A piercing scream ripped into her ear. She held the little boy away from her. He was red in the face, his tiny features scrunched up in pain.
‘What’s wrong, poppet?’ she gasped before realising that the clasp on her bracelet had scored a long red scratch down his plump little arm.
‘Come here,’ said Sid, taking the child from her.
‘I think my bracelet must have caught him,’ Abby stuttered.
‘It’s okay,’ Sid replied briskly.
Abby had no idea if she really meant it.
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s fine, honestly,’ said Sid less sharply.
Abby felt hot and her breath had grown ragged.
‘I should go,’ she muttered, but Sid was so busy fussing over her child that she didn’t even notice.
She stabbed the button to the lift, but when it didn’t come immediately, she took the fire exit. As she emerged on to the street, her dress felt tight around her neck. She sank down on some stone steps next to the office, emotion rising in her throat and spilling out in loud sobs.
For such a long time she’d felt numb, as if her emotions had shut down completely and she was just existing on autopilot. But looking back at the time and effort she had thrown into work, into the exhibition, Abby knew that she had simply been keeping a lid on a simmering pot.
A suited man glanced at her uncomfortably before walking on. A second passer-by, a woman about her own age, stopped and asked awkwardly if everything was all right.
‘Just getting divorced,’ laughed Abby almost hysterically. The girl nodded with embarrassment and smiled weakly before moving on.
Abby’s tears shuddered to a stop and she looked down at her trembling hands, her eyes drawn to the simple gold band on her finger. She had removed her engagement ring weeks ago; it was a symbol of the heady excitement and possibility of the early days of their relationship, and clearly, whatever magic that had held had been used up long ago. But the wedding band felt different, like it was part of her, something she had built and invested in, and even though her marriage had failed, that ring had still been important to her.
Her fingers touched the metal of the band. She twisted it around for a few moments and then removed it, putting it in the zip pocket of her handbag.
‘I should go,’ she told herself out loud, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
She heard a muffled sound coming from her bag, and for a moment she thought it was her wedding ring, come to life and struggling to get out. Realising it was her phone, she pulled it out and pressed answer.
‘Hello?’ she sniffed, trying to disguise the distress in her voice.
‘Is that Abby? It’s Elliot. Elliot Hall.’
‘Elliot. How are you?’ she said with surprise.
‘Pleased that my journalism skills have managed to track you down.’
‘What do you want?
She winced, realising how rude that sounded.
‘We could start with lunch,’ he replied, and suddenly Abby started to feel a little bit better.
Chapter Thirteen
‘I just want to say how thrilled we were with your piece in the Chronicle,’ said Abby, allowing a waiter to place a napkin on her lap with one fluid flick of the wrist. ‘I think Stephen wrote to thank you properly.’
‘He did. Much rather it had come from you, though,’ smiled Elliot, taking a sip of the expensive wine he had ordered.
Abby smiled nervously. She still didn’t know whether it was one of her better ideas agreeing to come to lunch with Elliot Hall. A solid morning of internet snooping, unfortunately carried out after she had agreed to meet him at London’s fashionable and impossible-to-get-into Pont restaurant, had revealed that her lunch companion was a terrible womaniser. An interview in Harper’s profiling London’s ‘40 most beautiful under 40’ had referred to him as ‘the Don Juan of the Dorchester’, and the endless Google Images snaps of him with his arm around pretty girls, and a Facebook page littered with photographs of parties and mini-breaks, each apparently attended with women more beautiful, tanned and skinny than Abby would ever be, had confirmed that they might have a point.
‘How did you get a table here at such short notice?’ she asked, looking around the room and recognising at least three celebrities.