Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
DOUGLAS
Leah repeats herself, slower, like I might not have heard her the first time round. “I said, where have you been, Douglas?”
I just stare at her, my brain still not comprehending that she’s here.
Something catches my eye. A glint of gold on her left hand, where her arms are folded across her chest. It’s a wedding ring, the one I put on her finger almost eight years ago when she was seven months pregnant and I was telling myself this was the right thing to do.
She hasn’t worn it in years. But now there it is, on her finger, like she never took it off.
What the fuck?
I texted her, told her I’d be filing for divorce. She saw the message—the ticks turned blue. And now she’s standing in my kitchen doorway wearing that ring?
My gaze flicks to the twins. Logan is still sitting with his knees drawn up. Rosie hasn’t moved from Mum’s side. They won’t quite meet my eye.
“Can we talk about this in private?” I say to Leah, keeping my voice level.
“What’s so secret about your weekend away that you can’t talk about it in front of your family?” Leah tilts her head. “What exactly were you getting up to?”
Heat crawls up my neck. The twins don’t know about Ellie.
I haven’t spoken openly to Mum and Da about her either, despite Mum’s attempts to pry.
And now I’m standing in my own living room being cross-examined by a woman who hasn’t set foot in this house in months, and somehow I’m the one on the back foot?
The injustice of it lands like a punch. She’s been gone. She ignored my messages, my calls. And yet here I am, being made to account for myself.
Leah shifts her weight and taps her foot. “Well? I think I have a right to know where my husband has been. Don’t you?”
Something in me pushes back. Maybe it’s the memory of Ellie’s hand in mine on the riverside walk, or the look on her face when I told her I wanted to make this work. Whatever it is, I don’t fold. Not today.
“Where have you been these last few months, Leah? And why haven’t you been answering my texts?”
In an instant the hard edge leaves Leah’s posture. Her arms unfold, and her voice drops to something soft and wounded.
“Douglas. Don’t raise your voice in front of the children.”
I didn’t raise my voice. I used exactly the same tone she did. Still, I glance at the twins and see Logan’s shoulders have crept up towards his ears. Rosie, meanwhile, is pressed so tightly against Mum’s side she’s practically behind her.
Shit. I hate this so much.
Even though it gives Leah the little victory she wants, I find myself saying, “If that came out sharper than I intended, sorry, kids.”
Leah gives a small nod, as though accepting my apology.
Mum and Da get to their feet. “We’ll leave you two to catch up,” Mum says, smoothing a hand over her skirt. Then, meeting my eye, she adds, “We had no idea Leah would be dropping by, Douglas.”
I understand. She feels bad about letting Leah in, but she didn’t feel it was her place to turn the twins’ mother away.
“We’ll take the wee ones to the park for an hour,” Mum adds. “Give you some space.”
The twins leap up so fast you’d think she’d offered them a trip to Disneyland. I know their eagerness has nothing to do with the park and everything to do with getting out of this room.
Leah frowns. “Okay, but don’t be too long. I’ve missed you, my babies, and I want to catch up with you both properly.”
She crouches and pulls each child into a hug. They let her, but they don’t exactly hug her back. If Leah notices, she doesn’t comment.
Mum and Da leave with the twins. It’s just me and Leah now.
“I was just making myself a tea,” she says. “Fancy one?”
Even this throws me, that Leah is offering me tea in my own home, as though she lives here. As though she never left.
Aye, I wouldn’t mind a tea, but I’m not letting her make me one.
“No.”
She disappears into the kitchen. I hear the fridge open, the clink of a spoon, then she comes back with a mug and settles on the sofa, dead centre, one leg crossed over the other. She pats the cushion beside her.
I take the armchair.
“Suit yourself.” She takes a sip of her tea. Her face and forearms are a light golden-brown. Leah grew up in Glasgow, but you don’t pick up a tan like that in Scotland at this time of year. She’s been somewhere warm. “So. Spill the beans. Where were you this weekend?”
“More to the point, where have you been? And how long are you back for this time?”
A pause. Another sip. Then: “I’m back for good.”
I almost laugh. I’ve heard those words before. “Aye, right.”
“I’m being serious, Douglas. I know I haven’t always been the most reliable mother to the twins, but that changes starting today.”
“Aye? And where are you going to be living?”
She laughs, bright and easy, as though the answer is obvious. “Why, here, of course. We are husband and wife, after all.”
