by Cathy Kelly
‘I’ll pick up you then,’ he said.
‘There’s no need,’ Cari replied. ‘I mean I can meet you there.’
‘I’m not the sort of man who meets women in restaurants,’ said Conal in a low growl. ‘I pick them up and drive them or get a taxi, now give me your address.’
She had forty minutes to get ready and she raced around the apartment, feeling indeed for all the world like that fourteen-year-old on her first date.
Had she had a first date when she was fourteen? She didn’t think so. Mum had been notoriously strict about dating and though there had definitely been some sort of school dance when she was fourteen, members of the parents’ committee had stood on chairs every ten minutes to peer around and make sure nobody was kissing to the slow songs.
It had been very innocent. Cari hadn’t had a proper boyfriend until she was seventeen. Davy. He had been such a darling, not at all the wild boy she had planned to go out with, the sort who had a worn leather jacket and had a motorbike. No, Davy was a jock, but incredibly clever. She’d loved the way he kissed, but he turned out to be not as interested in girls as he was in sports and even then there was a part of Cari that wanted the whole thing, the whole love story … Then Davy had gone off to college in Belfast, which had put the kybosh on the love thing anyway.
She stopped in front of her dressing table mirror and looked at herself.
She fluffled her hair up a bit because she didn’t have time to wash it.
After quickly touching up her eye make-up, she pulled on a crimson silk shirt that worked with everything and lifted every outfit including the denim skinnies she was wearing with it. She rolled the jeans up and slipped on high biscuit-coloured slingbacks that didn’t hurt and made her feet look long and elegant. Ten minutes and she was done, looking cool and elegant at the same time: no pushover, a clever woman who ran her own life and had a reasonable career.
Not a fabulous career, any more – not since John Steele had been taken away from her, but with a fairly decent career and if this new book turned out the way she’d hoped, maybe a damn good career again.
But still, hidden away behind that façade, was the girl Cari had tried to hide for so very long: the romantic. The romantic Cari Brannigan, forever hiding it behind spike heels and attitude.
The romantic had been flattened as if a steamroller had driven over her when Barney had walked out on their wedding and Cari hadn’t dared let her out since. But there was something about Conal, despite the sharp comments and the teasing, that made her long for romance, that sensed he was the man she was looking for.
‘Get a grip on yourself, Brannigan,’ she told her reflection, ‘this is just a date. You haven’t had a date for so long, so don’t mess it up and don’t go all gooey and romantic, right? And no talking about mummy porn or he’ll think you’re sex mad. Politics, books, science – all good.’
The restaurant Conal had picked was French, naturally, and when they got there, Conal spoke fluently to the owner, doing all sorts of complicated French cheek kissing and Gallic gesturing.
He’d obviously been there before as there was a certain amount of chatting with the waiters and then the chef had to come out, and for a moment, Cari had felt a bit surplus to requirements until Conal had put his arm around her and said, also in French, something that clearly implied that this beautiful woman was his date.
She knew enough French to pick up some of it, and then they all turned and admired her and made kissing motions to imply that yes, Conal had found the most exquisite creature and suddenly Cari found herself smiling and blushing and wondering where all her plans to hide the romantic had gone.
‘I didn’t know about this place,’ she said as they sat down and several waiters made a great palaver about taking a water order and laying a napkin across her lap.
‘I always come here when I’m back,’ Conal said.
‘You come back a lot then?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘to see Jeff and the family. I loved living abroad but you know it can get lonely too.’
He looked wonderful tonight, even better than he had the first night, still the tall, dark Byronic hero, and Cari wondered what he was doing on his own. With that came the unwelcome thought that he probably hadn’t been on his own for long and maybe that’s why he was now lonely – because there had been a Mrs Conal somewhere in the picture …?
Although Jeff had never mentioned this, better to nail the details of previous women immediately, Cari thought. She wasn’t going to be made a fool of twice. Complimentary glasses of wonderful champagne arrived, and as they drank them, Cari decided to start the inquisition.
