‘Are we going to see Casa Adam?’ she asked, wondering what sort of house he lived in. Diana had always been fascinated by property. It was like holding a mirror up to its owner, a revealer of secrets.
‘I’m just over here,’ he said, pointing away from the promenade. They walked to a quiet, pretty street banked with expensive-looking brownstones that seemed to have been polished red, stopping at an impressive five-storey terrace that was wider and better restored than the rest.
‘Fancy a drink?’ As they came through the door, he flicked through some post and pointed towards the kitchen.
‘Nothing sweet. All that milkshake is swirling around like sugar going round a candy-floss machine.’
‘Martinis it is, then.’ He rummaged around in his fridge and cupboards before handing her a glass replete with olives and lemon twists.
‘Great place, Adam,’ she said, appreciating the modern art and the stylish Danish furniture.
‘You’ve not seen the best bit yet. Come with me.’
She followed him up three flights of stairs. On the top floor, the stairs opened on to a huge master bedroom. She felt anxious until she realised he was not stopping, but was twiddling with a French door that led on to a huge roof terrace. She gasped as Manhattan glittered before her – an incredible skyline of white lights and the soaring silhouettes of skyscrapers.
‘You know, when you brought me to Brooklyn, I was surprised. I always thought you were the sort to live in the heart of things, not on the edges. But now I get it. Now I know that sometimes you’ve got to be on the outside looking in to really know somewhere.’
‘Absolutely,’ he said, smiling as if they were both in tune with one another. ‘I’ve learnt that from travelling around a lot, checking out hotels. Take Venice. You get the best views of the city from the islands in the lagoon, not from properties on the mainland. You want to see the Matterhorn? You go to Zermatt, not up the mountain itself.’
As they sipped their martinis, Adam pointed out Governors Island and the Statue of Liberty, a faint pinprick of light in the darkness. Finally, when her heels were hurting and she felt as if she could stand no more, Diana kicked off her shoes and sat down on a huge stripy cushion propped against the chimneypot.
‘Julian was really proud of the job you were doing out here.’
Adam snorted. ‘He said that?’
He cut the conversation short, and Diana realised that he didn’t want to talk about Julian tonight. If she was totally honest, neither did she. Adam had been right when he said at the beginning of the evening that they should forget, even if it was just for a few hours.
‘Have you made up with Rachel yet?’ he asked, sitting down beside her.
‘I forgot how great she is. I think it got lost in everything else that’s been going on over the past few years. I know I can’t make up for the time that we’ve lost, but I’m going to try. I think I might try and get to Thailand when Charlie goes back to school in the autumn, although something tells me she is enjoying life back in London.’
‘Do you think she’d come back?’
Diana shrugged. ‘There’s a guy in Thailand I think she cares about. He’s flown over to be with her now, actually. I think they have one of those relationships.’
‘What relationships?’
‘When you’re together but you don’t even realise it yet.’
‘How’s the martini?’
‘I should have known you’d be able to mix a good one,’ she said, noting that it was sharp and dry, not salty and oily.
He mixed her another, and then another, and they joked that they should just bring the bottles of gin and vermouth up here and pour one into the other.
They were sitting side by side, so sometimes she didn’t even look at him whilst he was talking, and it was easy to forget where she was and who she was with. It could have been a balmy evening on their sailing boat, when she would lie in the crook of Julian’s arm on the deck, listening to a Nina Simone CD with a bottle of excellent red from the Somerfold cellars. Every now and then a wave of sadness would hit her, and then Adam would distract her with a joke or a glamorous story.
As the night wore on, it seemed perfectly natural to rest her head on his shoulder as they talked. She had no idea how long it was there, but at some point their heads turned at the same time, and then their lips touched, and suddenly they were tasting each other. Vaguely she heard the smash of a martini glass being knocked over, and the whisper of the words I’m taking you inside.
He scooped her up in his arms and she arched her back with delight. A voice in her head was telling her to stop, but it was being drowned out by a giddiness that engulfed her like champagne. It was wrong, she knew that, and yet it didn’t feel it. The way their bodies meshed together, the way his lips slotted into hers, felt perfectly natural, as if it had always been this way.
He put her down in the bedroom and her hand threaded around his neck to pull him closer. Drawing away again, she unfastened the buttons on his shirt, sighing as she felt his fingers slide down the long brass zip that ran from her neck to the base of her spine. He peeled the fabric off her shoulders so that the dress fell to the floor with a soft whisper. Her bra was unclipped and his palms pushed her wispy chiffon shorts over her buttocks and down her thighs.
‘Is this all right?’ he whispered.
She arched her neck and groaned as he kissed the soft patch of skin behind her ear. Standing there naked, she felt wonderfully, frighteningly exposed. She could feel his breath on her skin, the featherlight touch of his lips on the curve of her shoulder, his hardness pressing against her belly.
The back of his hand brushed her nipple. She closed her eyes and gasped, knowing she was being admired, explored. He guided her hands to touch him, and she felt him harden even more beneath her fingers.