn’t come for the real estate,’ he said.

‘What did you come here for?’ she said.

‘For this.’ With one effortless move, his arms were around her waist, crushing her tightly against him. Izzie felt the surge of being plugged into some heavenly mains supply and with her back against the wall, she hungrily pulled his head down to hers and kissed him. His face was hard but his lips were soft, melting into hers, consuming her. Izzie flowed into the kiss, then suddenly pulled back.

She wanted to be in charge, in control for a moment, to show him that she would not be messed around with. She shoved him until he was against the facing wall, and she was on her toes, reaching and kissing.

‘Me first,’ he murmured, wrenching his mouth away. Her hands were behind her back, pinioned at the wrist with one of his big hands, the other cradling her head as he kissed her. He half carried her against his body until she was at the other wall again.

‘Rough stuff?’ she gasped, struggling to free her hands.

‘No,’ he said, stopping to stroke her cheek tenderly. ‘Never. I don’t want to hurt you, but I want you under me. Does that make me a Neanderthal in these sexually enlightened times?’

Izzie laughed. She took his hand and led him into the tiny living room. ‘I’m the sort of girl who goes on top.’

He hauled her close again. ‘Maybe the second time,’ he growled.

‘I’m not like other women,’ Izzie said. Still in his embrace, she managed to unwind her scarf and unbutton her coat. He ripped his coat off.

‘Never thought you were.’

‘So don’t tell me what to do or what not to do,’ she added.

‘Not even in bed?’

He was pulling his knotted tie loose and the sight of this normally buttoned-up businessman turning primeval made her weak at the knees.

‘Maybe in bed,’ Izzie teased, slipping her fingers down to untie the ribbons of her blouse. A complicated thing made of navy polka dot silk and laced up the front, it was the sort of garment that begged to be torn off. Joe’s eyes darkly followed her fingers as they loosened the navy ribbons.

‘I hope it’s not expensive,’ he said heavily, grabbing her again and pulling at the ribbons urgently, ripping the fragile fabric. Her full mouth caught his again, hot breath and hot tongues melding. He tasted like more. She wanted him like she’d never wanted anyone before.

Izzie felt every nerve ending on fire with desire. Her nipples were hard buds of lust and underneath her sedate pencil skirt she could feel her skin burning in its silken lingerie, wild to be set free and naked.

‘I can afford a new one,’ said Izzie, which wasn’t true, but now wasn’t the time to split dollars.

‘Good.’

He’d pulled the blouse apart, and his hands and mouth were roaming the soft skin of her breasts, kissing, licking and then sucking. Then his hands slid under the pencil skirt and his fingers cupped her pubic bone, making her feel the moisture pooling inside her.

Izzie groaned with pleasure. If this was her vaccination, then she wanted it to go on for a very long time.

She hadn’t shut the drapes and afterwards the lights of the city provided a gentle illumination for their crumpled bed. Joe lay propped up on her pillows, the sheets reaching up the muscled tan of his waist. Izzie lay on her side, head on her elbow, not quite looking at him but gazing away. It was an odd moment: at once both intimate and oddly formal.

Izzie, who’d had no difficulty sitting astride this man’s hips and letting him watch her face as she screamed with ecstasy, felt the awkwardness of afterwards. Suddenly she wondered how pure physical lust and attraction could make people do what they’d just done. There were so many things they didn’t know about each other. She didn’t know how he liked his coffee in the morning, the name of his first pet, did he love his mother?

None of that had mattered before. Now, the gap of that knowledge made what had gone before seem seamy, dirty. What was the protocol?

Thanks a million, honey: the money’s on the mantelpiece? It might be different for billionaires. The mink coat will be hiked over, sweetie, goodbye –

She shivered involuntarily. She’d never, ever wanted to be that sort of woman. And now, she was, wasn’t she?

‘I don’t suppose you have a cigarette?’ he asked.

‘I didn’t think you smoked,’ she said, surprised. Whatever she’d expected, it hadn’t been this.

‘I don’t. I quit ten years ago. But sometimes…’

‘Like when you’re in bed with women other than your wife?’ Izzie said, cut at the insinuation. ‘How many packs do you go through a month?’