‘Have you been married before?’ she asked.
‘No. Next question,’ he said, the corners of those mobile lips just turning up ever so slightly.
‘Long-term relationships?’
‘A couple.’
‘The most recent?’
He sat back. ‘You really want to know this early on in the relationship?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I was let down quite seriously once, which I’m sure Jeff explained to you, so I don’t like to mess about.’
‘I can tell that,’ he said and those glittering eyes seemed to be glittering just for her, taking her in from her flushed face and her emerald eyes down to the lips she’d glossed with a crimson to match her shirt.
‘I was let down a few times myself,’ he said wryly.
‘Really?’ Cari asked. ‘Tell me.’
‘It’s boring.’
‘Not boring at all,’ said Cari.
‘No, really.’ His fingers toyed with the stem of his wineglass. ‘Not boring but painful and let’s not talk about anything painful.’
‘You are a man of contrasts,’ Cari said.
‘Late developer,’ Conal said. ‘I was the guy girls never looked at, stuck with my head in a book or a computer. You know the joke about research scientists? What’s the difference between an introverted research scientist and an extroverted one? The extrovert one looks at your shoes when he’s talking to you.’
Cari laughed gently.
‘You’ve got over that,’ she remarked.
‘Yes, Paris did help me. Nothing like the City of Lights to open you up to the possibilities of life. I grew up. I like your outfit,’ he said, entirely changing the subject. ‘You look beautiful. That shocked me the other night – Jeff never told me that.’
‘So he told you all the other stuff?’ Cari interrupted.
‘He told me some of the other stuff,’ Conal admitted. ‘He told me a little bit in advance of your coming over for dinner, but I’ve got the rest out of him since then, because I was interested in you. But beforehand, before you turned up at his house, he never said how beautiful you were.’
She felt that little thrill of excitement inside her again and then quashed it.
‘Does that line of chat work in France?’
‘All the time,’ he agreed. ‘It’s how I get women to fall into bed with me.’
‘Fall into bed with you?’ She laughed. ‘That sounds like really sleazy seventies talk to me.’
‘Yes,’ he said, deadpan. ‘I moonlight in sleazy 1970s TV shows. When I’m not doing that, I put bets on, you know: which woman is going to fall into bed with me first …’
She burst out laughing. ‘I know you’re joking.’
‘Busted.’ He held his hands up. ‘How did you know?’
‘All my CIA training,’ she said.
‘Very good,’ he replied.
‘You have a tell, like a poker tell,’ she went on, not kidding. ‘It’s that little crinkle up to the left of your eye,’ and she reached forward and nearly touched his face and then pulled back. What was wrong with her?
‘Keep going on with the interrogation,’ he said. ‘Then afterwards, I get a go.’
‘No, you don’t get a go,’ Cari said. ‘You have Jeff to give you all sorts of background information on me and I have nobody, and you won’t tell me your bad stuff.’
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br /> ‘Jeff would give you information,’ he said.
‘Jeff does not know which way is up since Jasmine arrived,’ Cari pointed out. ‘He really doesn’t know night from day. It’s a miracle he’s still keeping his job. In fact, I’m keeping it for him,’ she added, ‘so there is absolutely no point in asking him anything about you, because he’ll just tell me something you did that was adorable/desperate when you were both small children and that would be no use at all. So—’ She smiled evilly. ‘The most recent long-term relationship? Spill your guts.’
As was the norm with wonderful French waiters, they were hovering discreetly, waiting for a break in the conversation before they came forward.
‘Let’s order and then go back into the analysis of my life,’ said Conal and Cari wondered if she was sensing hesitation. Was this the killer relationship he didn’t want to touch upon?
They ordered quickly, and Cari decided upon mussels with garlic, not really caring if her breath was going to taste weird and garlicky if he kissed her later, because she was going to be herself and she liked garlic mussels and that was it. He ordered the same thing.
