Celeste unhooked her suit hanger. ‘Worked hard for it. Deserve to show it off. Bye, sweetie.’ With an unapologetic wave, she was gone.
Skye picked up her pen and went back to her books with a nonchalant shrug. ‘Could be worse. At least she doesn’t post daily selfies on Insta. One a week on Facebook is enough to make sure everyone over thirty she’s ever met knows that she’s got an arse like a rock.’
Mitchell barely heard over the noise of his internal dialogue. This was the moment of truth. Was he really going to do this? Was he actually going to follow his wife like some weirdo stalker husband? Had they really sunk that low?
He picked up his car keys. ‘I’m heading over to the boxing gym to get a couple of rounds in.’ Hello, gutter.
Skye barely glanced up at him. ‘Cool. Go and be a middle-aged man who hits another bloke for fun. Perfectly normal pastime for a forty-five year old lawyer. If you took up archery, you could maybe spear a few people in the street as well.’
Mitchell didn’t rise to it – just kissed her on the head as he passed on his way out. Both his daughters had been blessed with Agnetha’s dry sense of humour and they weren’t afraid to use it, usually at his expense. Not that he minded. He wanted his girls to be able to stand up for themselves in this world.
Maybe that was what he was doing now. Fighting his own corner. It was the thought he needed to get him out of the door and to his Merc GLE, parked at the bottom of the steps up to their townhouse. In his twenties and thirties, he’d gone for sports cars, but now it was all about space and comfort. Yet another sign of getting older. Maybe it was time for a midlife crisis flip back to Ferrari central. Not exactly unobtrusive when following the wife though.
Her car – a white Porsche 911 – was just pulling out of the end of the street, turning left, with a few cars in between them. He hung back, wary of being spotted.
This was ridiculous. He could still stop and go back, redeem the day and his opinion of himself. Yet his foot felt like it was made of lead and was refusing to leave the accelerator.
He followed her for ten minutes as she snaked through the West End, finally stopping outside a glass fronted studio on Hyndland Road, not far from The Ginger Sponge.
The Bends. A yoga studio.
Fuck. She was doing exactly what she said she was going to do.
Okay, this was his chance to go home. Forget this. Swallow the shame and put it down to an error of judgement that no one ever had to know about.
But then…
An orange Volkswagen Beetle pulled out of a parking space right in front of him. Was this a sign that he should just wait it out? And why was he, the most pragmatic, non-superstitious man, suddenly thinking that complete coincidences were anything more than that? Christ, this was all messing with his mind and sending him batshit crazy.
With a jerking action that made the driver in the car behind him furiously beep their horn, he pulled in, parked, and leaned his head back against the seat, heart racing faster than it was after this morning’s five kilometres.
Across the road, about fifty metres ahead, he could see Celeste climb out of the car and take her kit bag and suit carrier into the yoga studio.
He switched off the engine. Needed to think. Go over the facts. Weigh up the evidence. Wasn’t that his area of expertise in his career?
He took note of the time – just after 10.30 a.m. – and closed his eyes, rewinding to the day, about six months ago, that he first suspected Celeste had checked out of their marriage and checked into someone else’s life.
The charity ball at the Glasgow Hilton was one of her recurring annual events. The Derek Evans Charity for Young Athletes. A former football player for a Scottish premier league team, who went on to play for a couple of top European clubs before finishing his career in Barcelona, Derek Evans was the local Glasgow boy done good. If you didn’t count years of tabloid headlines about his high profile affairs, which led to more headlines about his three divorces. Or was it four? Now he was living back in Glasgow and raised money every year for grass-roots football, supplying kits and upgrading facilities across the country, most of it funded by the annual shindig that brought the football glitterati, past and present, to the linen covered tables of ten with their chequebooks open.
Of course, since Celeste was organising the event, Mitchell supported it by buying a table on behalf of his company and he and his partner, Leo Oswald, had taken along eight of their top clients. Never hurt to inject a bit of social glamour into a professional relationship.
Halfway through the night, he’d begun to get an uncharacteristic feeling of unease. A couple of rows away, at the front, middle, VIP table, he could see Celeste sitting on Derek Evans’ left and they were deep in conversation. He’d shrugged it off. He’d never been the jealous type and had no reason to feel insecure. Yet…
His eyes were drawn back, time and time again, as he’d realised that to anyone in the room, Celeste and Derek looked like a couple, constantly in conversation, laughing, casually tactile and paying very little attention to anyone else.
Back then, he had a thought that felt like a sucker punch to the gut. Is that what Aggs had seen when he and Celeste began seeing each other behind his wife’s back?
There it was again. The karma. And the worst thing of all was that, despite a million pathetic excuses of justification, he deserved it.
The rest of the night had passed in a fake smiling, anxiety whirling, blur. He had to talk to her. And he had to choose his moment.
It came the next morning. When he’d woken, he’d reached over, tenderly traced a finger along her cheek as she’d roused from her sleep. ‘Morning, darling.’
She’d flinched. Pulled away. Rolled over. Ouch.
Later that evening, he’d gone for the direct approach. ‘You and Derek Evens were pretty chummy last night,’ he’d said over a late supper of steak and asparagus, delivered in because Celeste refused to cook at the weekend. Or any other night for that matter. Skye was at her mum’s, so they had the house to themselves.
Celeste had responded with a flippant dismissal. ‘He’s a client and it’s my job to keep him happy.’
‘How happy?’ Jesus, he’d hated himself for sounding like a jealous teenager.
That one brought out his wife’s death stare. ‘Seriously? What are you implying, Mitch? You think I’m having an affair?’
‘Are you?’
She’d picked up her wine glass and taken a sip. ‘Well, wouldn’t that be ironic?’
They had both let the truth of that sit for a moment before she’d uttered a sigh that oozed irritation.
‘No, I’m not having an affair. Derek is good fun, he’s a client, and trust me, if I wanted to look elsewhere, I’d tell you first.’
They’d had that agreement right from the start and it was hard to argue. Celeste was the most upfront woman he’d ever met. She saw what she wanted and went after it every time. If she wanted someone else, wouldn’t she already be out of here?
He’d braced himself for an argument, but suddenly her shoulders had relaxed down a couple of inches and she’d purred, ‘Ooh, it’s a bit sexy that you’re jealous though. I kinda like it.’
Pushing her plate away, she’d wrapped her perfect manicure around his neck, kissed him, her tongue probing and teasing, and his concerns were instantly silenced. Aggs once accused him of being controlled by his dick, and in that moment, she was 100 per cent accurate. As he’d lifted Celeste up, she’d curled her legs around his waist and he took a few steps to