‘None,’ he said, evenly. ‘Don’t be like that, Izzie.’

‘Like what?’

‘That.’

‘I can’t help it.’ She couldn’t. Now she’d crossed over to the other side, the side of loving him. Now he could hurt her and she felt naked, raw. She wanted to hurt first.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you from the beginning,’ he said. ‘I wish I’d told you everything.’

‘Me too,’ she said bitterly, but at least now she was bitter at herself.

‘Are you sorry that we made love?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said and burst into tears.

‘Izzie,’ he said, cradling her close to him, murmuring her name as he held her.

Then, when she’d managed to stop crying, he carried on holding her and slowly his hands massaged her back, tenderly rubbing out aches, until they moved down to the curve of her buttocks, and then they were making love again with more intensity even than before. As Joe arched over her, forearms rigid with muscle as he lunged into her, and Izzie was about to let go of herself and let her body soar into orgasm, she realised that she couldn’t give this up. This sort of love and passion, this was the most addictive drug of all.

That had been two months ago. Since then, no one could have said that Izzie Silver and Joe Hansen were having half an affair – it was one hundred per cent, for sure. They talked every day, met as often as Joe could manage, and Izzie tried very hard to cope with both the insecurity of her own position and the fact that making love to another woman’s husband went completely against her moral code.

Oh, Izzie, you pathetic idiot, she said aloud. She was staying in a cooling bath in case the man in her life phoned. What was modern, grown-up and independent about that?

If he phones, he phones. She drained her spritzer and then stood up, letting the rose-scented water flow over her body. She’d just wrapped a towel around herself when the apartment phone rang.

‘Hi, it’s me.’

Izzie felt the relief sweep from her head to her toes.

‘Hello,’ she said softly, as if she were the one whispering as she made an illicit call.

‘How are you, Joe? I missed you.’

Probably not the right thing to say, she knew, but she refused to play games.

‘I missed you too.’

He didn’t play them either.

‘Why didn’t you call?’ OK, so that was a bit of game-playing. But she couldn’t help it. Why hadn’t he called?

‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly.

‘That’s not an answer,’ Izzie replied, feeling the familiar anxiety claw its way up her throat. She’d never been this way in a relationship before. But then, she’d never had a relationship like this before: a hidden one.

‘It’s complicated.’

‘O-kay.’

‘Really. I can’t talk now. I’m at home.’

Why did that word hurt so much? Home. He had a home that was where she wasn’t. How could that be right? When she felt as if nowhere was home except when she was with him? When had this all become so one-sided?

‘Well, if you can’t talk…’ she said sharply, knowing she was cutting off her nose to spite her face. She’d longed for this call, blast it.

‘I can’t, I’m sorry,’ he said evenly.

‘Why did you phone, then?’ The words just snapped out of her.

‘Right now, I’m asking myself precisely that question,’ Joe said, a slight edge to his voice. ‘We should talk when you want to talk to me.’

‘I do want to talk to you – but not with you whispering in case somebody hears,’ hissed Izzie. And that was the crux of it: the great love of her life was talking quietly on the phone to her, when she wanted him yelling his love from the rooftops. How bloody hard could it be for him to tell his wife that he was formalising what they’d talked about for years?

‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ he said, still calm. His calmness infuriated her. He was in control, in every way. Whereas she felt wildly out of control over the depth of her feelings for him. And she had no control over their relationship because he called the shots. It was like walking a tightrope with no harness and no safety net.

‘I have to go,’ she said suddenly, wanting to goad him into begging her not to go. ‘I just got out of the bath and I’m dripping bathwater on to the floor.’

He didn’t take the bait.

‘Fine,’ he said.

‘No it’s not fine. Nothing’s bloody fine!’ she snapped back and hung up. Then, because she so desperately wanted to phone him back and say she loved him but couldn’t because of how awful she’d just been, she burst into tears. If she wasn’t so fiercely in love with Joe, she’d wish she’d never met him. Because surely there wasn’t much more pain than this, was there?

The next morning, her eyes looked red as a coal miner’s and her face was puffy with tiredness. She’d barely slept all night and during the hours she’d lain in bed, awake, tears had kept welling up in her eyes. It was like having a geyser in her head.

