I shook my head and smiled, knowing she was going to be horrified with saying all of this in the morning. It was so utterly ridiculous I found I couldn’t even be angry about it. Yes, I knew Justin wasn’t perfect, that there were moments when he really upset me, but it wasn’t as bad as all that.
‘I mean, does he ever sulk or give you the silent treatment when he doesn’t get what he wants, keeps it up until you give in?’
I stopped smiling. ‘Well … Sometimes. But so did you, Lo, when we were growing up!’
Lo narrowed her eyes and looked at me. ‘I was a temperamental teenager, not a grown man in his thirties.’ She stayed silent for a moment, and I’d hoped she’d drop the subject, but then she said, ‘Okay, well, you’ve got to admit that he’s changed you since you started seeing him. The latest thing is the voice – what’s up with that, going all posh on me?’
My cheeks heated, and I looked away. ‘I’ve been having lessons from an actor friend of Justin’s, and he’s notforcingme to do it. I want to do it.’ I looked back at her, begging her to understand. ‘You don’t see the way some of the people he mixes with look at me when I open my mouth.’
‘But I bet it was his idea, right?’
I sighed heavily. Yes, Justin had suggested it, and I suppose I’d been a little bit offended at first, but when he’d explained it to me, I’d agreed to go along with it. In the end, I’d been grateful for it. People were taking me more seriously. ‘That doesn’t prove anything.’
Lo leaned in and said, ‘Are you sure you want this?’
‘Want what?’
‘To marry him! It’s not too late to back out, you know.’
‘Lo …’ I was getting irritated now. She was taking this too far. ‘Drop it, okay?’
We reached the head of the queue, and the next taxi in the rank pulled forward. ‘You have this one since you’re going a different way,’ she said. ‘The girls and I will get the next.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, giving her a brisk hug, glad I was about to be whisked back to Kensington, and the conversation would be over.
She tugged my coat sleeve as I opened the door and leaned into the cab to tell the driver the address. ‘Okay, one last thing and I promise I’ll drop it … I know you say he’s not physical with you, but does he ever make you feel like you’re losing your mind, that you’re doubting yourself about everything. Does he everscareyou?’
I kissed her on the cheek, and as I clambered into the back of the taxi, I thought about what she said. Justin made me feel many things. Yes, sometimes I felt frustrated, confused, upset. But show me anyone in a long-term relationship whodidn’tfeel that way on occasion. And, yes, sometimes, in his more intense moments, I found myself wanting to back away, but that was just his passionate nature. The flip side of that very same passion was what made me feel cherished, loved, worshipped.
‘No,’ I said as I sat down and reached to pull the door closed. ‘Justin has never scared me. Now go home, take two paracetamol and put a pint glass of water next to your bed.’
Chapter Forty-Seven
Now.
THEY SAT IN silence for the rest of the journey to London, both too shell-shocked to utter a word. What could he say anyway? ‘Congratulations?’ He wasn’t feeling particularly overjoyed about the idea of Alice getting married, but she looked … Well, she looked devastated.
‘I can’t get my head round it,’ she kept saying, staring blindly out of the window.
Neither could he. Why hadn’t he found her a year ago, or two years ago? It was crappy, crappy timing. He’d thought the universe had been smiling on him. Hah! This wasn’t a second chance. This was fate rubbing his nose in it.
Despite Alice’s flashes of memory, he hadn’t even considered the wedding she was trying to get to was her own. However, now he thought about it, he realised that the times she’d been most wobbly were when she’d come across something connected with a wedding. All the clues had been there. He’d just ignored them.
Like he had done with Cat. He had a talent for deluding himself, for refusing to see the disaster that was upon him until it hit. Despite all his efforts to change, to be more present for the people he cared about,he hadn’t made any progress at all.
Alice’s hand rested on her thigh, so close to his that he could stretch out his little finger and touch her if he’d wanted to. He picked up his phone to keep his hands busy. No more touching. No more believing this could go anywhere. But he still wasn’t leaving her side. Not yet.
And not for his own selfish need to be with her as much as possible. Because, even though she might only be days away from getting married, something clearly was wrong for her to have ended up in this state. Until he knew she was safe with people who loved her and would take care of her, he wasn’t walking away. He was going to stay, no matter how gut-wrenching it got, and he had no illusions about how hard it was going to be to see her walk away into the arms of another man.
‘Ben?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Do you think …? Do you think the wedding will go ahead with me like this? It can’t, can it? Not if I don’t remember who I’m supposed to be marrying?’
Hope flared in his chest, but he squashed it down again quickly. It didn’t change anything, not really. When her memories came back, she’d be ready to pick up the reins of her old life. He wouldn’t be needed. ‘I don’t know,’ he said truthfully. ‘All we can do is turn up at the rehearsal and find out.’
‘We?’ she almost whispered.
