CHAPTER NINE
I stood there, motionless, just gazing at the house, my head spinning.
What the hell just happened?
Then someone slammed a car door behind me, which snapped me out of my trance. I realised I must look really weird, standing staring, so I walked quickly away. My legs were shaking so much, I wasn’t sure I’d get there – but somehow, I made it back to the car park.
I fumbled with the key fob and ended up dropping it and having to search for it under the car, all the time feeling as if I was locked in some ghastly nightmare. It didn’t seem real. How could it be real?
Trevor had a family?
I sat there in the driver’s seat, staring out to sea for a very long time. At one point, feeling nauseous, I opened the window so I could feel the salty breeze against my face as panicky thoughts spun round and round in my head.
At last, having joined the dots in my mind, I faced up to the miserable truth.
I’d allowed myself to be taken in by Trevor’s flattery and his appearance of caring about me. But in the end, he was just like all the rest. Worse, in fact, because he had a family! My heart clenched sadly, thinking about those two lovely little kids.
How could I have been so stupid, believing all of his lies? He’d made me think he was a single guy working in London. A single guy who was falling for me, just as I’d been falling for him. But he had a partner... and two children?
Was there any way I could have misinterpreted what I’d witnessed back there?
Could the woman be his sister? It was possible. And yet... it wasn’t. Not really. Because Teddy had quite clearly called Trevor ‘Daddy.’ So even if he was just visiting his sister with his children, he’d been lying to me all along anyway, by not even mentioning those cute kids’ existence.
I shivered, closed the window and started the engine.
That was probably the most despicable part of the whole sad affair – the fact that he pretended his children didn’t exist. Just so that he could have a seedy part-time affair with a girl he met in a bar!
Those pictures he showed me of the ‘holiday cottage’ were probably just some that he’d found online. It had been a very clever move on his part to invent a reason why he couldn’t possibly see me at weekends – because he was doing up the cottage! That meant he could legitimately work in London – staying at his bolthole in the city and popping along mid-week to see me – before driving home to his family every weekend.
It was despicable!
What excuse had he given his partner when he’d come to the cabin last Saturday? Probably told her he was staying in London to work...
I felt nothing but disgust for Trevor now.
But I was also disgusted with myself. I’d believed in him and I’d welcomed him into my bed, although thankfully, we hadn’t consummated the relationship, and for that I was highly relieved. But I felt sick to my stomach, thinking about how he’d managed to deceive me so easily.
How long would he have kept up the pretence of doing up the cottage? He was having his cake and eating it, enjoying relationships with two different women, so he must have thought it was worth all the lies he’d have to tell both of us...
And that cake Teddy was eating, which apparently his mum had baked. I’d thought it looked oddly familiar. I realised now it was a cherry and coconut cake, just like the ones Trevor brought for me, saying he’d made them specially. So he’d actually passed off his wife’s baking as his own to impress me.
What a bloody low-down snake!
I was trembling so much, I had to pull into a layby and switch off the engine.
How could I ever trust a man again after this? Why was I always attracted to the wrong sort? I’d thought Trevor was different and I’d been congratulating myself on moving away from my usual ‘type’. But how very ironic that was. Because it turned out that my nightmare experience with Trevor had actually topped the lot!
Was I just really unlucky when it came to romance? Would other women have been able to see through Trevor’s charm to the snake beneath? I honestly doubted it, so perhaps I was just plain unlucky.
Or... was it that men like Trevor saw something in me... a vulnerability, perhaps... and they knew instinctively how to take advantage of the weakness. And I was so desperate to find ‘the one’, I’d end up falling for their lies every time...
A text pinged through.
Trevor. He must have seen me after all.
I’m so sorry, Blossom. Can you forgive me? I was falling in love with you but I knew I’d lose you if I told you the truth. Can we please talk? You’re the only woman who’s ever really understood me and I don’t want to lose you. Trevor x
I snorted in disgust.
Talk about clichés. The only woman who’s ever really understood me!
With trembling fingers, I punched out my reply.
If you contact me again, I’ll come to your house and tell your wife what you’ve been up to, okay? So you’d better make sure I never hear from you again.
After that there was radio silence at his end.
And I breathed a sigh of relief.
On the way home, I called in at the garden centre and – still full of simmering hurt and fury – I hauled the water feature out of the boot and onto a trolley, and marched into the building.
Seeing Gary chatting to a customer, I walked over and stood nearby until he’d finished, resting the box on a garden table and swallowing on the lump in my throat. As soon as he spotted me, he realised something was wrong, took charge of the trolley and guided me into his office.
‘Trevor didn’t like the water feature?’
I gave a bitter laugh. ‘He didn’t even get the chance to see it,’ I said, and I told him what had happened. I stuck to the bald facts and shrugged a lot as if I wasn’t really all that bothered.
‘I wouldn’t care but I actually enjoy being single,’ I said at last. ‘I honestly don’t know why I bother with romance.’
