I laugh with him, but I run each moniker against an image of my husband. His insistence that he have access to my online banking “because women can be shit with money.” I’m a chartered accountant with five years of post-qualified experience. But obviously, I have a vagina and so therefore cannot be trusted not to buy too many shoes. To be fair, I do buy too many pairs of shoes. It seems to be a thing Leah and I have in common; I think back to her overflowing closet. Chris can be an idiot too. And a dick, especially when it comes to my mum. He is a douche too. But they aren’t the words I’m really thinking of.

Sociopath.

Narcissist.

Monster.

“He just doesn’t like her to spend too much time with me. I think he’s worried that she’ll see the way her life could have been and realize there is greener grass.”

“He’s worried she’ll leave him?”

“Maybe she would prefer to have dinner with a delicious man in a fancy restaurant with the promise of a night of passion?”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “A promise?”

“OK, OK, a hope!”

He leans in, his words drowned out by the din of the other patrons around us, and whispers the things he wants to do to me that evening. I ache for his touch.

An hour later we are back at Leah’s place.

The grass is definitely greener.

Later that night, we are sitting in bed eating toast and drinking tea.

“Guaranteed to stop a hangover,” he tells me.

It turns out that he doesn’t shave his chest. But the hair is soft and fine, darker than that on his head, closer to the color of burnt caramel. It curls across his lower stomach, tickling my lips as I gently kiss a trail downwards.

I want to correct him when he calls me Leah. I want to look into his eyes and hear my own name tumble from his lips. But I can’t. I won’t. No matter how hard I wish that I could.

He brushes my hair from my face, now freed from the ponytail. “Your hair looks gorgeous loose,” he says as he tucks a strand behind my ear. A moment of confusion crosses his face. “You’re not like I thought you’d be.”

“I’m not?” I’m half teasing and half wondering if this is my first major fuck-up.

“I was worried you’d be one of those girls.”

“Which girls?” I sound innocent. But I know exactly what girls he means. Leah is one of those girls. Megan is not. I have failed. Shit!

“I guess we all have a public persona though.” He shrugs and runs his hand through his whisky curls. “Wait till you see me as full business wanker in my three-piece suit spouting corporate spiel.” He thinks this is the real Leah. That the social media stuff is an act, part of her job. “If you’d like to see me again, of course.” He drops his eyes and picks at the corner of the bedspread a little.