Chapter 35
Ginny had just about finished crying the following morning in time to take a taxi to the castle and collect the car and everything else they’d left there the night before.
She wore her tortoiseshell sunglasses – the pair that didn’t provide much protection from the sun, but looked classy and fun and, most importantly, hid her puffy eyes – and tied a silk scarf around her head to keep her tangled hair back.
She hadn’t had time to straighten it, what with all the crying.
Rhys hadn’t appeared at breakfast to wave off Sophie and Andreas, the wimp. After agonising over what she’d say to him, she hadn’t even had the chance to ignore him completely.
She needed to go home, feel sorry for herself for a while and move on. But something inside her still felt wide open. It was all that bloody learning and understanding, the perspective on her rotten love life – because before now, none of it had been love.
The damn hypnotherapist had been right, because what she was feeling was too far out of her comfort zone.
On top of the hurt and the disappointment, she felt horribly guilty about dancing with Laurie.
Petra had been going on about the waltz again when Ginny arrived back and Ginny had explained that Rhys would need to take the photos, so she had no partner.
It had turned out that even Laurie was helpless against Andreas’s mother when she was intent on something, so she’d found herself as part of an impromptu lesson.
She’d admit to a moment of petty satisfaction when Rhys had walked in to see her dancing, but the satisfaction was gone now, leaving only the memory of Rhys’s stony expression – completely blank.
Maybe it was best if she just went home without seeing him – maybe ever again. The thought made her ankles wobble, which was unfortunate timing because she was walking across the gravel in the courtyard of the castle with an unwieldy box of wedding decorations.
As she headed for the archway towards the exit, a familiar figure appeared, equipped as always with his camera bag, and she froze, trying – and failing – to decide how to react.
He seemed to be alone. They could have this out.
She could close things off once and for all.
Although maybe she’d just forgive him immediately for not telling her and they could get back to kissing for as long as they had.
She pulled herself desperately together as he kept coming, his gaze on the ground – and walked right past her with nothing more than a twitch of an awkward smile.
Her heart plummeted as a desperate sigh deflated her. It really was all over. She’d thought for a moment that she’d meant something to him, but she’d just been a pastime at a wedding.
He’d tolerated her admirably for the week and, she flattered herself, the sex had been worth it for him. It hadn’t quite been worth it for her – not worth this sinking, drowning sense of loss for something she’d never even had.
She made it out to the Panda and dumped the box in the boot. Flinging herself into the driver’s seat, she had to pause for another cry before she was steady enough to shove the car into reverse and make her way out of the car park and back to the hotel.
Channelling her inner black ops agent, she hugged the walls and managed to avoid everyone on her way to her room. She didn’t know who knew what, but she suspected the news of how much of a patsy she’d been over Rhys would spread soon enough and she wanted to be over the crying by then.
But when she reached her door, there was a little parcel waiting for her: a paper bag full of chestnuts. Scrawled on the bag was a brief note:
I thought you could roast these with your family.
Quickly taking them inside and dropping the bag with her little pile of nuts by the door, she picked up one and stared at it as her nose stung and she started the stupid sad cycle all over again.
He didn’t even want to keep their chestnuts.
He’d left her with all of the things because they weren’t as important to him as they’d been to her, their moments together.
She piled the rest of the nuts into the bag and tucked them into her suitcase. She would roast them. She’d throw them on the fire one at a time and watch them angrily spit and crackle.
A knock at the door made her freeze and ping upright like a folding bed.
‘Ginny?’
Shit, it was Kira. She probably couldn’t ignore Kira, but she gave it a go for a moment, squeezing her eyes shut as though that could turn her invisible or inaudible at least.
‘Ginny, what’s the matter? Why aren’t you coming to the door? I saw you go in here a minute ago.’
Darn, she wasn’t as good a black ops agent as she’d thought. She dragged herself to her feet and reached for the door-handle, pausing to freak out when she caught sight of her appearance in the mirror on the back of the door.
Her face was blotchy and full of shadows, her hair was a mess, only poorly disguised by the scarf she’d tied around her head, which was also coming loose in wild folds of floral silk.
But despite freaking out, she couldn’t bring herself to care what she looked like, beyond the questions she’d have to answer.
