This Could Change Everything(31)

And with that, she flicked up the collar of her emerald-green leather jacket. ‘Don’t forget, eight o’clock. Ciao.’

‘Well.’ Zillah arched an eyebrow when the woman had left. ‘Interesting.’

‘Nightmare,’ said Conor.

‘Aren’t you going to do it?’

‘Not a chance.’

‘Oh darling, why not?’

He looked at her, aghast. ‘Are you serious? She’s a horror. I mean, it’s not often I take against someone from the word go, but for that one I’ll make an exception.’

‘OK, so you didn’t hit it off with her. But she’s talking about introducing you to her friend.’ Zillah gestured with the exuberance of someone onto her third Negroni. ‘Her friend could be perfect in every way!’

‘Once a matchmaker, always a matchmaker.’ Conor shook his head good-naturedly, because Zillah never gave up. ‘And no, I don’t think her friend would be perfect in every way. If she was, she’d have better taste than to have a friend like that.’

‘So you’re not even tempted to meet her? In case you’re wrong?’

‘I’ll take that chance. And don’t look at me like that,’ said Conor. ‘I’m quite happy being single.’

‘You’re not as young as you used to be.’

‘I’m only thirty-two!’

‘Hmm,’ said Zillah. ‘I call that knocking on a bit. By the time I was thirty-two I’d been married, widowed and married again long enough to realise I’d made yet another dreadful mistake.’

‘You make it sound so tempting.’

‘But I learned from my mistakes, darling boy. That’s the whole point.’

Entertained, Conor said, ‘Well maybe I’d rather wait and get it right first time.’





Chapter 15


‘You really want to hear the whole story?’ said Zillah. Having left the Red House and made their way across the square, she’d invited them into her flat for a nightcap. Conor had declined; he had to be up early in the morning. But Essie, who could never fall asleep straight after finishing work, had been happy to join her.

‘Only if you want to tell me. Don’t worry if you’d rather not.’ Essie, who was busy spreading Cambozola on water biscuits, looked apologetic. ‘Sorry, I overheard you and Mary and Jethro talking earlier about how many times you’d been married, and I wondered how it all came about, but I’m just being nosy . . .’

‘Darling, I’m more than happy to tell you. It’s a cautionary tale, if nothing else.’ Having kicked off her shoes and made herself comfortable on the orange velvet sofa, Zillah took a sip of coffee. ‘Actually, it all started with that.’ She nodded at the portrait hanging on the wall in the alcove.

‘I love that picture of you,’ said Essie. ‘How did it start everything off?’

‘My father decided to have my likeness painted for my twenty-first birthday, by a society portrait artist. I went along to his studio for sittings. But of course I wasn’t his only client, which meant he had several other commissioned paintings on the go. And one of the other sitters was Richard. Well, he saw my portrait progressing each week and decided he liked what he was seeing on the canvas. So the following week he turned up at the studio while I was there, to decide whether real-life me matched up to the painting.’

‘And you did,’ said Essie. ‘That’s actually quite romantic.’

‘Oh, it was. And who doesn’t love a bit of romance? I was flattered and impressed. Richard Haig was quite a catch. Here . . .’ Zillah reached for her iPad and found the folder of photographs she’d stored on it, brightened-up digital copies of old black-and-white snaps that had been kept for years in heavy leather albums. ‘That’s Richard there. My friends were so jealous of me. He was incredibly handsome.’

‘Blimey.’ Essie’s eyes widened. ‘You’re not kidding. He looks like a film star.’

‘Of course he was also incredibly self-centred, incredibly good at lying and incredibly unfaithful. Not that I discovered that until after the wedding.’ Zillah shook her head at the memory. ‘He took great care to hide all his less attractive qualities before we were married. From then on, he just grew more and more relaxed about it.’

‘That must have been so horrible for you,’ said Essie.

‘It was, but once I realised what he was really like, I suppose I stopped loving him. I felt stupid, though. And gullible, and ashamed. Because why wasn’t I enough for him? Why did he need to have affairs with other women? It was a bit of a blow to the ego, I have to say. And divorce wasn’t as easy back then as it is now.’ Zillah shrugged. ‘Everyone told me I’d be crazy to leave him. Back then, you were expected to tolerate that kind of behaviour. When I told my mother I wanted to end the marriage she was horrified and begged me to stay with him.’

Essie pulled a sympathetic face. ‘You poor thing.’

‘Except we weren’t poor,’ Zillah said wryly. ‘Richard’s family were hugely wealthy, and he’d inherited a fortune from his great-uncle. So we were financially secure, but I was still miserable. Then one day I came home early and caught him in bed with his latest mistress. I told him I was leaving him and he laughed in my face. He said I’d never do it, and that was when I had to.’