‘You were the right guy,’ he’d said. ‘Why else do you think I vouched for you?’
The waiter brought us the menu. I nearly fell off my chair when I saw the prices.
‘Cheers and congratulations,’ Nic said, lifting his glass. We clinked flutes. The champagne sparkled. The food was extraordinary: rich, refined, unlike anything I’d ever tasted. ‘Good, huh?’ Nic said through a mouthful of veal. ‘Wait until you taste the dessert. Fucking heaven.’ He held up an empty bottle of champagne. ‘Can’t have this!’ he said, and flagged down the waiter to order another.
‘I shouldn’t,’ I said weakly, already a little light-headed.
‘Of course you should. Get a taxi home. Enjoy the moment.’
So I did.
***
I pulled into our apartment block later than I’d hoped to. I knew Jo would be irritated, but she’d hide it behind humour. That’s who she is: patient, generous and kind.
How else do I describe Jo? She’s beautiful, inside and out. We met at a friend’s wedding. She was there with someone else; a hospital consultant, I think. But from the moment I saw her, I was smitten. Her sapphire-blue eyes sparkled. Her lips, withthat delicate Cupid’s bow, practically demanded to be kissed. A cascade of blonde-highlighted curls framed her face. She was, and is, a paediatric surgeon. So far removed from my modest world. But love doesn’t follow rules.
I chased her relentlessly. Her parents weren’t impressed. I was an accountant. Hard-working, yes, but not their vision of a son-in-law. I could tell. Her father, especially, made it clear that I didn’t measure up.
Things changed when I landed a job at Lance and Holland. Suddenly, I was someone.
Before I gained the life-changing promotion, Jo and I had pooled our earnings and bought the apartment in Oxford. It was close enough for Jo to walk to the hospital, and it was our haven. I tried not to let the fact that her father had put down the deposit eat away at me, but it did. The smug way he handed over the cheque, as if I was a child who needed help. I’ll never forget it.
That’s why the promotion meant everything to me. I was a chief financial officer now. No one, not even Donald, my smug father-in-law, could take that away from me.
I remember coming home that night, after dinner with Nic, drunk on champagne and the thrill of success. I found Jo in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher. She looked up, surprised.
‘You said it was a special dinner,’ she said. ‘How much have you had?’
‘About a bottle of champagne,’ I grinned. ‘Maybe more.’
She gasped.
‘Don’t worry. I got a taxi.’
I pulled the new contract from my jacket pocket and handed it to her. I watched her eyes move across the page, then widen.
‘Oh my God. Is that what they’re paying you?’
‘Yes. It’s all there, in black and white,’ I said.
She shrieked with joy. ‘Danny, does this mean we can buy the house?’
We’d talked a lot about the house, for months. It was an old fixer-upper in the Cotswolds. Acres of land. It needed everything done to it. But it had heart. Charm. A future. I pulled her into a hug. ‘I don’t think getting a second mortgage will be a problem.’
‘We could sell this place,’ she said.
‘We won’t need to. Besides, you’ll want it for when you’re on call. You hate those hospital beds.’
She kissed me. ‘Oh, Danny. My clever husband.’
I lifted her off her feet and spun her around, both of us laughing like teenagers. It was one of the best days. Then Neville Logan entered our lives and nothing was ever the same again.
Chapter Three
Neville Logan
The words catch in my throat, my vocal cords paralysed by shock. Bradley Stern’s words, delivered in that cocky, couldn’t-give-a-damn tone, reverberate through my head.
