His words tore her in two. She wrapped her arms around her abdomen as if physically trying to hold herself together. And then she was moving. She forced her way down the row of seats, treading on toes and painfully bashing into knees as she went.
She had to get away from this place, from all of them.
Claire blundered into the aisle and tripped on the hem of her dress. She heard the gossamer fabric tear as she fell to her knees. From the corner of her eye she saw Alex start after her.
‘No,’ she spat, holding up her palm to him. ‘Just leave me alone.’
She scrambled to her feet again and kicked off her thongs. Then she ran, barefoot and blind, into the night.
She fled down the magically lit pathway, past the paddock-cum-car park and onto the gravel drive. She darted past the stable and the main house with its gaudy Christmas tree in the front yard. When she reached the road, Claire kept running. The rough bitumen scraped the soles of her feet, but she didn’t care. She would run until her skin was bloody and raw. She would run until she had an answer, until she found peace.
It was completely dark now and for a moment she wished she’d had the foresight to bring her bag, with its handy telephone torch. But a moment later the road ahead of her was illuminated and she heard the roar of an engine approaching from behind.
She moved to the side of the road, praying whoever it was would just drive past her. As if the sight of a desperate woman in an evening dress running barefoot in the dark was nothing unusual.
But the car braked and the engine cut out and she knew it was him even before she heard his voice.
The car door slammed. ‘Claire!’ Scotty shouted. She didn’t turn around when she heard him start running after her. She simply stopped and bent over, trying to catch her breath. He was so much bigger and more powerful than her; he would be next to her in seconds. Trying to outrun him was pointless. Hadn’t she learned by now that she couldn’t escape him no matter how hard she tried?
She felt his hand on the small of her back. The other grasped her shoulder and eased her into a standing position.
‘Are you all right?’ Scotty said. He cupped her face in his palms, his anguished eyes boring into hers. He’d shed his suit jacket and tie and stood before her in his shirtsleeves.
She nearly laughed. Was he kidding? ‘What do you think?’ she hissed. She shook herself free of his grip.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I can explain.’
‘I don’t want you to explain, Scotty. I’m not interested in more half-truths or alternative facts or lies by omission. I don’t want another “version” of reality. Just tell me what’s going on.’
He nodded. ‘I love you, Claire. That’s the truth. That’s the truest thing I know.’
She burst into tears of abject fury. ‘Don’t you dare say that to me!’ she shouted. ‘You’ve just left your own wedding, for God’s sake!’
Scotty made a noise like a wounded animal and hid his face behind his hands.
Minutes passed with the only sounds the shriek of the cicadas and Claire’s wrenching sobs.
When her breathing began to calm, Scotty spoke again. ‘Nina was never my girlfriend. We had a couple of dates when she moved to Bindy six weeks ago, but there was no spark, so we decided we’d just be friends,’ he said. ‘Actually, most of the time we spent together Nina had to listen to me go on and on about you.’
He smiled ruefully and to her chagrin Claire felt a flicker of compassion for him.
‘You’ve got no idea how happy I was the night you found me on social media,’ he went on. ‘It was like Christmas morning, like I’d been holding my breath for eight years and didn’t even know it. I fell so hard for you, Claire. Again.’ He looked away. ‘Actually, not again. I never stopped loving you. I couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried.’
‘But you never even hinted that you thought of me as anything more than a friend,’ she accused him. ‘And you waited eight years for me to come to you. Why didn’t you try to find me?’
‘Because you told me not to, remember? When you threw my engagement ring at me and ran off to America,’ Scotty said hotly. He caught himself and took a deep breath. ‘I learned the hard way then that you need to do things in your own time. When we reconnected, I wanted to tell you every day – every damn day – that you should be with me. But I knew that if I was ever going to get another chance with you, it had to be on your terms. And I was willing to wait.’
‘Until you weren’t,’ Claire shot back. ‘Getting engaged to someone else is an odd way to demonstrate your undying love.’
Scotty sighed. ‘Nina is an incredible vet, Claire. Did I ever tell you that?’
She stared at him. ‘So you proposed to her for the discount?’
A smile played at the corners of his mouth. ‘She can’t practise in Australia until she passes the National Veterinary Exam, but it costs a small fortune. She doesn’t want to spend that money if she’s not going to be able to stay here and the visa she has now means she’ll have to leave in a year,’ he said. ‘She needs permanent residency, but it’s at least three more years until she can apply for it.’
A fragment of a conversation drifted back to Claire. The sooner I can get my permanent residency the better. Nina had said as much at the yoga studio last weekend.
