‘Nothing more than I was telling you. These past few weeks have made me realise what I must have put you through. I’d no idea about Steph being ill then. I know that she had cancer …’
‘How did you find that out?’ she said, unsure of his motive in bringing up Steph. Was he trying to assuage his guilt at leaving her – or could the unthinkable be happening and he was trying to get closer to her again?
‘Alicia told me. One of her riding students has a kid at Steph’s school. She told me when she was diagnosed and all that stuff with her illness must have happened quite soon after we broke up and I wasn’t there to support you.’
‘It’s a bit late to feel guilty now. I coped. I had to, and I don’t blame you for not being there. You’d no idea what was going to happen.’
He swallowed. ‘You’re so strong, Lottie. I’d have fallen to pieces. I was terrified of Mum not making it through and I was ten thousand miles away. Dad wasn’t handling it well.’
‘It’s hard when you’re confronted with the prospect that the person you thought would always be there, might not be,’ Lottie said.
‘I probably didn’t deserve you,’ Connor murmured. ‘That’s what Mum said when we split up. If she’d known the real truth, she’d have killed me.’
Lottie’s opinion of Fiona went up another notch, but she was also annoyed. Was Connor only here to ease his guilty conscience?
‘What I did to you was unforgivable. I lay awake for weeks after I left, raking the reasons over and over, hardly able to face myself every morning for the damage I did.’
‘If you were having doubts, why did you ask me to marry you?’ Lottie cried. ‘Why go for the whole dramatic romantic gesture? All the clichés? The diamond ring, going down on one knee on the beach? Why?’
‘If I could answer that … I don’t know. I was in love, and swept along by the moment.’
‘A moment? You bought a ring specially and planned the whole proposal.’
‘You said “yes”, Lottie. You didn’t have to.’
Any words deserted her. She was stunned by his comment. Hurt too – and worse, she knew that, in part, he was right. She’d been caught up in the dizzying romance of it all too. Even at the time, whispers of doubt had niggled her. She should have listened to them.
‘I don’t want to sound harsh but the moment we walked through the door of the flat home – back to reality – I suppose I panicked.’ He looked at his hands. ‘A lifetime is a long time to commit to one person even if you do love them.’
Lottie was briefly speechless. Connor didn’t want her. Was it possible that he didn’t want her to have anyone else either? She also thought of Keegan’s fireworks request and how she wanted to surprise Connor. Keegan seemed devoted to him and Lottie didn’t want her to be hurt.
‘Connor, I hope you’re very sure this time.’
He hesitated then nodded. ‘You’re right.’ He picked up his jacket. ‘Never mind, it’ll all be over soon,’ he muttered and walked out.
She closed the door with a sigh of frustration. She was shocked that, for a moment or two, she’d allowed herself to imagine that the past year hadn’t happened, and let the ‘what-ifs’ creep back into her mind.
In so many ways, the shadow he’d cast over her life was longer than she’d realised.
Even Jay had sensed something was going on between them and she’d hate it if she came across as unprofessional to him, or anyone. What’s more, just when she’d had been looking forward to their relationship moving forward, Connor had thrown a spanner in the works. She had to hope Jay hadn’t read too much into the situation, and that the ball would be a fresh stage in their relationship – and not another disaster.
Chapter Nineteen
Two weeks to the wedding
On the evening of the ball, Steph was staying over on the sofa bed at the Bothy while the twins were at a school friend’s sleepover party. While Steph had been getting dressed in the sitting room, Lottie did her make-up in her bedroom.
She was looking forward to her glamorous night off, but was also a little nervous of how things would go with Jay. Since he’d walked in on her with Connor the previous Friday it had definitely put a dampener on some of her excitement and she was sure it had affected Jay’s view of her. Over the past week, her communication with him had been confined to seeing him around the offices from time to time or passing him going in and out of the cottages. She could count the words they’d exchanged on the fingers of one hand.
They’d no real need to interact on a work basis, either, now the Edwardian evening was over. He’d spent all his time at the forest centre, which was natural considering it was peak tree-buying time. She’d been flat-out with the preparations for the ball, which felt as if it had arrived at lightning speed. Even so, she was sure that he had read something into Connor being in the cottage … though short of confronting him, she had no way of finding out. She really hoped the ball might be a way of rebuilding the bridges between them. Things had been going so well until Connor had landed back at the Bothy.
She heard the stairs creaking then her sister’s voice at the bedroom door.
‘What do you think? Not over the top?’
She whipped round, mascara wand in her hand. ‘Oh wow! You look amazing. It’s new, isn’t it? I thought you said you were wearing your LBD. Where did you get that from?’
‘There was a Christmas fair at school yesterday and one of the mums was running a designer pre-loved stall.’ Steph did a
