Page 3 of High Season
She had liked him immediately.
“Why psychology?” he had asked her on their first date, at a cocktail bar with views over the Thames.
Nina had taken a sip of the too-sweet mojito she already regretted ordering and considered her answer.
“I want to be able to understand people,” she had said.
“Do you think that you need psychology to understand people?”
“I think that you need psychology to understandyourself, never mind other people,” she had said, and then been faintly embarrassed by how easily the answer came. What it might say about her. She did not want this smart, older guy who seemed so self-assured to think she was the sort of person who didn’t really know or understand herself, in spite of her psychology degree.
But he had just nodded, and pushed his square-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose in a way that Nina found sweet, and slightly nerdy. Attractive in a way she couldn’t quite quantify.
“Good answer,” he had said, as if it were a test and Nina had passed.
It was Ryan who had suggested dinner for their second date. The idea had felt strangely adult, a performance of romance that Nina wasn’t used to. Dinner dates were the things that her mother used to go on, and the words evoked memories of perfume and silken dresses, her mother patting her hair in front of a long mirror and telling Nina and Blake that there was food on a plate in the refrigerator if they got hungry. Nina was more accustomed to university romances. Sleeping with a guy long enough during her first year to eventually be called his girlfriend. A friend with benefits she had fallen for two terms before who got a place on a graduate scheme in America, and had looked at Nina with genuine disbelief when she suggested there might be something more between them.
But she liked how confident Ryan was. How intelligent, and interesting. She liked that he seemed completely oblivious to celebrity gossip, furrowing his brows and sayingWho?when Nina referenced Kris Jenner.
She liked the way he looked at her with approval in his eyes. The way it made her feel.
And now, she was sitting across the table from him, knowing that what she was about to say could change everything.
“I’ve got a brother,” she said. “Blake. He’s twelve years older than me.”
From the table next to them came the rise and fall of laughter. A murmur of conversation.
Nina took a deep breath.
“And I had a sister,” she said. “She and Blake were twins. But she died when she was seventeen.”
She had Ryan’s full attention now.
“Oh my god,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“But still. That must have been terrible.”
“I don’t really remember much about it,” said Nina. “I was only five.”
She lifted her drink and took a long, slow sip. The heat of the alcohol slid straight through her. She set down her glass harder than she had intended.
“It was actually a pretty big thing, at the time,” Nina allowed. “She was killed by somebody.”
Ryan didn’t speak. Didn’t move.
“There was a trial,” Nina said. “A girl whose mother worked for us, the housekeeper’s daughter. She used to spend all her time around our house. Babysitting me, or helping out with the housework. She was sixteen. I had to give evidence.”
For the first time in Nina’s life, the words came easily. It was something she’d talked about so rarely, even though it was often the first thing that people knew about her. She hadn’t even told Claire until they’d been friends for over a year, one night after drinking cheap merlot out of coffee mugs, sprawled on Nina’s bed.
“I already knew,” Claire had confessed, her mouth stained red. For the first time in all the months Nina had known her, she was bashful rather than brash. Embarrassed for Nina, for thinking that she had a secret, when all the world knew.
Ryan’s eyes widened.
“You gave evidence when you were five?”
“I had to,” Nina said. “I was the only one who saw.”
