Only We Know Read Online Free

I
     was supposed to be researching. It was out of duty more than pleasure that I headed into
     the city.
    By the time I arrived the party was in full
     flow, well-dressed and -groomed bodies pressing against each other, imbibing champagne,
     waitresses in starched white shirts and aprons passing among them with trays of canapés.
     All of us crammed together in a room on the top floor of a hotel, the windows giving
     onto the roofs, spires and cranes that punctuated the city’s skyline. Luke and
     Julia Yates, the glamorous couple, were in the midst of the throng, and I watched them
     from afar: their practised smiles, the way they worked the room together, in a carefully
     choreographed routine, their sheen of confidence and privilege. I felt a creeping sense
     of envy. No, not envy. Rather, it was as though I was confronted with a mirror
     reflection of myself: a thirty-seven-year-old woman with nothing of permanence in her
     life. No husband, no children, no home of her own. An apartment she rents – just another
     in a long list of places she has tried and failed to make into a home. Her job the one
     constant in her life that keeps her tethered to the earth. There have been times lately
     when she’s felt that sense of displacement nudging into her work. Even in the
     office, where she feels safe, she is still in danger of slipping off.
    I kept my smile bright, and made my way
     through the crowd, escaping onto the terrace for air, to suck oxygen back into my body
     and try to calm the shaking in my hands. I sipped my champagne and felt fury curdle
     within me, fury at myself. Why had I come to this party? How onearth did I think I might fit in here? At this stage of my
     life I should know by now when to leave well enough alone.
    ‘Penny for your thoughts.’
    I turned. He was standing outside the glass
     doors. He closed them behind him so that the noise of the party was contained, and I
     watched as he came towards me, grinning. My heart was beating fast as he approached.
     Neat and unruffled in his black tuxedo, hair smoothed off his handsome face, he had a
     glass of champagne in each hand and offered one to me. ‘Looks like you’re
     running dry.’
    The air had done nothing to dispel my
     unease. Luke smiled but I couldn’t make out whether it was genuine or just that he
     was better than me at covering up his discomfort.
    ‘I was waiting for you to come and say
     hello,’ he added.
    ‘You could have come over to
     me,’ I said, defensive.
    ‘True.’ He stood alongside me
     and looked out across the city.
    ‘I had the feeling we were studiously
     avoiding one another, Katie.’
    ‘I don’t know what you
     mean.’
    And yet I felt the pull between us, and knew
     he felt it too, just as I knew he was equally aware of the past, which threatened every
     contact between us. Even the most casual encounter seemed charged with fear, regret or
     some other elusive emotion.
    ‘I didn’t think you’d be
     here,’ he said. ‘After our last conversation, I thought you’d keep
     your distance.’
    His tone, initially jokey, had softened. We
     were standing together as the last of the sunset cast the roofs of Dublinin a soft glow. I saw the glint of gold on
     his finger, and watched his hand move to cover my own.
    He left it where it was and I made no
     attempt to move mine. Further down the terrace, a group of smokers were sharing a joke.
     Their laughter reached us as we stood on the balcony, the shadows deepening in the
     streets below.
    ‘It sounded like it might be
     fun.’
    ‘You don’t look like
     you’re having fun, Katie.’
    ‘But what about you?’ I said,
     slipping my hand out from under his. ‘The golden boy. The man of the
     moment.’
    A flash of disappointment crossed his face.
     Then he laughed and made a swatting gesture, as if to bat my words away. It was hard to
     fathom. At one moment he was a businessman who’d had a couple of lucky breaks. At
     the next he had been catapulted