My eyes widen. “Help you? How do you think I could have helped you after youtold Jeremy you’d stab him for putting his arm around you? You couldn’t even help yourself!”
“That was an empty threat! It’s not my fault everyone in New Zealand thinks Italians carry knives. And he brushed my tit! Which I told you about, and what did you do? Besides say I shouldn’t have told him off?”
“I told you you shouldn’t havethreatened him, not told him off. But that’s all you did; insult people and threaten them, and bash the shit out of Jenny Sharpe—who deserved it—but I wasn’t some social angel who could make people see the wonderful person you are on the inside. Especially when you kept acting like a psycho on the outside!”
“But—”
“And you never asked me for help. You never once asked me to come hang out at lunch. You just hid away with Rhys and terrified people.”
“I shouldn’t have had to ask! I wanted you to know that’s what I needed.”
“Ada, that’s so unfair! I’m not a fucking mindreader! Why would?—”
“Because I would have done it for you! I would have looked after you! Like I’m looking after you now! Protecting you and your stupid family.”
My stomach turns. “What are you talking about?”
“Your sleazeball brother. Your Mum and Dad think the sun shines out of his hole, and he doesn’t deserve one bit of the hero worship you send his way whenever he deigns to give you some attention.”
Time seems to stop around me. A piece of a strange puzzle that’s been confusing me for years finally slides into place. “What did you do, Ada?”
She turns away from me, and that’s all the answer I need. “Oh fuck you. Tristan has been with Caroline for twelve years. What happened?”
“I didn’t know,” she whispers. “We met up when I was in London. He told me he was single.”
“And you didn’t check?”
“How was I supposed to check? Did you want me to call you? Just ring you up and be like, ‘Hey, I know you’ve got issues with your brother, but he’s hanging around whining about how lonely he is. Does he have a secret fucking fiancée I’m going to find out about after I go back to his hotel room, because he’s too stupid not to take a call from her after he failed to fuck me?’”
“Tristan wouldn’t do that!” I don’t believe my own words, but I want to. I don’t want to think about him doing that to Caroline. To Maisie. I need none of this to be true.
“And there it is.” Ada throws up her hands. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d take his side like you always do. You know exactly what he is, but blood’s still thicker than water, huh?”
I can barely hear her over the pounding in my head. “But when he waswith Caroline? Jesus, Addy. They have a child.”
“Not back then! But it doesn’t even matter, because your brother fucking lied to me. He sucked me in.”
I laugh, an echo of the manic laugh Ada scared me with on the phone.
“Screw you,” she says in a low voice. “You call yourself my best friend, and you think I’m capable of something like that? I’m not that girl, and I never will be.”
“Ada—”
“Besides, even if I was that kind of girl, who the fuck are you to judge? You’ve been frothing over Will Sharpe for years, even back when he was married to rat-bitch. And now he’s divorced, I cansee youplanning your tropical honeymoon and two-point-five kids in your head.”
“That’s not fair?—”
“It’s more than fucking fair. You’ve fucked dildos that are better husband material than that cunt, and you fucking know it!”
What I know is I’ve had enough. Ada fucked my brother, then has the balls to claim she didn’t tell meto protect me? Even if she thought he was single, what was her plan? To have sex with him, and then what? To date him? Tomarry him?Where would that leave us? I’d once again be second string to fucking Tristan, and this time worse, because it would have been my own best friend—the person who knows more than anyone how much it would hurt me to be put in that position. But she was more than happy to do it! And then she compares her behaviour with me still having a crush on Will. I would rather she’d had sex with Will thanTristan. Does she ever think about anyone but herself?
I want to shake her. I need to stop driving. I need to get out of this and away from Ada. The silence engulfing the car only makes the pounding in my head blare louder. If I’m going to have my second panic attack of the day, I want it to be in my hotel room without witnesses.
Hold on. Hold on just a little longer.
The next five minutes are the longest of my life, my throattightening with every breath. I slam the car to a stop in the first available car park in front of the hotel, and yank out the keys.
“You know what, Cece?” There’s a tremble in Ada’s voice, but it’s almost lost under the diamond bite of her words. “You’re the same as all these guys who only wanted to fuck me as soon as the coast was clear.”
