Chapter Twenty Six Six Years Earlier
Chapter Twenty Six
Six Years Earlier
The whole purpose of visiting a spa was that it was supposed to leave you tranquil and calm, two things I couldn’t be further from feeling.
‘You’re extremely tense,’ observed the young woman giving me a massage.
Adam raised his head from the adjacent table, looking so relaxed he was practically comatose. ‘Are you feeling tense?’ he asked, his voice threaded with concern.
‘No,’ I denied, praying the woman, who was now attacking the knots in my shoulders with the gusto of Paul Hollywood kneading bread dough, wouldn’t contradict me. ‘Well, maybe a little,’ I conceded. ‘Pre-wedding jitters, I imagine.’
It was the wrong thing to say, because it made Adam lever himself up on to his forearms. The woman conducting his half of our couples massage looked vaguely annoyed at the interruption.
‘You’re not nervous about the wedding, are you?’ he asked, seemingly unconcerned to be having this conversation in front of two strangers. It was the third time he’d asked me that question today, and it was still only mid-morning.
‘No. Of course not. Why would I be? Why would you think that?’ Some distant inner voice was telling me I was protesting too much, and I clamped my lips shut before they gave anything else away. There was nothing I could do about my shoulders, or the rest of my body that kept stiffening into fear-fuelled spasms whenever I thought about Josh’s confession the previous day.
I thought I’d done a pretty good job at disguising the turmoil my conversation with Josh had left me in. Luckily it was uncommonly bright for a winter morning, so I’d only looked slightly ridiculous turning up for breakfast with sunglasses on. We were seated directly beside a picture window that looked out on to the beautifully kept hotel grounds, which allowed me to keep them on. But Adam was attentive and observant, two traits I’d always loved in the past. Today, not so much.
We’d gone for a swim after our massage – my suggestion, which I refused to admit I’d proposed only because scything through the water, doing lengths, made conversation practically impossible.
‘Whoa,’ Adam had exclaimed, catching up with me as I paused to get my breath at the deep end. ‘Are you secretly trying out for the Olympics?’ he joked. He reached for my hand where it was resting against the gleaming tiles of the hotel pool. ‘God, Lily, your pulse is racing like crazy.’
‘It’s good cardio,’ I said, on a snatched, raspy breath.
His eyes look troubled. ‘Just slow down a bit. This is meant to be fun; it’s not boot camp.’
‘I’m having fun,’ I insisted, with such bleak determination it was sure to have worried him. I forced myself to smile, because the last thing I wanted was for him to suspect anything was wrong. Because there wasn’t. I wasn’t in the middle of the world’s most awful love triangle, because my heart belonged to Adam and always would. It was just awful timing that the man I’d secretly loved for practically all of my life had now decided that he loved me too. Well, that was too bad. Too late. Too everything. My eyes were suddenly stinging, and I wondered if I could blame it on the chlorine, as I pushed off from the side once again. ‘Just a couple more lengths,’ I promised over my shoulder, before dipping my face into the water and silencing all further conversation.
When I emerged from the changing room, Adam was leaning against the wall waiting for me. As I approached, he slipped his mobile phone into the back pocket of his jeans.
‘So, what next?’ I asked with the kind of cheer that could have got me a job as a children’s TV presenter.
‘Actually, there’s something I need to sort out for later. Would you mind if I left you on your own for a bit?’
I tried really hard not to look grateful, because the mask I was wearing was growing uncomfortably heavy.
‘Of course not.’
Adam brought his arm around my shoulders and drew me in for a kiss that felt more than just a quick peck.
He’d spoilt me over the last few weeks with thoughtful gestures and unexpected gifts in the run-up to the wedding. It didn’t surprise me that he had another one up his sleeve before the rehearsal dinner tonight. I didn’t deserve him. I truly didn’t deserve him, and he definitely didn’t deserve to be marrying someone who’d lain awake for half the night thinking about someone else. I was a horrible, horrible person.
‘Maybe I’ll see if they can squeeze me in for an earlier mani-pedi before Mum and Dad get here.’
‘Good idea,’ Adam said, and for just a moment I thought there was something in his voice that made it sound like we were both actors in a second-rate play. Then he looked at me and smiled and I knew it was just me, projecting.
‘I guess I’ll see you later then, after golf.’ Adam had booked a round on the hotel’s impressive course, which sounded as exciting to me as watching paint dry. ‘Unless you’ve changed your mind about joining me,’ he added, his voice warm and teasing. ‘You can drive the golf cart.’
‘Tempting as that sounds, I think I’ll go back to my room after my nails and have a rest,’ I said. ‘It’s going to get hectic later, once everyone starts arriving for the rehearsal dinner.’
I was on edge and fidgeted throughout my appointment at the salon, smudging two toenails and the nail on my ring finger – which I refused to view as an omen, even though it felt like it was.
‘Shit. Are you trying to give me an actual heart attack?’
Josh rose from the chintz armchair in my room.
‘How the hell did you get in here?’ I asked, scouring the room for some sign of forced entry.
‘I got the maid to let me in. I said I’d left my key card inside.’
I don’t know what shocked me most, his audacity or the lack of hotel security. It was amazing the doors that opened – quite literally – when you looked the way Josh did.
‘What if I’d walked in with Adam?’ I said, my pulse still galloping at his reckless attitude.
‘I took a chance that you wouldn’t,’ he said with a strange expression on his face.
I shook my head, furious that he was happy to play Russian roulette with my future.
‘This is not okay, Josh,’ I said, waving a hand to indicate his presence in my room. ‘None of this is remotely okay.’
