The Bridesmaid's Secret. Sophie Weston

she said loudly.

      ‘Let me come up.’

      And if she had?

      This is crazy, she told herself. Too much emotion followed by too much salsa. I have never reacted to a man like that in my life. It isn’t even as if I’m looking for a relationship. I know I’ve got to get over Kosta before I can do that. If I ever do.

      So what on earth is going on?

      She could not answer that. She tried, for hours it seemed. At six-thirty she gave up. The sky was still dark but the midnight blackness had gone.

      Traffic started to rumble. The undefeated birds who stuck it out through the New York winter started to twitter. Bella usually left crumbs and water for them on the fire escape. Every morning she went out and broke the ice in the bowl.

      Reminded now, she untangled herself from the covers. She pulled on track-suit bottoms, Aran sweater, gloves, and woolly hat and began to struggle with the dead-bolts.

      ‘Let me come up.’

      She had not let any man into this eyrie of hers. Privacy might be painful but it was precious. Until now she had not been tempted. Why had Gil Whoever-he-was been the first to offer that dark temptation?

      The trouble was, that bit was easy. He was gorgeous. All that dark intensity. The way he moved. The way he kissed.

      Forget the way he kissed, Bella advised herself dourly. He’s leaving New York and just as well. How many complications do you want in your life at one time?

      She got the door open. The small birds retreated to a neighbour’s guttering and sat there, lined up like a border patrol, watching her. She picked up the stick she kept for the purpose and smashed the ice. It was thinner than it had been last week. So there was no accounting for the violence with which she went at it. Bella shivered, put the stick down and clapped her gloved hands together.

      What was it about him?

      All right, he was a good dancer. So were half the men in New York. Anyway, she couldn’t let a man get under her guard just because he knew how to slide his hips round hers. It was crazy. Even in her former days of extreme party-going, she had never lost sleep over a guy she had danced with once.

      The birds watched her. She fetched the wild birdseed she had bought to augment her stale bread and scattered it. A lot missed the old plate she had designated as a bird feeder and fell through the ironwork. A few of the braver birds left their guttering and started picking among the seeds four floors below.

      The little flock pushed and jostled and flew at each other. They looked like children in a playground before school. Small struggles but basically companionable. Bella smiled, remembering how she’d set up a skipping game she had learned on the street when she’d gone to the first smart school that her stepfather, Tony, had sent her to. She had not done too badly at fitting into the new rich crowd. She was not doing too badly at fitting in here either, come to that. It was just—

      The cold of exile struck suddenly, as it always did. It was shocking as a knife slash. Bella bit her cold lip until it bled.

      But it was her own fault. She need not have been alone this morning.

      ‘Let me come up.’

      Her blood still hummed, like the crazy moment when she so nearly had done just that.

      Yet, if she had, she would still have been alone this morning, Bella thought. Even if he was still here, she would have been alone. She had been alone ever since Annis and Kosta fell in love. And she started to pretend.

      I’ll be pretending for the rest of my life, she thought desolately.

      Bella was shivering badly. She went back inside and flung the bolts into place.

      But she did not want to go back to the rumpled, lonely bed. Instead she made herself some coffee and sat at the breakfast bar. She had flung her notebooks down there yesterday. Now she pulled them towards her, starting to rough out another of her New in Town columns. Rita Caruso had not commissioned it but what the heck? If she had a piece ready and they had a slot to fill, it might come in handy. At least it took her mind off the irresolvable dilemma of what on earth was going on last night.