away too. She was clearly trying to cut Nikos out of the conversation. ‘Later on this evening? Would that be all right?’
Music started to play, people were taking their seats, Martin hesitated and Nikos raised his eyebrow, reminding him that he had a prior engagement.
‘Tonight? Oh, I’m not sure. It’s not ideal.’
‘Please, Martin. There’s something I want to discuss.’
The floor was emptying, people were taking their seats. They were beginning to look very conspicuous as the only three people still standing.
Jacquelyn knotted her fingers together as if she was praying. She looked truly anguished.
Martin looked at Nikos with a what can I do?
Nikos felt a tiny twinge of regret on her behalf but he had bigger things to worry about than a buttoned-up Englishwoman, no matter how attractive.
‘Ah, this could be tricky. I’ve got Nikos here as my guest.’
She turned to look at Nikos as if he was even more of a pariah than she’d first thought, as if he were personally responsible for the fact that her business was dying on its feet.
‘We’d better take our seats now. See you later, sweetheart,’ he said, with a wink.
Jacquelyn walked back to her table as if she were entirely made of wood and tried to take her seat with grace that seemed to have completely deserted her.
Had she blown it already? She reached for her glass, something to hold as she quickly replayed the meeting in her head. Martin seemed to have been friendly enough but he’d been totally eclipsed by Nikos Karellis. And no wonder. The man was completely unnerving. She’d never met anyone so—intense. So physical. He’d made her self-conscious, tongue-tied and totally put her off her stride.
She slipped a glance to the side to look at him as the band struck up and was met with him staring right back at her. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up in an instant and she looked away.
All through the starter she could feel him staring and she absolutely would not look at him. Maybe he thought that she had gone over there to meet him? He probably thought that every woman was in love with him. He was so off the mark. She’d never let herself fall for a man like him. Anyway, she had one single mission here tonight, and it had nothing to do with love.
She turned again to tell him that with her eyes but he was talking intensely with the woman on his left. She watched as he listened to her, tilting his head towards her and smiling as the woman started flirting, throwing her head back when she laughed, playing with her hair, touching her chest and batting her eyelashes, all while Martin looked miserably at his salad.
She felt more and more desperate and in a haze of self-pity she began to cast around the room, looking for Tim. At the back of the hall she found him, his once boyish good looks now paunchy, his blonde hair thin.
He could have been her husband. They could have been sitting together at that table, waiting to collect awards, gossiping about how everyone was fawning over Nikos Karellis. At one point any other future would have been completely unimaginable.
Jacquelyn Jones not married to Tim Brinley? Don’t be ridiculous—it’s written in the stars…
But strangely enough she didn’t feel wistful. And she didn’t blame him for the mess of Ariana. She blamed herself. Funny how a crisis could put everything into perspective. And this was a crisis. For all she played it down with everyone, especially her parents, she was in a full-blown state of emergency.
She pushed the food about on her plate, unable to eat, and words seemed to stick in her mouth like cardboard. All she could focus on were the minutes ticking by and the location of Martin Lopez.
She sat through the tables being cleared, the lights being dimmed, and then the award hosts, two TV presenters she recognised from a breakfast show, arrived on stage to start the ceremony.
And then in a never-ending series of announcements and applause she sat through the awards, from Best Florist to Best Accessories, Best Cake to Best Make-Up, Best Venues to Best Stylist. When the Best Photographer names were called out, she prepared herself.
Suddenly there was the image of the winning photograph. A bride and groom on a horse. It was Tim’s—it had to be. He loved to ride and he loved to use the riding motif in his photographs. It looked so phoney to her now.
The compère boomed out his name.
As the crowd burst with applause, she lifted her hands from her lap and tapped them together briefly. Most people wouldn’t know what he’d done to her, but some of them would, and she couldn’t let herself down by acting so childishly.
She forced herself to watch him accept his award, and she realised then that there was nothing there now other than the memory of a man she’d once loved, an outline of something once vivid. A bare-branched tree in winter, once so full of leaves.
She had so much more to worry about now.
The final award was Best Wedding Dress, and to announce it Nikos Karellis bounded athletically to the stage.
‘He was her tennis coach,’ she heard the woman beside her whisper.
‘Ooh, he could coach me in anything he wanted,’ said someone else, and giggled.
Jacquelyn tried not to roll her eyes, but she couldn’t help looking closer, measuring his stature with her own innate sense of proportion. He was quite physically perfect. Exceptionally physically perfect. In the pit of her stomach something awoke, a swirl of longing, a primal feeling that tugged and shocked her, and she squirmed and moved in her seat. She looked around to see if anyone had noticed, but everyone’s face was turned to the stage, eyes wide with interest.
The finalists were announced. The winning dress displayed on the screen and then the flushed and jubilant face of the designer, a pretty brunette. Nikos delivered the glass trophy, kissed her warmly on each cheek and gave her an affectionate squeeze.
Nice, thought Jacquelyn.
She had barely had a peck on the cheek in the three years since Tim. She was never the most physical person, but she liked affection, as much as everyone else. She liked being held close; she liked her hair being stroked and all the intimacy that came with being with someone you cared for.
Another wave of self-pity washed over her.
Was she destined to be single her whole life? Would she ever meet someone else?
She looked around the room. She might not be the youngest person here, but she was almost certainly the only one who was still a virgin.
She wondered if anyone knew. Sometimes she felt as if she were wearing a sign. And sometimes, there were moments she wished she could just go out and find someone and have sex and be done with it.
Those months after Tim left she’d tortured herself thinking she’d been wrong, stupid, blindly falling in with Nonna’s views, not thinking for herself. She’d almost considered tracking him down to tell him she’d changed her mind.
