‘It better not be Sean,’ whispered Jemma, waving a cake knife. ‘I could take his head off with this.’
Sean Asgill, thought Tess with an involuntary flutter. That man’s a bastard. But why did she find herself hoping it was him? She walked through the noisy restaurant and out onto the street, where she crossed her arms against the winter cold.
‘Hey Tess.’
A familiar figure was standing on the sidewalk, his handsome face lit by the soft glow of a streetlamp.
‘Dom?’ She was astonished to see her ex–boyfriend.
‘Surprise,’ he said awkwardly, taking a nervous step towards her.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she asked, stepping back towards the safety of the restaurant.
‘I was in the area.’
‘No you weren’t.’
Dom shrugged. ‘I just wanted to say Happy Birthday, Tess.’
‘Thanks. You’ve just disturbed my party.’ She shook her head. ‘How did you know I was here?’
‘I’m a journalist.’
She snorted. ‘Yeah, right.’
‘I tracked down your PA and begged her to tell me.’
Dom moved forward and touched her bare arm.
‘Tess, I’ve been travelling for ten hours just to see you.’
‘So? Do you want a fucking medal?’ she snapped, wondering vaguely why she was being quite so mean to him. Okay, so he’d been a snake, but the truth was she hadn’t thought of him for weeks. She’d moved on.
‘I just want five minutes of your time,’ said Dom, ‘to tell you how sorry I am. To say how stupid I’ve been and that I miss you so much I didn’t want to be anywhere in the world on your birthday except right here, with you.’
Tess glared at him. ‘Well, perhaps you should have thought about that before you married someone else.’
Dom looked down at the floor. ‘It didn’t work out with Tamara,’ he said. ‘You were right about that.’
She laughed bitterly. ‘Married and separated within six months? I don’t believe it! Jesus Dom, it must be some sort of record, especially for someone who claims he never wanted to get married.’
Dom exhaled, his breath puffing in the air.
‘I was blinded by it all, Tess. The money, the glamour, the red carpets, and the parties. I thought it would make me feel special, but when you don’t really belong there, it makes you feel worthless.’
Tess stopped and looked at him and for the first time she saw how tired and miserable he looked. She knew exactly what he was talking about, of course. She remembered the first time she’d stepped out of a town car to arrive at a glamorous New York party. The paparazzi had lifted their cameras, and the murmur of ‘who’s that?’ had rippled around the crowd.
‘It’s no one,’ someone had said while all the cameras were set down, not bothering to waste their film. I am not ‘no one’, she had thought fiercely, striding past them, but it was funny how the words stayed with you.
‘What do you want, Dom?’ she said, her voice almost lost in the noise from the restaurant.
‘I want another chance,’ he said, no trace of his usual blustering confidence in his words. ‘I love you, Tess. I always did. I always will. I should have married you but I was scared. I was scared of what it meant. Scared of waking up one morning to find out I’m an old man; scared of settling for a life I thought should have turned out better.’
His honesty and hopefulness began to melt a little of the ice around Tess’s heart. Gentle spots of rain began falling from the moonlit sky, sparkling as they hit his thick dark lashes. On the quiet cobbled SoHo street, framed by the shadows of million–dollar lofts and designer boutiques, he really did look like a movie star. Examining him, she noticed the beginnings of lines around his eyes, but even that suited him. Just a few months ago his looks had been pretty and frivolous; tonight he looked more serious, more grown up.
‘What do you say?’ he asked, moving closer. The darkness seemed to close around them until it was as if it was just him and her, alone together, back to what she knew.
‘No,’ she said simply.