Chapter 55
NOW
Late August
Sunday
‘That was impressive.’
I swung round at the sound of Ben’s voice behind me. ‘You heard all that?’
‘Enough to be proud of you for standing up for yourself,’ he said with a smile.
I shook my head. ‘No, tackling a guy with a shotgun was impressive.’
‘I just did what anyone would have done in that situation.’
I glanced back over my shoulder as Dad and Janine disappeared down the corridor. ‘Not everyone,’ I replied heavily.
Ben cleared his throat and lifted his phone. ‘Mum just texted, she’s in the car park. I told her not to come in.’
‘Aren’t they keeping you in hospital?’
Ben shook his head. ‘It’s just a bump.’
‘That was not just anything. You were out cold. You scared the heck out of me.’
‘I did?’
I swatted his arm. ‘Of course you did.’
Ben swallowed. ‘Well, they said I just need to stay awake and have someone with me for the next seventy-two hours.’
I studied him cautiously.
‘Don’t look so worried, I’m fine and my folks will keep an eye on me. You can count on that.’
I felt a pang of jealously.
‘Sorry,’ he said instantly.
I gazed at him, slightly stunned how quickly he’d recognised how saying that would make me feel.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to stay with us tonight?’ Ben’s mum asked, as I reached for the door handle. ‘You’re very welcome to. And it’ll stop this one worrying about you being on your own,’ she added, jerking her head towards Ben in the back seat.
‘Mum,’ he muttered, rolling his eyes. But he didn’t deny it.
‘I’m fine, I promise,’ I assured them, grinning at Ben. I slid out of the car and waved as they drove away.
I’m fine.
My words repeated in my head, and I realised they were true.
For the first time in days, I actually was fine.
The police had already dropped the charges.
The truth had been uncovered.
I was free.
I let out a deep sigh, smiling to myself as I turned towards my block of flats.
‘Kirsty!’
I stopped instantly.
‘Hey,’ Ryan said as he jogged towards me. ‘I was waiting in my car,’ he said, pointing down the street. ‘I didn’t want to interrupt you with…’ He paused. ‘Your friend.’
I nodded slightly.
‘Can we talk?’ he asked when I didn’t move.
‘I’m really tired, Ryan.’
‘Please.’ He reached for my hand. ‘Just for a few minutes.’
I hesitated for a moment before stepping inside the building and holding the door open for him.
We walked up the stairs and into the flat in silence. Each lost in our own thoughts.
I hung my key on the hook beside the one that had once been his, and moved through to the kitchen. My hand automatically reached towards the kettle—
I stopped.
A small rueful laugh escaped my lips.
‘What?’ Ryan asked from the doorway behind me.
I shook my head. ‘Nothing. Just an old habit that it’s time to break.’
I turned my back to the kettle and faced him. ‘Say what you came to say.’
Ryan swallowed.
‘I’m sorry—’ his eyes met mine ‘—for everything.’
I didn’t respond.
‘I didn’t know how to handle things,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you.’
His words landed heavily.
‘You did anyway.’
He flinched slightly. Good. A flicker of satisfaction ran through me at his discomfort.
‘I know.’
Another pause, longer this time.
‘My dad’s life was at stake. Mum’s too probably,’ he said. ‘There was no way of knowing what Charlotte would do if I didn’t comply.’
I held his gaze.
‘I had no way out,’ he added.
‘So, you just left.’
He shook his head. ‘You make it sound like it was easy. It wasn’t. I didn’t want to pull away from you. I had to. I was protecting my family. I thought I was doing the right thing.’
‘For whom?’
‘Everyone.’
I tipped my head. ‘What about me? Protecting your family meant you allowed them to frame me.’
‘I didn’t know about that.’
‘But, when I got arrested, you still didn’t come forward.’
‘I thought—’
‘You thought I’d done it? Been part of the sales? Stolen the money?’
‘I knew you hated Charlotte. Mum.’ He shook his head. ‘I thought maybe you’d found out what was going on and seen a way to get back at them.’
‘You thought I was capable of that?’ I closed my eyes. ‘Of course you did,’ I said sadly. ‘Because you thought I was capable of murder, too.’
‘How could I have imagined that Mum—’
My eyes flew open. ‘But you could imagine that I would?’
‘It’s what the police thought.’
‘They didn’t know me.’ I stared at him. ‘You did. At least you should have done.’
‘I was overwhelmed. I didn’t know what to do. What to think.’
‘And what happens the next time you get overwhelmed? Will you just leave again?’
‘No, never,’ he said firmly.
I studied him. The conviction in his voice was so strong, but I couldn’t believe him any more.
