‘No.’ Sam tipped the rest of his sugarless tea out of the car window, feeling like a total git. ‘There’s something I have to tell you,’ he said suddenly. ‘Something I haven’t told the rest of the staff yet. Well, except Kenny. Mac hasn’t said anything to you? About the pub?’
‘Mac? No, he hasn’t. Why, what about the pub?’
Sam could hardly believe he was going to say the words, and he wondered again why Jenna had this weird hold over him. He felt as if he always had to be honest with her. Maybe it was because she’d lived for so long with a liar in her life, and he wanted to be different. Whatever the reason, though, he didn’t feel good about what he was going to say.
‘The truth is, The North Star’s going up for sale. There’ll be a sign outside any day now. Dad’s telling everyone tonight.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Probably right now.’
‘But…’ Jenna stared at him in shock. ‘I thought you didn’t want your dad to sell up!’
‘I don’t. I didn’t.’ He gazed miserably at the flask in his hands. ‘Thing is, I’ve been offered my old job back with LI Builders. My mate, Luke, is the owner and he’s won a huge new contract up at Millensea. I’ve missed it – the building trade. I was never cut out to run a pub. I told Dad and I really thought – well, hoped – that he’d see sense and agree to take over again.’
‘But he didn’t?’ she asked gently.
He shook his head sadly. ‘No. He told me I should have let him sell it when he’d wanted to after Mum died. I don’t know. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I should have done. It’s achieved nothing really, has it? It just cost me my job and my flat.’
‘And your girlfriend,’ she reminded him.
‘I suppose. At the time it seemed like the end of the world, but now…’
‘Now you’re over her?’
‘Like I said, I don’t think I ever really loved her. We can fool ourselves that we’re in love so easily, can’t we?’
Was that what this was, he wondered? It would be so easy to tell himself he was in love with Jenna. But was he? He’d never believed in love at first sight, and if he hadn’t experienced the incredible surge of emotion for her that first night when she walked into The North Star, he still wouldn’t. Now he wasn’t so sure. But how could he know for certain? How could anyone?
‘We certainly can,’ she said wistfully.
Sam looked at her sharply. ‘You’re not sure you’re in love with Joel?’
‘It wasn’t Joel I was thinking of.’ She inhaled slowly as if mustering her courage. ‘You’ve been honest with me. I guess I should be honest with you.’
He nodded worriedly. ‘Go on.’
‘I-I almost had an affair,’ she admitted, so quietly he strained to hear her. ‘Just after Christmas. There was a man at work. I convinced myself I was falling in love with him.’
Sam swallowed. ‘Right. I see.’
‘You don’t,’ she said bitterly. ‘You really don’t. I wasn’t in love with him. It was just… Oh! I can’t explain. It’s all mixed up in my head.’
‘Maybe,’ Sam said thoughtfully, ‘you just needed someone to show you some affection, and when they did, you mistook your feelings for love.’
She gazed at him for a long, long moment. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘That’s exactly it. I was so unhappy.Sounhappy. I knew, deep down, that things weren’t right with Joel. I knew the signs. We’d been there before, so many times. And even though I didn’t imagine he’d leave me again, I had a very strong feeling that he was seeing someone else. And I didn’t know what to do.’
‘Confront him?’
‘If I confronted him, he might be pushed into leaving,’ she said dully. ‘Of course, he intended to leave me anyway, but I didn’t know that back then. All I knew was I was so sad and so wretched, and Alex and I got talking at work and he was flirting with me, and I liked it. I liked the feeling of being wanted, admired. It sounds so pathetic now.’
‘It doesn’t,’ he assured her. ‘I get it, honestly.’
‘Well, anyway, we arranged a night together. I’d asked Mum to have the twins, and Joel was away in Derbyshire with work – genuinely, for once. Well, I think he was anyway.’ She shrugged. ‘I got all dressed up and ready. I was a bag of nerves, I really was.’
‘But you didn’t go through with it? You said younearlyhad an affair.’
She laughed, clearly embarrassed. ‘My mum caught me! She’d come to my house for something for the twins. Luckily, they were outside in the car. The way I was dressed left her in no doubt what I was up to, especially as I’d told her I was at a work meeting.’
Sam couldn’t help wondering what she meant by ‘The way I was dressed’. The mind boggled. He decided that speculating on her attire that night was the last thing he should be doing and forced himself to return to the conversation.
‘Bad timing,’ he said, saying a mental congratulations on how unfazed he sounded. ‘Or good timing, depending on how you look at it. I’ll bet that went down well.’
