‘You think that because now I’ve got Ellie I can forget what they did?’ The laughter that sprang from him had an almost cruel edge to it. ‘They lied to me. Theybetrayedme. I’m here, aren’t I? You can’t expect more than that.’
‘They love each other. Surely you see that?’ she beseeched him. ‘Savannah and you were never happy together. Not like they are.’ She looked over at Liam and Savannah. They were feeding each other shrimp – the same colour as their matching outfits. His stomach churned with nausea.
‘And now they’ve found each other, I should be happy for them?’
His mother looked him dead in the eye and answered with a hard tone, ‘Yes.’
‘How can you say that?’
Her eyes narrowed and she stared at him as if he were a child again and she was reprimanding him. ‘Because it’s the only way you can be happy too. You need to let go of all this anger and jealousy. We love you bothequally, and all I want is for you to be happy.’
Her words reverberated through him, shaking his foundations and shifting his perspective with dizzying speed. He still didn’t believe they loved him equally to Liam, but he was beginning to wonder if he should just let go of all this pointless bitterness. It wasn’t helping him, and his bad behaviour wasn’t fair on Ellie either.
As if reading his mind, his mother added, ‘She’s worried about you,’ gesturing with her chin at Ellie, who was halfway up the veranda stairs with two plates in her hands and eyes overflowing with concern.
Holly was walking up the steps beside her, and he noticed her give Ellie a sneering side-eye before asking, ‘Hungry?’
Ellie blushed, but nodded towards him. ‘One’s for Alex.’
A pang of guilt hit the pit of his stomach, and he pushed away his glass. No matter what, she was still his friend, and that counted for something. He needed to protect her from this den of vipers.
Chapter Twenty
Ellie was beginning to think that this whole holiday-fake-relationship thing was a bad idea. Alex’s usually charming smile had twisted into a brooding scowl that had everyone’s nerves on edge.
Yes, Savannah and Liam had done a terrible thing, and yes, he had a right to be angry. But did he have to be such a… dick?
His behaviour during and after the speech had made her skin crawl with embarrassment. Free holiday be damned – she would start swimming back to the East End now if this was how the rest of the week was going to pan out, and she didn’t even care about the shark-infested waters.
Thankfully, he’d not said anything else after they’d all gone to get their food. She’d noticed his mum had had a word with him. Hopefully, she’d reminded him about his manners.
What had happened to him? He’d been so happy after the tennis game. Granted, she’d had to repeat their agreed boundaries, and thank God she had – by his current behaviour, it was perfectly clear that he wasn’t over Savannah.
She could understand his pain. Of course he wasn’t going to be all sunshine and rainbows about the wedding. He’d obviously loved Savannah deeply; his silence when she’d asked him about it had been answer enough.
Which meant that her suspicions had been right all along. Their attraction to each other was a passing crush, nothing more. When Alex finally moved on from his disappointment with Savannah, he would realise Ellie had simply been a nice comforting distraction. While she would be left hurt and as broken as she’d been after David… Except much, much worse.
She pushed around the delicious food on her plate. She’d lost her appetite. Holly’s fatphobic comments had been the icing on the cake of this crappy evening.
‘Would you like to dance?’
Ellie’s head shot up so fast she wondered if she’d given herself whiplash. ‘What?’
Alex smiled, and her heart fluttered back to life when she recognised it as his first genuinely happy emotion since the start of the meal. ‘Come on.’ He held out his hand.
She shook her head, glancing towards the couples dancing expertly on the wooden decking in the centre of the garden. Pretty lights were strung up around the square, and the music rolled through the crowd as their hips swayed in time to the calypso beat. She had no hope of emulating those moves – she was more used to stomping around her handbag to Little Mix or grinding to some Rihanna.
‘I don’t know how to dance, not to this, sorry.’
‘Let me show you,’ he said, taking her hand in his and tugging her towards the deck. She stumbled after him, terrified at the prospect of making a fool of herself in front of this crowd. But also elated at the welcome change in Alex’s attitude.
Did his mum slip him a Prozac earlier?
He started to show her the basic steps, and after a few false starts she managed to almost get a dance routine going.
He twirled her around with one arm in the air and she spun awkwardly around him, bumping her hips against his, until they both laughed. Then his face sobered and he pulled her close, his hips still swaying in time with the music. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me earlier.’
‘I understand,’ she said immediately, although, if she were honest, she was more than a little relieved that he regretted his earlier behaviour. It had been so unlike him.
