Read Chapter 15: — THREE MONTHS

Adrian's ex-wife arrived in York on business with her new partner.

Victoria Shaw was a corporate lawyer, brilliant, elegant and capable of making an ordinary doorway look like an entrance.

Adrian admitted to Eleanor that the visit bothered him.

They were walking by the river after a late shift when he said, “I told her I was seeing someone.”

Eleanor waited.

“I wasn't.”

She stopped. “Oh no.”

“I panicked.”

“You?”

“Apparently divorce has revealed hidden weaknesses.”

He looked genuinely embarrassed.

“Would you come to dinner as my girlfriend?”

Eleanor laughed so loudly a cyclist glanced back.

“You want to hire me?”

“I'll pay in excellent food.”

“You're my boss.”

“Then this is ethically terrible.”

It should have ended there.

Instead Adrian said, more quietly, “The problem is I would like it not to be entirely fake.”

Eleanor's laughter disappeared.

He did not make promises.

He said he liked her. He respected her. He wanted to know whether what had begun between them could become something real.

“Three months,” he proposed. “We date. Properly. If either of us knows it isn't right, we stop.”

“That is the least romantic proposition I've ever heard.”

“I manage hotels. We favour trial periods.”

She smiled despite herself.

Eleanor had no desire to fall in love.

But maybe desire was not the only way life began.

“All right,” she said. “Three months.”

Dinner with Victoria and her boyfriend was civilized warfare disguised as wine.

Victoria watched Eleanor with sharp interest. Adrian cut Eleanor's steak because she had injured her wrist carrying a tray earlier that week. Eleanor called him insufferable. Victoria's eyebrows lifted.

Their performance was almost too convincing.

Afterward Adrian took Eleanor to the cinema because he had told Victoria they were going.

Halfway through the film, Eleanor realised he was holding her hand.

She did not move it.