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Something sharp crosses his expression. Something very un-Nicholas that makes me feel concern for him, or worried for him. Something.
‘Yes.’
Okay, there’s definitely something here. Curiosity shifts inside me. ‘You’re not looking forward to going home?’
He lifts his shoulders. ‘It’s home,’ he says after a moment. ‘I always knew I’d move back, eventually.’
‘How long have you been in New York?’
‘Five years.’
‘That’s right.’ I remember reading this in his file. ‘You came here after—’ I stop what I’m saying, but not in time. His eyes zip to mine, his expression dark.
‘After my fiancée left me at the altar?’
I grimace. ‘Sorry.’
He flips his hand over and squeezes mine, then reaches for his drink. ‘It was for the best.’
It’s a comment designed to move conversation on, to shut down worry and any further line of enquiry. I don’t succumb to it. ‘Why?’
He takes a drink. ‘We weren’t well suited.’
I don’t know much about his fiancée. I can’t even remember her name.
‘Saffron,’ he supplies and I realise I’ve spoken my thoughts aloud.
‘She’s not in the club?’ Though our membership has grown, I know every member by name and sight and there are no Saffrons. We have a Pearl and a Cinnamon, though.
‘No. It’s not her thing.’ His smile is indulgent.
‘No?’
‘No.’
Hmm. Another closed door. I don’t really like closed doors. ‘Why not?’
‘Apart from the fact she ditched me in front of five hundred of our nearest and dearest?’
‘But why? Why did she dump you?’
‘That’s the billion-pound question,’ he drawls, and for a second, his face is in the shadow of an almighty rain cloud and I want to draw the sun back out.
‘You never found out?’
‘Why she left me?’ He shakes his head. ‘But I can guess.’
‘Why, then?’
‘She was like a bird in an aviary,’ he says, after a moment. ‘Beautiful, smart, funny, but completely defined by who she was, who her parents were, by what was expected of her.’
‘And that’s marrying someone like you?’
‘Yes.’ He dips his head forward. ‘She hated it. I didn’t realise how much until she left me.’
‘Hate it or not, it’s still a pretty shitty thing to do.’ I wince. ‘Sorry.’
‘No, you’re right. I think she knows that. The problem is, she did love me, but she hated what marrying me would mean more.’
