‘Yeah,’ Deepak laughed, but tears were still in his eyes. ‘We all had a lot to drink that night, didn’t we? I had a lot of beers, but I felt it: you know what I mean. It was as if all these lightbulbs had been turned on at the same time in my head.’
Nick did know what he meant. He tried not to think of that first day he met Alex. ‘She’d felt the same thing as you, hadn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you started sleeping together.’
‘No, not for a long time after that. We became friends on Facebook first, then we started Instant Messaging, and met for the occasional lunchtime coffee or dinner. But that wasn’t enough so gradually it escalated.’
Nick knew how hypocritical it was for him to feel animosity towards Sally for her lies, when his and Alex’s relationship had followed almost the exact same pattern, but still he found Deepak’s words hard to swallow.
‘She was going to leave you,’ Deepak added hesitantly. ‘And I was planning on leaving Sumaira. We’d spent too long going behind your backs and we wanted to be together out in the open. Then Sumaira got pregnant with the twins and I came to my senses. I knew I couldn’t just walk out on my wife. So I ended it with Sally. I don’t think Sally was too happy, but I was certain that I wanted to stay with Sumaira and I told her that. That’s when she booked those tickets to Bruges, to try and reconnect with you.’
Nick had known there was something off about Sally’s sudden desire to go away together. ‘Go on,’ he said to Deepak.
‘When Sally thought she might be pregnant, she started panicking because she didn’t know which one of us was the father. She was scared if she told you the truth you wouldn’t want to stick around and that you’d leave with Alex. She was so petrified of ending up a single mum.’
‘So she used me.’
‘I guess so.’
There was something that had been bugging Nick about Deepak’s story. ‘You chose Sumaira, and it sounds like Sally chose me. How the hell did you two deal with not being together? I know how powerful it feels when you meet your Match …’ It had been six months now since he’d last seen Alex and it was physically killing him to not be around him.
‘I don’t think we were actually Matched,’ Deepak admitted reluctantly. ‘I saw the news in the papers. I think we were one of those false Matches. It’s only when I look back on it that I realise after those initial few months of excitement, the spark gradually vanished and we became like every other couple cheating behind their partners’ backs. And even thinking back to that night we first met and the “explosions” people talk about, I think we were just drunk and got carried away with it. I’m really sorry, mate.’
Deepak’s apology was in earnest, but Nick couldn’t bring himself to accept it.
‘We both knew it, but because we thought we were Matched, we thought we had to stick together. In the end, all we had was an affair.’
‘There’s something else that’s been bothering me,’ Nick interrupted. ‘If Sally thought she was Matched with you, why did she want us to take the test?’
‘I think she wanted to give you an “out” … letting you go and be with your Match meant she wouldn’t have to break your heart and look like the bad guy when she left you. Instead, she’d be the victim in all of this. Thenwhen you found out you were Matched with a bloke, it was just as much a shock for us as it was for you, and we never thought you’d want to meet him. She was surprised she managed to talk you into it.’
‘Well, I’m glad herplanto get rid of me went well for her,’ Nick said sarcastically.
‘Don’t be like that, mate. After all, it all turned out OK in the end, right?’
If by OK, he meant a dead fiancée, a child that wasn’t his and his soulmate lost forever on the other side of the world, then, yeah, he was great, Nick thought bitterly.
The look on Deepak’s face showed that he realised the stupidity of his words. He looked down at the floor.
Nick was stunned by the lengths Sally had gone in her desperation. ‘I had no idea how manipulative she was,’ he muttered. ‘And what does Sumaira have to say about her husband fathering a child by her best friend? Your wife tends to have an opinion on most things.’
‘She’s gutted. She hasn’t kicked me out but she doesn’t want me to see Sally’s baby.’
‘What about you? What kind of future do you want with him?’ The task of raising the baby had fallen to Nick, and he loved him to the end of the world, but he did sometimes wonder if it was better for Dylan to be with his real father.
Deepak paused and looked away, but Nick held firm, desperately trying to disguise how concerned he was about the answer to come. He knew that many men would’ve discarded a child that wasn’t biologically a part of them, but Nick had sacrificed too much already to give up on Dylan. The delicate little boy who slept so peacefully in his arms had lost his mother even before his birth, and Nick would not allow him to lose the man who had hoped to be his father. He felt an overwhelming amount of love for his son, as he had come to think of him.
‘I don’t think the kid and I have any future together,’ Deepak eventually replied.
‘You don’tthink, or you know for sure?’
‘I know for sure.’
‘Do you feel anything for him at all?’
‘No, and I’m not ashamed to admit it either. I’m sitting here looking at him and I don’t feel a thing. All I see is trouble and complications. I don’t even have an urge to hold him or cuddle him like I do with my girls. Even if Sumaira hadn’t rejected him, I still wouldn’t want him.’