Ryan stared at me helplessly.
‘It’s not even just this time, though, is it?’ I said with a shrug. ‘Things didn’t work between us two years ago either.’
‘I know I screwed up,’ he said, running a hand through his hair. ‘I knew I had, the second you left.’ He shook his head with a grimace. ‘No, that’s not true. I knew it even before you left. I just didn’t know how to fix it.’
I tipped my head to the side. ‘I didn’t need you to fix anything.’
Ryan scoffed. ‘Sure you did. You needed more from me than I could give you. And, when you realised I wasn’t enough for you, you left.’
‘Is that really how you saw it? How you saw me?’
Ryan shrugged. ‘I know it wasn’t the life we planned, but my family needed me.’
‘I understood that.’
‘You resented me for it.’
I shook my head. ‘I admired you for it.’
Ryan stared at me in disbelief. ‘If that was true, you wouldn’t have left.’
‘I didn’t leave because your family needed you. I left because you didn’t need me.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Is it?’ I arched my eyebrows as I studied him.
‘I didn’t fit in at the stables. I tried to.
I tried to find ways to be useful. Supportive.
But I was always reminded that I didn’t belong in that world.
Your parents, Charlotte, none of them wanted me there.
And to be honest, it felt like you didn’t either. ’
‘Of course I wanted you there. You were my girlfriend. My fiancée. I loved you.’
‘Did you? You didn’t act like it. You treated me like I was an inconvenience. Overdramatic. Too fussy. A burden you didn’t have time for.’
‘I knew I was difficult to be around. I was tired. Moody. I thought you’d be better off if I kept my distance. Gave you some space from all my problems.’
I shook my head sadly. That space had crushed me. The inconsistency. The unpredictability. The distance.
Yet he’d just moved through it.
Like it was normal.
Like it was permanent.
‘And then you left. You just packed your bags and walked away.’
‘What else was I supposed to do?’
‘Stay,’ Ryan said flatly, as though it was simple.
I snorted. ‘Why? You didn’t want me there. None of you did. I was in the way. You said it yourself, bringing me home with you had been a mistake. One your family and Charlotte delighted in pointing out to you daily.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’ Ryan paused. ‘At least, I didn’t intend for it to be like that.’
‘I know that,’ I whispered now, more to myself than anyone else.
That was what made it harder. If he’d been intentionally dismissive, it would have been easier to walk away.
I’d known he cared about me. But he cared about everyone. Even when they didn’t deserve it. And that made it impossible for him to create the boundaries we needed to save our relationship.
‘Did you love Charlotte?’ I asked quietly.
‘I cared about her,’ he said hesitantly. ‘But no—’ he shook his head ‘—I never loved her.’
‘But you dated two years ago?’
Ryan blinked as though my question had taken him by surprise.
‘At the house, when your parents were talking about Charlotte’s obsession, you said you hadn’t dated. Not then. Which implied…’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, we dated after you left.’
There was something about his expression. Something guilty.
‘Only after I left?’ I couldn’t help myself. I had to know. Had there been something between them when we were together?
‘Of course.’ Ryan looked horrified. ‘After you’d gone, I struggled.
But Charlotte was always there. Always supportive.
’ He gave a weak shrug. ‘I knew she liked me, and she kept telling me that we made sense together. We’d been friends for so long, had the same interests, we understood each other, my parents were rooting for us.
And I was so lost without you. So lonely. ’
His admission tore through me.
‘We went out a few times, but…’ Ryan shook his head. ‘She wasn’t you.’
I swallowed, unable to speak.
‘I knew almost immediately that I wasn’t being fair to her.
She’d always felt more than I did. And I think I let that blur my vision for a little while, but deep down I knew I was using her to feel less alone.
’ He took a deep breath. ‘I ended things quickly. Charlotte said she understood. Said I just needed more time.’ Ryan shook his head. ‘But I knew it wasn’t that.’
‘But you didn’t tell her?’
Ryan lowered his gaze to the floor as he shook his head. ‘She’d been through so much rejection from her own family; I didn’t want to hurt her. But, maybe if I’d been more honest with her, all of this could have been avoided.’
‘It might not have made any difference,’ I said quietly. ‘Look what she’d already done to your dad.’
‘Yeah,’ Ryan agreed as his gaze met mine. ‘But…’
Silence hung between us and I knew there were no words that would stop him from blaming himself.
He stepped towards me. ‘I know it’ll take time to earn back your trust. But I’ll spend every day for the rest of my life proving you can count on me. That I will never leave you again.’
It was so tempting to believe him. To allow myself to hope that everything we’d once had had been real and that it was enough to get us through this.
