Chapter Twenty-Seven
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
By the time Ash returns from London on Friday, my colleagues have more or less accepted that I’m not a gold-digger, but they’re still wary about the present state of my relationship with Ash. I’m so hurt and upset with him that I can hardly bear to look at his face when he turns up at my back door.
There’s no reason for us to hide now. I told him what had happened when he finally rang me back, but he ended our call abruptly because Beca had returned from wherever she’d been and he didn’t want to upset her by being caught speaking to me.
I was breathless with hurt.
In our next rushed conversation, he confessed that his mother had confided in Beca’s parents about us and that they, in turn, had told their daughter. Beca was beyond humiliated to hear that people were beginning to find out, and then Ash admitted to me that he’d cocked it up further by revealing that his father had walked in on us and now knows too.
Apparently, Beca was beside herself to hear that he’d brought me into the family home, into his bedroom, and into his bed.
That admission took some teasing out of him, but I got there eventually.
I don’t think she ever in a million years expected him to introduce me to his parents, let alone take me to his private living quarters.
It is everything I feared, and it’s made me certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that Beca let Ash go because she thought he’d see sense and come back to her.
And he still might, with or without a push.
‘It’s the Honourable Ashton Berkeley,’ Sian says as she opens the door to Ash, her tone not quite as teasing as the last time she announced his arrival with his full title.
I stay where I am, backed up against the kitchen counter. Ash stares at me jadedly as he enters. He’s wearing grey shorts and a white T-shirt: casual Ash.
The wilted daisies inside my chest have lifted their heads at the sight of him, despite everything.
‘Hey,’ he says.
He hasn’t taken his eyes from mine, and I’m holding the eye contact, but I don’t go to him.
Sian is watching us. He comes to stand in front of me.
‘Ellie,’ he says quietly, running his fingertips along my arm.
He looks wretched. My throat begins to swell.
‘Come here.’
I don’t fight it. He tucks me against his body, cradling my head against his neck, just holding me in the tiny kitchen while Sian stands by.
I don’t care that we have a witness. I need to be close to him right now, even though I’m wounded. I know he’ll make it up to me later. I know that I’ll forgive him. I know that I can’t walk away from this, even if I wanted to. I’m in it to crash and burn.
Eventually he releases me, but his arm remains around my shoulders as he turns to face Sian.
‘So this is happening,’ he says casually, indicating the two of us.
Sian looks stunned. ‘So I see,’ she replies, her eyes moving back and forth. ‘That was some cwtch .’
Ash sticks around for our Friday barbecue and I’m glad to have him there, even if the atmosphere amongst the workers is strained. I was worried about what people would think, and I’m still worried – the reaction of my colleagues earlier in the week tells me that favouritism is a concern for them. Whether Ash likes it or not, they disapprove. But he won’t feel their disapproval in the same way that I will.
Sian and Bethan have been frosty all week and I know they’re hurt that I not only failed to confide in them but actively lied – Sian especially, after she opened up to me about Celyn. I hope she’ll forgive me eventually.
I just wish that Ash and I could have held on to our secret. It’s all so real now, and not in a good way. I’ll be watched like a hawk from here on in, judged by everyone to make sure I’m doing my job to the best of my abilities – and I’ll probably still fall short of expectations.
‘Will you come back to the cabin with me?’ Ash asks as he’s leaving.
I hesitate. I want to. I want to run away, but I know it will only make things worse if I don’t stay and face the music for a bit longer.
‘Tomorrow, then,’ he says when I shake my head. ‘I have to catch up on some business with my father in the morning, but I’ll be home from three – or I can swing by and pick you up?’
‘I’ll walk up,’ I reply.
He nods and presses a kiss to my lips before saying goodbye.
I feel the weight of every single person’s stare as he walks away.
Three o’clock the next day cannot come soon enough, and I do feel a little buzzy as I pack an overnight bag. But I still have an underlying dread in the pit of my stomach. Ash hasn’t filled me in on his time with Beca. He stayed with her for four nights – what did they talk about? What did they do? How did he comfort her? He deserted me when I needed him, so desperate was he to console his ex-girlfriend. He chose her over me, leaving me to fend for myself. I understand it, but how can I not be hurt by it? At the end of the day, the person who shares the most history with Ash is Beca. Of course he’s going to want to protect her and put her first.
