Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
‘So.’ Simon sat down at one of the tables outside Muriel’s and patted the seat next to him. ‘I feel like we have a lot to catch up on.’
Sorrel sat down opposite him, deliberately on the chair opposite to the one he had indicated.
‘Yes, we do. Why don’t you start by telling me how you intend to pay back the money that you owe the business?
Otherwise, I’ll be reporting it to the police,’ Sorrel began, stirring her coffee.
She smiled at two middle-aged women at the next table who were staring at her and Simon.
Doubtless, they knew who she was, and were gossiping about her.
‘The police?’ Simon cried out, shrilly. The women stared at them both eagerly. Sorrel wanted to go over to them and tell them that if they were looking for a show, they’d come to the right place. She was just getting started.
‘You stole twenty thousand pounds, Simon. I’m not about to just let you off.’ Sorrel met his eyes levelly.
‘I did not steal it. I’m a shareholder and company director. I took a dividend,’ he replied, sulkily. ‘The police wouldn’t be interested.’
‘I think they would. Taking a dividend has to follow a procedure, including me signing off on it. I did not sign off on paying your girlfriend.’
‘That’s a technicality.’ Simon sighed, running his hand through his hair.
‘No, that’s the law,’ Sorrel replied, crisply.
Simon stared at her for a few moments.
‘It’s like you don’t even care,’ he said, changing tack.
Sorrel knew her ex well enough to know how he responded in arguments.
If he felt as though he wasn’t winning with logic – which he rarely did – Simon would either go on the offensive and get angry, hurling insults at her, or try to appeal to her emotions.
Towards the end of their relationship, it was one of the few times that Sorrel had experienced any affection from Simon: when he was trying to manipulate her.
She knew that was what he was trying to do now, and she wasn’t about to fall for it.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked. In a way, Sorrel was curious to see where Simon was going to go with this. He was so clearly in the wrong. What magic wand did he think he could wave to get her back?
‘You don’t care about me. You never did.’ Simon stirred his coffee with a wooden stirrer and looked wan. ‘You never stopped being in love with your boyfriend from here. Your childhood sweetheart. Tom whatever.’
‘Tam,’ she corrected him. ‘Not Tom.’
‘Whatever. I knew you were still in love with him. You just never really let me in. Not here.’ He tapped his fingers over his heart, an exaggerated mournful look on his face. Sorrel thought she might be sick.
‘That’s really not true. I did love you, Simon. Until you eroded my trust in you, time and time again.’ She paused, then continued.
‘I ran that company, Simon. I ran the house too. I did everything, and all you did was take people out for some expensive lunches and then complain about the work I’d done.
There’s nothing quite as guaranteed to destroy your confidence as someone following you around, pointing out all the ways whatever you do is wrong.
You know what? Maybe if I’d had as much time in my day as you, I could have done everything a hundred per cent accurately.
But I didn’t, because I was doing everything myself. ’
She ended the long sentence by taking a long breath.
‘That was unnecessary,’ Simon replied, primly. He could be prissy in an argument, like he was one of Sorrel’s great-aunts and she’d just offended him deeply. But that was just another technique. She knew that now.
‘No. It was completely necessary, actually,’ Sorrel said.
‘My feelings for Tam Blackwood had nothing to do with you. Tam is in my past. You and I were a couple for nine years, and you stole from me and betrayed me, as well as slowly ruining my self-confidence. Why, in the name of all that is good and pure, would you think that I would ever, ever want to get back together with you? That I would ever trust you with my heart again?’ She stared at him, uncomprehending.
Simon looked deflated. ‘Because I love you, Sorry.’
Don’t call me Sorry.
‘No, you don’t.’ Sorrel banged her fist on the table in frustration. ‘If you did, then what about Teresa? Why would you cheat on me if you loved me? Why would you give your new fancy woman all that money?’
‘Teresa is not my girlfriend,’ he said, quietly, refusing to meet her eyes.
‘Really. Then who is she?’ Sorrel crossed her arms over her chest. This ought to be good.
‘Teresa is my sister.’ Simon looked up, and now his eyes were full of tears. ‘And she needed the money. There was no other way.’