His Best Mistake Read online

“It can be. Some are horrific and I have to totally zone out, but I’m used to that. I did once make the mistake of not zoning out and I had nightmares for months.” She paused, thinking about the canvases she’d painted at the time and grimacing since they’d been truly hideous; then she pulled herself together. “Others are kind of fun, though. Celebrities taking on magazines and rock stars on drugs charges can be interesting. There was one recently about a game-show cheat. That was entertaining.”

  “Guilty?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said with a grin. “Very much so.”

  “Do you paint as well?”

  “Not very successfully.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a completely different skill. I mainly use pencils and pastels. Sometimes charcoal, occasionally chalk. It’s, I don’t know, as if they’re an extension of my fingers or something, if that makes any sense. Paint, though, I just can’t seem to get to grips with. There’s something about the paintbrush. The length of it and the distance that creates. It’s a shame as I find it incredibly therapeutic, and a bit odd really, when you think about it, but there you go.”

  “Therapeutic?” said Jack, frowning slightly and fixing her with a quizzical look.

  “Yes.”

  “In what way?”

  For a second Stella hesitated, her heart beginning to thump as it occurred to her that she’d suddenly hit a crossroads. She could either shrug and deflect Jack’s question or in an attempt to make a proper go of this she could open up and tell him things she’d never told another living soul.

  Taking a deep breath, and reminding herself it was for the good of the baby, she leapt off the cliff. “I discovered that painting was a good way to vent.”

  “Do you need to vent?”

  “I have done.”

  “When?”

  “Initially, during my childhood,” she said. “My parents aren’t the best.” Which had to be the understatement of the century. “Their relationship has always been pretty volatile. From as early as I can remember there were rows and slamming of doors and then endless horrible silences. None of that was as bad as when they were making up though,” she added, cringing inside at the memories of how happily ravished her parents had looked emerging from an afternoon in their room. “I guess painting was a form of escapism. I’d shut myself in my room, put on my iPod and block it all out while venting my feelings at the easel. At one point when things were really bad I was painting two canvases a day. It’s a pity they weren’t any good. I could have made a fortune.”

  “The painting on the easel in your spare room wasn’t bad.”

  Oh? She’d forgotten about that. “Did you see the others?”

  “What others?”

  “Just as well,” said Stella with a wry smile. “There were twenty-five in total, one for every day I was at the cottage. They were rather gruesome. I was in a pretty bad state, although they did get progressively less angsty. I burned them all before heading home.”

  “Do you have siblings?”

  She shook her head. “Only child.”

  “That must have made it harder.”

  “Possibly. I wouldn’t know.”

  But it would have been nice to have someone to share everything with, she thought, turning her head to look out of the window at the buildings and people flashing by. She’d used to long for it, in fact, because if she’d had a brother or sister she wouldn’t have felt so excluded, so worthless, so constantly at fault. She’d have had an ally and been part of a team, instead of feeling like an outsider, an unwanted extra.

  But she’d realised early on that she’d been an accident and one that wasn’t going to be repeated. Her parents had been so wrapped up in each other they’d never had much time for her, and although the neglect had been benign, it had had long-term consequences that she was only just beginning to get over. “My maternal grandmother made up for things a bit,” she said. “She came to the odd play and sports event and she sometimes scooped me up in the holidays. She did her best but it wasn’t quite the same. When she died she left me the cottage in Scotland. I think she knew I’d need somewhere to escape and make sense of things whenever life went pear-shaped.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Lucky you. Are your parents still together?” he asked, and Stella snapped out of it because she’d accepted that that was just the way her family was years ago and there was still zero point in wishing things had been different.

  “Astonishingly and mystifyingly, yes,” she said. “They’ve been married for thirty-one years. They’re self-centred and dysfunctional and the drama is never-ending, and you know what? I think they thrive on it. I think they love it. Which, to be honest, I find kind of tiring. It’s pretty excluding, so I don’t see that much of them.” Or anything at all if she could help it. “What are yours like?”

  “Together. Happy. In comparison, incredibly boring.”

  “Boring is good,” said Stella, stamping down on the familiar envy that surged whenever she heard about other people’s relatively normal families and functional relationships. “I’d be more than happy with boring. Melodrama is very overrated.”

  “I agree.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. What would he know about melodrama? He didn’t seem the sort to tolerate it. “Oh?”

  “Cora. New Year. Not pretty.”

  “What happened?”

  “She went off the rails.”

  “I don’t blame her,” said Stella. “However much I suffered, she must have suffered ten times more. Does she know I’ve moved in?”

  Jack nodded. “She does.”

  “How did she take it?”

  “She’s staying in Spain for a while.”

  Which presumably meant ‘not well’. Hmm. Disappointing. “Did she find Brad?”

  “Yes. And the ring.”

  “What happened?”

  “He handed it over and then fled to South America.”

  “Coward,” said Stella archly, and she wondered yet again how she could ever have thought she was in love with such a man. “Is she all right?”

  “She should be. She’s with an old friend of mine.”

  “How old?” she said, mildly intrigued since it hadn’t occurred to her that Jack might have friends, but of course he did because why wouldn’t he?

