Page 6 of Untamed Heart
‘Gate-crashed?’ I asked, looking around, but not seeing anyone we knew. The bar was filling up with pre-theatre drinkers, loud, braying voices and the clink and pop of champagne flutes and bottles.
‘Ma and Pa,’ he replied quickly, raising a hand towards the bar staff before I could reply. He ordered for us, his pedantic choices – ‘No, not Gordon’s, Christ – Hendrick’s. And no lemon for her – no, the chilled glasses’ – earning him sidelong glances from the group nearest to us. The two women had already gone from listening to his order to outright ogling.
I felt myself sink even lower. There was no way I could tell him about the job now – the thought of it being picked over by his parents was more painful than the damn heels had been.
‘Right, okay,’ I sighed, leaning on the bar and recalibrating. ‘When are they getting—’
‘Daaarling!’
A shrill voice echoed behind us and as Kyle handed me a martini, he was enveloped by his mother. Marina Montgomery was . . . a special breed of woman. ‘Christ alive, the devil literally does wear Prada,’ Hestia had hissed to me once on meeting her. ‘Do you think they insert the sticks up that type early on, or is it something that happens once they get married?’
As I took a laboured sip of my drink, Marina turned to me.
‘Oh Charlotte, how lovely,’ she said, stooping slightly from her heels to kiss the air near my cheeks, her own height dwarfing me. She wrapped her bony fingers around my arms, the cloud of Chanel No5 that surrounded her threatening to choke off my air supply.
‘What a nice surprise,’ I lied, plastering my corporate smile back on, replicating the greeting with Dominic. A thirty-year window into Kyle’s future, his father had almost the same hair, now receding and as grey as it was blond. The same handsome face beheld us both, eyes crinkling.
‘Looking smart, old chap,’ he said to Kyle, shaking his hand. He beckoned the bar staff with the same gesture as Kyle had used.
‘Oh yes, I do like this,’ Marina added, French tips grazing the lapels of Kyle’s jacket. Standing between us, her body was angled towards him as if to cut me out.
‘Lottie chose it,’ he said, giving me a dazzling smile, working hard to keep me onside, knowing just how little I would be enjoying the presence of the gate-crashers.
Marina turned to smile at me, but it didn’t reach her eyes. I braced myself.
‘Oh . . . yes,’ she replied, glancing at my handbag before looking back at Kyle. ‘Excellent taste, clearly. Expensive, too.’ They tittered at her joke, my excellent choice of boyfriend. My smile felt fixed, as though held by setting spray. ‘Just as it should be. Nothing wrong with aiming high, is there, Charlotte?’
And there it was.
If passive-aggressive digs were a sport, Marina would be the most decorated Olympian of the last millennium. I took a gulp of the martini, accidentally finishing it.
‘Steady on, old girl,’ Dominic guffawed. ‘Quick out of the blocks, I see. Rough day at the office?’
I nodded, placing my glass on the bar for the staff to take away. Kyle’s expression was quizzical.
‘So where are you going this evening?’ I deflected, turning towards Dominic instead.
‘Oh, don’t ask me, I’m just the passenger. What is it, Marina?Carmen? Imagine I’ll be asleep by the interval.’
‘La traviata,’ Marina corrected as Kyle handed her a glass of champagne. ‘At the Royal Opera House, of course. Didn’t you go recently, darling?’
She turned to Kyle and the conversation switched to the performance we’d seen on our date the previous month. As they went into detail about the singers, then on a tangent to people they knew – some story about a yacht sinking off the coast of Italy – I subtly fished my phone out of my bag.
PLEASE tell me you can still do dinner later?I messaged Hestia, waiting for her reply, but knowing she’d be unlikely to respond whilst with her client.
‘. . . I mean I know it’s terrible,’ Marina said, hushing her voice. ‘But really, it’s all so gauche, isn’t it, flitting about on these boats. Asking for it, if you ask me.’
Kyle nodded, but his eyes were on me, his unspoken question about my rough day as clear as Marina’s hatred of me. My crime had been and would always be the difference in our backgrounds, my ordinary, middle-class family, attendance at a state school and absolutely no friends or family of ‘note’.
As I watched Marina drone on, her face merged with Cressida’s in my mind. The martini swirled my emotions.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ I blurted. Marina turned to me in barely concealed astonishment. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to need to run.’ Kyle frowned, his mouth opening. ‘Dinner with my friend, I completely forgot,’ I added, before he could continue.
‘At least finish your drink?’ Dominic started, placing another martini in front of me. ‘Shame to—’
Fighting back temper, tears, a whole vortex of chaos in my mind, I picked up the fine crystal stem and knocked it back in one.
Marina’s mouth fell open in tandem with Kyle’s.
