‘What if she tells someone else?’
‘I’ll ask her not to.’
‘But now she thinks that I’m the other woman!Ash!’ I’m distraught.
‘Shedoeswant me to be happy, Ellie,’ he says equitably. ‘I know she liked Beca, but she’ll like you too when she gets to know you.’
‘What’s the point in her getting to know me? This is not going to last!’
He looks shocked, standing there on a carpet of yellow as the last of the laburnum blooms float down around him.
He shakes his head at me. ‘I can’t believe you’re talking about us ending when we’ve barely begun.’
‘Please stop making me say it: we have no future.’
My eyes prick with tears as I turn and walk away.
‘Ellie!’ he calls after me in dismay.
‘No!’ I reply angrily. ‘I have to sweep up those dead flowers.’
Another job that’s suffering from a lack of volunteers.
At the sound of my raised voice, a couple of old-age pensioners look towards me. My face burns as I head to the Mess Room.
I’m so upset with Ash that I don’t even reply to his text messages that night, telling me that he’s been to see his mother and sworn her to secrecy.
I’m sure she was happy to oblige, I think to myself darkly. She’d be too mortified to tell a single soul that her son is having a sordid affair with a gardener. She probably thinks we’ll fizzle out anyway. I bet she hopes for it with all her heart.
I’ve been neglecting Siân – she’s still emotional about Celyn – and I feel guilty for having turned down the invitation to join her and Bethan at the cinema, so on Saturday morning I suggest that she and I go into Wrexham for a long-overdue shopping trip.
Bethan, Harri and Evan get wind of our plan and join us that evening for a pub session.
Evan hasn’t invited me on another day trip since I told him I’d already visited the aqueduct with my ‘friend, Chloe’. He seems to have got the message that I want things to stay platonic, but he’s still being friendly and it’s good to be able to kick back with him.
When I’m drunk and a little emotional, I go to the bathrooms and reply to another text from Ash, asking me to go over that night. I say that I can’t and tell him that I’ll be busy the next day too.
He doesn’t reply, and I spend the whole of Sunday stressing.
But on Sunday night, I get a message from him:Can you meet me at the house? Not the cabin.
I’m so relieved to hear from him after twenty-four hours of silence that I reply straight away.
Why?
My parents are out for the evening. I’d like to show you around.
It hasn’t escaped my notice that he still hasn’t apologised.
What if someone sees us?
The only staff who live here have retired to their private quarters. There’s no better time.
I wish I could resist, but my willpower is shot.
OK.
Come to the gatehouse. Can you be here in 10?
