Chapter 47
NOW
Late August
Friday
‘Are you sure you don’t need any help?’ I called from the sofa as Ben moved around in the kitchen, the sound of cupboards opening and closing rising above the hum of the kettle.
‘No, everything’s under control in here,’ Ben said. I heard two mugs tap down on the counter. ‘Today’s been intense. You need a minute to catch your breath and take it all in.’
I settled back against the cushions. He had a point. But I needed longer than a minute and a cup of tea to process everything.
‘Teabags?’ Ben called, as cupboards opened and closed again.
‘Cupboard on the right,’ I called back. ‘Bottom shelf.’
‘Aha.’
I chuckled lightly. Clearly, he’d found them.
More noises drifted in and I twisted around towards the kitchen door. It still felt wrong to leave him to it.
I should be the one making him tea. It was my flat, my mess and I’d dragged him into the middle of all of it.
‘Here you go,’ Ben said, setting two cups of tea on the coffee table in front of me.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
He started to move towards the sofa but stopped abruptly. ‘I forgot to ask if you take sugar. I can get you some.’ He turned back towards the kitchen.
‘No, it’s okay,’ I assured him. ‘I don’t.’
‘Okay,’ he said, but still lingered. ‘Do you need anything else?’
I shook my head and watched as he sat on the sofa beside me.
It was oddly unsettling having him looking after me.
I picked up my tea and drew it towards me even though it was too hot to drink.
Unsettling but nice.
‘So,’ Ben said, ‘who at Blackwater has it in for you, to set up a fake bank account?’
‘Denise,’ I said automatically. ‘She’s never liked me. She made that clear from the first moment she met me.’
Ben scrunched his nose. ‘She doesn’t have the knowledge, though, to construct that fraud. Or the access. She gives riding lessons and leads trail rides. But she’s never been involved in the business side. That’s always just been Martin and Ryan.’
I shook my head. ‘It can’t have been Martin. He was in hospital when I arrived.’
‘Only for a few days,’ Ben pointed out.
‘Yeah, but then he was laid up in the house, recovering. Do you really think he was plotting against me from his sickbed?’
‘That just leaves Ryan, then.’
I stared at him. ‘You can’t seriously think he would do this?’
‘Someone in that family did.’
‘Ryan and I were together, we were…’
‘What?’ Ben asked, when I stopped abruptly.
‘We were engaged.’
His eyes widened. ‘I had no idea.’
‘No one did.’ I shrugged like it hadn’t mattered.
But it had.
‘He proposed in Malta. In fact, we were about to be married. The call about Martin’s heart attack came two days before our wedding.’
‘Wow,’ Ben said.
Silence settled between us, the magnitude of what I’d said filling the room.
‘So, you’d have been a Blackwater.’
‘Yep,’ I said, taking a sip of tea and wincing slightly as it burned my lip.
‘And you’re sure no one knew?’
‘Ryan hadn’t even told them he had a girlfriend, let alone a fiancée.’ I scoffed. ‘You should have seen Denise’s face when he introduced me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Ben said softly.
‘What for?’
‘The wedding. The plans you had. Everything you gave up to come and help Ryan’s family.’
I shrugged. ‘It was nothing.’
He shook his head. ‘No, it wasn’t nothing. It was important. And that makes the way they treated you even more sickening.’
‘We don’t know that the family were involved. The vet could be wrong—’
‘I’m not talking about the bank account. I mean, that’s a whole other level of bad. But the way that family treated you from the second you arrived was awful. We all heard them. The way they spoke to you. The contempt. The condescension.’
I tipped my head to the right as I let his words sink in.
He was right, but… ‘Denise had been through a lot. She almost lost her husband and then suddenly she’s confronted with me living in her house, a perfect stranger, who she hadn’t even known existed.
I can’t blame her for being inhospitable.
She was probably scared I’d whisk Ryan away again.
Back to Malta. Or somewhere else.’ I smiled ruefully.
‘And she wouldn’t have been wrong. That was our plan. ’
‘I don’t just mean Denise.’ Ben shuffled. ‘I never liked the way Ryan treated you either.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I glared at him. ‘Ryan loved me.’
Ben shrugged. ‘Maybe. But he wasn’t there for you, was he?’
‘His dad had had a heart attack, Denise was struggling, he had the stables to run. He was busy.’
‘Not too busy for Charlotte.’
I focused my attention on the mug in my hands, feeling the warmth in my fingertips.
Ben was voicing the same objections that I’d had about Charlotte’s presence in Ryan’s life, and yet, somehow, hearing it come from him felt wrong.
I felt disloyal. ‘They worked together,’ I said, feeling the need to defend Ryan.
‘Of course he spent more time with her. She could help in ways I couldn’t. He relied on her.’
‘He abandoned you for her two years ago, and again last week.’ He gritted his teeth.
‘No, he didn’t leave me the first time. I left him.’
He arched an eyebrow. ‘Did you?’
‘Yes, I packed my stuff, called a taxi and—’
‘I’m not talking about the practicalities. I mean, who left first emotionally?’
I opened my mouth, but no sound would come out.
‘That’s what I thought,’ Ben said, as though I’d proved his point. ‘And what’s he going to do now that Charlotte’s dead? Come running back to you again?’
I clamped my mouth shut.
