The First Mistake(67)

The operating instructions for the toilet seem to be swaying in front of her eyes and she snorts with laughter every time she pushes a button and it does everything apart from flush.

‘You have had far too much to drink,’ laughs Nathan as she weaves her way back to the table.

‘I thought we were celebrating,’ she slurs, sitting down heavily on the chair being pulled out for her.

He reaches across the table, taking hold of one of her hands. ‘Shall we go to the room?’

‘Ooh, is that an invitation, Mr Darcy?’ she asks loudly, starting to get up again. The heel of her shoe buckles beneath her ankle and Nathan moves in to steady her.

She knows she’s lost the ability to moderate her volume level. ‘When I get you upstairs, I’m going to—’

‘Ssh,’ laughs Nathan. ‘I’m not sure everyone in the restaurant needs to know.’

When they get out of the lift she shrugs off his attempt to steer her down the corridor towards their room and leans against the wall as he struggles with the key card.

‘I’m going to keep you up all night,’ she says, moving towards him and grabbing hold of the lapel on his jacket. She wants this, needs this. It had been weeks since they’d had sex.

‘I want you to make love to me like you’ve never done before,’ she says as she kisses him, her tongue teasing his, her teeth biting down softly on his lips.

‘What’s brought this on?’ asks Nathan, arching an eyebrow.

She can’t tell him that for almost ten years, it’s been Tom who’s been at the forefront of her mind. Wondering if he can see her, refusing to really let herself go, for fear that it will hurt him to see her give herself to another man.

She hates herself for only half loving Nathan all this time, because that’s what she’s done. Whilst she has been pining for a man who slept with another woman, fathered another child, she’d missed out on giving herself, in all entirety, to the man who deserved it most.

‘I’ve been such a fool,’ she says, as tears well up in her eyes. ‘Will you ever forgive me?’

‘For what?’ Nathan asks warily. ‘What have you done?’

‘Nothing, that’s the problem,’ she says. ‘I’ve not done enough.’

He looks at her quizzically as she pushes him against the back of the door, her hands reaching down to the zip of his trousers. It’s hardly surprising that he’s ready for her and his tongue responds, his own need for release evidently as urgent as hers.

‘What was that all about?’ he says afterwards, as they lie on the plush carpet.

‘That’s how it should have been all this time,’ says Alice, her own body still shuddering with the after-effects.

Nathan rolls onto his side to face her. ‘What’s changed?’

‘Everything,’ she says, honestly. ‘Everything feels different.’

His brow furrows. ‘Because of the deal? Or because you’ve been brave enough to come away?’

She almost expects him to say, I told you that the world wouldn’t end, and silently thanks him when he doesn’t.

‘I just think that this is the start of a new phase in my life,’ she says, relieved that the drunken fog is beginning to clear.

‘Well, this is a new approach I could grow to love,’ he says, smiling. ‘If it means sex like that . . .’

Alice laughs. ‘I mean it, things are going to change. I’m not always the wife you deserve, the mother my children need or the businesswoman I know I can be.’

‘I think you do a pretty good job,’ he says, ‘considering.’

‘Considering what, though?’ she asks. ‘That I had a breakdown when my first husband died?’

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘I know what you mean,’ she says, ‘and I agree with you. I don’t want what happened to define me. I’m sick and tired of being that person. Even when I pretend that I’m not, I know that deep down I still am.’

He nods.

‘So, I just want to say that I’m sorry, and from now on I’ll give myself to you wholeheartedly.’ She leans in to kiss him. ‘I love you,’ she says, before inviting him to take more.

‘I could get used to this new wife I’ve got,’ he says, as he lifts himself up off the floor. ‘But just let me go to the toilet first.’

Alice sighs and watches his naked body as he walks into the bathroom as if seeing him for who he truly is, for the first time. She’s lying, sated and content, when Nathan’s phone pings from the inside pocket of the jacket he’d thrown to the floor in his urgency to get his clothes off. She wouldn’t normally look, but it might be the girls trying to get hold of them. Forcing herself to stay calm, curbing any irrational thoughts that something must have happened to them, she reaches across to retrieve it.

She looks at the message, then looks again, her eyes blurring the words beyond recognition. She thinks she knows what it says, but closes her eyes, to give them a chance to unsee it.

I need you. Now xx

The blood that so recently felt warm as it coursed its way around her body turns icy cold. She scrolls up and down, looking for any evidence of who she’s fighting against in the battle for her husband’s affections. But there’s nothing, other than the anonymous phone number it’s been sent from.