THIRTY-EIGHT
Even several days afterwards, Evie still woke feeling tired and nauseous. Maybe she’d caught a bug from all the dashing about in the rain, maybe it was simple heartbreak, maybe it was due to another sleepless night on Romona’s lumpy blue sofa and being woken by the smell of frying bacon. Her stomach heaved.
“Morning, sunshine,” Romona called from the kitchen, oblivious to everything. “Chris is coming over early, just to warn you. We’re doing breakfast here. But then we’re going out somewhere on the train. Sussex maybe. You’ll have the flat to yourself for a bit.”
Evie nodded, grateful, then dragged herself to the bathroom, not really comfortable enough with either Chris or Romona to hang around the place in her pyjamas with mad hair and unbrushed teeth while they ate their breakfast and squabbled over the crossword.
She needed to get going anyway. It was Saturday, but that was no guarantee he wouldn’t be going to the office. And she was determined to talk to him. Wouldn’t leave until she got what she wanted.
Giving up on her toast, still feeling sick, she forced down half a cup of tea and tried to find what was left of her courage.
The housekeeper recognised her this time but was still reluctant to let her into the house. Clearly loyal to her father. They all somehow knew, all of the staff in every big house she’d ever stayed at, exactly what the prevailing mood was.
She found her father in his study, which was exactly where she’d expected him to be. The man did nothing but work. Was consumed by it, she supposed. Just a human shell around a money-making machine, calculations behind his eyes.
He looked up as she strode into the room, a frown of distaste mixed with a glimmer of amusement. It was the way he often looked at her. As though she was an insect and he was curious what would happen if he pulled off a leg. Her father . For the first time, she found herself looking back at him in the same way: remote, detached, the inner child that craved acceptance and approval finally starved out of existence.
“Aubrey Ford,” she said.
Her father rolled his eyes. “Growing heartily sick of the man.”
“You will drop this gagging clause, keep your lawyers well away from him, clear his name, and make it known in all of your chummy city boy networks that he is exactly the man they need to hire.”
He laughed. “Will I? And why would I do any of that?”
“Because I know who leaked the emails.”
“Yes. You. Though he as good as signed his own confession trying to pretend otherwise.”
“Not me,” Evie said, using every inch of steel she possessed to make her next words solid. “But a group of activist hackers who have accessed the entire BlacktonGold network, your private computer, your phone, and know every single one of your shady secrets.”
He looked at her, amused. “Really? And exactly what are they planning to do with this illegally obtained information, other than land themselves in jail?”
“Release it. Just like they did the emails.”
He laughed again. “And they’ll hold back, will they, if I protect your boyfriend? This is all very convenient.”
“Yes,” she said. “Because I paid them.”
“You don’t even have any money, Evelyn. You refuse to take a single tainted penny.”
She smiled: a bright, sharp smile. “Nana left me some. I know you know how much, because you once tried to take it off me.”
For the first time, she saw a flicker of doubt in his eyes. “Ridiculous. I don’t believe you.”
She pulled a piece of paper from her coat pocket, unfolded it slowly, and slid it across the desk towards him. “A sample. A very, very small sample of what they found.”
He scanned the page without touching it, turning pale.
“I spent a lot of time thinking about how to make you do the right thing,” she said conversationally as her father stared, unmoving, at the printed page. “I was going to come and reason with you, or beg. Or explain that by punishing his best friend, and the man I love, you would burn any last bridge you had with Roscoe, with any of your children, although we all know he’s the only one you truly care about. But even Roscoe’s defection didn’t make you stop, did it? When even he couldn’t take you anymore, you got worse . Crueller. Greedier. I knew there was no point appealing to your better nature, because you don’t have one.”
Silently, her father got to his feet, picked up the paper and dropped it in the empty grate. He took a match, set fire to it. She watched without comment.
“Luckily,” she continued, “or perhaps unluckily, depending on your point of view, I met an extremely unscrupulous woman who put this idea of using hackers in my head.”
“What you’ve done is illegal.”
“Well, I am your daughter.”
He scoffed. “And you’ve spent your whole life preaching at the rest of us, acting as though you’re better than us.”
“And now I’m fighting dirty? Yes. I am. Because there is absolutely nothing I won’t do to prevent you harming Aubrey. And you know how hard I can fight. You’ve never once managed to stop me doing what I believe in. I haven’t backed down, haven’t taken a penny from you, haven’t eaten a crumb from your table. I’m not asking much, and you know it. Save Aubrey and you get to keep your rotten company, and your whole rotten life. I could bring you down, but I won’t. I just want his reputation restored.”
