‘You know, I started out wanting to be a fashion buyer...’
She pressed the tip of her pen hard into the pad. Not the designers, then. She lifted her eyes. ‘Oh?’
Eline took a hearty sip from her glass. ‘I did a business degree then took a position with a fashion event company to get experience and to make contacts. I got spotted by an agency scout at one of our shows and, before I knew it, I was being signed by Models Ten. It was crazy. My then-husband and I were like, Can this be real?’
Her heart tripped. She hadn’t expected Eline to mention Theo. She drew in a slow breath, trying to stop the colour rising into her cheeks. She had to look interested, but she didn’t want to provoke a further outpour by asking a question. She’d specifically told Theo that this would be just another job; that his privacy wouldn’t be infringed. She forced herself to smile. ‘Wow!’
Eline sipped from her glass again, eyes sparkling. ‘Wow, wow, wow more like! It was so exciting, Mia! It all seemed so glamorous. The designers, the clothes, the catwalk—I loved it!’ Her eyes clouded suddenly. ‘But, you know, everything comes with a price tag.’
To pick it up or let it lie... Her nerves were jangling. She slowly drew a circle on her note pad then met Eline’s gaze. ‘I suppose there must be down sides.’
‘And then some! Everybody wants you when you’re in the limelight. You get used to being the centre of attention. I’m afraid fame went to my head. I lost sight of...’ She smoothed a perfectly manicured hand over the leg of her trousers. ‘There were things that I didn’t handle well. Things I regret.’
Mia didn’t want to delve into Eline’s past; it was too close to the bone. She picked up her glass, sipped slowly. There was no subtle way of shifting the conversation back to the designers. All she could do was try to defuse the bomb. She set her glass down. ‘Everyone has regrets.’
‘Yes, but some are harder to live with than others. Like when you know you hurt someone very badly...and you can’t take it back.’
Mia moistened her lips slowly. Eline hadn’t mentioned his name, but she knew that this was about Theo. ‘Maybe we should talk about the designers...?’
‘We’ll get to the designers, but I want you to understand how I came to be organising this event. My disillusionment with the fashion industry and all the things I regret have played a part.’ Eline’s perfect mouth hardened for a moment. ‘Nothing of this must go into what you write, but it’s context, and...’ her lips softened into a wistful smile ‘...it’s good to talk, right?’
Mia nodded, heart pounding. If Eline knew about her and Theo, she wouldn’t be talking like this, but she couldn’t close her ears, or just up and leave. She was trapped and...was it wrong to be a little bit curious?
Eline topped up her wine glass and took a long, slow sip. ‘My husband was a wonderful man. Handsome, kind...noble.’ It was unsettling to hear Eline using the same descriptors Mia used in her own mind when she thought about Theo. ‘He’d had a poor start in life—a violent, alcoholic father—massive insecurity. He rejected everything about his childhood. He was very driven. He craved financial security, built a very successful business on the back of his disadvantages. We married fresh out of university because he wanted... I don’t know...to feel safe.’
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, sipped from her glass again. ‘Because of his father, he would never touch alcohol, but his brother did; too much and too often. Around the time I started modelling, he realised that his brother was becoming dependent. He wouldn’t hear of rehab. Instead, he bought a house on one of the northern islands. He took his brother there, spent weeks at a time trying to straighten him out. He never gave up trying, even though his brother kept falling off the wagon.’
She lowered her eyes and fingered the stem of her glass. ‘I got impatient. I wanted my husband’s undivided attention. I wanted him to come to my fashion shows, and to the parties, but his brother always came first. It seemed that everyone loved me, except him. I was jealous and then I grew bitter. I had an affair—to get back at him, I suppose—and I said things...cruel, hurtful things...that I’ll regret for the rest of my life.’
Bram, the chef—an alcoholic! The strange glitch she’d felt that night in the kitchen with Madelon and Theo...the way the atmosphere had changed when she’d asked Madelon about her other brother. The beach house on Texel... He’d bought it for Bram, had looked after him personally for weeks at a time. Such devotion. Rehab would have been the obvious solution, but he’d chosen his brother over his wife, and she’d lashed out, hurt him badly when he’d only been trying to do the right thing. And now Bram was the secret he couldn’t bring himself to share...
‘I see why you write so well, Mia.’
Blue eyes came into focus. ‘Excuse me...?’
‘You’re crying. You feel things deeply. It’s why your writing is so...absorbing.’
Mia wiped her eyes with her fingertips, took a small sip of water. ‘It was a sad situation...’ It would be impossible to explain the twist of fate that had brought her here, the real reason for her tears.
‘It was a sad situation, made worse by me.’ Eline shifted on the sofa. ‘I was so caught up in the fickle trappings of the crazy world I was in that I didn’t see it until it was too late...’
‘See what?’
‘That I’d lost the best thing in my life.’
Suddenly Eline’s china-blue gaze felt like a prison. She wanted to pick up her things and run to Theo’s house on Herengracht, but she had to see the
