‘I’m so sorry,’ I choke out. ‘I am so, so sorry.’
He looks absolutely gutted. I’ve made such a huge mistake. As soon as I found out about his past, as soon as I realized that he wasn’t all bad, as soon as I thought we might be developing real feelings for each other, I should have put a stop to the whole project. I should have come up with another way to get the money for Grandma. I’m such an idiot.
‘Why?’ he asks me, his lovely moss-green eyes now distressed and desperate. ‘Why would you not tell me that we’d met before? That your name is − isJess? I don’t understand. Was I really so rude to you that night at the book launch that you felt like you had to pretend to be someone else.’
Fuck. All he knows is that I’m not who I say I am. I have to come clean.
‘It was for a book,’ I say quietly, embarrassed.
His eyes widen in horror. ‘What?’
‘We wanted to write a book about how my Grandma’s 1950s romance tips would work in the modern day. And . . . we chose to try them out on you.’
‘Who’s we?’ he asks in dismay.
‘Um, me, my Grandma and . . . Valentina Smith.
He blinks. ‘Your Grandma? And Valentina? Myex. She put you up to this? Fucking hell, what is this?’ He puts both hands to his head.
‘I didn’t think that you’d fall for me. Or, well, for Lucille. Valentina told us you were a sleazy eternal bachelor!’
Leo shakes his head. ‘What the fuck? This is sick. I told you I regretted the way I treated my exes. I apologized to Valentina so many times. I told her when we first hooked up that I wasn’t looking for anything serious, that I was seeing other people. But she still got angry when I didn’t want to commit. I felt shitty for hurting her, I said sorry a million times, but she didn’t want to know, told me that I was evil. I’m not evil. I don’t deserve this!’
‘I didn’t know you’d apologized,’ I protest. Valentina left that bit out. I reach out to touch him, but he shoos me away as if I’m a fly.
‘I can’t believe you would take part in her getting some sort of fucking revenge on me.’
‘It wasn’t revenge,’ I urge desperately. ‘I didn’t think you’d actuallylikeme . . .’
His voice breaks. ‘Well, I did.’
‘God, I like you too,’ I plead. ‘Morethan like, Leo, but it’s complicated. I’ve never—’
‘Get out,’ Leo interrupts, his face stony, his usually amused eyes flat and hard.
‘Just let me explain, Leo,’ I try. ‘I think I might be falling in lo—’
‘GET OUT!’ He dives across me and throws open the car door. ‘Please, Luce . . . Fuck, I mean whatever your name is.’
I nod slowly, gathering my bag from where it’s laid on the car seat beside me. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I whisper, climbing out of the car. I turn back to say something else, anything else, that might make this better, but Leo’s already slammed the door closed. He’s gone.
I stumble, dazed, back into the Christ Church lobby. It feels like I’m walking through water.
‘Are you all right?’ Gavin says when he sees me. ‘You’ve gone as white as a sheet.’
His voice sounds echoey and far away
‘I’m fine,’ I swallow, pulling out my phone to call a cab. ‘I just want to go home.’
* * *
Peach dozes the whole way back. Gavin, now fully sober, is back to his awkward, shy self, though he does keep checking to see Peach is all right.
After dropping Gavin off at his flat, we drive back to Bonham Square. I can’t get Leo out of my head. The expression on his face in the car. Betrayal. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget that.
Back home, Grandma is tucked up in bed. I know Peach would be distraught if Grandma saw her in this state, so I help her up the stairs as quietly as I can and into my room. I make her down a pint of water, help her to get changed into a nightie and tuck her into my bed, turning her over onto her side.
I get in beside her. She murmurs something that sounds like ‘sorry’.
‘Don’t worry, it’ll be OK,’ I whisper, stroking her hair away from her face.
But I’m lying. Because the truth is, I don’t think any of this will ever be OK.
