“Don’t worry, darling. It’s a long story,” Ethan replied, putting a soothing hand on Vanessa’s arm. “You two head back to the table, and I’ll explain all later,” he added with a tight smile. The last thing he wanted was for Daisy to be upset, so he prayed Vanessa would take the hint.
“No, I want to know what’s going onright now,” she insisted forcibly.
“Hey, Daisy, would you like to come into the kitchen and say hi to Justin, our chef? I know he’d love to meet you,” Terri interjected, swiftly taking the girl’s hand and turning her away from the spectacle.
“Good idea, buttercup,” her dad reassured with a small wink while Daisy reluctantly followed Terri through to the kitchen.
“Well?” Vanessa looked from one man to the other. Then she frowned at Knowles. “Excuse me, why are you staring at me like that?”
Ethan noticed that he was indeed staring at her with a perplexed look on his face.
“Hey, I know you,” Knowles said, his eyes narrowing.
“What? What are you talking about? I’ve never seen you before in my life. Ethan, are you going to tell me what the hell is happening here?” she beseeched impatiently.
“Hold on. Idoknow you.” Knowles continued to stare with confused recognition.
“I really don’t see how—” She glanced disparagingly at the man as if he were a particularly annoying fly she wanted to swat and refocused her attention on Ethan.
“Bloody hell,” Knowles said finally. “It’s you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Itisyou. The bird in the taxi—in New York.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Vanessa replied shortly, but Ethan noticed a low blush creep across her face.
“No, no, I’m right. I know I am. I’d swear to it,” Knowles insisted. “I twigged you from the CCTV footage I saw only yesterday. You and that fella were in the taxi that ran me over.”
Ethan was now seriously perplexed. “Knowles, what on earth are you talking about? How could Vanessa possibly have been…” But the rest of the question trailed off when he noticed that she was looking exceedingly uncomfortable.
What the hell?
“Nonsense. You’ve clearly mistaken me for someone else, but regardless, why are you two arguing?” she asked again, her voice a low hush. “And how do you know this man, Ethan?”
“You were with the guy…the blabbermouth witness. What was his name again?” Knowles was adamant. “Freeman, that’s it.”
Suddenly the mood shifted.
Brian?
Wrong-footed, Ethan turned to look at Vanessa, who by now was looking decidedly unnerved. Clearly, there was something to Knowles’s take, and Ethan’s mind raced as he struggled to figure it out.
“Brian? He was in New York while we were there at Christmas?” he said, addressing Vanessa. “What were you and Brian doing in a taxi? You never said anything about seeing…” All too quickly, Ethan realized that his best friend, in return, had also failed to mention anything about seeing Vanessa in New York or indeed being in the city at the same time as them. Let alone at the scene of the accident that preceded all Ethan’s problems in the first place.
He was caught completely unawares. How had the tables suddenly been turned? Instead of demanding an explanation, now Vanessa was the one under scrutiny.
Was it possible that she and Brian had been in the cab that knocked Knowles over? And if they were, why on earth hide it?
Then an uneasy feeling came over him, and just like that, he understood. “Oh,” he whispered. “You…and Brian?”
One look at her shamefaced expression told him everything.
“It’s not how it seems, Ethan,” she began, her voice pleading, and his stomach dropped into his shoes.
“Nice try, babe, but Freeman’s already hung you out to dry,” Knowles said, relishing the discomfort. “It’s on record that the cab picked you two up from some hotel uptown.”
Vanessa didn’t even look at him. “We were having a business meeting,” she explained weakly, but Ethan was by now an expert in lame excuses.