Her father paused for a long moment, and her heart flailed, terrified, though she didn’t let a glimmer of it show.
“Fine,” he said at last. “You win.”
Evie still hadn’t stopped shaking by the time she got back to Romona’s. She got the keys from her bag as she walked down the street, then promptly dropped them at the sight of Aubrey turning away from the door.
He looked up at the sound of her keys hitting the pavement.
“I suppose this explains why you weren’t answering the door.”
“You’re here,” she said stupidly.
He smiled tightly, as though he wasn’t quite sure he should be. She picked up the keys and hesitantly closed the few steps between them, stopping about a metre away.
“Hello,” she said, remembering another doorstep—Roscoe’s—and this same man. Not her type, she had decided. She’d never been more wrong in her life.
“I thought we could talk,” he said.
“Get dinner,” she suggested.
He didn’t miss a beat, smiled that same tight smile. “See if this could possibly work.”
It felt so fragile in that moment, the thread between them. She longed with all her might to pull on it, heave him towards her, wrap them both tight, but she was afraid it might break. There was a guardedness about him. Tense, unhappy. Hesitant.
But he was here. He had come. That was something. It might be everything.
“Will you come up?” she asked. “Have that talk?”
He nodded once, still guarded, and she went to the door, unlocking it with nervous fingers, leading the way up the stairs, so aware of Aubrey’s silent presence behind her that she felt dizzy.
He looked around the small place, probably thinking of all the things she was. What had happened last time. Everything that had been gained and lost since.
“Tea?”
“Coffee.”
She didn’t even know how he liked it. Wasn’t that ridiculous? She ought to know—she wanted to know. Maybe that was a part of all this, of falling in love. The desire to know everything, and to find all of it interesting, whether she agreed with it or not. Because it didn’t really matter if they preferred their coffee in different ways, or had different favourite foods, or liked different music, or books, or were different in almost every way. What mattered was liking someone regardless, liking someone despite everything, because of everything. Liking them beyond everyone just for themselves.
Anyway, she could remember he took milk. She doubted he took sugar. He would like it dark, strong, and bitter.
Aubrey waited at the far end of the galley kitchen, where it opened out onto the living room, while she made the drinks. He leant with one hip against the counter end, arms folded, looking out of the slanted window. There were little patches of green algae in the corners. The slate roofs across the street looked damp, though it wasn’t raining anymore. The sky was white, marbled with pale grey. It would be November soon and she—
She froze with her spoon against the edge of the cup, halfway through the act of removing her tea bag. It would be November soon. It had been September when they were at Conyers. September when the cramps started on the way back to London. September when her last period came… And it would be November soon.
Cold, hot, moving very carefully, Evie took the tea bag out, squeezed it, dropped it in the bin, thinking, thinking… She was often irregular. It was why she was on the pill, trying to even things out. She had just started the pill when she got back from Spain. Was still getting used to taking it every day. Very occasionally forgot…
She darted a glance at Aubrey, feeling suddenly precarious, suspended high above everything, on an invisible tightrope, scared to look either side. Couldn’t tell him. Knew nothing for sure. Had to buy a test. God, God, God… This could not be happening.
“Here’s your coffee,” she said, handing it to him.
“Thanks.”
She smiled. A normal, normal smile. Everything ever so normal. Nothing to see here. Not panicking. Not at all.
“I don't know how to start,” she admitted, standing near him in the kitchen, leaning against the opposite side. The mirror of him. She held her mug in both hands, looked at the tea, faint bubbles against the side. “But I’m sorry. It’s a pathetic word for what I feel. I’m sorry I ever planned to… Almost came close to…”
“Maybe you could start with what you said the other day. About it being real from the start.”
She glanced up, found him watching her, his eyes giving nothing away as he sipped his coffee. They could have been discussing the weather.
“I…” How could this possibly be embarrassing to talk about? But it was different here, in the quiet of Romona’s flat rather than the whirlwind of that moment. “I meant it. I…um…I’ve had feelings for you for a long time. Mostly annoying feelings, to start with, if I’m honest. Like an itch. But when I went to Conyers… I truly believed I was going there just for FTP, but maybe I just wanted an excuse to be around you…” She blushed, putting her tea down on the counter at her side.
