Ebony & Ivory [H.S]

Forty-Nine

"I know," I say, offering him a smile. "By the way, do you have the number of a taxi service?"

"Don't be silly, I can take you. At least have breakfast first. I'll get my housekeeper to make you something."

Leaning over to an intercom system, he speaks into it.

"Mina, can I please get some breakfast in here for two. Pancakes, fruit, some poached eggs on rye, and-"

"No," I say firmly, cutting off his sentence. "I mean, no thank you. I have a lot to do today," I lie. "I'd rather just get home."

"Please, I insist," he tries, and I politely shake my head.

"Thank you, but not this time. I'll just catch a taxi and be out of your way."

Getting up, he reveals he was indeed wearing underwear as he walks to his enormous walk-in closet, that puts anyone else's to shame. I catch a glimpse of particular details, and almost feel a sense of annoyance. Celia and I used to always laugh about Vic, and suggest that he was definitely compensating for something. It turns out we were wrong. Very wrong indeed.

"Give me a minute, and I'll take you," he offers, and I feel like I don't really know the person I shared a bed with last night. I only knew him as the cocky, arrogant bàstard he was... or is, but this guy isn't the same. Which part of him is real?

We go back and forth with the polite 'you don't have to!' and 'I insist,' and the 'are you sure?' game before I accept that he's taking me home. We exit his beautiful suite in an elevator, where he leads me over to his Audi R8 that's parked in his building's underground car park. As we drive out of the garage, we see a number of awaiting paparazzi waiting outside, just waiting to get the valuable 'walk of shame' shot to infer that we'd indeed slept together the night before. I'm very thankful they don't seem to notice us as we drive away.

"Do you mind if I charge my phone?" I ask, grabbing his charger and doing it anyway. "My battery is completely dead."

Laughing, he waves his hand. "Go right ahead. Though it's 50p per minute," he jokes.

"I'm not really used to such shocking weather for the first day of the year," I admit conversationally. Ironically, the weather is portraying my current mood, so it's only fitting.

"That's London for you, love."

No matter how much I go over the break up in my mind, I still can't seem to explain what happened, or even why it happened. Harry and I genuinely were very happy. People that knew both of us would look to our relationship with a sense of unreserved jovial envy, and we knew what we had was rare. The sort of love you're not looking for, but cannot be ignored. But then, like an object he no longer has use of, he discarded me. I wasn't what he wanted anymore, and he cut me out of his life for his own convenience. I wonder if that would have been worse than a relationship that slowly dies. A relationship where each of you can feel the looming end date. I believe that without a doubt, it's much worse when you don't see it coming. If I felt it coming, then perhaps I could have at least prepared myself. You wouldn't need to spend all your waking hours dedicated to searching for signs or clues that you might have missed throughout the time shared together. You don't spend time asking questions that you know you'll never get the answers to, and instead are expected to just accept things as they are. But what if I don't want to accept it?

"What's on your mind?" he asks me, looking over briefly to make eye contact with me.

"Nothing," I reply, shaking my head. "Why?"

"It's just that you looked really sad. Whatever it was, it's probably not worth your worries."

I offer him a small, tight lipped smile, thankful for his newfound friendliness. Far from what I expected from him, and quite refreshing that he hasn't hit on me, or even offered me cocaine for that matter.