Carrie Blake - The Woman Before You - An intense, addictive love story with an unexpected twist...

Matthew cupped my elbow and leaned in close to my ear. ‘I’m glad you came, Isabel.’

Nothing seemed real. Not Matthew, not the wine, not the party, not the other guests trying not to watch us. I’d spent so much time imagining this. How could it be coming true?

I leaned back into him, ‘Who are these people? I recognize some of them, I mean from the news and magazines, but…’

‘I thought you knew. I assumed you would Google the foundation and figure out the rest. I work for Val Morton. This is a fundraiser for the Foundation. This is where Val and Heidi live.’

I couldn’t stop myself from saying, ‘The letter I sent you came back.’

‘What letter?’

‘A letter I sent to the place in Brooklyn Heights. Where we had drinks on the terrace. Let’s watch the sunset. The mattress … your apartment. Remember?’

‘ Right. Well, you’re not the only one who can pretend to be somebody else for a minute or two. Truth is, that was Val’s apartment. Part of my job was to keep that fact out of the papers. Because when there was all that trouble, the PR was that he wasn’t building it for himself—but I assumed you would figure that out. That’s hilarious, really.’

‘I just assumed it was yours…’ I was trying to remember if he’d actually said anything to suggest that it was his apartment.

‘What made you think that?’

‘Didn’t you say that you were moving and didn’t want to take your old mattress with you?’ I was getting my stories mixed up—when was Matthew playing The Customer and when was Matthew just being the real Matthew?

‘I was,’ he said. ‘And I didn’t. But that wasn’t the same mattress. I bought that one for Val and Heidi. That was their apartment. Did I not make that clear?’

Something still didn’t add up. He must have gotten my card with the picture of the melon if he’d sent me back a card with a picture of the world. And yet he was refusing to answer, or choosing to ignore, my question about it. Was he just messing with my head? I didn’t want to think that was true, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t like the slippage, the questions that suddenly rose in my mind about what was real and what wasn’t, what was true and what was a lie. For a moment everything seemed like a mind game in a thriller … and then I calmed down. After that it just seemed quirky and interesting. Funny.

No wonder he didn’t want to have sex on someone else’s mattress.

‘It’s crazy how two people can have a complete misunderstanding. Isn’t it, Isabel?’

I loved how he said my name. I hadn’t misunderstood what had happened on the mattress at the store, nor the feeling of his hand on my back beneath my T-shirt as we’d looked at someone else’s bed in someone else’s apartment.

‘Let me introduce you,’ he said, and steered me over to Val Morton, who was surrounded by a group of older men with good haircuts and much younger wives.

For some reason they shifted to make room for Matthew and me.

‘Val Morton,’ said Matthew, ‘I’d like you to meet my friend, Isabel Archer.’

Val Morton smiled his famous smile and looked me up and down.

‘Beautiful name,’ he said.’ Is that your real name? Wait a second. Don’t tell me. Portrait of a Lady . Early Nicole Kidman. Malkovich was amazing.’

‘My mom’s a big Henry James fan,’ I said.

‘See?’ he said. ‘Didn’t I call it? Let’s give me some credit.’

His friends made admiring gestures and noises.

‘You’re sure it’s not a stage name?’ he said. ‘You’re an actress, right?’

Failed actress, I thought. Shit. Was it that obvious?

‘I can always tell. I spent the best years of my life in the industry. There’s something about how you hold yourself, how you study the world, I can watch you figuring out what other people are feeling. Figuring out what you can steal. Or should I say borrow ?’

‘That’s my real name. And thank you,’ I said.

‘She’s perfect,’ Val Morton told Matthew.

Then he turned to me and said, ‘Nice to meet you, Jessica.’

‘Isabel. Nice to meet you too.’

Morton’s attention drifted back to the men in his group. Matthew led me away.

‘Perfect for what?’ I said.

‘Huh?’

‘He told you I was perfect. As if he had something in mind. Perfect for what?’

‘Perfect,’ said Matthew. ‘You’re perfect. How many different things does perfect mean?’

A waiter put a full wine glass in each of our hands, and I drank mine in a few gulps.

It was happening. I was here with him. I would try to be what he wanted, if I could figure out what that was. He didn’t seem to expect me to say much as he took me around to groups of partygoers and introduced me mostly to young men, all of whom seemed to work for Val. I smiled. Nice to meet you. None of them was as handsome or as hot as Matthew. We navigated around the circles surrounding the actors and politicians and socialites whose faces were so famous that even I recognized them.

Glasses of wine kept appearing in Matthew’s hand. He kept passing them to me, and I kept drinking. It helped fuzz out the rest of the room, which was fuzzy to begin with, and it brought him—only him—into focus. After a while he was the only thing I could see.

‘Should we leave?’ he said. Together? He’d said we . I could hardly keep my voice steady as I said, ‘Sure!’ That high little squeak didn’t even sound like me.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Let’s blow this clam shack.’

‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ I said.

‘Brilliant. So do I. I’ll show you where it is. This place is a maze.’

There was a powder room downstairs off the living room. Matthew tried the doorknob.

‘Occupied,’ someone yelled.

‘Okay. Follow me.’

He knew his way around the maze, taking me through one of the closed doors at the end of the corridor and down another short hall where three steps led up to the private wing. How did he seem so comfortable in his boss’s private space?

He was holding my hand now, friendly but neutral, the way you’d hold a child’s hand, crossing the street.

‘Guess how many bathrooms this place has,’ he said.

‘Five?’ I said.

‘Double it,’ he said.

‘Why does anyone need ten bathrooms?’ The question didn’t interest him. I was sorry I asked.

‘I’ll show you the best one,’ he said. ‘The craziest one. As long as we’re here, what the hell?’

I should have known that in order to reach the ‘best’ bathroom, we would have to experience the full pageantry of Morton and Heidi’s bedroom. I don’t know what it was supposed to be. A Renaissance Venetian Vegas palace French bordello with all the modern conveniences. A billionaire’s sex cave. We paused in the doorway, just as we had in what had turned out to be the Mortons’ Brooklyn Heights apartment. We seemed to spend a lot of our time looking at other people’s bedrooms.

Again, I wondered how he knew so much about his boss’s bedroom and private bathroom? Had he come here with Heidi? Or with Morton? Did they give him orders from bed?

He said, ‘Managing both apartments, that is, managing the people who manage both apartments, is part of my job. Not the most exciting part, but the buck stops here. And the two of them can be monsters. If Morton runs out of toilet paper, he’s capable of firing every employee down the food chain starting with me.’

I didn’t want to imagine Morton and Heidi in that beautiful bed. But I wouldn’t have minded lying down. I felt tired and hot and drunk.

But first, right … the bathroom.

The bathroom was as large as my entire apartment, a gold-fauceted, marble-tiled, dazzlingly white Roman bath. The toilet, the bathtub, and the steam shower each had its own separate room.