The First Time We Met: An utterly heart-warming and unforgettable love story

by Jo Lovett

  ‘This is a great deal for us,’ Robert said. The other managing partners in the breakfast meeting all nodded in agreement. Sam was too stunned to find the energy to bend his head and neck to join in with the nodding. It might be a great deal for the firm, but it was a terrible deal for him.

  Merging with an M&A boutique firm in Buenos Aires was ‘ideal timing’ coinciding with Sam taking up his new role. Robert had made the ‘suggestion’ – aka command – that Sam alternate weeks in Argentina and in New York ‘for the next year or so’ to oversee the merging of the two businesses. Just when things had started to improve with the kids.

  He couldn’t commute between countries. It would be life ruining. Could he row back on accepting the role? Or suggest sharing it with someone else? He was going to have to think of something. He couldn’t do any more of the ‘short-term pain, long-term gain’ thing. He and the kids needed their better life now. He looked down at the smoked salmon and eggs in front of him and pushed his plate away. He really couldn’t stomach eating right now.

  He managed a tight smile eventually, and no-one seemed to notice his quietness amongst all the braying and self-congratulation.

  * * *

  Twelve hours later and Sam had himself better under control. He threw his head back and roared with fake laughter. Looking around, he was fairly sure that everyone else was genuinely amused. There was some back slapping, some words of appreciation and some hand shaking, and then he moved himself backwards out of the group and towards Ash, at the bar.

  ‘Hey. What’re you drinking?’ Ash ran a finger round the inside of his collar. ‘Hot in here, or I’m overworked and out of shape?’ In college, Ash had been an outstanding athlete and nearly two decades on he was still a great basketball player. He was wasted in law.

  ‘Both. I’m going to have a glass of water.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Trying to live more healthily. You ever think events like this are a waste of your life?’ Sam gestured round the room. Their partners and their most important clients were eating mouth-wateringly delicious bowl food and drinking nectar-like champagne cocktails in one of the function rooms at The Fifty-First Floor, one of New York’s most exclusive venues, with extraordinary views over Manhattan.

  Ash shook his head. ‘You’re getting too philosophical. You stop appreciating these events, why are you still doing the job? I mean, I’d rather be here than at an event in a church hall somewhere. You know?’

  ‘Yeah. But, you know, I’d rather be in my apartment with the twins.’ Or in an amazing but off-the-radar local restaurant, or, actually, a greasy spoon, with Izzy. Not going to happen.

  Ash nodded. ‘I can see that. If I had, or wanted, kids, I can imagine that I’d feel differently.’

  ‘I think I’m actually just going to leave.’ Maybe Sam would rather be in a church hall, if it meant he had a regular job and a regular family life. His father had been that ‘man in a church hall’ equivalent and his family had been very happy. His father’s salary had meant that they hadn’t always had access to luxury, but Sam had done a good job of proving that a luxurious lifestyle was not enough to make either him or the kids happy.

  Suddenly, he knew. He wasn’t just going to leave these drinks now; he was going to leave his job next week. Resign from the partnership. Literally, walk away.

  Everyone in this room would be astonished. So would Izzy, if she ever found out.

  ‘Yeah, good night. Have a great weekend,’ he told Ash.

  ‘Too late.’ Ash spoke into Sam’s ear. ‘Someone very determined would like to speak to you.’ Fiona, the senior in-house attorney at a large investment bank, was heading straight towards Sam, a big smile on her very beautiful face.

  ‘Hey.’ She leaned in for an air kiss. ‘Good to see you.’ She addressed them both but her smile was only for Sam.

  Ash left them to it.

  ‘Shall we get out of here? Maybe have a nightcap?’ How was Fiona doing that? With a smile and her eyes indicating that they would definitely be ending up in bed together later? It just made Sam think about how much he liked Izzy’s lovely grey eyes. Christ. Talk about sentimental. He should go with Fiona. The kids were safe at home with Mrs H and he wasn’t expected back until late. He needed to get Izzy out of his head.

