Her heart sank slightly when she saw Robert Langdon enter with his hand gently resting on the base of a woman's back.
It was the first time she had seen him on anything other that a newspaper in months and she relaxed when he put his arms around her in a hug, his lean muscle always providing her with a sense of safety when they embraced.
"Sophie, this is one of my longest serving friends Katherine Solomon. Katherine, Sophie Neveu, I met her in Paris." The two women acknowledged one another as Katherine and Robert managed to exchange looks which conveyed their pleasure at seeing the other and with the aid of her wrecked expressed her surprise over his recent infamy and his friend. Over all the years his dates had never been this much younger than him and she experienced pangs of jealousy at the thought of being replaced by somebody foreign and mysterious, neither of which she could ever be to him.
He had not thought about anything other than the fact Katherine would be there since accepting the invite, knowing it was wrong but he seemed unable to change anything when it came to her. Now that he was technically dating Sophie he felt even more self loathing but he reasoned that it would only be despicable if he was in love with Katherine. Which he wasn't; he was here with Sophie.
Sophie was a very amiable person to talk with but Katherine could not stop the thoughts that were jarring her mind about the fact the other female was a lot younger than Robert and that they barely knew anything personal about their partner yet he had brought her along to this high-class fundraiser.
When the meal three course meal was served he and Sophie were seated opposite Katherine, Peter and his wife on one side of her. Between dishes he realised that he kept glancing at her and couldn't believe he had not called her since returning, finally picking up on the truth that he had missed her and that he misses get whenever they aren't in contact. Not that he would tell anybody, especially not when he was still with Sophie - he was with her, she was sat next to him for heaven's sake!
There were a couple of visible laughter lines next to Katherine's eyes when she smiled which made her yet more endearing and he tried to ignore the desire that was clouding his mind, knowing that he should only be thinking of the female beside him instead of the one with the fishtail braid falling down the front of her right shoulder.
Unbeknown to Katherine it was later that same evening when Sophie informed Robert that she was going back to Paris and that she felt it would be better if he stayed in America, he knew that she was breaking it off gently but it riled him that she had played along happily at the benefit. He halted the part of his brain that told him he had not played along happily with her though.
He did not even consider that the memories he had of the night all featured the female Solomon sibling more than the woman who was supposed to be his date, he just tried to put any of those thoughts down to them having been friends for so long that she was bound to appear in some of his recollection.
He could not resist dialling her phone number when he got back to his hotel but the answer he got was the voice of her machine and he couldn't talk to that, couldn't tell a silly box all the things that he wanted to say to that one person who made him feel lightheaded while making him feel so solid and complete at the same time, so he hung up without leaving any message. When she got home she saw the flashing red light and pressed play after seeing Robert's number, only to have a second or so of his breath before he was gone. She sat on the carpeted floor of her front room still in her dress, and hit repeat, wishing upon everything he had said even one word.
