My heart rate rises as panic descends. ‘What? What did I say?’
‘Nothing you shouldn’t have said, baby. I just wish I’d given you the answers you needed.’
I try to remember what I said but my slow mind just can’t function.
‘Get here.’ He flicks his head for me to go to him and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. I crawl onto his lap and he holds me to him, pressing my head into his neck and dropping the most gentle of kisses on my brow.
Gregory drags me out for a walk. We walk for hours with his dogs, Bramble and Buster. They run and bark playfully in the crisp, hangover-curing air but Gregory is distant. All day, I have the feeling that he’s put up an invisible wall. When he touches me, my skin doesn’t spark; when he speaks, his voice is melancholy rather than warm. Getting drunk, forgetting everything for a few hours, really wasn’t worth it.
Kian comes to meet us when we arrive back at the farm. His head is covered in a thick, wool hat and his insulated, fleece gloves make him look even more youthful than he is. His wellies are almost as muddy as Bramble and Buster, who he directs to the back of the house to be washed down.
I kick off one wellie with my opposite foot but the other is stuck. Gregory sits me back onto the window ledge, bending and flexing the boot until he’s able to free my foot. He helps me out of my winter coat and hangs it up with his Barbour. When I pull off my gloves, he presses my hands together between his and blows hot breath onto them.
‘I’m sorry, Scarlett, for everything I’m not.’
‘What are you talking about, Gregory?’ I know today of all days, I won’t hear those magic words but I still want him to know. ‘I love you, just as you are.’
He drops his lips to my brow and pulls me tighter into him.Maybe I’m becoming resigned to the fact he won’t say what I want to hear because this time, it doesn’t shatter me. Or maybe it’s because I need to start accepting that we’re a CPS decision away from the end of us.
Kian’s been in the lounge and struck up the open log fire. I sink down onto the sofa and bring my legs into my chest. Gregory disappears and returns again with two cups of hot tea. Then he slips down onto the sofa next to me and wraps his big, comforting arm around me, pulling me into his side.
We drink our tea in silence, staring into the roaring fire.
‘Gregory, I am sorry.’
‘Baby, we’ve all been there. It’s done. Stop worrying.’
‘If that’s how you feel, why are you so… off? What did I say to you last night?’
‘Nothing you shouldn’t have said.’
‘Stop saying that. Please. What did I say?’
He sighs but squeezes his arm tighter around me. ‘You said a lot of things. A lot of honest things.’
‘Gregory.’
He sighs again. ‘You said you think I’m bad for you. That you don’t know who you are any more. Is that how you feel?’
I shrug under the weight of an overwhelming sense of guilt.
‘Scarlett?’
‘Yes. I don’t think you’re bad for me, I didn’t mean that. But I— I’m struggling to get a handle on things, yes and I…’
‘And you what?’
I shrug.
He lifts my chin and turns my head to face him. ‘And what?’
I don’t dare defy the intensity of his gaze. ‘I’m scared that we’ve gotten ourselves into this situation because of circumstances. I mean, look at us living together. That was never supposed to happen but you felt like you needed to protect me.’
‘We’ve discussed that, Scarlett. I asked you to move in with me for more reasons than protection.’
Just not love.I suddenly have no energy to continue the conversation so I turn away from him and bring the back of his hand to my lips, leaning into his side, shielded from his scrutiny.
‘You also told me you want to move to Dubai.’ His words are little more than a whisper.