If only there had been more of a break between them splitting up and us getting together. It feels messy and complicated and I know the guilt must play on his mind.
I think about this all the way up to the cabin, but the sounds of the forest act as a balm, and then Ash opens his door to me with his warmest smile and engulfs me in a hug so heartfelt that the ache inside me is soothed a little further.
‘I’m so sorry about everything,’ he murmurs. ‘I’m going to do my best to make it up to you.’
I’d already guessed that he’d try.
‘We’re all set up,’ he says. ‘Do you need to use the bathroom before we go?’
‘Go where? What’s been set up?’
‘The tent. We’re camping, remember? Just out in the clearing,’ he adds hastily. ‘So you can come back to the cabin whenever you want.’
I smile. ‘I’m good. Let’s go.’
There’s a three-person tent at the top of the hill. In front of it are two camping chairs, one of which is holding the soft grey blanket I love so much. Ash has also brought a table outside, upon which is a campfire stove.
‘Are we cooking out here too?’
‘We’re doing it all,’ he replies, and it’s sweet, seeing him happy like this.
‘Can I peek inside the tent?’
‘Go for it. It’s zipped up to keep the bugs out.’
I peer through the window and the first thing I see is his giant white telescope.
‘Are we stargazing?’ I ask with excitement.
‘Planet-gazing,’ he corrects me. ‘The weather forecast is supposed to be clear, so fingers crossed.’
‘What planets are we going to see?’
‘All of them.’
‘All of them?’
‘All of them in the sky at the same time.’
‘That’s pretty cool.’
‘And the five main planets will appear in the same order that they spun out from the sun.’
‘That’s really cool. What time is this happening?’
‘Around three a.m.’
‘Ash!’ I exclaim with a laugh. ‘Are we not sleeping tonight?’
‘Not if I can help it.’
I look inside the tent again. There are two sleeping bags, two pillows – and is that an inflatable double mattress?
‘This isn’t camping, this is glamping,’ I tease.
He chuckles. ‘I bought the mattress this morning. It’s the least you deserve. Can I get you a drink? Cup of tea?’
‘I think what I want most right now is to snuggle up with you in there.’
He looks at me, his lips curving in a gentle smile. ‘Come on, then.’
He unzips the tent and we crawl inside and lie on the bed. He slides his arm beneath my shoulders and brings me closer. I rest my cheek on his chest and try to soak up his warmth, wishing I didn’t have so many misgivings.
‘How was Beca?’ I hope he can put my mind at ease about how the land lies with her, at least.
‘Not the best.’ His voice already sounds heavier.
‘She thought you were coming back to her, didn’t she?’
‘She knows I’m not.’
He hasn’t answered my question, but he may as well have.
‘Do you think you’ll ever be able to repair your friendship?’
I’d be lying if I said that I’d be fine with him being as close to Beca as they were before they became romantically involved. I hate that he’s hurting, but clearly Beca still wants him and that puts me on a knife-edge.
‘I hope so. It helped, going there. I think she needed proof that I still care about her.’
My stomach pinches. How many more hoops will Ash jump through to prove to his friend that he cares? He’s given me no reason to doubt his feelings for me, but I don’t think I’ll ever relax if Beca’s back on the scene. What if he continues to put her first at my expense?
I feel uneasy as I ask, ‘Does your father know our history now?’ Everyone else does.
‘No.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I’d know. I saw him this morning. He thinks this is just a fling.’
That’s exactly what it’s supposed to be, but it feels blasphemous to think about our relationship like that now. I still have all the reservations I had before we went into this, and I know that those hurdles remain, but somehow I’ve managed to shut out my concerns in order to live recklessly. The thought of our love having a limited lifespan is too unbearable to contemplate.
‘And he’s okay with you having a fling with a gardener?’ I ask.
‘Yep.’
I turn to look at him. His tone sounded flippant, but his jaw is clenched. He reaches back to fold his pillow over so it’s easier to see my face.
‘My father has had affairs all my life,’ he confides. ‘Their big anniversary celebration was fake as fuck.’