‘Ugh,’ she said, grimacing at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Emergency measures were required. As the most up-to-date beauty fixing products were spilling out of her bathroom cabinet, Izzie had no trouble finding balms, soothing eye creams and drops, and anti-puffiness masks.

Half an hour later, she looked marginally better.

‘Like someone with a migraine,’ she decided grimly, peering at herself. Her eyes weren’t red any more – those eye drops made her cry, but wow, they worked – but the rest of her still looked rough.

Rough, tough and dangerous to know, she decided, pulling on a masculine trouser suit. She’d never wear this for Joe; for him, she let her feminine side out, revelling in silks and lace, spike heels and figure-hugging styles.

But he didn’t want her, so she’d go for tough instead.

‘You sick?’ asked Louisa, Perfect-NY’s receptionist, when Izzie stalked in, menacing in her charcoal boy’s suit.

‘Yes. And tired.’

‘Eight messages for you on your desk. The Zest catalogue people want you to phone, like, yesterday, and Carla’s got a virus, so she won’t be in.’

Izzie breathed a sigh of relief. Carla had X-ray vision which could detect bullshit anywhere. With her out sick, poor love, at least Izzie had some hope of telling people she simply hadn’t slept well. Keeping her relationship with Joe secret was turning her into a liar and she hated that.

Joe phoned at ten: ‘I need to talk to you.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘That’s nice,’ he said mildly.

‘I don’t mean to be nice,’ she retorted.

‘I’ll hang up and phone again when you’re less pissed off with me?’

‘You do that.’

Izzie hung up first, which gave her a certain childish satisfaction that lasted for a second, whereupon she moaned softly at the thought of having hung up on him. She loved him, blast it. Needed him. Didn’t he know that she was just saying those things? That she wanted him to need her so bad that, in spite of her anger, he’d rush downtown to Perfect-NY’s office, throw himself on his knees in front of everyone, and tell her he loved her? That Elizabeth would have to deal with it. That his kids – and Lord knew, she admired how he did things for his kids, but it could still hurt – would get over their parents splitting up. Kids weren’t stupid. They knew when people weren’t getting on, didn’t they? Surely she’d read that in a psychology magazine. It was better for children to see their parents facing up to the problems than hiding them, pretending it was all fine. But she couldn’t say any of that to Joe because she wasn’t supposed to be the kid expert, after all. He had to work it out for himself.

Her cell phone rang again.

‘Yes?’ she’d hit the button before it could attempt a second ring.

‘Izzie, this is Amanda from Zest…’

Get off the fucking phone in case my lover is trying to contact me!!! was what Izzie wanted to say. Instead, she went into professional mode.

‘Hi, Amanda. Recovered from New Mexico yet? And has Ivan sent over the photos from the shoot?’ she asked calmly.

At lunchtime, Izzie deliberately went out and had a sandwich in the diner she’d told Joe she loved most, in case he was waiting for her and wanted to see her. She sat in one of the front booths, forced to share with three suited guys because the place was so busy, and pretended to read a magazine, all the time aching for Joe to come in and drag her out on to the street.

I love you, I don’t care about anything else. I want to be with you, he’d say, and everyone would smile at this proof of true love on the streets of Noo Yawk, and it would all be perfect because he’d chosen her.

Wait, he’d beg. Please wait for me, Izzie. It will work out, I promise.

He didn’t turn up.

Izzie went back to work but couldn’t concentrate on anything, until she flicked through the Post and found an article about a benefit in the Museum of Natural History the following night.

The great and the good would be at it, the Post told her breathlessly, including Elizabeth Hansen, who was on the charity committee, and her husband, Joe, who was a major benefactor. Izzie could feel the blood draining from her head. She’d never fainted in her life but she might just faint now. Joe was going to this charity thing with Elizabeth after he’d sworn that he’d told Elizabeth they’d have to stop doing that. She’d been so hurt when he’d gone to the AIDS benefit the night after they made love.

‘I had to,’ he’d said.

‘If you live separate lives, you don’t have to!’ she’d yelled back.

