‘What? Why?’
‘You won’t believe what’s happening here.’ Lola kept walking to warm herself up, around the side of the house and along a narrow stone path leading beneath a hand-carved wooden pergola into a rose garden. ‘The woman who was mugged only turns out to be the mother of an old boyfriend of mine. And she loathed me! If I’d known it was her I’d have run in the other direction. You should have seen her face tonight when she found out I was the one who’d gone to help her!’
‘So you’re leaving? Do I feel a contraction coming on?’
‘Hang on, don’t start boiling kettles just yet. I was going to leave,’ said Lola. ‘God, it was awful, I couldn’t wait to get out of here. And it went without saying that the Wicked Witch couldn’t wait to be shot of me.’ She paused, reliving the moment her stomach had done a Red Arrows swoop-and-dive. ‘But then it happened. He turned up. Oh Gabe, I can’t describe how it felt. I thought I’d never see Dougie again, but now I have. And he’s more gorgeous than ever. It’s like a miracle, I can’t believe he’s here. So I’m not going to leave now, even though his hateful mother wishes I would. I’ve got to talk to Doug properly, he’s only just arrived and it’s been a bit awkward so far. We’re all pretty stunned at the moment. But ... oh God, it’s just so amazing seeing him again, I haven’t been this excited since—’
‘Hey, hey, calm down, do you not think you’re getting a bit carried away? If this guy dumped you before, what makes you think he’s going to be thrilled to see you again?’ As a heterosexual man who had dumped hundreds of weeping females in his time, Gabe said warningly, ‘What makes you think he’ll even want to talk to you?’
‘Gabe, you don’t understand. He isn’t an ex-boyfriend. He’s the ex-boyfriend. Plus, he didn’t dump me. I was the one who left him.’ Lola swallowed. ‘According to his sister I broke his heart.’
‘And now you’ve taken one look at him and decided you want him back. Trust me,’ said Gabe,
‘that’s a recipe for disaster. You can never go back. Whatever annoyed you about this guy before will only annoy you again.’
‘For heaven’s sake, will you stop lecturing me? This is my first love we’re talking about here!
We were crazy about each other. Dougie was about to start at Edinburgh University,’ Lola paced up and down the flagstoned path in an attempt to keep warm, ‘and we planned to visit each other every weekend, but if that wasn’t enough I was going to move up there to be with him. You have no idea how happy we were together.’
She heard Gabe snort with derision. ‘So happy that you finished with him. That makes sense.’
‘But that’s just it, I didn’t want to finish with him. His bloody mother made me do it!’ Lola squeezed her eyes shut as the long-ago hideous encounter in Adele Tennant’s car swam back into her brain; the smell of expensive leather upholstery had haunted her ever since. ‘She hated me, thought I was a bad influence on her precious golden boy ... she was terrified I’d put him off his studies or, even worse, persuade him to jack in university altogether.’
‘So she asked you to stop seeing her son. Erm,’ said Gabe, ‘did it ever occur to you to say no?’
‘She didn’t ask me. She made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.’ Lola hated even thinking about that bit; had spent years doing her best to banish it from her mind.
‘You’re not serious!’ At last she had Gabe’s full attention. ‘You mean, like swimming with the fishes? She actually threatened you with a concrete overcoat and a trip to the bottom of the Thames?’
‘Not that kind. She offered me money. I was seventeen years old.’ There was a bitter taste in Lola’s mouth now; no matter how compelling the reason, the inescapable fact remained that she had betrayed her boyfriend. ‘And she offered me ten thousand pounds if I’d stop seeing Dougie.’
‘Which you took?’
‘Which I took.’ The bitter taste was guilt; it wasn’t an action she was proud of, hence never having mentioned it to Gabe before.
He let out an incredulous bark of laughter. ‘You let her buy you off?’
Lola shivered as a blast of icy air wrapped itself around her stomach. ‘I didn’t want to, but I had to:
‘Bloody hell! len grand. What did you spend it on?’
Lola hesitated, but it was no good; she couldn’t tell him. ‘ icked with remorse, Alex had begged her never to reveal their secret to another living soul and it was a promise she had to keep. Alex might be gone now but her mother must never find out what had happened. Which meant she must never tell anyone. Choking up at the memory, she said, ‘I just needed it. You don’t understand what a—’
Crackkk.
She froze at the sound of a dry twig snapping underfoot behind her. Swinging round with her heart in her throat, Lola saw the tall figure just visible in the darkness at the entrance to the rose garden.
Not just any old tall figure either. That silhouette was instantly recognisable.
‘Ten thousand pounds,’ said a quiet voice every bit as incredulous as Gabe’s.
Oh God.
‘I don’t understand what?’ complained Gabe, for whom patience wasn’t a strong point. ‘Don’t stop there! What is there to not understand?’
‘I’ll call you back.’ Her hand suddenly trembling with more than cold, Lola ended the call and dropped the phone back into her bag.
Chapter 9
’Ten thousand pounds,’ Doug repeated, shaking his head.
Lola swallowed. ‘Your mum was desperate to split us up.’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this.’ He moved towards her. ‘You wrote me a letter and left the country’
‘Because that’s what she wanted me to do. Don’t you see? All that stuff I said in the letter wasn’t true!’ Lola knew she had to make him understand. ‘I still loved you! It broke my heart too, I was miserable for months.’
‘Oh, don’t give me that.’ Doug’s tone hardened. ‘I’ve heard some lines in my time, but—’