My eyes widen. ‘How do you know he’s had affairs?’
‘Well, I walked in on him fucking Meredith when I was six.’
My chest constricts at the sound of his casual misery.
‘She still puts out for him whenever he wants it. That’s why he won’t get rid of her.’
‘But what about your mother?’ I’m shocked.
‘She tolerates his indiscretions. He’s had plenty of others. I’m almost certain he’s why I went through so many nannies and au pairs when I was younger. Although I’m pretty sure my last au pair quit because of Hugo.’
‘ Jesus! Ash! ’ I’m reeling.
Sian said Hugo had a reputation for sleeping with staff. Ash told me that his brother was his father’s mini-me. Was there an element of power play to their affairs? I feel sick at the thought.
‘So, yeah, he won’t care about you,’ he says wearily. ‘It kills me that he thinks I’m just like him. Like my brother. And I have to let him believe it because the alternative is that he might cause trouble for us. If he realises it’s serious …’
My blood runs cold as his voice trails off.
‘What if your mother tells him?’
‘She won’t. They may be married, but it’s not a marriage. There’s no love between them. They have separate rooms, have done almost all my life. They’re together out of duty, nothing more.’
‘Fucking duty,’ I mutter, snuggling back against his chest. ‘I can’t believe you had to grow up with that.’
‘It’s why I’m determined to marry for love.’
His words should warm my blood, but they don’t.
If I get you pregnant, I’d have to marry you. I can’t have an heir out of wedlock.
My eyes go wide at the memory of Ash’s words. I’d laughed, thinking he was joking, but there’s a chance that he wasn’t.
I’m too exhausted for overthinking right now. I just want to soak up his warmth.
We end up falling asleep in each other’s arms, waking when the air has grown cooler.
‘I need to make you dinner,’ Ash says, sitting up.
‘I’m not that hungry.’
‘Well, I’m starving, so you can eat when you’re ready.’
‘I like this blanket,’ I say when I’m snuggled up beneath it on a camping chair. ‘It’s so warm.’
‘Taran’s grandmother knitted it for him. He suffered from the cold before he died.’ His eyes brighten. ‘I like seeing you wrapped up in it. You look so at home.’
Let the overthinking begin.
In the middle of the night, I stare through Ash’s telescope at the planets fanning out across the sky. They’re on the ecliptic so they look as though they’re more or less in a straight line.
The five brightest planets – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn – sit sequentially in their order from the sun, and between Mars and Jupiter hangs a thin crescent moon, representing Earth’s position in the solar system.
The only outliers are the ice planets of green-tinged Uranus, which is sitting between Venus and the moon, and blue Neptune, which hangs in the sky between Jupiter and Saturn.
Saturn was the first planet to appear, rising just before midnight, and it took my breath away to see its rings through Ash’s powerful telescope. Jupiter rose just after 1 a.m., shining twice as brightly as the brightest star in the sky. Next came Mars, with a distinct orangey-yellow hue, and at just after 3 a.m., Venus graced us with her presence to become the brightest member of the line-up. Finally, just a few minutes ago, tiny Mercury peeked above the horizon, an hour before the sunrise will wash all the planets from the sky.
The next time the five brightest planets will align sequentially like this won’t be for almost twenty years, so I feel privileged to have witnessed it.
I also feel connected to the universe in a way that I never have before.
It blows my mind that the solar system was formed five and a half billion years ago out of a dense cloud of interstellar dust and gas, and that the spinning, swirling disc of material that was created when the dust cloud collapsed eventually became the planets that we see orbiting the sun today.
Ash explains that in another five billion years the sun will exhaust all the hydrogen fuel in its core, its outer edges will begin to inflate and it will become a red giant, expanding millions of miles out into space. Mercury will be engulfed, as will Venus. Mars may hang on beyond the dying star, but our rivers and oceans will dry up and all life on Earth will be extinguished.
Ash is right: the enormity of space makes everything else feel small. Out there, new stars are being born and new worlds are being spun into existence.
But here on Earth, four and a half billion years after our sun was formed, five billion years before it will start to die, one girl sits on a hill in Wales, falling in love with a boy. And nothing can stop it from happening.