Cringing, she wrinkled her nose. “Aubrey, this is…” she started to protest, but when she looked up, he was still watching her from over his coffee. And a corner of his mouth was twitching.
“Are you laughing at me?” she demanded.
He put his cup down, twitch turning into a barely smothered grin. “You’re just so amazingly unromantic for the soppiest person I’ve ever met.”
“I…” she protested. “That’s…”
“‘Like an itch,’” he quoted her. “It’s almost as good as just thinking you might love me.”
“I can’t believe you’re laughing at me,” she said.
“ Annoying feelings,” Aubrey said, laughing to himself. “Get some gum. Try a patch. She thinks she loves me.”
She reached out to slap his arm, and he caught her fingers.
“Pretend I’m a pigeon,” he said. “And try again. With feeling this time.”
She glared at him, pretending she wasn’t laughing, pretending her heart wasn’t soaring, pretending the grip of his fingers on hers wasn’t being felt in every pulse in her body.
“I prefer pigeons. They don’t laugh at me when I’m baring my soul.”
“Your soul, Evie, is the strangest thing I’ve ever met.” He lifted her fingers to his lips, pressed a kiss to the back of them. “And the most wonderful.”
Her eyes filled with tears—soppy tears, he would say. She swallowed them back. “I do love you. I’m sorry I’m rubbish at saying it.”
“Show me, then.” He pulled gently on her hand, brought her to him until their bodies were almost touching. He bent his head to hers. “I love you, too.”
The words were warm on her skin, on her cheek, against her lips. He kissed her slowly, and she melted against him, hands finding the back of his neck, running up into the soft, short hair she loved so much. She pulled him closer, thoughts sliding with the sweep of his tongue, but the sting of unspent tears was still sharp behind her closed eyes. The sense of relief was dizzying, but she couldn’t quite reach for it fully. It wasn’t this easy. There was more to say.
“We’re OK?” she whispered. “Things are OK? You forgive me?”
He gave her a searching look, dark eyes very close, then for a moment he paused, forehead to hers as he plaited their fingers together, studied the pattern they made when interlocked. Him, her, him, her. There was more to say, and however reluctant he seemed to say it, she knew he was about to. Her heart twisted, nervous.
“Let’s sit,” he said.
They sat on the little blue sofa, the wooden frame creaking under their combined weight. Aubrey shifted, uncomfortable, reaching behind himself to tug something out of the way. She smiled at his expression when he realised it was just the sofa itself, not a wayward cushion.
“Is this bloody thing stuffed with boulders? Taxidermied cats?”
“I suspected potatoes, but you might be right.”
“And you sleep here? When you could be in your Mayfair mansion?”
“You’ve met my father.”
“Fair point.”
He sighed, legs stretched out, crossed at the ankle, preparing himself to answer her question: do you forgive me?
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot, Evie. Over and over and round and round. We’d only met twice by the time we got to Conyers. We hardly knew each other, and I’d given you no reason to like me. But it doesn’t make it right, what you were planning to do.”
“No. I know.”
“I’ve been hurt before by lies. By someone I love saying one thing and meaning or doing something else entirely. You know that, too.”
She nodded, an ache in her throat.
“I took Liv back after she cheated on me because she told me what she knew I wanted to hear. And I believed it because I wanted to believe it. I don’t want to make the same mistake again. Can you understand that?”
She nodded, close to tears again, wanting to climb onto his lap, into his arms, burrow into all the aching sadness she heard in his voice and push it out, replace it with…with her? With a promise? With I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you…
“It’s why I’ve kept my distance. Trying to sort what I ought to believe from what I want to believe.”
She listened so intently to every word they felt like a physical force, her heartbeat thudding in her ears. Surely he forgave her? He was here, he’d smiled, he’d kissed her, said he loved her, that her soul was wonderful… But he’d loved Liv, too—loved her and still knew better than to take her back for a third time.
He gave her a look, dark eyes as serious as she’d ever seen them. “Can I trust you, Evie? No games, no secrets. This has to be real, and grown up, and a hundred per cent. You know what’s on the line for me.”
His fractured heart, his dream of children, a wife, a family… That’s what he was saying.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes.” And she meant it wholeheartedly. “You can trust me.” Except her body itself might be holding a secret—keeping a secret from her, too. Or maybe it was nothing at all. But the question was big enough to be a secret all of its own.
“But…Aubrey…there’s something I need to tell you.”