Chapter 4 #3
Baby, I’m worried. Call me.
Yeah, right. She deleted it angrily and tapped to the next one.
Saffy, darling, I can explain everything if you’ll only listen to me.
Somehow she doubted that.
Saffy, I love you.
Love was as love did, she thought bitterly. And his behavior was not that of a loving spouse. As for hers? Well, in some ways, though it sounded ludicrous, she was the one making a sacrifice so that they could make their marriage work.
How had her parents known he was so untrustworthy?
She shook her head. They’d been adamant that she’d regret the marriage.
Ice trickled down her spine. Had they known something?
Had they, mortifyingly, observed him with Anita in the past?
Worse, someone else? How many women had he screwed behind her back?
Was her best friend the beginning? Or the end?
Saff, you’re my best friend. I don’t want to lose you.
Yeah, right. She erased the message without hesitation.
Her fingers shook as she pulled up her husband’s name in the phone. His face grinned back at her from the top of the screen. She’d taken the picture on their honeymoon.
What a joke! They’d gone to Barcelona and spent the whole time walking through the beautiful city; she should have felt alive and enraptured, but she’d simply felt hot and sticky for the most part.
They hadn’t even slept together because he’d had a middle ear infection that he claimed affected his balance.
It began to ring and she lifted the device to her ear and then stepped out of the front door, onto the sand spotted grass lawn that was at the front of the mansion.
She walked across the warm ground slowly, right to the edge of the cliff.
It was met by spiky trees and bushes; in the distance she could see the watermelons that Thaddeus had told her about, scrambling wildly in the cracks of the cliff.
She crouched down and ran her fingers over a blade of grass, pleased when the sharp edge sliced her skin.
“Saff!” His voice was torn from him and in that moment, she didn’t doubt that he had been genuinely worried. “Where the hell are you? I’ve been calling and calling and getting your damned voice mail.”
She swallowed. “I’ve gone away.”
A beat of silence. “You’re angry. I get it.”
She pulled a face. “Do you? Somehow I doubt that.” She ran her finger over another frond and then plucked it from the base of the tree. “So? What happened?”
She could hear his anxiety. He was a lawyer, and a damned good one. He was working out how much to reveal. Would the complete truth disarm his wife? Or should he drip-feed her the information.
“It was a mistake.”
Ah, excellent. Misinformation. He wasn’t going to admit to anything, then.
“How many times did you make this mistake?” She pushed, surprised by how calm she was able to sound.
“Not often.” He was employing his most charmingly reasonable tone.
So more than once, then. It hadn’t been the first time. Of course it hadn’t been, she thought with self-directed sarcasm. Affairs built up to the ‘let’s screw in your marital bed’ phase. They didn’t begin there, surely. “How did it start?”
“Baby,” his tone was designed to make her feel unreasonable. “This is not a conversation to be had over the phone. Come home. Let’s talk properly.”
“No.” She squeezed it tight. Now the tears began to slide down her cheeks. She dashed them away but new ones simply took their place.
“No?” He was silent for a long moment. “Saffy, you’re the one I love. I’ve always loved you. Anita was … she’s nothing. Nothing to me. Let’s never speak to her again.”
“God!” She shook her head angrily. “You’re such an arse. She’s my best friend! I’ve known her forever. Did you have any idea what it would do to me to discover that the two people I love most in the world have been carrying on like this?”
“Of course I didn’t think of that,” he hissed. “I didn’t think at all. I was an idiot. A complete wanker.”
“Yeah, you sure as hell were. Jesus, we’ve been married two months! Two months! Was it going on before the wedding?”
He didn’t answer immediately and foul regret and suspicion brewed in her gut. “She was my maid of honor,” Saff intoned flatly. “What a bloody stereotype we are, huh?”
“Saffy, it doesn’t need to be like this. Just come home. Just let me explain.”
“There is no explanation. Only atonement.”
“What does that mean?” He begged. “I will do anything. I will do anything you want. I just don’t want this to be over. Please just tell me what I need to do.”
She stared, unseeing, at the sparkling ocean in front of her. “There’s nothing you can do. It’s all up to me.” And she disconnected the call then switched her phone straight off to prevent him from calling back.
She didn’t stand up straight away. Instead, she cradled her knees to her chest, and placed her head down on them for support, and she sobbed silently.
She didn’t know if it was grief over her husband or her friend, or anger at the betrayal and dishonesty, but she wept for the whole torrid mess that her life had become.