  They decided to go back to Fiona’s apartment. In the cab, Fiona flirted. Sam responded, but it was an effort. Which did not make sense. Fiona was witty, she was a successful attorney, she was gorgeous, tall, vivacious, probably as great in bed as she was great at everything else in life: exactly Sam’s type. And she didn’t look as though she’d waste time on being tied down romantically: even more his type.

  Except doing this was actually getting old. Or Sam was getting old. One or the other. He was going to be forty soon. Maybe that was it. Whichever, rather than think about the woman he was with, he was thinking about a smallish, creamy skinned, red-headed woman, who was abnormally nice to be around. And if he couldn’t be with her, he’d like to be home with his kids.

  He finished paying the taxi driver and followed Fiona out of the cab. ‘I’m so sorry, Fiona. I think I’m actually going to go straight home.’

  She stared at him for a long moment and then said, ‘Right. Thanks for nothing.’ She turned her back on him and took a key out of her bag. Yeah. He should have made this decision before they left the drinks.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said again.

  No reply. Fair enough.

  Objectively speaking, Fiona was great. But she wasn’t Izzy. Standing alone in the middle of the sidewalk, Sam felt a sudden sense of extreme loss like a blow to the stomach. He wanted to tell Izzy everything about these past few weeks. And he wanted to know how Ruby was. Most of all, he wanted to know how she was.

  Okay. Enough. He was going to go home, see the twins, and try to forget about Izzy for one night.

  Thirty

  Izzy

  Izzy looked at herself in the mirror and nodded. She looked as perfect as she could for her big Getting Back Together With Dominic evening, if she said so herself. She’d survived a particularly stressful YouTube ‘Chignon Hair Tutorial’ experience and had Helena-like hair and the beginning of a bad headache because of the extra hair pins she’d jammed into her head, but hopefully nothing two paracetamol and a couple of glasses of wine wouldn’t fix. As a handy side-effect of doing the chignon, her hair looked duller than usual because of all the hair spray she’d had to use. She was wearing nude, slightly shiny tights and the navy dress that Dominic had once bought her, with the pearls he’d given her on their wedding day and nude court shoes. And she was wearing barely there make-up, with light-pink lipstick. Demure. That’s how she looked. Perfect for Dominic’s conservative taste.

  The doorbell rang. This was it. She was going to go downstairs and Dominic was going to tell her that she looked lovely, and they were going to go out for dinner to a Michelin-starred, many-waitered restaurant, they were going to have a nice evening and then he would stay over, and tomorrow they’d spend all day with Ruby, as a family. And then they’d be a family forever.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Lily shouted from downstairs.

  ‘Thank you.’ Izzy’s voice sounded odd, possibly because she was trying not to cry.

  ‘Mummy, you look weird. You don’t look like you. I don’t like you like that. You look like when you went to the funeral.’ Ruby was standing in the doorway of Izzy’s bedroom, which after tonight was going to be Izzy and Dominic’s bedroom again, and she sounded as tearful as Izzy felt.

  Izzy looked back at her reflection. She didn’t love looking like this either.

  She was going to get changed. Yes, you should make an effort in a relationship but no, you should not compromise your own taste, unless it was truly offensive.

  She went out to the landing and called, ‘I’ll be ready in about three minutes.’

  ‘No problem,’ Dominic called back in the voice of a very punctual man who would normally be seriously stressed about her not being ready right n
ow, but who was pretty sure he was getting sex tonight, so could very magnanimously let those three minutes go.

  Sixteen minutes later, Izzy had changed into a red dress that she really liked, because when you were rekindling your marriage you should wear one of your favourite dresses, and lipstick to match, and had taken her pearls, tights and shoes off and replaced them with silver hoop earrings and black suede wedge ankle boots, so much more comfortable, and, joy and bliss, had taken the chignon out and shaken her head upside down.

  Evening.’ She walked down the stairs, smiling at Dominic. He looked good in his product-of-an-English-boarding-school way. Chinos, shirt, blazer, tasselled loafers.

  ‘Good evening.’ He smiled at her very warmly. Izzy waited for a little fizz of sex-anticipation excitement. And, yes, there was a small fizz.

  Ruby had followed Izzy down the stairs. Izzy turned round and hoiked her up into her arms for a big hug.