Ben groaned. ‘He already has, hasn’t he?’
‘He said he missed me. That leaving me for her had been a mistake.’
‘No kidding,’ Ben said immediately. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know, yet. There’s too much going on right now to even start to think about that.’
Ben nodded. ‘Right. Yeah, of course. We need to focus on clearing your name.’
With my hand lingering on the latch, I glanced back over my shoulder at Ben as he gathered the papers that were scattered across the coffee table and snapped the laptop shut.
He gave me a quick nod, and I pulled the door open.
‘Are you alright?’ Ryan asked, stepping straight inside and wrapping his arms around me. ‘I can’t believe the things the police are saying—’
He stopped, his arms falling from me instantly.
I stepped back and followed his gaze through to the living room, although I could already guess what had caused his reaction.
‘What the hell is he doing here?’ Ryan demanded, marching into the room.
‘Ben gave me a lift home from the police station after my interview,’ I said, slipping past him and positioning myself between them.
Why was he being so hostile? It wasn’t as though we were doing anything wrong. We had nothing to hide.
My gaze shifted to the laptop and stack of papers resting on Ben’s lap.
Well, maybe not nothing.
‘I’ve just spent an hour being grilled by the police,’ Ryan said, turning back to me, his eyes blazing. ‘Listening to them telling me all the things they think you’ve done. And I defended you. I told them there was no way you could have done any of that.’
A glimmer of a smile tugged at my lips as I stepped towards him.
‘Because you wouldn’t even know where to start,’ he continued. ‘Inserting yourself into sales? Skimming money?’ He shook his head.
My smile withered instantly.
He didn’t believe I was innocent. He believed I was incapable.
‘Unless you weren’t doing it alone.’
It was the same conclusion that Ben suspected the police had drawn, and yet hearing it from Ryan was worse. Much worse.
Ben leapt up, dumping the laptop and papers on the sofa. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’
‘What am I supposed to think, when I find the two of you cosied up in here?’
‘Cosied up?’ Ben scoffed. ‘We’re having a cup of tea, trying to figure out how to help Kirsty. Which is what you should be doing, instead of throwing around wild accusations.’
‘That’s exactly what I came here to do,’ Ryan said, glaring at Ben. ‘But now I’m thinking that Charlotte was right about the two of you. There was something going on between you back then, and clearly there still is.’
‘Charlotte was a liar,’ Ben snapped. ‘All those allegations she made up about me, claiming Kirsty had accused me of harassment.’
‘What?’ Ryan looked back and forth between us.
‘I told you, he didn’t know,’ I said, feeling a flicker of relief.
‘Maybe not,’ Ben conceded. ‘But shouldn’t he?’ He turned back to Ryan. ‘Or did you just want me gone so badly that you didn’t care how Charlotte did it?’
‘That’s not true, is it?’ I asked, turning to Ryan. ‘If you’d known, you would have intervened.’
Ryan didn’t speak.
‘Don’t be so na?ve, Kirsty.’ Ben let out a twisted bitter laugh. ‘He never intervened when Charlotte was making your life hell. When she was framing you for fraud. Or when he was leaving you for her.’
‘He didn’t know,’ I repeated. But it sounded weaker this time.
‘And now he comes marching in here, in your flat, acting like he owns the place. He doesn’t even live here. He chose to leave. To leave you.’
‘Ben, don’t,’ I said, placing my hand on his arm, trying to calm him down.
Ben jerked his arm away, staring at me as if my touch had burned his skin.
‘It looks like you don’t need my help any more,’ he said quietly. ‘Now you’ve got Ryan.’
‘Ben—’
He shook his head and walked straight past me, towards the door.
I started to go after him but Ryan grabbed my arm. ‘Just let him go, he’s not worth it.’
Ben didn’t even pause, he just slipped out of the door, letting it clunk closed behind him.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I snapped at Ryan. ‘He’s been helping me.’
‘Getting you involved in this mess, more like,’ Ryan sneered.
‘That’s not—’
‘I thought he was gone. Out of our lives. But now…’ He shook his head. ‘Have you been in contact with him all this time?’
‘No,’ I replied honestly.
But the question hurt.
‘Do you even understand how bad things are right now, Kirsty? Not just for you, but for the stables. For me.’
‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘That interview was relentless,’ he continued.
‘The police asked me where I was at the time of Charlotte’s death, can you believe it?
Then they started asking about our relationship.
Wanting to know why you and I broke up. How long Charlotte and I had been dating.
If we were dating before you and I got back together—’
‘Were you?’ I asked suddenly.
Ryan blinked.
‘You never actually told me what happened after I left, two years ago. Did you and Charlotte get together?’
‘What does that have to do with anything?’
‘It’s a fair question, don’t you think? You left me for her last week, then came back to me the day she died.’
‘So this is about me now?’
‘It’s about us.’
Ryan shook his head. ‘You manipulate things, just like she did. I came here because I was worried about you. Because I wanted to help you.’ He snorted. ‘Clearly you’ve already got all the help you need.’
He turned and left without another word.
I stared at the door, the sudden silence feeling strange and unsettling.
How had this happened? One minute I’d had them both back in my life. Ben. Ryan. On my side. Trying to help. And now…
I let out a slow breath.
I had no one.