How could she know? Real life wasn’t like daydreams or the movies when it all became obvious in a blinding split-second. She’d felt this way before and she’d been spectacularly wrong. Of course she wasn’t sure!
‘You don’t have any faith in me,’ he said grimly as he put the car into gear and drove away.
Louise was pushing him away as hard as she could and it was his own stupid fault. He’d been hasty-which really wasn’t like him-even so, he was one hundred per cent certain that she was wrong about the infatuation thing. And he’d prove it to her somehow. First of all, he had to find out what was behind all of this. Something had triggered Louise’s panic button. Somehow, he’d touched on a really raw nerve.
When they arrived at her house, he insisted on accompanying her inside, sure that if he left it now, she would retreat inside her shell and he might not have the opportunity again. He had to talk to her now while it was all brimming at the surface.
She wasn’t pleased about him being there, he could tell. An air of irritation hung about her as she led him into the drawing room and poured him a miserly brandy. He took a seat across the room from her as she perched on a dark purple velvet sofa.
‘Why can’t you believe, Louise? What’s happened that makes it so difficult for you to trust your feelings?’
She took a deep breath and he saw her shutters rise. Damn! For five long minutes she stared into the cold fireplace. Then, still keeping her gaze locked on it, she said, ‘I’m scared to. I so want it to be real, Ben.’
Instantly, he was across the room and sitting beside her. There were wounds here that were too old, too deep to be healed in a moment. He’d been a fool. If he’d realised they were there, he would have trodden a lot more carefully. But she’d seemed so different recently, happier, freer…
She leaned against him, but still continued to stare into the empty fireplace. He placed an arm lightly round her shoulders and stroked the soft skin of her upper arm with his fingers. She didn’t push him away. It was no longer about convincing her, getting her to see the truth. For now, the important thing was just that she get a chance to vent things that had been buried for too long.
He waited, knowing that pushing her with questions might easily make her re-erect the defences.
When she spoke, her voice was so soft he had to strain to hear it. ‘Right from when I was very young, life was about putting other people first-which isn’t a bad thing. Don’t get me wrong. But even when I didn’t want to, I had no choice. So I used to daydream about the life I couldn’t have while I was being mother to my younger brothers and sisters and taking care of my father.’ She turned to look at him and his heart broke to see her eyes full of such pain. ‘I suppose it was my survival mechanism.’
‘We all have those,’ he said tenderly.
She turned back and he guessed she found it easier not to look at him.
‘Well, one day,’ she continued, ‘someone walked up to me and offered me all my dreams wrapped up in a sparkly box with a big bow-fame, success, recognition, enough money so I’d never have to worry about not having any clothes except my school uniform, enough money so I wouldn’t see the little ones’ eyes when I served up beans on toast for tea again…And love. I thought I’d found love.’
He sighed. Louise had had the kind of childhood he worked his hardest to protect Jasmine from. He thought of this brave woman, not much older than his daughter, running a household, studying, caring for a sick relative. Who would blame her for reaching for the dream?
‘And so I was selfish. I chose something for myself.’ She buried her face in her hands and the tears came thick and fast. Ben hugged her tight and kissed the top of her head. He knew exactly who would blame her for such a thing-she blamed herself. One by one the puzzle pieces clicked into place, fragments of things she’d told him that suddenly made sense-her relationship with Toby, her father, why she continued to punish herself.
‘You can’t blame yourself for your father’s death, you know. From what you’ve told me, he was a very sick man.’
Okay, maybe he could have phrased that a little better, because Louise broke down completely. She was crying so hard she could hardly breathe, let alone speak. Years of guilt and pain, of grieving she had never allowed herself to do, came spilling out in one go. He hugged her fiercely, as if he could protect her from it by sheer strength.
Through the sobs she croaked, ‘But I…shouldn’t have…left him!’
People thought she’d stuck with Toby all those years because she wanted the glitz and glamour more than she wanted her self-respect. How wrong they were. It came to him with crystal clarity: Louise had stayed with Toby because she believed she deserved him. He was her penance.
Then a second thunderbolt hit. That wonderful New Year’s surprise he’d had planned for Louise. It was the worst possible thing he could have done.
Louise opened one eye. Stark light sliced through the windows, bearing testimony to the fact that she’d been too exhausted to remember to draw the curtains when she’d crawled upstairs in the small hours of the morning.
Her eyes, her head, even her throat ached. Nerves tickled her tummy. She had that awful sick feeling in her stomach. Too many emotions, too many tears. She wanted to call it all back and pretend it hadn’t happened. What must Ben think of her now?
At the thought of him, she raised herself on one elbow. Last time she’d seen him he was curling up on the sofa with a blanket-which was completely ridiculous as she had at least ten empty bedrooms-but he’d insisted.
She got out of bed and her foot met something slippery and incredibly smooth. Her Chanel dress lay in a heap where she’d let it drop before falling into bed. She picked it up and draped it over a low upholstered chair in the corner before wandering into her bathroom and having a shower.
There was no noise from downstairs when she emerged. Yesterday morning she’d have been rushing downstairs to meet him. Today she wasn’t even sure she wanted to see Ben. He’d pushed her too far, made her feel things she wasn’t ready to feel. And, while she knew he’d had the best intentions in the world, that didn’t mean she wasn’t cross with him.
In her mind, she played out the argument she wanted to have with him, telling him to back off and leave her alone. Who did he think he was, dragging all that stuff out of her? What gave him the right?
She walked to the dressing table and picked up a comb and untangled her hair with unforgiving strokes.
When she could delay it no longer she padded down the sweeping staircase, dressed in a grey track suit and large pink slippers. The echoing silence made it seem colder than it really was and she crossed her arms across her chest and hugged herself.
She found a note in the kitchen:
She scrunched it into a little ball and threw it in the bin. Then, while the kettle boiled, she rehearsed the coming argument in her head again. Who had given him the job of deciding what she needed?
As she drained the last of her cup of tea, she heard a knock at the back door and turned to see Ben standing there, his face grim. Outside, she might have looked as if she didn’t care if he was there or not. Inside, she was seething. She walked over, opened the door, then walked away again before he could touch her.
He stepped into the kitchen and rested against the counter without removing his coat. ‘I have something to confess.’
She almost laughed. What now? He had another wife, a spare one, raving mad and locked in the attic? That would just about be her luck. She retreated to the opposite side of the kitchen, crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows.
‘I had arranged a meeting with a journalist for this week. I was going to give an interview about…us.’
Louise felt her jaw drop.
He closed his eyes and shook his head, just once. ‘I know, I know. At the time I thought I was doing the right thing.’ He opened his eyes and looked at her. All the carefully rehearsed lines of her row trickled away. ‘I wanted to fight for you, to tell the world what a wonderful person you are, that you’re not what everybody thinks you are…I wanted them all to see what I see.’
It was very noble. It was also very stupid.
‘I’m not going to do it now,’ he said. ‘I cancelled the meeting.’