‘So we’ll both taste of garlic if we have to lean up against a wall and I have to kiss you,’ he said.
‘Do you also have a bet on with someone about that happening tonight?’ Cari asked cheerfully. ‘One of the waiters? The owner? Because you are going to be out of pocket.’
He laughed so loudly that the owner stared across at them and grinned, the grin of a Frenchman seeing a fellow man doing well with a woman.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t like to put bets like that on for a woman like yourself. You’re more of a high-stakes classy casino bet instead of a grubby ten-euro bet.’
Cari raised her glass at him and smiled. ‘Nice to know.’
As they ate he told her about a marvellous woman called Yvette he had been with for two years and how they’d talked about marriage but somehow never quite got there.
‘We were simpatico,’ said Conal, with a distinctly Gallic shrug, ‘and yet I don’t know, neither of us ever saw a long-term future there. We had a great life – we had friends, people we went to the theatre with, people we went to dinner with, but I just couldn’t see it for ever and neither could she.’
Cari didn’t like this answer. Was this the woman who’d put the dark look on Conal’s face or just someone he was prepared to talk about.
‘Do you really mean neither of you could see a future in it or that you just told her it was over and then she agreed? Or did she dump you?’
‘Ouch,’ Conal replied. ‘It wasn’t like that, it genuinely was mutual. I’ll give you her phone number: phone her, ask her. We’re still friends. You can’t be friends if you hate each other, right? There were a few others but Yvette’s the most recent. Now, your go. Tell me about the man who dumped you?’
Cari shuddered. She could hardly blame him because she’d just interrogated him but weirdly and possibly for the first time in ages, it didn’t hurt that much.
‘I like it better when I ask the questions,’ she said.
‘I know.’
He patted her hand, a brief touch that felt electrifying and then went back to his food.
‘Plus, there’s something you’re not telling me,’ she added. But she would get it out of Jeff.
‘Right,’ she said, ‘the man who dumped me: that would make a good title for a book wouldn’t it.’
So she told him about Barney, just the bare facts, making it funny rather than sad and painful – the way it really had been.
Somehow, Conal’s hand with its long, piano-player’s fingers snaked across the table and entwined itself with one of her hands. ‘Do you play the piano?’ she asked.
And he laughed. He was laughing a lot, she thought, but not in a laughing at her sort of way – more laughing with her, laughing at the fun of being with her. It was like he got her jokes, he appreciated her.
‘I read this thing once,’ he said, ‘about how differently men and women’s minds work, and we are thinking about one thing while women have extrapolated the conversation to such an extent that you are on a completely different topic altogether. So how did we get on to me playing the piano?’
‘Your hands.’
They both looked down, and Cari found that both of her hands were on his single hand and she was stroking it as if learning its shape through braille, feeling the strength in his fingers and the sensitivity and wondering – oh, she was wondering! – what it would be like to have those hands touching her.
She wanted to pull away but she stopped herself. This was normal, this is what normal women did. They went out to dinner with men and thought about having relationships with them. Just because she had been so badly hurt and hadn’t done this for three years meant that this sort of carry-on startled her a little bit. But no, she was not pulling her hands away, she decided with determination.
‘I was thinking that you have long piano-playing fingers.’ It sounded a bit daft now in retrospect.
‘I did play the piano,’ he said and she got the feeling that he liked her hands on his, ‘played for years, but once I got to college I stopped and I can’t tell you the last time I sat on a piano stool.’
‘How wonderful,’ said Cari with genuine admiration. ‘I’ve never played an instrument. We were always a bit broke when we were growing up, too broke to buy a piano but Dad said he’d get us something. Then my little sister Maggie began to learn the recorder at school. In case you don’t know, it’s a bit of a sort of tin whistly type of instrument and could easily be used as a weapon of torture for terrorist cells. Well, it could be, the way Maggie played it. So I said she wasn’t allowed to practise and really that put an end to her musical career. I must have been a horrible older sister.’
