Private Player

As I got to the other edge of the Heath, I slowed to a walk up the hill. I needed to catch my breath and figure out how I was going to tell him. I loved my mother, but not what she did. She found meaning in entertaining people and exposing celebrity hypocrisy, but I’d never wanted to follow her down that path. I might have been known to scan my mother’s column from time to time—she was a funny and absorbing writer. But it wasn’t what I wanted to do. We might share the same genetic code, even the same roof over our heads, but we weren’t the same people. Hopefully Nathan would get it.

I turned into the Grove where Nathan lived and craned my neck to see if I could spot his car. I supposed he could have gone into the office. He’d seemed a little defensive in the car when I’d asked him what was happening in the insurance industry that was so important, he had to work on a Sunday. He’d never answered, and I hadn’t pushed.

His car was in the driveway, just as he’d left it when I’d gotten out earlier this afternoon. As soon as I spotted it, I stopped. I should call him and not just turn up, right? I mean, he might be on an important call. Or in his underwear. I smirked to myself, remembering what Nathan looked like in his underwear. Maybe I shouldn’t call after all. The thought strengthened my resolve to come clean, and I picked up the pace. When I was fifty paces from the door, though, it opened. I stood rooted to the spot as someone emerged.

Not just someone. A woman.

And not just any woman—Audrey Alpern.

Audrey was his work emergency?

Despite the fact that I stood stone still, my heart raced like I was still running uphill. He’d seen her only yesterday. Why was she at his place again already? Audrey didn’t work with him, and even if she was a client, I couldn’t fathom a reason why her insurance policy would require such personal attention from the company CEO.

He’d lied to me.

He’d wanted to meet Audrey this afternoon. That’s why we’d left Norfolk early. There never had been a work emergency.

Here I was, wanting to reveal who my mother was because I’d felt so guilty after his courageous honesty, but it was all a front. Perhaps it had been deliberate—tell me a secret from the past to throw me off what he was really hiding. Or perhaps it was all a lie, everything he’d told me. Maybe he’d not covered for Mark at all. Perhaps Nathan really had bought the paper.

Nathan followed behind Audrey and pulled her into a hug before she got into the car.

My limbs felt heavy, as if they were sucking me into the ground. Despite the fact I wanted to turn and run, I found myself unable to move.

Nathan had said he’d wanted a time-out last night. It had never occurred to me that taking a break from our purely professional relationship might also mean taking a break from a purely personal one on his end. I should have believed him. Norfolk had just been a one-off. I’d been kidding myself when I’d thought he wanted more. I’d been a fool.

It wasn’t me he wanted more with. It was Audrey Alpern.

Audrey drove away and Nathan disappeared back into his house.

I should call him, ask him, give him a chance to explain, but I couldn’t hear more lies. We were within the M25 and therefore the only relationship we needed to have was strictly professional. There was no way I was going to confront him, show him how disappointed I was, reveal that although I’d agreed to the time-out, I’d been secretly hoping for more.

Finally finding some energy, I changed course and headed to the high street. I needed to walk. Think. Figure out how I was going to keep seeing Nathan in a professional setting after what had happened in Norfolk and after seeing him this afternoon. With Audrey.

Crossing over the road, I rounded the corner and got a view of the city I’d called my home my entire life. The North Sea-gray watercolor of buildings piled on top of each other vibrated with energy. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have thought that whatever was between us was more than just sex? The stuff he’d shared with me—had that all been crap? Had the way he’d looked at me, as if I was precious—had he just faked that? I just didn’t understand it. And I wanted to.

The energy from the city seemed to ignite something in me. I turned and raced back to Nathan’s house. I was here now, and I wanted answers.

I didn’t even think before I pounded on the black-paneled door. I deserved an explanation and I was going to get one.