‘Oh, no?’ he said, his tone still smooth, but there was something underneath, an emotion I couldn’t name. ‘You didn’t wait until I’d left so you could go out without me knowing?’
I swallowed the huge lump in my throat. While I hadn’texactlybeen as calculating as Justin made it seem, that pretty much had been the result. ‘I … What are you doing back here this early, anyway?’
‘Class got cancelled – broken water pipe upstairs dripping into the studio – but that’s hardly the point. I’m not going to allow you to deflect, to wriggle out of giving me a straight answer … And if you’re going to try to run rings around me rather than tell the truth, then maybe I need to do something concrete to stop it happening again.’ And before I could even twitch in reaction, he pulled the violin case out of my hand and backed away. ‘From now on, you will have to ask for your violin if you want to play it, and I will decide if it is appropriate for you to have it or not.’
‘Justin!’ I said, half laughing at the ridiculousness of what he was saying but feeling panicky at the same time. ‘This is stupid! Just let me explain—’
‘Don’t turn this on me,’ he said softly, and I could see the hurt in his eyes. ‘You’re the one who’s been dishonest. Do you deny it?’
‘Well, no …’ When he put it like that, it didn’t really sound that good, and while I’d convinced myself at the time I wasn’t exactly breaking our agreement, I knew I’d been breaking the spirit of it. I didn’t have a leg to stand on.
‘I trusted you, Angel. And you know how important trust is to me, especially after the way my vicious, cheating ex betrayed me.’
He looked as if he was about to cry, and I stepped towards him, lifting a hand to reach for him. ‘Justin, I’m so …’
He backed away, clutching the violin case to his chest. ‘Is this what our marriage is going to be like? Full of lies and deceit?’
‘No! Of course not! I wasn’t thinking … I wasn’t …’ I stared at the violin. Playing in the park that day had been the only time I’d felt truly carefree in weeks.‘Please, Justin – I know I was in the wrong, but you don’t need to take Octavia away from me, you really don’t!’
‘This is what makes me the saddest. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you love that violin more than you do me. And call it what it is, will you? Giving an instrument a name is something a child does. But maybe that’s indicative of what’s going on with us right now – you’re just too immature to be in an adult relationship.’
Was this it? Was he going to say it was over? That he didn’t want to marry me after all? My stomach plummeted.
‘And until you can grow up a little, I will take custody ofOctavia.’ He turned and, with great control, walked out of the kitchen, across the living room, towards his study. I jogged after him, trying to work out what I could say to put things right.
I watched helplessly as he pulled papers out of the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. When it was empty, he placed the violin case inside and locked it closed.
Chapter Forty
Now.
ALICE WALKED IN silence beside Ben as they crossed the forecourt of Penrith station. She was trying very hard not to think about what had almost just happened between them.I know it feels like Ben is the missing piece of the puzzle you’ve always been looking for,she told herself,but you can’t trust your instincts at the moment, remember?Without any knowledge of her personal history, she had no context for these feelings.
What if she got home and found out she was in a long-term relationship of some kind? What was she going to say then?Hi honey … Yes, my memory’s back now, but while it was missing, I accidentally fell for someone else. Sorry ’bout that.
As they neared the station entrance, the two girls who’d been sitting opposite them on the train appeared, deep in conversation. ‘I told you calling my brother to come and get us was going to be a good idea,’ one said.
‘Did we miss the update?’ Ben asked them.
The other girl nodded. ‘What there was of it. First train through isn’t going to be for almost another hour, and then after that, it’s delays and cancellations all day.’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Where’re you heading?’
‘Blackpool.’
Ben tapped away on his phone for a few seconds. ‘And your brother’s going to be here in a wee bit?’
The girl looked puzzled but nodded. ‘In about forty-five minutes.’
‘Do you think he has room in his car for another two bodies?’
The girl shot a look at her partner, who just shrugged. ‘Yeah, why not.’
‘If we can get to Blackpool,’ Ben said to Alice, ‘we’ll have other travel options, including coaches. What do you think?’
Both the girls and Ben looked at her. Alice felt herself shrink a little. ‘I don’t know …’
She preferred the idea of something known in favour of a nebulous plan. The trains couldn’t be delayed forever, could they? Having no memory meant that she had to take every bit of information that came her way on faith, so she found herself reluctant to release this one concrete detail she’d been hanging on to.
