“Really? I’m surprised it’s not venison or caviar.”
“This reminds me of boarding school, and anyway, you’re the one living in central Mayfair.” I dug my fork in and took a mouthful, straight out of my childhood.
“Yes, but that’s my sister’s sister-in-law’s place. I’m just a guest.”
“You’re not interested in money, are you?”
She paused, staring at the unopened plastic box on her lap. “After college I rejected anything that I’d previously wanted. So, it’s not that I’d wanted to make money before, but I’d wanted to be successful. You know, with the company, and it really looked like it was going to happen but then—” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that, it was taken away from me, and I realized how fragile our dreams were.”
“Fragile, but still worth having, right?”
She shrugged. “I don’t really think about it . . . or talk about it.”
“Because you’re just living in the moment,” I stated.
“What about you, how did you end up getting married?”
She was deflecting, but I would let her. I wanted her to feel comfortable asking me questions. She should know that I wouldn’t deliberately keep stuff from her. “I’d known Gabby a long time. Our parents were friends. We had a very casual thing. And then one evening, she pitched me on getting married.”
“Pitched you?”
“You know, told me how she thought we’d be a good couple and how she’d be a good wife and that being married could only help my career.” I couldn’t remember now when it had come up. It must have been a morning after I’d stayed at her place.
I glanced at Violet when she didn’t say anything. “What?”
“Sounds romantic,” she muttered.
“It was anything but—but that wasn’t what I was looking for.”
“And you said yes because?”
“What she was saying made sense. We both came from the same circles, knew the same people. She was an excellent hostess.”
“Christ, it sounds like you were hiring a car.” She took a bite of the barbequed chicken.
“I think she was looking at the kind of relationship her parents had—the kind mine had. It was a bargain, not a love match.” I was sure that many of my peers had similar arrangements.
“Who broke the deal?”
“I gave her less than she wanted.” That was the simplest way to explain it. Our expectations had been uneven.
“Because you’re so fixated on work?”
I nodded. “She wanted to start a family, but that was the last thing I wanted. I knew it wasn’t right between us, our relationship not strong enough to bring children into the world. I pulled away even more and eventually she’d had enough.”
“What was the sex like?”
I almost choked on my hot chocolate. “You didn’t just ask me that.”
She shrugged as if I was making a huge deal out of nothing. “Sex is an important indicator in a relationship.”
“It was fine.”
“Fine? Wow, there’s condemnation, right there.”
“I’m not condemning anything. I just don’t want to talk about it. How would you like it if I asked you about your sex life back in New York?”
She put her thumb in her mouth, her cheeks sinking around her finger. “It was sex—”
I lifted my hand to stop her but she continued.
“It wasn’t like it is with you,” she said defiantly.
A warmth in my stomach bloomed. Now I wanted her to keep talking and was irritated at myself for cutting her off.
“Here,” she said, reaching toward me and wiping her thumb across my bottom lip. “Sauce,” she said and popped her thumb in her mouth again.
Christ, she was mesmerizing. I grabbed her wrist and pulled her onto my lap. “What do I get for pudding?”
She pressed her hand against my chest. “What if someone from chambers sees?”
“I don’t care. Do you?”
“It’s okay for you—you’re earning chambers money. I’m expendable.”
I sighed dramatically. “Come on, Violet. Live in the moment. You’re so concerned about your career. Carpe diem.”
She laughed and tipped her head back, exposing her throat, her hair trailing over my arm. This was the best lunch I’d ever had in my life.
“Stop taking the piss out of me,” she said in her best British accent. She pressed her palms against my cheeks and kissed me. We could have been in the arctic and I wouldn’t have cared.
She was my own personal sun.
She pulled back, grabbed at my hand, and looked at my watch. “Shit, we gotta go.”
“Hey, let’s stay just a little longer.” My hour was almost up, but I wasn’t ready to leave yet.
She jumped off my knee. “No way. I don’t want you turning into a pumpkin.”
“It can wait,” I said, pulling at her arm.
She twisted away. “Seriously, get up.” She started packing up the uneaten food and folding the blankets. “I want you to agree the next time I ask you to lunch, but you won’t if I say it’s going to be an hour and it turns out to be two. I want to carpe another diem with you some other time.”
I groaned. “I wish you’d been my Latin teacher.”
“With your terrible manners, you would have been in line for a caning.”
“Promises, promises.”
“Help me take this to that entrance?” She pointed to the exit on the south side of the Fields.
“I’ll carry it back to chambers,” I said.
“I have a friendly cab driver who’s going to drop it off at home for me.”
“You’ve thought of everything. Who said you weren’t a planner?”
“I like my job, and I think I’m good at it. I don’t want people to think I’m getting special treatment because we’re . . . because I’m . . . you know.”
I spun her around and pressed my forehead against hers. “Because you’re my girlfriend?”
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes.
I wasn’t sure if she wasn’t ready for the title, or if she was just embarrassed. I chuckled. “Because I’m your boyfriend?”
“Well, if you’re my boyfriend, you’ll help me get these things to the cab.”
There was nothing she could ask me to do that I’d say no to. For the first time ever in my life I wanted more from a woman. I wanted Violet to be my girlfriend. I wanted to be her boyfriend. I wanted to make her happy because that’s what she made me whenever I was with her.
Twenty-Three
Violet
I had a boyfriend.
Not only did I have a boyfriend but I was excited about it.
Normally, when men started referring to me as their girlfriend or started talking about plans three months out, it set off alarm bells. But when Alexander had said it last week in the park, I didn’t take it as a signal to run. It felt completely natural. I thought of him as my boyfriend. More, I wanted him to think of me as his girlfriend. I couldn’t remember ever feeling like that.
I slotted in the last files I had on my desk and finished taping up the cardboard box. The more recent the cases, the more paper they seemed to consume.
“How are you doing?” Jimmy asked as he strolled into the admin room.
“Good. Another five boxes to go off to archives.”
“Great job. Surely you can see carpet on the floor of Knightley’s office now?”
“Well, half a carpet anyway.”
“And he doesn’t mind?”