She wrenched the door open and sighed dramatically.
Not just Kira waited on the other side, but Toni was there as well, both of them blinking in surprise. Reshma peeked out from behind them and she was the one to snap into action, pushing through and ushering Ginny back into the room.
‘How about you sit down?’
Ginny collapsed onto the bed.
‘Oh my God, Sophie was right,’ Toni mumbled.
‘Was she ever,’ Kira replied through her teeth.
‘I can see this part is going to be very dramatic for you,’ Reshma grumbled, ‘but there’s no Academy Award for heartbreak – or if there is, you don’t win it anyway.’
‘I don’t? You aren’t suggesting one of you should win it? Kira and Toni are practically engaged, you’re happily situationshipped and it’s only me who’s completely misread a person’s feelings for me – again!’
‘Honestly, Reshma,’ Kira said, ‘this is the self-pity stage. Let her indulge. One of us just needs to stay to make sure she doesn’t hyperventilate with all the sighing.’
‘You can’t comment, Kira. When you were miserable over Mattia he turned up in your climbing class and made everything all right again!
Rhys is leaving the country! I mean, the continent!
He’s leaving for good and he didn’t tell me and it’s all my fault, even though I’m furious at him and he didn’t even say hello to me, after everything—’
Kira blinked. ‘Wait, what?’
‘He’s leaving! Didn’t you know either? He’s so bloody reserved, that man.’
‘I didn’t know,’ she mumbled. ‘And I also didn’t know there was a reason for you to care. I thought it was Laurie.’
Reshma rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t know why that rumour spread when it was clearly ridiculous. It’s Rhys who’s always had a thing for Ginny.’
‘Ha!’ Ginny replied, refusing to let those words fizz in her bloodstream. ‘Well, he got what he wanted from me and now he can leave the country with that itch scratched.’
Kira was staring at her shoes, her brow knitted. ‘But… Okay, I’m totally lost. What’s going on?’
‘Ginny and Rhys have been sleeping together,’ Toni said, struggling to keep a straight face. ‘But I’m guessing some feelings got involved when they shouldn’t have.’
‘I’m a fool,’ Ginny whined. ‘I never thought it was even remotely possible that I could fall in love with him! He hates people! He never says a word unless it’s dragged out of him and he’s probably still not over his ex. But apparently I really am that stupid.’
‘You’re not stupid,’ Toni said, wrapping an arm around her. ‘It makes sense that the two of you clicked.’
‘It makes no sense to me,’ Kira muttered. ‘He’s old enough to be your… much older boyfriend,’ she finished with a wince. ‘Seriously, the sex must have been mind-blowing, because I don’t get it otherwise.’
‘It wasn’t only that,’ Ginny replied, her cheeks heating when she realised what she’d implied.
‘There’s more to him than what he shows the world.
He’s gentle and kind of shy. I guess he was always that way, not just since the accident, which is why he gravitated towards photography and the outdoors. ’
She caught herself before she waxed too lyrical about what they’d always agreed would simply be a fling.
‘Maybe with some perspective, you’ll start remembering his flaws,’ Reshma comforted her. ‘He should have told you he was leaving.’
‘Yes, he should have.’ Ginny sighed heavily. ‘But I liked his flaws.’
She caught the, ‘Oh dear,’ that Reshma said under her breath.
Her three friends had nothing more to say. The affair had been doomed from the start and she’d thrown too much of herself into it – as usual. Even if being with Rhys hadn’t felt anything like her string of dates, the result was the same: Ginny wanted something he didn’t.
‘It’s not fair,’ she whispered.
‘Do you want me to talk to him?’ Kira asked, her expression pained. ‘It does seem like he owes you an explanation or a proper goodbye at least.’
Ginny shook her head. ‘Please, no. I don’t have any expectations.
He wants to live free as a bird and I won’t make him miserable.
I thought I was all prepared to let him go.
I kind of liked the idea of my secret wedding fling that would just add some colour to my dating history – because you all know how boring that’s been lately. ’
No one laughed. Certainly not Ginny.
‘I only hope I’ve learned my lesson this time,’ she whined.
She stood restlessly, hauling her suitcase out of the wardrobe to pack. But the first item she reached for was Rhys’s soft grey T-shirt.