Chapter 5: The Crack In The Wall

Cara didn't go back the following week.

She told herself it was because she was busy. Double shifts Thursday and Friday. A plumber who never showed up. Her mother's follow-up appointment on Saturday morning that ran two hours longer than expected.

All of it true.

None of it the real reason.

The real reason was Eleanor Blackwood's hand on hers. The easy warmth of it. The way it had felt so natural that Cara hadn't pulled away, hadn't overthought it, hadn't done any of the things she normally did when people got too close.

That was the problem.

Getting comfortable was not part of the agreement.

Ethan called on Wednesday evening.

She almost didn't answer.

"The Cotswolds weekend has been moved forward," he said without preamble. "My grandfather's doctors have advised against waiting."

Cara sat down on the edge of her bed.

"How forward?"

"This weekend."

"That's four days away."

"I'm aware."

She pressed her fingers to her forehead.

"Ethan, a weekend is different from a dinner. A weekend means—"

"I know what it means."

"We haven't discussed how we act around each other beyond a dinner table."

A pause.

"That's why I'm calling now," he said. "I'd like to meet tomorrow. Run through it properly."

Cara looked across the room at her mother's medication on the side table. The stack of bills she'd organized into order of urgency. The £250,000 sitting in her account that had changed the texture of her anxiety without removing it entirely.

"Fine," she said. "Tomorrow. Same restaurant?"

"My apartment," he said. "It will be more practical."

"I said I wasn't moving in."

"I'm not asking you to move in. I'm asking you to come for an hour so we can prepare without a waiter appearing every ten minutes."

Cara was quiet.

"Address?" she said.

His apartment was in Knightsbridge. Of course it was.

The building had a doorman who greeted her by name, which meant Ethan had called ahead, which meant he had anticipated she would say yes before she did. She filed that observation away without deciding what to do with it.

The apartment itself was on the eighth floor. Large, clean-lined, expensive in the way that didn't need to announce itself. Floor-to-ceiling windows again — he clearly had a type. The Thames in the distance. Everything in shades of grey and white and dark wood.

No photographs anywhere.

She noticed that immediately.

Ethan handed her coffee without asking how she took it. It was exactly right — she didn't comment on that either.

They sat at the kitchen island with a notepad between them.

"The weekend involves two nights," he began. "My family owns a house in the Cotswolds. My grandfather stays in the east wing. My mother takes the main bedroom. James and Sophie have their usual room."

"And us?"

"There's a guest suite at the end of the hall."

"One room."

"One room. Two beds." He looked at her. "I had Claire confirm the layout specifically."

Something about that — the fact that he had checked, that he had thought about her comfort before she had to ask — moved through her in a way she didn't immediately know what to do with.

"Thank you," she said.

He nodded once and looked back at the notepad.

"My grandfather will want to spend time with you directly," he said. "He'll ask about your family. Your plans. He'll want to understand who you are."

"I'll tell him the truth where I can."

"Yes." A pause. "He may also ask about us. How we are together. Whether it's real."

Cara wrapped both hands around her coffee cup.

"What do we say?"

Ethan was quiet for a moment.

"I think," he said carefully, "that by now we know enough about each other that the answers don't need to be invented."

Cara looked at him.

He was right, she realized. She knew he walked to Tuesday meetings. That he had Claire check room layouts so she wouldn't be uncomfortable. That he hadn't laughed in his mother's house until she made his grandfather do it first.

He probably knew things about her too.

The thought was more unsettling than she expected.

"There's one more thing," Ethan said.

He set down his pen.

"My grandfather will likely ask me directly whether I love you."

The room went very quiet.

"And?" Cara said.

Ethan looked at her steadily.

"I'll tell him yes," he said. "I need you to be prepared for that. And for whatever he asks you in return."

Cara held his gaze.

"What will you say when he asks you how you know?"

Ethan picked up his pen again.

But he didn't write anything for a long moment.

"I'll tell him," he said quietly, "that you're the only person I've met in a long time who made me want to be in the same room."

Cara's breath caught slightly.

She covered it by reaching for her coffee.

"That'll do," she said evenly.

But her hand wasn't quite steady.

And when she looked up, Ethan was writing on the notepad again, expression composed, completely unreadable.

As if he hadn't just said the truest thing in the room.