  But she didn’t have time to ponder it for long because a second later the taxi came to a halt outside the shop. Jack muttered an abrupt, “We’re here,” and just like that, most disappointingly, the conversation came to an end.

  *

  Back at the apartment that evening, having left Stella to stow the many supplies she’d bought at the art shop, Jack sat at his laptop, staring blankly at the screen, his mind racing.

  Today had not turned out the way he’d planned. When he’d asked Stella about her job, he’d assumed it would lead to the kind of small talk he’d anticipated, the kind of small talk he was comfortable with. He didn’t know why he’d expected it when she’d told him she wanted to talk. No doubt he was out of practice.

  Regardless of that though, he hadn’t expected her to go into details of her childhood, or to hear that that childhood had been far from happy. He hadn’t liked the absurd way he wished he’d been able to shield her from it. And the savagery with which he wanted to hunt Brad down and string him up – not for what he’d done to Cora, but for what he’d done to Stella – had caught him completely off guard.

  He liked even less the fact that he hadn’t seemed to be able to help wanting to find out more about her. What was that all about? He ought to have been relieved when they’d arrived at the shop, not put out about the fact that the conversation was over.

  He was still trying to work it out as he’d watched her in the art store, the excitement fairly pulsating from her like a child in a sweetshop, and he’d found himself smiling. It was all highly strange and rather unsettling, but it was early days and he’d figure out how to handle it – and her – soon enough.
r />   In his peripheral vision, just then, Jack caught a blur of movement and glanced up to see Stella come out of her room and begin to head in his direction.

  “Thank you for today,” she said with a smile that for some reason made his stomach clench.

  “No problem. Did you get everything you needed?”

  “And some,” she said, stopping in front of his desk, the smile turning rueful before disappearing altogether when her gaze shifted to his laptop and she frowned. “Am I disturbing you?”

  Not in the way she probably thought. “Just working,” he muttered. Or, more accurately, trying to.

  “I’d have thought the markets would be closed at the weekends.”

  “They are.”

  “So what are you doing?”

  Since ‘staring into space and thinking about you’ was not the answer he was going to be giving, Jack glanced at his screen and focused. “Analysis,” he said as apparently that was the page currently open on his browser. “I’m looking at trends. Forecasts. News articles. Anything that will affect the currency markets over the next few days.”

  “Can I see?”

  What possible excuse could he have for saying no? None of what was on his desk was confidential and to claim it was would make him look like a man with something to hide. “Sure.”

  She moved round to his side of the desk and his pulse sped up.

  “What’s that?” she asked, leaning forwards a fraction and pointing at a diagram on the screen as her scent wafted up his nose and made a mess of his brain.

  Good question, he thought dazedly. What was it? With what felt like superhuman effort Jack hauled himself back under control and focused. “It’s a Fibonacci spiral.”

  “Which is?”

  “It’s a tool that uses the combination of time and price to predict market movements.”

  “Handy.”

  “There are others too.”

  And in an attempt to distract himself from the effects of her proximity he started talking about algorithms and data visualisation and platforms. God only knew whether he made any sense. He could only hope that if she didn’t know what a Fibonacci spiral was, she’d have even less of a reason to challenge him on the rest of it.

  “I have no idea what any of that means, but you really love what you do, don’t you?” she said, once he’d ground to a halt, sounding ridiculous even to his own ears. “I can tell by the passion in your voice.”

  “I have to,” he said, pushing his chair back a little and thinking that the less said about passion the better. “It’s all-consuming and I spend a lot of my time doing it.”

  “Is it risky?”

  “About as risky as desk jobs get, although the rewards usually more than make up for it.”

  “But it can’t be just the money.”

  “There’s the adrenaline rush,” he admitted. “And the thrill of anticipating the way the market’s going to go and getting it right. It makes the fourteen-hour days worth it.”

  “Fourteen-hour days?”

  “Sometimes longer.”

  “Crikey. Your stress levels must be stratospheric.”

  “Not really,” he said. “Stress can be minimised by a steady, disciplined, emotionally detached approach to trading. If you nail that then you’re halfway there.”

  “Remind me never to play poker with you,” she said with a quick smile. “I’d lose everything in minutes.”

  If it was strip poker they were playing then maybe that wouldn’t be so bad… “I never gamble.”

  “Seems to me you gamble every time you trade.”

  “Perhaps. Although in my case the odds are very carefully calculated.” He paused, then said, “Anyway, you love what you do too, don’t you? Are you ever without a pencil and paper?”

  She glanced down at the sketchbook in her hand and grinned. “Rarely.”

  “May I see?”

  “It’s one I bought today. There’s nothing to see.”

  “Another time, then.”

  “Perhaps.” She paused and looked slowly over the papers on his desk: the graphs, the columns of figures, the scribbled notes. “Do you ever make mistakes?”

  “Not often.”

  “So how did you get into it?” she said, finally inching back and moving away to sit on a sofa, which meant that he could actually breathe again.