He was still standing by the armchair, but his feet shuffled now, like he was a child being reprimanded. That got to me in a way I really wish it hadn’t.
‘If you’re here for some sort of answer—’
‘I’m not,’ he interrupted, looking up from the soft shoe shuffle he was performing on the rug. ‘I don’t want anything from you, Lily. And especially not an answer.’
A finger of fear ran down my spine. What did that mean? What had he done . . . or worse, who had he spoken to?
‘Why don’t you need an answer from me?’
‘Because I’m rescinding the question.’
‘You’re what?’
‘Rescinding. As in taking it back—’
‘I know what the fucking word means, Josh.’
He flinched as though I’d lashed out with whips instead of words.
‘I no longer need to know how you feel about me . . . about anything, because I realise I’ve made a mistake.’
To say the wind was taken out of my sails was an understatement.
‘So, you admit that trying to sabotage my wedding was the wrong thing to do?’ I had no idea why I was suddenly so angry, when there were so many other valid emotions to be claimed.
Josh shook his head, and the way the winter sunlight caught the ebony strands in his hair was so mesmerising I wasn’t looking at his face when he said the words that shattered the heart of the girl I had once been.
‘I realised I wasn’t in love with you after all.’ He paused, swallowed, and then went in for the death blow. ‘I never have been.’
‘Are you for real?’ I cried, leaping to my feet and crossing the space between us in less than a heartbeat. ‘What kind of person does this? Do you realise the torment I’ve been in for the last twenty-four hours?’
He gave a shrug, and something that had been alive for a very long time slowly died inside me.
‘Sorry. I got it wrong, and I acted without thinking. But hey, the good news is I came to my senses in time, before any real damage was done.’
‘Unbelievable,’ I said, enunciating every single syllable. ‘You are fucking unbelievable. What the hell was going through that selfish brain of yours?’
He flinched again. ‘Nothing. Clearly.’
I waited for more, and it took longer than it should have done for me to realise he had nothing to add. Well, I did.
‘This is not how people behave with someone they claim to love.’
‘Yeah, well, like I said . . . I’m not in love with you. Saying it out loud yesterday made me seriously think about everything I would have to give up if you and me were ever a thing, and I knew . . .’ He faltered, as though searching for his place in a script. ‘And I realised that being “fond” of you isn’t enough for me.’
‘Fond?’ I said the word with distaste, as though it was dipped in arsenic. ‘Fond wasn’t the emotion you claimed to feel about me yesterday.’
‘I told you, I was wrong,’ he said, his voice rising and sounding suddenly less steady. ‘I made a bad judgement call and thought I wanted to be with you. But luckily for both of us I realised in good time that it wasn’t true. We can just wipe the last twenty-four hours from the slate and pretend they never happened.’
I was shaking. With rage, with rejection, and with something that hurt like a death.
‘I thought I knew you, Josh. Really knew you. But the way you’re standing there, saying all this shit to me, not even realising the damage you’ve done, well . . .’ I very nearly started crying then, and it took a strength I didn’t know I had to stem the tears before they fell. ‘People don’t do this to their friends, Josh. They don’t do this to someone who’s always been there for them. Who let them walk in and out of their life whenever they wanted and never made any demands or expectations. This is inexcusable behaviour. How can you not realise how wrong this is? Were you raised by wolves?’
For the first time there was real and genuine emotion on his face. ‘You know how I was raised. Wolves would have been an upgrade.’
Even though he’d hurt me more than anyone had ever done before, I still would have given anything to take back my words. But it was too late. The damage was already done.
‘I don’t want a life with you, Lily.’
‘Well, that suits me fine, Josh, because you were never going to have one anyway.’
His dark eyes glittered. ‘No, you would always have picked the safe option. You’re too much of a coward to ever take a risk.’
‘I’m a what?’ I said, even though I’d heard him with perfect clarity.
‘You’re too scared to step outside of the perfect little fairy-tale bubble you live in. And I couldn’t live in your world; it would suffocate me.’
Suffocating him sounded like a pretty good option right then, and it took more restraint than it should have done not to pick up the nearest pillow and give it a try.
‘Fine. Well, I suggest you get your two-faced lying self the hell out of my room, because I’ve got a rehearsal dinner to attend,’ I said, trembling so much he must surely be able to see it.
Josh took a step towards the door, and as he did, I was hit with two thoughts: I was losing him, and I never wanted to see him again for as long as I lived.
‘I don’t think we should see each other anymore,’ he said, turning back and catching things in my eyes I really hadn’t wanted him to see. ‘At least for a while.’
‘Oh, I think you’ve ensured that it’s going to be permanent,’ I said, trying to keep it together for the last few moments of this awful scene. I was so close to falling apart that the only thing holding me upright were gossamer threads of pride. ‘We’re done, Josh. Finished. We were really good friends once . . . but friends don’t do this to each other. You clearly have issues with family and friendship and commitment, and I’m sick and tired of making excuses for you because of your shitty childhood.’
‘Don’t go there, Lily,’ he said, his voice dark and dangerous.
‘Fine,’ I said, mine glacier-cold. ‘Why you’re this way isn’t important, and you know what, I don’t even care. Enjoy the rest of your life, Josh. Just make sure you live it somewhere far, far away from me.’
I thought that had landed somewhere within him, but he walked to the door and never once looked back. He made one last parting comment before he left, and those were the words that I already knew would be indelibly scored across my soul.
‘You’re right. I think it’s better for everyone if we never see each other again.’
And then he was gone.