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But for now I need to step away. I want to get this conversation right.’ Gustav opened the desk drawer with unnecessary force and took out the gallery key. ‘It took balls for you to come here today, and I salute you for that. We will talk again, and I promise I will listen too. So I’m suggesting we meet at my apartment when we’re all back in New York. New Year’s Eve. How about that for a symbolic date to start afresh?’
    ‘You know what? For the first time in five years I agree with you.’ Pierre’s shoulders and fists dropped. The blaze of animosity was fading. ‘But you’re the one who’s talking as if we’re business associates scheduling a summit meeting.’
    Gustav stared at Pierre for so long that I wondered if he had lost the power of speech. The physical resemblance of the brothers, yet contrasting fire and ice, was mind-blowing. I knew Gustav could be controlled, but this towering silence was something else. God, I still had so much to learn about my lover. Because Pierre, despite himself, was dwindling in front of Gustav’s calm authority. The fight was seeping out of him.
    ‘That’s become my default position after losing the person I loved most in the world.’ Gustav looked straight at his brother as if he was relieved to be able to say the words at last. ‘It may not look like it, but I’m struggling to keep it together.’
    ‘I came here hoping to find something I’d lost.’ Pierre’s voice was barely audible now. ‘So you promise? That we’ll talk?’
    At last. Some kind of fragile calm had come over the room. The first glimpse of what the brothers were like once upon a time. The younger pleading with, needing, the older.
    ‘You have found it, P. I promise. New Year’s Eve is when we’ll continue this. But Serena and I have packing to do and a plane to catch, and I need to be alone with her.’
    Gustav’s voice regained its strength and clarity. He tossed the gallery key carefully in his hand. I wanted to run to him, wrap my arms around him, but I also wanted to drag him towards his brother, heal this debacle with some kind of initial touch, some kind of real contact that would mean a thousand words and keep us all going. But this was not the time. All those toxic words were still reverberating in the air.
    Pierre nodded. ‘Fine. But next time we meet I will tell everyone the final nugget Margot told me. Then we’ll see whose side your lovely girlfriend will be on.’
    ‘No more sabotage, P. No more!’ Gustav raised his hands, both silencing and surrendering. ‘Whatever happens next, remember that I am sorry, and that I love you.’
    Gustav took my hand and to my astonishment lifted it to his mouth. Breathed in the scent of my skin. Had I given him this quiet strength?
    ‘There is more to say, and you know it.’ Pierre stared at his brother for a long moment. Something had been punctured. ‘But I’ll be there. New Year’s Eve.’
    ‘Good.’ Gustav held my hand against his chest where his heart jumped and throbbed like a trapped animal. ‘Now get out.’
    When they’d gone, Polly rolling her eyes and making ‘call me’ gestures at me, Gustav walked slowly over to my self-portrait and gazed up at it. One hand flattened against the wall where the sepia shots of the French prostitutes used to hang in a previous exhibition. I came up behind him, hesitated, then leaned my head on his shoulder.
    ‘I won’t rest till my brother has forgiven me. I won’t rest until he gets it all off his chest and makes some kind of sense, and then I can forgive him. But first let’s make our own pact. A white Christmas in New York with you. Just you.’
    Crystal’s words to me, weeks ago, tinkled quietly in my ears.
    The day he tells you about that saga is the day you’ll know he’s letting you right in.
    Gustav walked towards the lift. I gazed once more at my self-portrait as the gallery emptied for the last time. For a second I envied the girl in that photograph: she hadn’t