Jack coughed and shuffled on his stool. That was another thing he hated about this restaurant, the uncomfortable seating. Good. ‘Ah, like I said, we met in a nightclub. I was out with the boys; she was out with a mate. We got talking. You know how it is.’
She felt him wince as she snapped her chopsticks apart. ‘You owe me more than that, Jack. If Cara is going to be part of our lives, I need to know what kind of relationship you had. How serious it was.’ They’d done the relationship history chat but rarely ever referred to their exes. When she’d admitted that she’d split from her long-term ex-boyfriend after discovering that he’d cheated on her – more than once – Jack had been horrified. Circling her with his arms, he’d promised that he would never hurt her, never lie or risk their relationship. And now? Was history repeating itself?
For a few moments, he didn’t reply. Rebecca ignored the fact he was looking at her and reached out to take a yellow bowl of avocado maki. Her throat was tight, but she pinched one between chopsticks and put it in her mouth.
Jack followed her lead, maybe to buy a bit more time, and took a bowl of fried rice, which he pushed around the bowl with a plastic fork. Eventually, he spoke. ‘Well, she caught my eye because she was, well, obviously attractive.’ He glanced up at Rebecca to gauge her reaction. ‘Are you sure you want to know all the details?’
Did he think she’d be jealous? It was a fact: Cara was very attractive. Possibly too thin but definitely attractive. She swallowed the maki almost whole. ‘Keep going.’
Jack stared at the flower in her Jasmine tea, watching it unfurl. ‘I think it was also because she was… I don’t know, there was something about her. She was different. The women I’d dated up to then had all been of a certain type. Private school. Very confident. Cara was confident too, but there was an undercurrent to her confidence. She was kind of… fragile, I guess.’
This was more like the Jack she knew. Protective and caring. On holiday in Greece that summer, she’d had to dissuade him from adopting a three-legged dog who’d followed them home from the beach. He had a big heart. And could be a complete sucker.
They were interrupted by one of the chefs wielding a fish knife. He nodded towards their lack of food. ‘You want something made to order?’
‘No, we’re fine with what’s here, thanks.’ Rebecca took a bowl of chicken gyoza and held it aloft to prove her words. As soon as he’d gone, Rebecca prompted Jack. ‘So, she was different?’
Jack sighed. Had he hoped she was going to let him skip anything? ‘Yes. She was funny and independent and didn’t care what she said about anything or anyone. She was a lot of fun, to be honest.’
‘Did you sleep with her that first night?’ There was no reason why this should be remotely relevant but it was out of her mouth before she could stop it.
Jack gulped his Asahi beer. ‘Yes. We went back to the place she was staying. I stayed overnight.’
‘And where was she staying? Her own place? With a friend? Parents?’
Jack leaned forward so that he could see her face. ‘Rebecca, look at me. Why do you want to know all this?’
‘I just want to know what kind of person she is. She’s staying in my house, Jack. You seem to have complete trust that we can just come and go from the house, leaving her there alone, and not come back to find we’ve been robbed or she’s invited another bunch of homeless mothers to spend the night, or the week, or the month!’ The strength of her anger – albeit hissed under her breath so the young couple next to them couldn’t overhear – surprised even her, so it was no wonder that Jack looked as if he’d been slapped.
He raised his hands in submission. ‘Okay. Okay. She was staying on a friend’s sofa. I don’t know if you picked it up from what she said, but she really does not have a good relationship with her parents. She never went into details but I have always assumed that her father wasn’t a good man. Possibly even abusive in some way. And her mother, well, all she ever said about her mother was that she couldn’t look out for herself, let alone anyone else.’
Though she didn’t want to, Rebecca felt a twinge of sympathy. ‘I see.’
Jack dropped his gaze, went back to twirling his bottle of beer. ‘Which is why she ended up moving in with me.’
Rebecca was nearly asphyxiated by her second bite of the gyoza. She turned around on the high stool so fast it squeaked. ‘What?’
He looked at her imploringly. ‘What could I do? She was sofa-surfing from friend to friend – I think she even stayed in a squat at one point. And there I was in a large flat subsidised by my parents.’
Middle-class guilt. Was that part of the attraction of Cara? A charity case that he could look after and benefit with his wealthy largesse? She knew she wasn’t being fair. Jack could no more control the type of family he’d been born into than she could. And he had never been boastful about his parents’ wealth.
But she couldn’t help the twinge of discomfort at the fact he had moved Cara in so quickly. She and Jack had dated for almost a year before they’d decided to take their relationship to that next level. ‘Exactly how soon did she move in?’
Jack coughed, seemed to suddenly realise that his bottle was empty and signalled to one of the staff that he’d like another. ‘The next night.’
They sat in silence for the minute that it took the second beer to arrive. Rebecca was starting to get a picture of Cara’s behaviour and it wasn’t warming her towards her unwanted guest. ‘I see.’
Jack must have realised how it sounded. ‘It wasn’t really official. She stayed over and then she didn’t have anywhere lined up to go and then she ended up staying a few more days and then it was easier to give her a key and—’
‘How long?’ Rebecca interrupted. ‘How long did you live together?’
Jack grabbed an orange bowl of yakisoba which had almost passed them and placed it in front of her. ‘That’s your favourite, isn’t it?’
She stared at the bowl of noodles, tangled with chicken and vegetables. ‘How long, Jack?’
‘It must have been seven or eight months. I was still working in King’s Cross when I met her, and I’d moved to Liverpool Street when it all came to an end.’
Rebecca felt sick and it wasn’t the sushi. ‘Which is when you met me.’
Jack shook his head. ‘No. I had finished with her before then. You know that. You came back to my apartment that first night. You know I wasn’t living with anyone.’
Rebecca blushed at the memory. There was absolutely nothing wrong with sleeping with someone on a first date. But she had never done it before – and they hadn’t exactly even been on a date. ‘Okay, so why did it end?’
Jack shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I think we were just too different. All the things I liked about her – the unpredictability, the don’t-give-a-shit attitude – just wore thin. I realised that I wasn’t in love with her. And our lives – what we wanted from our lives – were just too different.’
For all her dark good looks and great figure, Rebecca couldn’t imagine Jack taking Cara for Sunday lunch at his managing director’s house. ‘So, how did you break it off? And what happened to her?’