  ‘Love you, gorgeous girl.’ Izzy swung Ruby round and Dominic landed a smacker on her cheek. Ruby beamed. That gave Izzy a bigger fizz of pleasure.

  ‘Daddy, can I come to your flat for lunch again tomorrow after the museum?’

  ‘Of course. Mummy might come too.’

  ‘Why? It’s your flat.’ Ruby’s head swivelled between the two of them, her face suspicious. Huh. Did Ruby even want them to spend time together? Maybe she was used to them living separately now. Now Izzy thought about it, she hadn’t wet her bed at all since Dominic had moved back to London.

  ‘We’ll think about it tomorrow,’ Izzy said. ‘Good night, munchkin.’

  Dinner was pleasant. No belly laughs but definitely some chuckles. Izzy and Dominic had a lot of history together. It felt comfortable, two old friends catching up. Not incredibly romantic, but it was a long time since they’d been newly-weds. Would Emma and Rohan’s mega-passion last? Had Sam and Lana’s? Maybe it had, actually. Sam clearly still missed her hugely.

  ‘Will you be having dessert?’ The waiter was holding the pudding menus out.

  ‘Mango parfait, Izzy?’

  This was the time to say it, when they were re-starting their marriage. ‘Actually, raspberry pavlova, please.’

  Dominic’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Two pavlovas, please,’ he said to the waiter and then turned back to Izzy, the picture of Astonished Man.

  Izzy leaned forward and said, ‘I can’t stand mango.’

  ‘When did that happen?’ Dominic was still open mouthed.

  ‘Always. You misheard me the first time. I said I didn’t like mango.’ It had been on their first ever date. ‘And I didn’t want to hurt your feelings and it just went from there.’

  ‘Wow. Wow.’ He’d bought her so many mango-related presents over the years. He’d hunted down mango yoghurt when she was pregnant and she’d flushed it down the loo when he was at work. Mango chocolates. Mango notelets. A bracelet with a mango charm. A mango-wood stool as a nod to her mango love. Almost every romantic gesture he’d made during their marriage had been mango-based.

  ‘Yup.’ Izzy screwed her face up, waiting to see how Dominic would take it. He seemed stunned still.

  And then he started laughing. Proper, huge roars. And then she did too. They were still wiping their eyes when the waiter brought their puddings.

  ‘We haven’t laughed like that for a long time,’ Dominic said. He was right. Izzy had laughed like that with Sam quite a few times, though. In person and because of his emails. Bloody Sam, in her thoughts again, and on this most crucial of evenings with Dominic.

  ‘So what else don’t I know about you?’ Dominic asked. ‘Please don’t tell me you don’t like baking or Kir royales. I don’t think I could cope with the shock.’

  Izzy arranged her face into a smile, which was the right thing to do, but her mind was doing the wrong thing. She was thinking that one huge thing that Dominic did not know about was her friendship with Sam. Or what used to be a friendship anyway. No need to mention it now.

  ‘I’ve started drinking peppermint tea instead of coffee,’ she said.

  ‘Already noticed that a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Nothing, then.’ Izzy fiddled with her cutlery. It was hard to meet Dominic’s eye. She needed to get Sam out of her head.

  The waiter swooped in to refill their wine glasses, thank goodness.

  ‘This is delicious wine,’ Izzy said. ‘Which region of France is it from?’

  While they ate, Dominic talked about wine-making and told Izzy about his weekend ski trips last winter while he was in Milan. The pavlovas had reminded him of snow. He did actually have some very good stories.

  When they’d finished their pudding and the waiter had taken their plates away, Dominic reached across and took Izzy’s hands.

  ‘Could I come home with you this evening?’ He was stroking her hands with his thumbs, which did give her a minor stomach flutter.

  She looked hard at his face, so very Ruby-like. He really was a nice man. She did love him. Not in a fireworks way, but who wanted their life to be a series of Catherine wheels and sparklers. She could grow old with Dominic. She could already imagine him in slippers. Embroidered, tasselled ones. Maybe velvet.

  ‘Yes.’ She disengaged her right hand and picked up her glass of wine and downed it.

