‘Is she …?’ Faltering, she locked her eyes on his, her fear palpable.
‘She’s out of the woods,’ he answered, gathering what she meant. ‘They’ll monitor her for twenty-four hours. Run ECGs. Hopefully there’ll be no lasting physical damage. The emotional damage, though …’
Tears sliding down her cheeks, Emily wrapped her arms around herself. ‘Why would someone do such a terrible thing? If they’re aware of her medical history, they would know that she might try to take her life again, wouldn’t they?’ She blinked bewilderedly at him. ‘It’s as if they were driving her to it, pushing her.’
Jake stepped forward as a shiver ran through her. Wrapping his arms tentatively around her, he eased her to him. He felt his heart breaking as she cried hard into his shoulder. How he wished they could stay like this, safe in each other’s embrace, lie together without this cold ocean between them and find some comfort in each other.
‘I’m all right,’ she said, pulling away from him as her sobs slowed to a stop. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, apologising, as if she shouldn’t have given in to her emotion.
‘Tears are allowed, Emily,’ he assured her softly. ‘They’re therapeutic.’ She didn’t know it, but he’d cried a few of his own once he’d left the hospital and got back to his car. Tears of frustration and anger. For Jenny and Steve. Zoe and Dean. Natasha and Michael. For himself. He’d only ever felt this lonely once before, years ago, when his life had been blown apart. He wasn’t sure he would survive if he lost everything that mattered to him all over again.
Emily nodded and reached for some kitchen towel. ‘I was feeling upset anyway,’ she said, dabbing her eyes. ‘Millie stormed out again.’
Jake’s heart jolted. He’d heard Ben on his phone upstairs when he’d come in, but he hadn’t even asked where Millie was. He’d assumed she was in her bedroom; that both kids were less than happy with him and therefore avoiding him. ‘What happened?’ he asked warily.
‘We argued,’ she said with a rueful sigh. ‘I knew Millie would be emotional, thinking we were breaking up. She was really trying to be there for me, but I managed to put my foot in it again.’
Jake felt the foundations of his world shift another inch. ‘Are we?’ he asked throatily.
She took an agonising minute to reply. ‘I don’t know,’ she said eventually, going back to the island to pick up her wine glass. She didn’t take a drink, contemplating the contents distractedly instead. ‘I can’t see how we can work things out when you clearly hate me.’
She couldn’t think that that was how he felt, surely? ‘I don’t hate you, Emily.’ Guilt wrenching his stomach, he walked across to her.
‘No?’ She emitted a hollow laugh. ‘It feels that way, Jake.’
‘Christ, Emily, I could never feel that way about you. I love you. I’ve always loved you. I fell in love with you approximately ten seconds after I saw you.’
He was exaggerating, but not by much. She’d made him smile, something he hadn’t done for a while. It had felt good. A switch had flicked inside him that day. He’d felt something other than a need to work, to keep studying to stop himself from thinking. He’d felt hope. She’d saved him. She must know that.
‘Please believe I’m sorry,’ he begged her. ‘I should never have said the things I did. I have no idea what was going on in my head. I thought, after what you accused me of with Natasha, that …’ Struggling to explain, he trailed off hopelessly.
‘That I’d sent that vile letter to her? And then another to Zoe to shift suspicion from myself?’ Emily searched his face long and hard.
‘I was wrong. I’m sorry,’ Jake reiterated.
She nodded. ‘And Sally? Are you sorry about her?’
Jake glanced awkwardly down. ‘I should have mentioned it,’ he admitted. ‘It just …’ He was about to add that it hadn’t occurred to him it wasn’t common knowledge by now when Emily spoke over him.
‘It’s her, isn’t it? Sally? It’s her you’re seeing?’
His gaze snapped back to her. ‘What?’ He looked at her, stunned.
‘She obviously hates me. She must, to be doing what she’s doing,’ Emily continued, confounding him.
She actually believed that …Jesus. ‘She’s not doing anything, Emily,’ Jake said, his heart plummeting all over again.
‘Oh, I see.’ She drew in a breath. ‘So you think I’m quite capable of the evil you accused me of, but not her? I think that sums up how you really feel about me, don’t you?’
‘You mean you think it’s Sally who’s sending the letters out?’ Jake searched her eyes, saw the conviction in them, and felt trepidation run the length of his spine.
‘She knows I check your email,’ Emily pointed out. ‘It was the perfect way to cause trouble between us. And she would definitely have wanted to warn Natasha off if there were some basis in it, wouldn’t she?’
‘And the letters to Zoe and Jennifer?’ He tried very hard to keep his voice calm.
‘To deflect suspicion from herself. Isn’t that what you thoughtIwas doing?’
He felt hopelessness wash through him. ‘I don’t believe that, Emily,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve known her for some years and—’