“I know you saw my messages, Leah.” I lean forwards, elbows on my knees. “So let’s cut the charade. You know I’m going to be filing for divorce.”
Her eyes narrow, just for a second. It’s a flicker, fast enough that if I hadn’t been watching for it, I’d have missed it entirely. But in that moment, the real Leah—cold, sharp, calculating—surfaces from behind her polished exterior. Then her expression smooths out again.
“Wait. You weren’t . . . you weren’t away with someone this weekend, were you?” Her voice is hushed, as though the idea has only just occurred to her. “Not another woman?”
My jaw tightens. Christ, she’s good at this.
I don’t know exactly what Leah gets up to when she disappears, but I don’t doubt the rumours.
Another relationship. Maybe even relationships, plural.
It wouldn’t surprise me. And yet somehow here I am being made to feel like the guilty party.
The man who was celibate for years, who slept on his own sofa every time she came back. Who hasn’t touched another woman since—
Well. Until this weekend.
I don’t bite. I just sit and say nothing.
Leah studies me. I can practically see the recalibration happening behind her eyes. One approach fails, so she tries another.
“I understand, Douglas.” Her voice is gentle now, sympathetic. “You’ve been on your own a long time. I can’t blame you for . . . well, you know.” A small forgiving smile. “I promise I’m not angry. But I’m here now, so we can put all that behind us.”
“What? No, that won’t be happening. It’s well past time we officially ended this sham of a marriage.”
Another flicker—a quick glimpse behind the mask—then, “Don’t say that, Douglas.
I know I haven’t made your life easy. But things haven’t been easy for me either.
You know how I struggle. I always have.” She lays a hand on her chest, fingers splayed over her collarbone.
“I’m a free spirit. It’s just the way I am.
But I’ve had my time away, I’ve travelled, and now I really do want to start again. ”
She stands and moves towards me, casual, unhurried, as though proximity to her husband is simply her right.
“Besides,” she says, her voice dropping, “it’s long past time you and I . . . reconnect.”
I stare up at her. What is this? Jealousy? After showing no interest in me for five years, now Leah wants to start again? Because she thinks another woman might want me?
She leans over the armchair. Places a hand flat on my chest. Brings her mouth towards mine.
I put my hands on her shoulders and gently but firmly push her away from me. The contact lasts only a second, maybe less, but Leah recoils like I’ve struck her.
“Ow, Douglas!” She stumbles back a step and rubs her shoulders with both hands, her eyes going wide and wounded. “You can’t handle a woman that way.” She winces, rolling one shoulder as though testing for damage. “I swear you don’t know your own strength.”
Bollocks. I was only creating space between us so she couldn’t kiss me against my will. And yet this woman has a way of getting into my head—always has—and so I find myself saying, “I . . . I was only . . .”
“I know,” she says. “It’s fine. You just got frustrated. Let’s say no more about it.”
She sits on the arm of my chair. Then lays her hand on my thigh.
I’m on my feet in an instant, and across the room before I’ve even registered I’m moving. “Jesus Christ, Leah.”
We stare at each other across the living room, her on the arm of the chair, me backed against the window. My heart is hammering.
I take a few steadying breaths. Then, looking her straight in the eye, I say, “I’m done, Leah. The marriage is over. I’m filing for divorce, just like I said I would.”
The tears come right on cue. Her chin wobbles. Her voice cracks. “I thought you’d be happy to see me. I came back for you, Douglas. For the kids.” She presses her fingers to her lips, blinking hard. “Don’t they deserve to have their mum around?”
And there it is. The twins. Her most effective weapon, and she knows it. She’s always known it.
I falter. Not over the marriage—that’s done, and nothing she says will change that. But over the twins, because she’s their mother, and whatever she is to me, whatever she’s done, they deserve the chance to know her, even if she makes it hard. Even if she makes it hurt.
“You can see the twins. Of course you can. But you’re not staying here. If you want to be in Ardmara for a while, you’ll need to find somewhere else. Book a room at the Harbour Inn, maybe.”
Leah’s tears dry up with remarkable speed. “The Harbour Inn? Douglas, I can’t afford the Harbour Inn. Where am I supposed to go?”
I’m exhausted. This morning I woke up in a hotel room with a woman who makes me feel like a whole person, and now I’m negotiating sleeping arrangements with the woman who’s spent the better part of a decade hollowing me out.
“I’ll pay for a night or two,” I say grudgingly. “To get you started. But after that, you need to sort yourself out.”