‘Well, I feel like a prize fool.’ He shook his head and let out a hollow laugh.
I started to panic. ‘Please don’t – this is all my fault. I’m the fool and you should lay the blame firmly with me.’
‘Oh, I do!’ He glared at me. ‘I feel so stupid. I’m sat here now because I thought I had a connection with someone, but I’ve no idea who! It was all a lie!’ His features darkened. ‘The things you said – were they what you thought Megan would say, or what you thought I wanted to hear?’
My throat thickened and I swallowed hard. ‘Neither. They were just the things I thought. It was me you were talking to.’ He slumped back in his chair. ‘I was honest. Everything I said was all me: my favourite films, my words. Everything.’ I hoped he’d realise the feelings I’d confessed to were real, that they were also me.
‘This is crazy. I’ve heard of catfishing, but this is just weird. What were you, just bored?’ He cast an eye over me. ‘Bored little rich housewife needs a new plaything?’
Hot tears started to burn my eyes. ‘That’s unfair. I . . .’ Of course, from his perspective, it was entirely fair and after all the awful people I’d criticised on the Me & You website, I was by far the worst. ‘I’ve been going through some things too and—’
‘I’d started to . . . feel things.’ He rubbed his temple. ‘For the first time since Beth died, I felt a connection with another woman. Have you any idea what a huge step that was for me to take?’
My face tingled with heat and shame as guilt percolated through my skin, filling me up like a mug of bitter hard-to-swallow blackness. ‘I felt that too,’ I whispered, shaking.
‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘Those feelings I had weren’t real. You lied. You didn’t allow them to be real.’ The bitterness in his tone was cutting. ‘You need to see someone for help if this is how you get your kicks.’ The last line earned us a glance from the lady on the next table.
I dropped my head. He had me all wrong.
‘I was just trying to help Megan get back into dating. I didn’t expect to like anyone. I was happily married when I started the whole thing up.
‘And then your husband realised you were a sociopathic liar?’ he spat. He was always so friendly, so lovely, that those words felt too sharp.
‘No, that’s not what happened at all. He cheated on me!’
‘Whatever. This is probably just all part of your fanciful web of lies. Maybe you believe them, but I don’t.’ He slid his chair back to stand up.
‘Please don’t go,’ I whispered pathetically.
He looked down at me and shook his head. ‘I don’t owe you anything,’ he said before walking out of the coffee shop while I sat shackled to the chair. Hot, salty water stung my eyes.
‘Excuse me, but if you don’t want to order anything, I’m afraid we’re going to need the table.’ The waitress’s voice cut through my emotion; she was gesturing to a group of people by the door. The tearoom was full, and everyone was staring at me. ‘I’m sorry. So sorry,’ I said scrambling to my feet.
The air was fresh when I stepped outside and Andrew was nowhere to be seen. I was supposed to be putting things right, but none of it felt right.
Chapter Sixteen
I still felt terrible as I ushered Kate through the front door as soon as she arrived. ‘Hurry up and come in.’
‘What’s the panic?’
God, I wish I could have a drink. ‘I’ll put the kettle on and you sit in the lounge.’
I sat opposite her a few minutes later, snuggling up to my decaf, and spilt the entire thing – the Andrew story, not the decaf, that is.
‘Dear God! What’s happening to you, woman? I think you’ve lost the plot!’ she exclaimed.
‘I know.’ I sunk my head into my hands.
‘You were always the woman putting the rest of us to shame with your superior organisational skills. Always doing everything right. A real-life Little Miss Perfect. Who’d have thought you’d be capable of emotionally ruining a poor widower, betraying your friend, and getting up the duff by accident.’
I sighed. ‘You’re really not helping, Kate, and I feel bloody awful.’
‘Even I feel sorry for this Andrew bloke and I never feel sorry for anybody. It’s like you’ve lost your meddling mojo or something.’
‘Still not helping, Kate.’
She shrugged. ‘Well, it’s done now: he knows, Megan knows. It’s over, just draw a line under it and move on or it will eat you up and life is too short.’ Her words registered somewhere, but my eyes were fixed on the carpet, the image of his face cast before them, so twisted and angry. Andrew probably wouldn’t be moving on any time soon.
‘We’ll be laughing about it over cocktails this time next year.’ Her words brought me back.
‘This time next year I’ll have a baby to deal with.’ It was a sobering thought. She was right; I probably wouldn’t remember the whole Andrew thing at all.
‘You wouldn’t think it looking around the place! It’s like a feature on Houzz dot com,’ she said, gesturing at my perfectly plumped scatter cushions.
‘I know. James had mentioned contacting my interior designer for some ideas. She sent some bedroom brochures through a while back that also had children’s room and nursery ideas. I thought I’d have a look at those to see what I liked before getting in touch.’
‘Do it now!’ Kate’s eyes sparkled as she sat forward in her chair. ‘No time like the present, and it will take your mind off this whole Andrew business.’
I thought about it, and it was nice of Kate to show an interest as she wasn’t a
