‘So?’ He looked at her curiously, wondering what she’d come to say. Something, presumably, since she’d finally agreed to meet with him.
Still gauging him warily, she didn’t answer for a second. Then, ‘What do you want, Josh?’ she asked.
Josh stared at her, incredulous. ‘What do Iwant?’ he repeated, his anger almost off the scale despite his best efforts to stay calm. ‘You really did think I was going to just walk away, didn’t you? Why did you tell me?’ he went on, before she could answer. ‘What was ityouwanted, Jemma? Because I’m buggered if I know.’
‘I…’ Jemma looked away. ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. And then—’
‘Right,’ Josh cut in abruptly. ‘So when you’d made up your mind, presumably having first decided to keep your options open, you told me to piss off. Does that sound right to you, Jemma? In any sense of the word, does it sound fair?’
‘No. I…’ Jemma’s gaze flicked back to him, and then quickly away again. ‘I hoped you would walk away, I suppose. For Ryan’s sake.’
Josh stared hard at her. She was looking uncomfortable, and no wonder. Aside from the fact that this was basically emotional blackmail, did she not realise that he would never be able to look Ryan in the eye again? That twisted his gut, the fact that he’d betrayed his friend, even if Jemma had told him her marriage was over, that they couldn’t get past losing their first child. It might not have been a conscious lie – she and Ryanwereseparated – but she’d used Josh, and he still struggled to understand why. She’d needed some company, a shoulder to cry on after all that she’d gone through, he got that, but did she have to bloody well choose his? Christ, he’d been an idiot.
‘Why did you do it, Jem?’ he asked her, his voice choked. He guessed he didn’t need to clarify what he meant.
‘I don’t know,’ she repeated forlornly. ‘I was confused, grieving. I didn’t mean—’
‘Not half as confused as I am,’ Josh grated.
‘I’msorry,’ Jemma blurted tearfully. ‘I was depressed, Josh. I’d lost a child. I was drinking too much, trying tofeelsomething other than totally bereft. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen; to hurt you. Please try to understand. If you insist on being involved, it will only end up hurting everyone.’
Being involved?Josh laughed scornfully. He couldn’tbemore involved, for Christ’s sake. She was having hisbaby. ‘I can’t do it, Jemma,’ he said, his eyes not leaving hers, making sure that she knew he meant it. ‘I can’t just turn my back.’ No way, he thought determinedly. He’d always sworn he would never cause any child of his the pain his father had caused him, making it obvious by his complete absence from his life that he was an insignificant nothing to him. ‘I want to be part of my child’s life. I have a right to be.’
Jemma’s expression was intense, a mixture of anger and frustration. Clearly she had been banking on him shirking his responsibility. Did he really come across as the kind of person who would do that? He had no clue any more how the bloody hell he came across. He thought he was doing everything right by Jemma. He’d evidently got it all wrong. He thought he’d behaved reasonably with Kim. He hadn’t said he loved her, because he didn’t. In truth, he’d felt manipulated into sleeping with her, which sounded ridiculous. She’d told him she loved him, though, after their steamy sex, and had obviously been upset when he hadn’t responded. He was beginning to think he needed relationship counselling – as in how to have a relationship without majorly pissing women off.
‘You’ll ruin my life!’ Jemma shouted, causing a bird in the trees above them to take flight. ‘You’ll ruinRyan’slife. Can you imagine what it will do to him if he finds out? Do you even care?’ Swiping a tear from her cheek, she glared hard at him.
His anger now very close to boiling over, Josh cautioned himself not to lose it. ‘I care, Jemma, more than you give me credit for,’ he said tersely.Though it’s pretty clear that you don’t give a damn about what all of this is doing to me, he didn’t bother to add. ‘I’m sorry.’ He steeled his resolve. ‘I’m not prepared to walk away. I can’t. What kind of person would that make me?’
‘A selfish one!’ Jemma cried.
‘Right.’ Josh smiled cynically, and turned his gaze to the sky. There were no stars out. Everything looked pretty shitty black from where he was standing.
‘Will you tell him?’ Jemma asked shakily.
Tugging in a ragged breath, Josh looked back at her. ‘He’s going to find out eventually,’ he said quietly. ‘He can’t fail to.’
Jemma didn’t speak for what seemed like an eternity. Then, ‘I wish I was dead,’ she said wretchedly.
Josh’s heart dropped. ‘Jemma…’ He moved towards her. ‘Please don’t talk like—’
She whirled around. ‘I wishyouwere!’ she seethed, scrambling to get away from him. ‘God help you if Ryan does find out. You’d better make yourself scarce, Josh. I would if I were you.’
Twenty-Five
Cassandra
Something wasn’t right. Cassie couldn’t shake the feeling that her life was unravelling, that events seemed to be conspiring against her, pushing her already fragile emotions right to the edge. The texts and the shoplifting incident – assuming she hadn’t had a mental aberration and truly stolen the straighteners – coming at the very time she was trying to hold on by her fingernails, for the sake of her grandson, as well as her sanity, had to have been prompted by Josh’s death. The woman was clearly after recompense, money she should have had had Cassie been in a position to pay what she’d promised. What she would have paid had the local tabloid she’d had several articles lined up with not folded.
She hadn’t answered the last text, but she couldn’t hide away from the fact that her past, no matter how hard she had tried to erase it, might catch up with her. The only way to make it go away was to face it full on. But how could she do that when she couldn’t be sure who was texting? She had to talk to her, but first she had to establish where she was, and whether she was still clean. If she wasn’t, she might need money fast, in which case Cassie might not have much time before the woman made good on her obvious threat to sell her story.
Taking a calming breath, she debated, and then rang an old colleague, who now wrote a regular financial advice column and who wouldn’t mind doing her a favour, especially knowing her circumstances. She hated asking her on that basis, but she had to do something – prepare herself at least for whatever this woman might want.
‘Michelle Rearden.’ Her colleague answered her phone straight away, sounding as sharp and efficient as ever. Cassie, by contrast, felt dulled, her mind careering from frantic suspicion of Adam, searching for signs he might leave her, to stultified fear and confusion. She had to pull herself together if she wanted to stop her marriage from crumbling. Move on, impossible though it felt, from the tragedy that had caused it to fracture. She couldn’t do that with this cloud hanging over her.
‘Hi, Shell, it’s Cassie,’ she said, trying to inject some brightness into her voice.
‘Cas!’ Shell exclaimed delightedly. Then, ‘Oh God, Cas, I’m so sorry about Josh. You must be absolutely devastated.’