‘I doubt that,’ he said, doing that eye-glittering thing at her that made Cari’s stomach feel hollowed out as if she were doing a loop the loop on a rollercoaster.
‘What sort of music do you like?’ he asked. ‘Any classical? I have a thing for Chopin.’
‘Imagine being able to play Chopin …’ said Cari dreamily and she realised that she needed food after a glass of champagne, one of wine and a dose of rollercoaster-ness. She removed her hands because it seemed safer and grabbed her water instead.
More wine was poured when the mussels arrived and they lost themselves in talking about music, and how good the food was. They were both dunking big lumps of crusty bread into the garlicy wine sauce and she was having fun, Cari realised.
Fun and something more.
When the food was taken away, he reached across the table again and took her hands this time. And they kept holding on, it was like they didn’t want to let go.
‘Is everything all right? You’re enjoying yourself?’ said his friend, the restaurateur, coming over and giving Cari an admiring look.
There was a time when she’d have given him a tough squinty-eyed glare in return, as if to say, don’t look at me like that, sonny boy, but tonight she didn’t: tonight she’d beamed under his admiration.
‘Oh it was fabulous,’ she said, ‘those mussels. Delicious.’
‘I know,’ he said, ‘beautiful, fabulous, sensual.’
‘Sensual,’ agreed Conal, ‘that’s definitely the word.’
And he looked at Cari, who giggled. Somewhere along the way she’d told him the story about the mummy porn and how Declan, her editor colleague, could never eat another mussel again because of the goings on with shellfish in a recent attempt of Fifty Shades of Grey.
‘Yes, very sensual, Jacques,’ went on Conal.
Cari began to dissolve into giggles and under the table, Conal nudged her foot with his.
‘I will leave you two alone then,’ said Jacques and drifted off, poetry in motion in an elegant jacket.
‘We could always tell him about the mussel story,’ said Conal innocently.
‘Oh hell, we couldn’t,’ said Cari. ‘I would never be able to look him in the eye again.
’
By mutual consent, they waved away the dessert menu and even when Jacques appeared proffering after-dinner drinks on the house, Cari and Conal said no.
Somehow the evening had heated up and Cari was aware of a fire in her belly, a desire she hadn’t felt for – well, three years. The careful, cautious woman who hadn’t had a man in her bed since Barney had last left it found that she wanted this man in the worst way possible.
She thought of how she’d have cautioned her sister Maggie and her cousin Trina against going to bed with a man on their first date. She thought of how she’d have told any young girl, ‘No don’t do this, this is a mistake, somebody has to care for you before you let them touch your body, there has to be mutual respect and kindness and …’
‘Will we go?’ Conal interrupted her thoughts.
‘Yes,’ she said.
They got a taxi back to her house, Conal’s car left in a car park and the financially aware Cari didn’t even mention that it was insane to leave it there overnight.
‘I know this isn’t a good idea,’ Conal said, and he wasn’t talking about leaving his beloved muscle car in a car park overnight. ‘I planned to have no wine and drive you home sedately because this is officially only just our second date and I don’t want to rush it.’
‘You’re right,’ said Cari. Blast it, he was right. No rushing it. No flinging herself at this man. She searched deep inside herself for the logic switch and found it, remembering how long it was since she’d dated and how badly that had all turned out.
She stopped at the door and turned to him.
‘Let’s take this slow. I’ve been hurt—’
‘I understand,’ he said and leaned in for a kiss. ‘Slow.’
‘Slow,’ agreed Cari.
She had once thought you didn’t truly know a person till you lived with them, but she now knew that was wrong. She’d lived with Barney and she’d known nothing. Her new measuring stick was how they kissed and Conal’s kiss was like nothing she’d ever experienced.
He held her gently as if she was something rare and precious, and touched her lips with his, deepening in intensity until one hand was caressing her face as his tongue reached in to tangle with hers, his other hand was around her waist, pulling her close, and she decided that she must have been mad: she wanted him to come in immediately.