Gary grunted, and I wasn’t sure if he was agreeing or disagreeing. Then he said, ‘You just haven’t found the right one. That’s all.’ And my heart lurched to see his quick glance at the photo of his Sunita.
‘You did,’ I said softly. ‘You found the right one.’
He smiled sadly. ‘I did. And to be honest, I still don’t know how to move on from losing them. It’s the tenth anniversary today.’
I gasped. ‘Ten years exactly since the accident? And you’re at work?’
He shrugged. ‘Where else would I be?’
Something struck me. ‘Hang on, you said “losing them”?’
He looked at me for a moment and I could see his eyes were glassy with unshed tears. Reaching into a drawer, he pulled out his wallet, opened it up and handed it over to me.
‘My son, Kamal. He was three.’
‘Oh, my God!’ I breathed, staring at the picture of a happy, dark-haired boy with big brown eyes holding up an ice-cream. He had Gary’s smile. I tried to speak but my throat was too choked and nothing came out. Silence, heavy with emotion, filled the space between us.
‘You never told me,’ I whispered at last, daring to look at him.
His face was ashen. He took the wallet back, folded it up and put it back in the drawer. ‘It hurts to talk about him, so I don’t,’ he said simply.
I nodded, understanding.
The poor man. Having to bear such a weight of grief on his shoulders. Burying himself in work, day after day, in an attempt to dull the pain of losing not only Sunita, but little Kamal as well. It certainly put my problems into perspective. My hurt over Trevor’s betrayal was nothing compared to this.
His phone rang and he snapped straight back into work mode. ‘Sorry, Blossom, do you mind if I...?’
‘No, of course not.’ I stood up. ‘If you need to talk, just give me a call?’ I said sadly, knowing he wouldn’t.
He nodded and picked up. ‘Hi, there. Can you hold just one second?’
‘Take the water feature,’ he said. ‘It’s yours.’
‘Thank you, but actually, I never want to see it again.’ I grinned apologetically. ‘You should put it in your sale. It’s lovely. It’ll be snapped up.’
‘Okay. Take care.’ He returned to his call and I made my exit, glad to have got that damned water feature off my hands. Imagine if I’d kept it. A permanent reminder of a love gone totally sour! Not that it was love... but I’d had high hopes that it would be one day. More fool me...
I shuddered. If I hadn’t decided to surprise Trevor today, I might have carried on getting deeper into the relationship. It didn’t bear thinking about. From that perspective, I’d saved myself from an even worse fate, because recovering from real love would have been so much harder and a million times more painful.
I didn’t want to go home and face Ada’s well-meaning questions, so I made a detour to Billy’s flat. A chat with him would cheer me up... he was always so good at making me feel better about my life. I was used to Skye getting impatient with me for not ‘realising my potential’ when it came to work. But Billy always said it wasn’t up to my sister what I did with my life. Some people were high-flyers, others preferred to fly under the radar and enjoy a quieter, less stressful life. Gardening, Billy always said, was the best occupation in the world...
At first, I thought he wasn’t in when I pressed the buzzer, and after the second attempt, I was walking away when I heard his tinny voice coming through the speaker.
I dived back. ‘Billy? Did I wake you up?’ I glanced at my watch. It was nearly four o’clock, although it was Saturday. Perhaps he’d been having a very long lie-in.
‘Er, no. Look, wait there. I’ll come down.’
‘Oh. Okay.’ Bemused, I waited.
‘Hi!’ He opened the door with bare feet and wearing his dressing gown. ‘Didn’t want you walking all the way to the third floor,’ he added, looking red-faced and rather sheepish.
I laughed. ‘My legs were fine last time I looked. Billy, what’s going on?’
‘Jenna,’ he murmured, pointing back up the stairs.
‘Oh.’ My heart lurched with surprise. ‘She’s here? Now?’
He grinned. ‘You don’t need to look quite so amazed. I do have a certain kind of charm, apparently. That’s what you’re always telling me, anyway.’
I stared at him, still recovering from the shock of seeing Billy with a very evident after-glow. ‘Well, I’m really pleased for you. Um... well done!’
‘Thank you. So how did Trevor’s surprise go? I thought you were going to stay overnight?’
I laughed bitterly. ‘Oh, that’s a whole other story.’ I shrugged it off, determined not to spoil Billy’s big moment. ‘I’ll tell you some time. But for now, you’d better get back up there.’ I nodded at the stairs. ‘To the lovely Jenna. She’ll be missing you.’
He grinned and after I walked away, I turned back with a cheerful wave and an enthusiastic double thumbs-up.
But as I went back to the car, the devastation of the day settled inside me like a heavy weight. Things seemed to have turned a corner for Billy and I couldn’t be more pleased for him. But a part of me felt a little panicky. I’d been relying on Billy making me feel better about everything... having a laugh with him, the way we always did.
But now that he was with Jenna, perhaps there wouldn’t be as much room in his life for a friend like me...