  ‘Mummy, wake up.’ Ruby’s voice and the eyelid-piercing light were both far too penetrating. Izzy was never drinking again.

  ‘In a minute.’ Izzy really didn’t want to open her eyes. She stretched. And her foot hit a hairy leg.

  Dominic’s.

  ‘Morning.’ He sounded as though he was smiling. She felt him reach out for her and his arm came into contact with her boob. Her naked boob.

  They were both naked and Ruby was in the room.

  ‘Ruby’s here,’ she hissed, wriggling away from Dominic and pulling the duvet right up round her neck.

  ‘Why’s Daddy here?’ Ruby’s voice was coming from right above Izzy’s head.

  Izzy scrunched open her eyes and looked up. Ruby’s face was drooping, like it did when she watched something she didn’t like on TV.

  ‘I stayed the night,’ Dominic said, still sounding remarkably happy.

  ‘Why?’ Ruby repeated. Good question. So that your parents could have sex.

  ‘Because he was tired,’ Izzy said. ‘Now it’s time to go downstairs and I’ll be there in two seconds to get your breakfast.’

  ‘Come now.’ Ruby wasn’t moving.

  No way was Izzy getting out of bed naked. ‘Please go now and I’ll follow.’

  ‘I want you to come with me.’

  ‘I’ll give you chocolate if you go now.’

  Ruby started trudging towards the door. ‘Are you coming soon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  As soon as Ruby was out of the room, Dominic reached out for Izzy again and nuzzled into her neck.

  The sex had been nice but this felt all wrong. Izzy pulled away from him.

  ‘Ruby’s expecting me now,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah. Later?’

  ‘Mmm.’ That thought should probably be making Izzy a lot happier than it was.

  Telling Emma and Rohan that she couldn’t make brunch because she was going to be spending the day with Dominic and Ruby was going to be awkward given the effort Emma had been to point Izzy in the direction of any man other than Dominic since they split.

  So sorry – am going to have to pull out of brunch – big news – Dominic and I spending the weekend together! Xx

  It felt like it would be easier to drip-feed the back-together-with-Dominic news to Emma.

  Emma’s message came through over ten minutes after the two blue ticks appeared.

  No worries, have a lovely time! Xx

  Very un-Emma-like. If she thought Izzy was doing the right thing she’d have been extremely effusive. Her message could be translated as ‘What the hell are you thinking, you idiot’. This was actually really annoying. Emma should just be happy for her.

  Izzy was going to ignore Emma and have a nice family Sun
day putting up their Christmas tree and decorations with her daughter and husband.

  Thirty-One

  Sam

  Sam picked his phone up from the kitchen worktop and re-read the message from Barney’s teacher.

  It was a month since he’d resigned, and the kids were doing so well.

  Barney had been selected for his junior high school debating team. This was incredible. Fantastic. There weren’t actually enough superlatives to describe it. He wished he could tell Izzy. She’d be so proud.

  It was eight weeks now since they’d last spoken by email. Izzy copied Sam on her emails to Barney but he didn’t open them.

  It wasn’t just Barney. There were other things he’d like to tell her too. A lot had changed in the past few weeks.

  He recalled this phase of bereavement from when Lana had died. He remembered when they moved back to New York, realising that if she’d somehow returned then, she’d have slotted right back into his and the twins’ lives, but further down the line, he’d have had to explain to her what had been happening. If Lana came back now, eight years on, there’d be so much to tell her.

  And with Izzy, he’d already got to the point where he’d have to fill her in on stuff. The big news, that he’d turned down an amazing role and instead resigned, and was now handing his clients over to other partners. Plus all the drama there’d been with Liv when she ran away and the conversation about the accident. Izzy also didn’t know that he could now cook a variety of non-pasta dishes, unaided. Or that he and the twins had been to a one-off painting session and adored it.

  It was really sad. And it was as though he’d always have an Izzy-shaped hole in his life. And he’d done it to himself.

  Why had he never told her he loved her again?

  He could have tried talking to Liv, explained to her how he felt about Izzy, told her that no-one would ever replace her and Barney in his affections but that he also loved Izzy. There was also the New York/London issue but maybe they could have worked that out. They could at least have tried.