I was staring into the mirror on my dressing table, wrestling with my sense of impending dread. It was
like an invisible twin these days, impossible to banish. ‘Come on, sexy,’ said Nick, cupping my bum in
his hand through the weave of my skinny jeans. He’d been like this – appreciative, tactile – ever since
that horrific police interview. ‘St Pancras is going to take us at least an hour.’
I turned to face him. ‘I’m not sure we should be doing this.’ ‘Lily, don’t be like that,’ he said, irritable.
‘We have to ke ep living our lives, celebrating the wins. I upgraded us to a suite – it’s meant to be a
surprise, but maybe it’ll cheer you up.’ ‘But... it’s Sophie’s hen night tomorrow. And I’m behind on my
contracts.’ He wasn’t falling for it.
‘Lily, you’re not invited,’ he said, his tone deliberately gentle. That was almost the worst part of it –
being treated like an Alzheimer’s patient who thought doodlebugs were still dropping on London.
‘Sophie and I haven’t really talked about it,’ I snapped. ‘I think if I turned up and bought some Laurent
Perrier to r eplace that vile Prosecco they all knock back like it’s water, she’d be delighted.’
Nick seemed to select his words carefully. ‘I’m choosing this, okay? We both need to choose this now.
Let’s make Paris a new start.’ Esther had sent me some feeble text message saying that she was leaving
town this weekend, which I’d ‘liked’ instead of r eplying to. Modern life was so ridiculous: it had started
making me weary in some profound, existential way that I’d never experienced before.
‘Fine,’ I said, applying a thick coat of red lipstick that made me look more like a sad, crumpled clown
than a femme fatale. ‘Full steam ahead to the city of love.’ I knew in my bones that we shouldn’t go.
I’ve never really forgiven him for the fact that we did.