Chapter 75 #2
Harrington House had never seemed more imposing than it did tonight. I felt disconnected. My heart pounded but I felt nothing. My mind no longer whirled as it had for weeks and months. It was in a static limbo, refusing to acknowledge what was about to happen.
Alfie…
I parked up and switched the engine off, the silence suddenly engulfing me.
I slumped onto the steering wheel, my forehead resting on Keira’s fluffy pink wheel cover.
My eyes squeezed tight. I will not cry. I will not break.
If I had a single chink in my armour, Alfie would find his way in and I could no longer trust him to be a good man once he was inside.
I jumped when someone tapped on my window. Elliot.
“Are you alright, Miss?” ‘ I should have broken his neck…’ Could he really have done that?
It felt insane. These things just didn’t happen to small town girls like me.
Elliot had always treated me with kindness, even if he had been a little gruff in the beginning.
But as I looked at him, at the hardened calluses on his knuckles, the scar on his neck, the gun that I knew was hidden on him somewhere, I realised how stupid I had been.
Some day, in the future, I was going to sit in front of a therapist who would tell me that my habit of putting my trust in men who didn’t deserve it was a remnant of my abandonment issues left over by my father.
One day, a therapist would tell me I needed to get a grip.
But that wasn’t today. Today was my birthday and all I wanted was Alfie, which only told me that I was too naive, too delusional, to be ready to hear what a therapist had to say.
I gave Elliot a short nod and forced a smile as I stepped out of the car.
“You look lovely tonight.” Of course I did. Alfie would never put me in anything that was less than stunning.
“Thank you, Elliot,” I said, wondering if those would be the last words I ever spoke to him.
Another pang twisted in my gut—one of pain and fear.
I fell into step beside him as we walked towards the house.
I couldn’t help but glance down at his hands as we walked, hands which I was almost certain had murdered someone this week.
It was a surreal thought, one I couldn’t process right now because I realised where Elliot was taking me.
We had arrived on the back patio that overlooked the sloping lawn, and farther, the smattering of woodland. I could just make out the break in the trees that I had stepped through so many times, both in reality and in my imagination.
“He’s waiting for you in your garden.” I wanted to turn and run.
I can’t do this. But I had no choice. Wherever I ran, he would follow.
I felt Elliot’s heavy hand on my shoulder and turned to see him smiling at me, truly smiling, like a proud father on his child’s wedding day. “I’m glad you’re in his life, Miss.”
Elliot left me then and, with deep trepidation, I stepped off the patio and walked down the back lawn.
I made my way to the break in the trees, to the broken steps I knew so well.
Tonight, those steps were lined with fire lights.
A white, sash-spun archway served as a door.
I stepped through the archway and down the broken steps, glad of the lights to guide my way down as the ever-growing night set in.
The lights glinted at me like motorway cat’s-eyes, leading me towards an impending car crash.
I stepped into the garden, and my breath stammered in my chest. The overgrown, damaged space had somehow been made beautiful.
Lights had been spun around every tree trunk and hung from the branches to mimic the delicate hanging blossoms of a wisteria tree.
In the centre, on a raised grass and honeysuckle bed, sat an elegant dining table for two.
My gaze landed on Alfie and the reaction in my body was visceral.
I felt him everywhere . He stood, his eyes lighting up as he took in the dress on my body.
The corners of his mouth lifted in the barest hint of a smile.
He was getting better at sharing his smiles.
That should have warmed my heart. Instead, it just twisted my gut.
Alfie…
I stepped onto the earthy bed and he was there to meet me.
I split down the middle as he reached for me, half of me wanting to run from , the other half wanting to run to .
I decided to allow myself this touch. My eyes fluttered closed as his hand slipped into my hair, and when his lips found mine my knees felt like they might buckle.
“Thank you for wearing the dress,” he murmured against my mouth.
I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I just nodded.
He stepped around me, his hand coming to my waist as he guided me into my chair.
