Callie looked at the man she’d loved for so long and it would have been so easy to reach out and touch his hair. It was the same dark hair with perhaps a hint of grey at the temples. She could feel the charisma coming off him in waves, and yet, it wasn’t charisma today, she realised: it was something else.
Desperation.
Heneededher,wanted her for something. A complete reversal of fortune. For all of their lives together, Jason had been the one with all the power. She’d had none, Callie realised. Her mother, her aunt – they were all right in that regard.
Startled by this internal revelation, she stared at him now, feeling nothing but the cool well of anger. Whatever he needed now, he would have to find it without her. Without Poppy.
‘What about Poppy?’ she said.
His head shot up.
‘Is she here? I’d love to see her.’
Instinctively, Callie shoved her chair backwards.
‘Are you crazy? Do you think I’d bring her to see you purely because you happen to have been caught in this country with your girlfriend? You didn’t come back for us. That will hurt her more than you can imagine, Jason. I won’t stop you having a relationship with your daughter, because that would be wrong, but ...’ She paused. She almost couldn’t think of a way to put it that would imprint the message upon Jason’s brain.
‘What we went through was appalling. You abandoned us, to the police, the press, while Rob went off with Anka and the baby and you left us two to suffer. Do you have any idea what it was like for us? We had no money, nothing, nowhere to go: Poppy and I, the two people you say you love. If that’s your version of love, you can keep it.’
This time, Jason lowered his eyes first.
Callie felt the fire in her, the same fire she’d felt when she was fleeing Dublin with her daughter, fleeing from the press. That lioness would not let this man destroy her or her daughter.
‘You have every right to see your daughter, and even though we will be getting a divorce, I will make sure you see her because it will be important for her development, but she’s got other role models in her life now. She’s got my brother Freddie and ...’ she paused again.
Callie was not a vindictive woman and she knew this would wound him. Still, he needed to know who the male presences were in his daughter’s life.
‘She has Ricky,’ she said without relish and Jason’s head snapped up.
‘That bastard,’ he said. ‘As soon as I’m gone, he’s sniffing around you—’
‘No,’ said Callie fiercely, ‘it’s not like that. I don’t want or need a man in my life. I have had you in my life for what, twenty-five years, and look what you did to me. Men are way off my menu. Plus, Ricky has a lovely wife and child, on whom he is not cheating.’
She let that one sink in.
‘My biggest relationship is with my daughter, then with my family, and then with the friends who’ve supported us through this time. Brenda, Evelyn, Mary Butler. They’ve kept in touch, talked to me, helped me.’
She thought of the Skype calls and the emails from Mary.
‘Ricky is my friend, but that’s all he is. He cares, like my family, the family you tried to separate me from. I came here for five minutes to find out why you left us.’ She looked at her watch. ‘You’ve three minutes left. Start talking.’
‘I don’t know,’ Jason said, his voice low. ‘I was scared and I didn’t want you to see it and then we were gone and I couldn’t get you.’
‘That’s it?’ she said in disbelief. ‘That’s the best story you can come up with?’
Jason squirmed.
‘You didn’t try to contact me. Why not?’ said Callie.
‘Because ... because I knew they’d be watching you and waiting and ...’
‘And they might catch you, which was not part of the plan,’ she snapped. ‘What about the woman in Marbella? She was just to keep you amused?’ Callie asked, and found that she didn’t mind really. Not anymore. ‘You’ve no idea the trouble I’ve had trying to keep that picture from your daughter, who was wondering where you were and why you hadn’t talked to us.’
‘That – that—’ Jason stopped.
He couldn’t explain his way out of that one.
‘Poppy’s having counselling, by the way. Just a few sessions to help her understand things. I need her to feel good about herself. Not everyone says nice things to a kid whose father has defrauded so many people. I tried to keep the worst of it from her, but she knows most of it. I tell her people sometimes do stupid things but life goes on and she is loved.’
