‘Yes, I help people I care about.’
‘Charlotte, if I lose everything, you will too. No more Jimmy Choo shoes and Chanel bags. After this, I don’t think anyone local will hire me. I’ll probably have to sell the house, and I’ll have nothing left. We’ll have nothing left.’
‘You’ll have something.’ I prompted him to realise he had a child on the way but he shook his head.
‘The cars too. It will all have to go.’
‘So just to be clear, everything that matters to you will be gone?’ It was his last chance to see what mattered, and his red-rimmed eyes looked up at me, accentuated by dark, heavy bags. I paused. Would he realise?
He nodded, looking relieved in believing I finally understood the extent of his woes. ‘Everything,’ he repeated and it was at that moment that I fully committed to see the plan through.
Fury burned every nerve end in my body and tears pricked my eyes. Fighting to hold them back, I spoke the only words I wanted him to hear. ‘It was me, you fucking idiot. Do you think one of your jealous office sluts could have come up with all this evidence?’ His eyes widened and I continued before he had chance to speak. ‘I’ll take this to the papers if you don’t own up and tell the Haiden brothers what you’ve done and donate your dirty bribe money to charity.’ I was shaking. ‘Oh, and you’d better grant me an easy divorce.’
He rubbed the stubble on his chin vigorously. ‘Charlotte, what are you talking about? Divorce?’ The fact he picked up on that first was almost redeeming enough to give me a pang of guilt. Almost.
I just stared back defiantly and he changed tack. ‘Why would you do this to me, to us? The money is in your name. You can have it all if you want – all you have to do is just keep your mouth shut. Nobody knows about this other than Phil Brady and it’s not in his interest to go public.’
‘Because I don’t want bribe money. I mean it: do what I said, or I go to the papers.’
His lip curled in a way I’d never seen before and he brought his face up close to mine. ‘You bitch,’ he spat. I met his angry face with a raised eyebrow. I hoped he couldn’t see me trembling or hear the deafening sound of my heart.
After a moment I found my voice and yelled, ‘Get out.’
I practically shoved him out the door, unsure of how long my composure would last. As soon as he was out, I slammed the door and slumped against it, thoughts whirling around in my head. I had to get out of the house. I felt claustrophobic. I needed air and time and thinking space.
Chapter Twenty-One
A few days later, I found myself in the tearoom near the park. There was something comforting about being lonely in a crowd sometimes, for me at least. It was the tearoom I’d met Andrew in, and it wasn’t until I sat down with my decaf coffee and a piece of cake that memories of the last time I’d sat there came flooding back. As I sipped my tea in a strange bubble of solitude amidst the bustling café backdrop, I became acutely aware of a shuffling presence behind me. I turned around, and my eyes instantly met a pair of familiar, piercing blue ones. It took a moment to figure out who they belonged to.
I swallowed hard. ‘Andrew?’ It was as though I’d’ conjoured him up. I could feel that my eyes were puffy and knew I must have looked my worst. He was the last person I expected to see.
For a moment, he looked like a rabbit caught in headlamps, and I wasn’t sure if he was about to flee. ‘Charlotte,’ he said, then after a terrifying moment too long he added, ‘Can I sit down?’
I nodded slowly, still in shock.
‘I read your message,’ he said, as I sat with bated breath. ‘The truth is, as weird as it may sound, I did stupid stuff too when I was going through my rough time. I bit off the heads of well-meaning family members and pushed them away. I thought all kinds of dark things and for quite some time, I wasn’t a nice person to be around. You were going through something too.’
He paused and I wanted to disagree – what was I going through when I set up a fake dating profile? A little bit of husband neglect?
‘Last time we met I called you a bored, spoilt housewife or something along those lines.’ The words stung as much in retrospect as they had at the time. ‘And that was wrong of me. You were lonely. You didn’t know it but your husband wasn’t around if he was off having an affair so you busied yourself with trying to fix the life of your personal trainer because you couldn’t fix your own – but you didn’t know that then did you?’
I stared back at him unsure if he was incredibly insightful or way off the mark. ‘I—’
‘Sorry, let me finish – there’s an apology coming, I swear. Beth would scold me if she saw how I behaved as she always saw the good in people and I did too. I suppose I was embarrassed as the truth is, I did feel a . . . connection with you. When I found out you hadn’t been honest I was so angry, I couldn’t even look at you, never mind think about forgiving you or whatever.’ He took a breath and looked around. ‘I need a drink. Do you want a drink?’ I shook my head and gestured to the almost-full coffee cup in front of
