‘Checking to make sure I was packing?’ Susie asked, arching an impeccably manicured eyebrow.
‘I don’t know why we got off on the wrong foot—’
‘Because you are not who I want for Nick.’
Okay. To the point it is, then.‘Why would you care who Nick is with?’ Jenny asked.
‘Because if he gets involved with you, he’ll never leave this place and do what he should be doing. He has the potential to work for, and one day own, a multibillion-dollar business. Do you seriously want to deny him that? Just to stay here and run a pub in a backwater country town with absolutely no future?’
‘Nick’s a grown man. He’s worked hard to make his dream a reality. I would think that you’d support him instead of trying to manipulate him.’
‘Manipulate him? That’s rich coming from a woman old enough to be his—’
‘Mother?’ Jenny suggested. Jenny hadn’t meant to bring it up—she honestly hadn’t. She’d decided to keep her mouth shut and mind her own business, until Susie went and brought up the age thing—again.
A flash of horror crossed Susie’s face briefly, before it was replaced with a look of disdain.
‘Well, in theory at least … although it would be more believable if there’d been fifteen years between us instead of twelve.’
Whenever she’d thought about this moment, she’d never been sure exactly what would happen in the split second after she confronted Susie, but it hadn’t been this deathly, shocked silence. The stillness was far more unnerving than if the woman had yelled and screamed.
‘I bumped into Sharon and George again the other day. They showed me a photo. It was of you and Matthew Gosson. You lied about never being here before.’
‘That woman is delusional. She’s attempting to blackmail me.’
‘Why would you not tell Nick that you knew the previous owners of this pub?’
‘I told you, she’s lying. She’s fabricated the whole thing to make trouble.’
‘And the baby?’ Jenny asked, and this time the flash of pain on Susie’s face was something that struck at her heart. ‘All they want to know is what happened to him.’
Susie gave a bitter laugh and turned away.
Jenny wasn’t sure what to do, but she couldn’t leave Susie alone after dumping all these questions on her, so she cautiously followed her into her bedroom. Susie poured herself a glass ofliquor from a bottle on the bedside table and frowned. The healthcare worker inside Jenny noted just how much Susie seemed to drink. Sure, evensheliked the occasional drink after a hectic day, and yes, she’d been guilty of drinking to drown the odd sorrow or to erase the after-effects of a crappy date or two, but maybe Susie used it for something completely different.
‘The caring, concerned Gosson family,’ Susie sneered.
‘Is it really so hard to believe they’d want to know what happened?’
‘It is, considering not one of them stepped up to offer to help at the time,’ Susie snapped.
‘So whatdidhappen to him?’ Jenny prodded when the silence threatened to linger too long.
‘I think you already know, don’t you, Jenny?’
Despite suspecting the truth, hearing her if not admit it, then at least not deny it, still felt like a brick dropping in Jenny’s stomach. Nick was Susie’s son.
‘You think you’re so clever.’ There was no hiding the slight slur to Susie’s words as she poured herself another glass.
‘I didn’t ask to get involved in this. It wasn’t anything to do with me.’
‘And yet here you are, smack bang in the middle of it. Enjoying every minute.’
‘That’s not true. I don’t enjoy other people’s misery,’ she said, honestly.
‘Unlike me? Is that what you’re saying?’
Well, if the shoe fits, sunshine.Jenny’s mind briefly wandered to the phone call a few moments earlier and poor old Jonathan.But no, she told herself sternly.That’s beside the point. Focus on the issue.‘I didn’t come here to call you out on your behaviour. I truly feel for what you must have gone through back then. It can’t have been easy.’