‘We’ll be stronger for it,’ Ryan said, taking my hands in his. ‘The lessons we’ve learned. The obstacles we’ve overcome. They’ll all help us grow, Kirsty. Our relationship will be stronger for all this.’ He squeezed my hands. ‘I’m grateful for that.’
‘Grateful?’ I snorted. ‘I didn’t need to go through this to realise what I wanted or how I felt.’
My gaze narrowed as I studied him.
‘Would you really have married me if your dad hadn’t been rushed to hospital?’
‘Of course,’ Ryan said instantly.
Yet somehow his words lacked sincerity. I could hear it now. The doubt. The fear. Marrying me wouldn’t have been about building a life together based on love. It was a way out of the trap he’d been caught up in for his whole life.
‘Did you ever really even love me for me? Or did I just represent all the things you’d never had? Choice? Freedom? Independence?’
‘I loved you for you,’ Ryan insisted. ‘I still love you. We can make this work. I won’t let you down this time.’
I closed my eyes and allowed his words to wash over me. For a moment, I almost believed them. Almost let myself lean into the pull of him. The ache of being cocooned in his arms. The promise of the future we’d planned on balmy summer evenings on the beach in Malta.
It was everything I’d been waiting for. Fighting for.
My obsessive desperation to give us one more try had kept me trapped for two years.
Could we make it work next time? That question had haunted me constantly.
It had kept me stuck in Dorset, waiting for another chance.
It had driven me to stalking Charlotte, determined to destroy her.
All because I needed another chance. I needed to know if we could make it work.
But I didn’t need proof now. I already knew.
‘We’ve had two chances,’ I whispered, ‘and it didn’t work.’
‘But that wasn’t because of us. It was outside pressure. Other people interfering. Other—’
‘There will always be outside factors,’ I shrugged. ‘The trick is to keep them outside. And we didn’t.’
‘But this time will be different,’ Ryan pleaded.
The heaviness in my chest didn’t ease.
‘I love you,’ Ryan repeated, as though those three little words were all that mattered.
They had been, once.
‘And you love me too,’ he added firmly.
And he was right. I did. I always had.
But it wasn’t the same kind of love it had once been.
‘It’s no longer enough,’ I said.
There was a difference between loving someone and choosing them.
‘I can change,’ he said quickly. ‘I can be different. I am different. Seeing what my parents did…’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t want to be part of that. Whatever happens to them, I’m leaving Blackwater Stables. Leaving them.’
I hesitated.
It was so tempting to let my guard down, to take him at his word, to give us – give him – another chance.
But I’d been here before. I’d waited on the sidelines, putting him first, hoping there would finally be space in his life for me. And now that there was, I realised it wasn’t a space, it was just a hollow.
It was easy to choose me when he had nothing else. That didn’t make me his priority. It made me his fallback. His safety net to stop him from being alone.
Maybe I couldn’t blame him for that. Could I honestly say I hadn’t done the same? Our relationship had been as much an escape for me in the beginning as it had been for him. I’d needed connection. Acceptance.
But what did I need now?
I took a deep breath. The answer echoed through me – the one I’d known for a long time, the one I’d never wanted to face.
‘I don’t trust you any more,’ I said softly. ‘I don’t trust in us.’
And that was the inescapable truth.
Love without trust would never be enough.
‘I get that,’ Ryan said after a moment. His voice was strained. ‘I hurt you, and it’s going to take time to rebuild from that. But, I promise you, I’ll prove you can trust me again. Just give me a chance. Please.’
His eyes searched mine, full of sincerity and desperation.
My lip trembled, aching to form the one word he needed to hear – the word that would let us start again, rebuild the life we’d once planned.
‘No.’
The calm certainty in my tone surprised me. The word hung between us, still and absolute.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel the need to apologise or explain. I didn’t bend to what someone else needed.
It simply was what it was.
My decision.
‘You’re angry, I understand that—’
‘No, I’m not angry any more, Ryan. I don’t even blame you.’ I shook my head. ‘But I can’t live like that again. Waiting for you to decide when and where I fit into your life. How much of you you can share with me, and how much to hold back.’
‘You know everything now.’
‘I discovered it,’ I corrected. ‘You never chose to tell me.’
Ryan blinked. ‘I…’ But whatever objection he’d been about to make withered before it reached his lips.
‘I told you everything about me. And you used it.’ I snorted. ‘You shared it with your family, with Charlotte, and let them weaponise it against me. But it wasn’t just them. You threw my past, my pain, back at me too.’
Ryan’s mouth opened and closed but he didn’t speak. His eyes burned with sorrow and regret. But I wouldn’t carry it for him any more.