He looked so affronted she almost laughed. ‘No, it was nothing like that. It was …’ He turned and stopped in front of her. ‘I’ve been waiting more than five years to say this to you, rehearsed it a million times inside my head. If I’m going to do it, I may as well do it properly. Do you want to know everything, absolutely everything?’
She swallowed the lump that had lodged itself in her throat. ‘Yes, I really do.’
Chapter Forty-One
Six weeks before the wedding.
THE MOTION OF the train lulled me, and my mind drifted. When the sliding doors whooshed open, and I realised it was my stop, I hopped off quickly and headed for the exit. It was only when I emerged from the ticket hall onto the road outside that I realised something was off.
I recognised the place instantly – Penge East station – but that hadn’t been my intended destination when I’d left Kensington. I’d planned on heading up to Oxford Street to find some bikinis and flip-flops for my upcoming honeymoon in St Lucia, and then I was due to have a fitting for my wedding dress near Bond Street.
How odd. I must have just been on automatic, so lost in thought that I’d headed home, a route I’d taken hundreds of times before.
I checked the time on my phone and then, instead of crossing the footbridge to get the train back into central London, I set off for my parents’ house. If I ditched the bikini shopping, I could still make the dress fitting. It seemed stupid to turn around without paying them a visit now I was here.
‘Oh!’ my mum said when she saw me standing on the doorstep.‘I thought it was the postman.’ But then she gathered me into her arms. ‘I’ve missed you.’
I held on tight. ‘Me too,’ I said. ‘I was thinking about you this morning.’
Maybe that’s why I’d ended up there? The idea must have got stuck in my subconscious. Justin’s Christmas present to me had been a week in a gorgeous old cottage in the Cotswolds, just the two of us, so I hadn’t seen my parents over the festive period. And by the time he and I had got back, they’d been in Margate seeing in the New Year with Auntie Lisa.
Mum bustled me in out of the cold and put the kettle on. ‘Are you okay, love? You’re looking a bit peaky … and you’ve got bags under your eyes. Haven’t you been sleeping well?’
‘Not great.’
‘What’s got you stressed?’
I hesitated. I knew she would worry and fuss if I told her Justin and I had been arguing a lot recently. I was still upset with him for locking Octavia in his filing cabinet. Justin was all drama, highs and lows …I’d crushed him unbelievably … I was the love of his life… I could hear both those things in the space of an afternoon. Anyway, I’d assumed that once he’d calmed down, he’d see sense and give the violin back to me.
I’d been wrong.
Asking about it had prompted most of the arguments in question, so eventually, I’d just stopped. But I didn’t want to tell Mum any of this, so I just made up an excuse about it being wedding nerves. Ithinkshe bought it.
‘Why don’t you take your cuppa into the living room and keep your dad company for a bit? I’ll be with you in just a sec … Ooh,and I’ll show you the outfit I’ve bought for the wedding! I found something last week.’
When I arrived in the living room, Dad gave me a swift hug but quickly turned his attention back to a gardening programme on the telly. Lo was in there, engrossed in her phone. ‘Aren’t we supposed to meet in town in an hour and a half for your dress fitting?’ she said. ‘Did you decide to escort me there in case I forgot to go?’
Not the usual hug-filled greeting we would have had before our fight, but things were thawing slowly since I’d waved a long-overdue olive branch and asked her to be my maid of honour. ‘I just … wanted to visit.’
While it hadn’t been my plan when I’d left Justin’s flat that morning, it was the truth. I sat with Dad and Lo and watched someone talk about lining ponds properly on the TV for a while, but then my stomach growled, so I decided to go and get a biscuit to go along with my tea.
I’d just headed out the living room door when I heard Mum talking in low tones at the top of the stairs. ‘Yes, it’s okay. She’s here. She’s safe … Are you going to come here?’ It sounded like she was on the phone. There was a moment of silence while she listened to the person on the other end of the phone, and then she added, ‘Yes. Yes … I think that’s a good idea.’
I knew I should have kept walking to the kitchen, but now I was intrigued.
‘Okay. Well, I’ll see you when you get here, love. Bye, Justin …’
My eyes widened. Since when had my mum and Justin had each other’s phone numbers?
I heard the creaky floorboard on the top of the staircase go, so I quickly slid back inside the living room. When Mum came downstairs, I followed her into the kitchen. ‘Did I just hear you talking to Justin?’
She’d been stirring the sugar into her own mug of tea, and the spoon stopped moving, then started again. She turned, looking a little sheepish. ‘He said you hadn’t been answering your phone, so he’d checked that app thingie that lets you know where people are, and it said you were here instead of up in London somewhere. He sounded a bit worried.’
Oh, crap. Justin hated it when he couldn’t get hold of me. I was surprised I hadn’t noticed my phone vibrating in my bag. ‘How did he get your number?’
She frowned. ‘I presumed you must have given it to him. Didn’t you?’
‘I don’t …’ I began, but then I trailed off. With all the turmoil with Justin recently, everything was getting a little bit hazy. I couldn’t remember giving Justin Mum’s number, but I also didn’t remembernotgiving it to him. ‘I must have,’ I said. It was the only explanation.