‘I know, I’m sorry. I’ll tell her we can’t do that again. It’s just – she’s on lots of committees and there are lots of functions

‘Joe, if you and Elizabeth are over, then that’s fine,’ Izzie had said coldly. ‘If you’re not, get the hell out of my life.’

‘We’re over,’ he’d said. ‘Over. Promise. It will work out, Izzie, soon, I promise.’

‘I think I’ve got Carla’s flu,’ Izzie announced blindly, closing the Post. She just had to get out of the office where she jumped every time a phone rang.

Izzie had never attended a function at the museum, although she’d seen pictures in the papers and magazines and knew the form. The vast Romanesque steps spread majestically down to where the cars lined up, with fat red carpet laid for the rich to step on.

She stood with all the onlookers and waited, feeling crazier by the minute. It was just like being a celebrity-obsessed person waiting for their favourite movie star, standing in line in the rain and cold for just a glimpse of a person adored onscreen. Why would anyone do that? It was sad, such a sign of not having a life.

And then she thought of how sad she was: standing waiting for a glimpse of her lover and his wife, to see if she could detect the truth. She was pathetic.

Hating herself at that moment, Izzie turned, leaving the small crowd of onlookers, not thinking where she was going in her misery, and found herself close to a dark limo that was disgorging four passengers going to the gala.

Two men and two women, all with the waft of privilege and dollars around them. On one side of the limo were Joe and a blonde woman who could only be his wife. She looked better than she had in the Google pictures: thin, tall, with the racehorse legs these East Coast society women inherited from their mothers, and high, high shoes with the telltale red soles that marked them out as Christian Louboutins. Izzie had only one pair. They were things of beauty but too expensive for someone on her salary. She felt envy at a woman who wore them carelessly in the rain. And her clothes – Izzie gazed enviously at her clothes. Elizabeth wore a beautiful evening coat – tailored plum silk, definitely Lanvin, beyond fashionable. Of course, she wouldn’t be a bling bling taste-free person. As if anybody in Joe’s life could be that.

Izzie thought of the high-street copy of that same coat that hung in her own wardrobe: a knock-off she’d worn once with him and he’d said it was sexy but he preferred what was underneath, and he’d untied the big bow belt and they’d made love on the rug in her living room.

Hers had been cheap. Like her. She’d got a fake Lanvin, lots of pairs of pretend-Louboutins and a fake boyfriend. Which was just right for someone who was cheap.

Exactly then, Joe turned his face away from the rain and she knew without a doubt that he’d spotted her in the crowd. For a flicker of a second, their eyes met before he turned away. His face didn’t really alter, but she knew he’d seen her. Standing in the crowd like a dirty-faced urchin with her nose pressed up against the sweetshop window: looking at forbidden treasures.

His face was expressionless, and Izzie felt as if she was the cheapest whore on the planet.

So cheap, she’d been free. She should print cards and leave them in phone booths. For a good time, no fee, call Izzie Silver…Even joking couldn’t make it better.

His wife said something to him, and clutched his raincoated arm with her hand, a sparkly hand that glittered with a fat diamond the size of a robin’s egg. Tiffany, Izzie thought. Engagement ring or just cocktail ring? She wasn’t sure which finger it was on.

Joe instantly turned to Elizabeth, his head bent the way it bent when he talked to Izzie.

How could she have been so stupid?

He’d said he loved Elizabeth, that after twenty-four years, he still did, but that their relationship was over and that he wanted out. He’d said he needed and wanted Izzie.

Izzie had imagined that no man could love two people at the same time, simply because she wouldn’t have been able to. She’d assumed it was the same for him.

She was obviously wrong.

Joe could love his wife and simultaneously lie to and fuck Izzie. Simple as that.

Izzie turned away, furiously blinking back tears. This time, she wouldn’t cry. She was done crying over Joe. Falling for him had made her abandon all her principles. She’d known it was complicated, messy, but she’d gone out with him anyway.

She was as bad as those predatory women who hunted men, using anything to get a ring on their fingers. Izzie had thought she was above all that. It had turned out she was just as bad. At least they knew what they were doing, and she hadn’t. She was dumb as well as a stupid whore.