The Girl Before(13)

“I’m fine, thank you.” I nod at the tableau in front of me. “That meeting, I take it?”

She follows my gaze. “They’re wasting their time. He won’t change it.”

“What are they arguing about?”

“The client commissioned a house when he was in a previous marriage. Now his new wife wants an Aga. To make it more cozy, she says.”

“And the Monkford Partnership doesn’t do cozy?”

“That’s not the point. If it wasn’t agreed as part of the original commission, Edward won’t make alterations. Not unless it’s something he’s unhappy with. He once spent three months rebuilding the roof of a summerhouse to make it four feet lower.”

“What’s it like, working for a perfectionist?” I say. But I’ve clearly crossed a line, because she just gives me a cool smile and moves away.

I continue to watch the argument—or rather, the rant, because Edward Monkford takes almost no part in it. He allows the other man’s anger to wash over him like waves over a rock, his expression one of polite interest, no more. Eventually the door is thrown open and the client storms out, still muttering, his wife teetering after him on her high heels. Monkford strolls out last. I smooth down my dress and stand up. After much consideration, I’ve gone for Prada—navy blue, pleated, hemline just below the knee; nothing too showy.

“Jane Cavendish,” the receptionist reminds him.

He turns to look at me. Just for a moment he seems surprised; startled even, as if I’m not quite what he’d expected. Then the moment passes and he extends his hand. “Jane. Of course. We’ll go in here.”

I would sleep with this man. I’ve barely said more than hello to him, but I have nevertheless registered that something, some part of me quite beyond my conscious control, has made a judgment. He holds the meeting room door open for me and somehow even this simple, everyday courtesy seems charged with significance.

We sit opposite each other, across a long glass table dominated by an architectural model of a small town. I feel his gaze traveling across my face. When I’d decided he wasn’t much more than reasonably good-looking, that was before I’d seen him up close. His eyes in particular are a striking pale blue. Although I know he’s only in his thirties, their corners are etched with lines. Laughter lines, my grandmother used to call them. But on Edward Monkford they give his face a fierce, hawk-like intensity.



“Did you win?” I ask when he doesn’t say anything.

He seems to shake himself. “Win what?”

“The argument.”

“Oh that.” He shrugs and smiles, and his face instantly softens. “My buildings make demands of people, Jane. I believe they’re not intolerable, and in any case, the rewards are far greater than the demands. In one sense, I suppose, that’s why you’re here.”

“It is?”

He nods. “David, my technology partner, talks about something called UX—that’s tech-speak for ‘User Experience.’ As you’ll be aware, having seen the terms and conditions of the lease, we gather information from One Folgate Street and use it to refine the user experience for our other clients.”

I’d actually skimmed most of the conditions document, which ran to about twenty pages of tiny print. “What kind of information?”

He shrugs again. His shoulders under the sweater are broad but lean. “Metadata, mostly. Which rooms you use most, that kind of thing. And from time to time we’ll ask you to redo the questionnaire, to see how your answers are changing.”

“I can live with that.” I stop, aware that might sound presumptuous. “If I get the chance, I mean.”

“Good.” Edward Monkford reaches down to where some coffee cups and a bowl of sugar cubes in paper wrappers sit on a tray. Absentmindedly he rearranges the sugar in a stack, aligning the edges until it forms a perfect square, like a Rubik’s Cube. Then he turns the cups so all the handles point in the same direction. “I might even ask you to meet some of our clients, to help us convince them that living without an Aga and a cabinet of sports trophies won’t be the end of their world.” Another smile touches the corners of his eyes, and I feel myself going a little weak at the knees. This isn’t like me, I think, and then: Is it mutual? I give him a tiny, encouraging smile in return.

A pause. “So, Jane. Is there anything you’d like to ask me?”

I think. “You built One Folgate Street for yourself?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t elaborate.

“So where do you live?”

“In hotels, mostly. Near whatever project I’m working on. They’re perfectly bearable, so long as you put all the loose cushions in a wardrobe.” He smiles again, but I get the sense he isn’t joking.

“Don’t you mind not having a home of your own?”



He shrugs. “It means I can focus on my work.” Something about the way he says it doesn’t invite any more questions.

A man comes into the room—barging in clumsily, banging the door against its stopper, already talking nineteen to the dozen. “Ed, we need to talk about bandwidth. The idiots are trying to scrimp on the fiber optics. They don’t understand that in a hundred years’ time copper wiring will seem as outdated as lead water pipes are today—”