I sat, grateful that I no longer had to depend on my legs to hold me up.
He took his own seat in front of me, the corners of his mouth still lifted.
His eyes seemed bright, almost happy. I picked up the glass of wine then paused, eyeing it. Should I be drinking alcohol right now?
“Non-alcoholic. I assure you it’s of the highest quality.” Non-alcoholic. Which secret of his was that serving? The one that hid why he didn’t like to drink or the one that hid what he had done to me? I took a sip and found the taste peculiar. Money didn’t make everything taste better after all.
I looked around at the garden, drawing on it to soothe me.
“Do you like it?” He watched me, searching for my reaction. I knew he could see that something wasn’t quite right.
“Of course I do, but you knew that I would.” I didn’t trust it.
I didn’t trust the lights in the trees or the honeysuckle under my feet.
It felt like an illusion of sweetness but I had seen behind the curtain now and could no longer fool myself into believing anything.
“Thank you for doing this for me. Or rather, thank you for paying someone to do this for me.”
He gave me a wry smile. “You’re welcome. Dinner will be along shortly.”
I nodded, knowing that likely neither of us would be eating that dinner. I could feel him dissecting me. He knew I wasn’t okay, just as I knew he wasn’t going to outright ask me what was wrong. He was too smart. He would play detective first.
“How’s Keira? Did you two mend your fences?” There we go.
“Yes, all mended.”
“Good, I’m glad.” Are you? I didn’t know anymore.
I couldn’t help but remember Alfie whispering to me when I was in the bath after Adam had hurt me, talking to me about Keira.
‘You don’t need to be attached at the hip, especially if she isn’t supportive of your choices.
’ And I had agreed with him. It sickened me. I sickened me.
“So, are you ready to leave tomorrow? You have everything in order?”
I nodded and took another sip of fake wine, wishing like hell it was the real thing, but it wasn’t, it was a phoney, a trick, a disappointment.
Behind everything that I felt at seeing Alfie, a small flame of anger burst into life and I caught it, stoked it.
I needed it to get me through this. There was one thing I had to know before everything came spilling out, one thing that I had to have the answer to.
I cleared my throat and straightened, facing the man that had become everything to me.
“I have to tell you something.” My voice sounded stronger than I thought it would. Alfie cocked his head slightly.
“Will I like it?”
“You should but I don’t know if you will.
” This is a bad idea. Keira’s words rattled around in my head but she wasn’t right about this.
I had to tell him. I had to know for sure that what I feared was true.
I took a breath and spoke. “I got into college.” My words hung in the air for so long I wasn’t sure he’d heard me.
“College?” He repeated the word slowly.
“Yes. The London College, remember? I’ve been trying to get in for years and I finally did it.” I forced myself to shut up. I needed not to sway him here. I needed to see how he really felt without him mirroring what he thought I wanted to see.
“Yes, of course.” He paused and I watched those cogs turn, watched him recalculate as I’d seen him do a thousand times.
He’d forgotten. Alfie Tell, a man of details, a man who knew everything about me, could read me like a book, had forgotten one of the most important things about me.
My dream, my ambition, had been discarded as a useless piece of information irrelevant to him and what he wanted.
“Congratulations. Though I can’t say that I’m surprised.
I’m proud of you, Lola.” He did look proud.
Hope fluttered in my heart, hope that I might have been wrong about everything.
My pills had been taken by someone else and Adam really had just slipped in the shower.
Alfie would let me go, he would want me to go, and would support me.
It flashed in front of me. Our life together, hard for a while, but we would come together in the end—stronger, closer, better people.
He would be a good man and I could be his forever.
“I expect they were very disappointed when you turned them down.” The illusion shattered and I hated myself for allowing it in. How many times would I do this to myself?
“You don’t think I should take it?”
“Baby, you know that it isn’t a realistic option. We have been separated before, remember?” I remembered. It was agony. ‘ Remember the pain, Lo. Remember how much this hurts.’
“But the course is only for a few years.”