‘Have you tried calling her?’ asked his mother over lunch.
Alex had to stop himself from snapping back at her. ‘Yes, of course I have.’
In fact, he’d called her continuously most of the morning. Each time the call had failed to connect. He suspected she’d blocked him.
His eyes swivelled to Richie, who he’d almost throttled earlier when he’d discovered his part in helping Ellie escape.
Escape!
Like he was some monster that she’d had to run away from. He just couldn’t understand what he’d done wrong, and he couldn’t even go after her – the boat wouldn’t return for a while, and anyway she was already in the air. Richie was damn efficient, he’d give the bastard that at least.
Last night had been wonderful, he hadn’t imagined that. But then she’d been cold and distant in the morning. So, was that it? They’d had sex and she’d been afraid he wanted more than the holiday fling she was willing to give? That didn’t make sense. Ellie wasn’t aflingtype of girl.
Did Richie know more than he was letting on?
‘Don’t glare at me like that, Alex. She told me she’d had enough and wanted to go home. What was I supposed to do, force her to stay? Hold her against her will?’ Richie sneered before going back to his phone and Caesar salad.
‘Of course not,’ said his mother with a frown. ‘But maybe you could have told me at least. This is my house. I have a right to know who comes and goes.’
Richie inclined his head. ‘I’m sorry, Jessica. I thought you deserved some rest after the wedding, and I was just trying tosort things out for the girl. She seemed desperate to leave.’ He looked to Alex. ‘Did you argue?’
‘No,’ Alex said miserably. ‘But she left a note.’
His mom and dad exchanged a wide-eyed look. ‘What did it say?’
Alex closed his eyes, but the words were burned on his retinas.
The holiday is over.
Nothing ever lasted with Alex, and Ellie had had enough of his weird lifestyle. He’d crossed the line of their friendship and tried to make it more than it was. After she’d repeatedly told him she didn’t want a relationship with him. He’d taken advantage of her, bought her affection and begged her to lie for him. No wonder she’d had enough. Beneath all the luxury and lies, there was just Alex, and he wasn’t enough for her.
He was never enough.
‘She said not to call her.’
His mom and dad winced simultaneously and went back to pretending to eat. What was more worrying was that no one seemed surprised. They all exchanged knowing looks and kept quiet, as if they weren’t surprised Ellie was gone.
Well, he’d never been very good at keeping a girlfriend, had he?
Chapter Thirty-Three
The journey home was long and tedious, far worse than her journey there. Especially when a curt text from Richie arrived while she was still bumping up and down on the speedboat, explaining that he’d had to put her in economy on the flight back to London to ensure she was on the next available flight.
But at least she’d got a window seat. She leaned against the window and turned away from the two other passengers in her row, hoping to avoid speaking to anyone for as long as possible – for ever, ideally.
She couldn’t sleep, but, when she’d looked at the films available, there’d been one starring Liam and Savannah. No doubt the notorious affair film. She’d switched it off and pretended to sleep for the remainder of the flight, occasionally rising for a long overdue loo break or a bag of crisps.
Back in London, she wearily collected her baggage and got into the first available taxi. As soon as she was inside, she kicked herself for not calling Martin. He would have charged her far less and driven far more safely. Turning on her phone, which she’d had off the entire journey, she was depressed to see an influx of notifications.
Big mistake.She should have waited until she was in the safety of her own home.
There were several missed calls from her mother, which was to be expected. Her mum always seemed to forget about flights and phones. But there were also a lot of emails from her, which was unusual from her non-tech-savvy mum. She opened up the email app on her phone.
As well as the ones from her mum, there were some other names she didn’t recognise, all reporters from variousmagazines, papers and media outlets by the look of their email addresses. The subject lines were all variations ofTell your story. She groaned and moved on through the list.
There was one email address shedidrecognise: Hazel, her line manager. The air in her lungs froze and her heart jerked in her chest.
Ellie immediately clicked on the email. It was very professional – which was worrying in itself. She scanned through it and then read it again in disbelief. She’d been asked to take a voluntary leave of absence until the board could determine if recent events in herprivate lifequalified as gross misconduct.
