‘So you’re feeling okay about what I told you yesterday?’
‘About us being married?’ he surmises, and he laughs. ‘Well, I do believe you’re telling me the truth. Is that a start?’
‘It’ll do,’ I say. It is actually huge relief. I’m not sure I would have had the energy to keep trying to persuade him today.
‘The problem is that I don’t feel like I have a portion of my memory missing. I feel as if I took a nap and woke up and people started insisting I’d been out for four years and my whole life is now completely different. I don’t know how memories are supposed to come back when it doesn’t actually feel like any are missing.’
‘It sounds like a nightmare,’ I murmur.
‘The nightmare is my legs.’ He looks down the length of the bed as he says this, then looks back at me. ‘So you’ve been sleeping in a chair?’
‘Only the last few nights since you started to wake up.’
‘You must be dying to get home.’
‘Lucien is going to be as fat as a house,’ I sigh. When I moved in with Leo, I automatically adopted the standard apricot poodle he part-owned with his elderly neighbour. I’m not surprised when Leo brightens considerably at the mention of the dog. I was never really a dog person before, but Lucien is the kind of animal that it’s hard not to fall in love with.
‘So, I take it that means Mrs Wilkins is looking after him? She’s still in her house?’
‘Oh yes, and she’s still well – we shared a cake with her for her ninety-second birthday a few months ago. She has a carer who comes in now and she doesn’t really get upstairs much anymore, but she’s still fighting fit, considering. And yes, she still overfeeds Lucien. I’ve got the dog walker coming morning and night but last time we were both away it took me six months to get him back to under twenty-five kilos.’
‘Wait a second – are you saying we live in my town house?’
That question is far more complicated than either one of us is ready to deal with just yet.
‘Of course we do.’
His eyes are wide with disbelief. ‘There’s no “of course” about it. You’re still a Torrington, right? I figured we’d be living in some horrendous mansion in some uncomfortably affluent suburb.’
‘Not a Torrington,’ I remind him pointedly. ‘I’m a “Stephens” now. But yes, we’re still wealthy – you just didn’t want to leave your precious town house when we got married, so we compromised on a few things and I moved in there.’
‘What exactly did we compromise on?’ he frowns, and I laugh at him softly.
‘Don’t panic, Leo. I know you love your house, and we didn’t destroy it. We just updated the kitchen and the bathrooms. And we added a fresh coat of paint and replaced the carpet on the top floors.’
‘So it sounds like we live in the same location but a completely different house.’
‘It’s the same building and the same layout, we just improved it.’ I smile then shrug. ‘And of course, we added a few little helpers for around the house.’
I know immediately that he’s going to assume I mean staff, and although I feel a little bad to be playing with him, it’s momentarily amusing to predict his reaction to these things. It took months of careful negotiating to plan our life together in that terrace and I know what each of the sticking points were for him.
‘God – not – staff?’ He is aghast, and I smile.
‘We didn’t build servants’ quarters in the courtyard and hire a set of domestic workers. Our entire house is six rooms – what would they do all day? We just have a cleaner once a week and, most importantly, a dishwasher.’
His kitchen had been tiny before we renovated – more of a kitchenette, really. His gaze narrows when I mention the dishwasher and I know he’s correctly assuming that to squeeze one in would have required some major renovations.
‘How did you fit in a dishwasher?’
‘You’ll see for yourself soon enough,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry, you survived the change once, I’m sure you’ll get over it again.’
‘And do you still work for…’ He lets the question trail off, and I shake my head.
‘No, I don’t work with Dad anymore.’
‘Is that because of me? Because of… us?’