  “I started at school,” he said, not missing her proximity in the slightest. “One Easter I went on holiday to France. I came back with some Euros, and started trading them with other kids about to go on holiday. I made money and liked it. When I left school at eighteen I went straight to work at one of the leading London forex houses, then moved to others. I did stints in Paris and Frankfurt and a year in New York. I’ve been running my own business for the last five years.”

  “Didn’t you go to university?”

  “I didn’t see the point. I wanted action and I wanted it fast.”

  “I didn’t see the point either,” said Stella. “All I ever wanted to do was draw. What do you do to switch off?”

  Jack frowned. “I don’t have time to switch off.”

  “Not even now?”

  “What’s different about now?”

  “Well, today’s been great,” she said with a smile, “but how are we going to get to know each other if you’re always at work?”

  Right. Those fourteen-hour days of his. Hmm. Fairly incompatible with spending time with someone. A good excuse to avoid her? Perhaps. But he had agreed to this, hadn’t he? And she had uprooted her life to accommodate him. Surely he owed her more than just a cutting back of his hours. He could walk the fine line between revealing just enough and too much, no problem. And he did own the company. “I’ll take some time off.”

  Chapter Nine

  Three days later, getting dressed to go out, Stella was ready to climb the walls. She didn’t think she’d ever been so frustrated in her life. To think she’d been so delighted that Jack had agreed to take some time off. To think she’d thought they were making progress. Of the last seventy-two hours, she and Jack had spent approximately thirty-six in each other’s company, and she still felt she knew as little about him as she had when she’d moved in.

  Oh, he’d told her things. Many things. Such as his love of tomatoes and his loathing of mushrooms. His week-long suspension from school fifteen years ago. The name of every single pet he’d ever owned. The factual details of his life to date had been endless. Yet he hadn’t revealed how he felt about anything significant and he hadn’t mentioned his wife, even though she’d given him ample opportunity to share.

  That he didn’t trust her with the big things, only the trivialities, stung. Especially when she was emoting left, right and centre in an effort to feel things more deeply and communicate better. It was almost as if the more open she tried to be the more he withdrew, as physically present yet emotionally absent as her parents.

  But maybe that was her fault. Maybe she was going overboard with the whole sharing thing. Maybe he was finding it a bit full on. She had no gauge. She just didn’t know, and she was at a complete loss as to what to do next. Should she back off? That didn’t appeal since knowing her she’d take it too far and end up defaulting to her usual position of holding everything back, which had proved time after time not to work. Should she dare to confront him and ask him what was going on? Or should she give him more time? She simply didn’t have a clue.

  But she’d have to make a decision soon because things couldn’t continue as they were. The way he was blocking her out – whether consciously or unconsciously – wasn’t fair and it wasn’t doing much for her self-esteem either. He had no idea how hard it was for her keep going in the face of his withdrawal. How easy it would be for her to just scuttle back into her shell and hide. One last chance, thought Stella firmly as she put on her jacket and fluffed her hair. That was what she’d give him. One last chance to open up even just a little bit, and then she’d take a view.

  Today she’d booked a scan. He’d said
he’d go with her. If that didn’t give him the opportunity to talk about his wife, with perhaps some very slight, very gentle probing, she didn’t know what would. The appointment was bound to be hard for him. Of that she had little doubt. All sorts of memories and emotions would surely shoot to the surface and who knew how they’d manifest themselves. But she’d be there to catch him. The question was: would he let her?

  *

  With the slam of Stella’s bedroom door echoing in his ears, Jack grabbed a bottle of whisky, poured himself a glass and downed it in two seconds flat. His head was spinning, his stomach was churning and he just couldn’t work out what was going on.

  When Stella had told him she’d booked a scan, his initial reaction had been one of instant shutdown. Somehow he’d managed to forget she was pregnant. God knew how, when it was the sole reason she was in his apartment, digging around his life. He’d been too busy concentrating on treading that fine line between telling her things and revealing too much. However, he’d swiftly pulled himself together and agreed to go. Whatever else was simmering away beneath the surface, he needed to know that Stella and the baby were all right.

  Nevertheless, he had not been looking forward to the appointment and this morning he’d woken up with the weight of the dread he felt practically crushing him to the bed. In the taxi to the clinic he’d been monosyllabic, bordering on silent, so preoccupied had he been with bracing himself for the deluge of grief, regret and guilt he’d expected along with a whole host of painful memories.

  However, when they’d gone in for the appointment and he’d finally managed to look at the screen, the black and white image blurring before his eyes, the heartbeat of the baby fluttering at one hundred and sixty beats a minute, neither the deluge of emotion nor the memories had materialised. Instead he’d felt a weird kind of excitement and it had knocked him sideways. Horrified, panicked, he’d tried to conjure up Mia’s face, but he’d been unable to. He tried to locate the anger and the guilt, but that seemed to be bewilderingly absent too.

  What did it mean? he’d spent the rest of the appointment wondering. He couldn’t work it out now any more than he’d been able to when they’d left and Stella had asked if he wanted to talk about anything, anything at all, and he’d been too confused, too unsettled to say anything other than an abrupt, final ‘no’.