Page 24

Cristy was so angry with herself that she’d only narrowly avoided an accident while driving. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t considered the possibility of Robert Brinkley knowing Lottie Winters through their overseas work because she had. It had occurred to her more than once, so why in God’s name had she never asked the question? The answer was because she’d assumed – and who wouldn’t – that if he did know her he’d have said so, but he hadn’t.

She wanted to know why.

More than that, she wanted a full explanation of what the hell was going on.

By now she was seated at a corner table of the White Lion pub, part of the Avon Gorge Hotel in Bristol’s upscale area of Clifton. It was unusually quiet for a Saturday evening, most of the long bench tables were empty and only one server at the bar, but it was only just past six-thirty so it would probably start filling up quite soon. She wasn’t interested in who was coming or going, only in Robert Brinkley who was seated opposite her, scrolling through the photos on her phone. As she watched him she felt so much anger, and on so many levels, that she was finding it hard to keep it to herself.

As his head was down she had no way of telling how he was reacting to the shock of her finding out about his relationship with Lottie, apart from the tightness gathering around his mouth. No matter that things had ended between them a long time ago – if Lottie’s letters were anything to go by and actually they were everything – what Cristy needed to know was what the heck he was doing here, now, messing with Sadie, and with her?

When he eventually looked up she was momentarily thrown by his expression. He seemed both stunned and confused, as if she were playing some unfathomable trick on him . There was none of the guilt or embarrassment or defensiveness she’d expected.

His voice was hoarse as he said, ‘Where …? How did you get these?’

‘Sadie found them,’ she replied coolly, ‘in her aunt Lottie’s safe along with your letters, the cards you sent, the journals she wrote about you …’

‘I don’t understand,’ he interrupted. ‘They’re … This is … Lottie? ’

‘You must know …’

‘Oh God,’ he groaned, clasping a hand to his head as though sinking into an unimaginable horror. ‘If this is Lottie … Oh Christ, what can I tell you? How the hell is this even possible?’

‘I’m waiting for you to answer that very question,’ she told him tightly.

He regarded her helplessly, clearly not sure what to say, and looked at the photos again almost as if they weren’t real, or they were of someone he didn’t know, which couldn’t be the case because he was in them.

Warily, she said, ‘Have you never looked at our website?’

He shook his head. ‘No, I haven’t, but it seems if I had …’

‘You’d have known right away that Lottie – Sadie’s aunt Lottie – was the woman you had an intimate relationship with for … God knows how many years?’ Her tone was every bit as sarcastic as she intended.

He scrolled through the photos again. ‘Seeing these …’ He paused, took a breath and she noticed his hand shake slightly as he said, quietly, ‘So she’s dead?’

Cristy became very still. Did he really not know that? Was this truly how he was finding out that the woman he’d written so many beautiful letters to, who he’d apparently loved with a near blinding passion, was no longer alive?

She watched him inhale deeply, softly, and take a while to let the breath go.

‘We haven’t been in touch for years,’ he said quietly. His eyes were captured by a photo of Lottie laughing and looking as beautiful as Cristy had ever seen her. Had he taken it? He was in the next one, and the next, in fact most of the others Sadie had found in a small wallet inside the safe.

‘I was never sure why she …’ He took a moment and started again. ‘The last time I saw her … We were in Nairobi. We’d stolen some time to be together … We often did that. She’d meet me a few days before I joined the medical team I’d been assigned to, or when I was on my way out … Sometimes we were at the same camp, or conference, or we were invited …’

‘Please just tell me this,’ Cristy interrupted. ‘When you met Sadie, did you already know who she was?’

He looked up at her, clearly aghast. ‘Of course I didn’t,’ he replied. ‘You can’t seriously think … Jesus Christ, what do you think? That I’m somehow involved in all this …?’

‘Persuade me you aren’t.’

He threw out his hands. ‘How am I supposed to do that when I apparently know even less about Lottie Winters than you do? She was Carla to me, Carla Andrews. She lived in London, was the daughter of some wealthy banker, a free spirit, had no children of her own, was devoted to those she helped.’

Was this the truth, or did Cristy just want it to be because she didn’t want to be wrong about him? ‘If you were that close,’ she said, ‘and your correspondence shows that you were … Did she never talk about her sister and her niece?’

‘Yes, often. Emilia and Sophie. I assumed they were mother and daughter … She was very close to them, but there were times when she needed to get away … She said they were … that sometimes she felt she couldn’t breathe when she was with them … If you’ve read the letters you’ll know all this.’

‘We don’t have the ones she wrote to you,’ Cristy pointed out. ‘When exactly did you meet her?’

Robert inhaled again, and took some time to roll back through the years, unlocking memories he seemed not to have visited for a very long time. ‘It was 1998 in Tierkidi, one of the Sudanese refugee camps. She was brought to me as an emergency. She’d suffered a major cardiac event while helping to process new arrivals and … It was severe, we almost lost her …’ He broke off, drew an unsteady hand across his mouth, the memory of it seeming to have the power to affect him even now. ‘She always liked to say that I gave her a reason to go on living …’ He tried to laugh as if to lighten the weight of it, but it came out as more of a groan. ‘That was how it started between us. She was a patient; I was the surgeon who … wanted, more than anything, to save her.’

A touching picture that Cristy was finding it very easy to believe in … perhaps too easy? ‘I’m guessing you were married at the time?’ she said, seeing little choice but to go with his story, at least for now.

He nodded. ‘And not in the habit of cheating. It was just with her … Christ, Cristy, you have to believe I’d have told you right away if I’d realized Sadie was in any way connected to her. It never even entered my head …’

Still angry with herself for not having explored the possibility when she’d known they moved in the same world, she said, ‘You have to see that this … revelation … calls everything into question about you, and seriously jeopardizes our credibility for not having known something so important about you sooner. It seems pretty obvious now, having read your letters, that you were the reason Lottie was so keen to break free of her sister. She got her a husband, and then a child … And the fact that you just happened to stumble across that child’s mother on a hillside close to the house where Lottie and her sister were staying, and then you turn up all these years later just as the same child goes public with her suspicions … Everyone’s going to be asking who the hell you really are. I am asking who the hell are you?’

His eyes were solemn and dark with sincerity as he said, ‘I am exactly who you think I am, Cristy, and the main reason I took an interest in helping Sadie is because it matters to my mother.’

‘But the sisters were in Somerset at the same time you were back in 2000,’ she cried. ‘By your own admission you knew Lottie – Carla – then. Janina even talked to you about her … That’s what you said.’

‘She did, but I had no reason to think that one of the women she was referring to was Carla. There are hundreds, thousands, of women from all over the world who get involved in the camps. And as far as I can remember Carla was in Malawi around the time I was in Somerset, or I thought she was … For God’s sake, Cristy, coincidences can be real even if they seem unlikely, or convenient, or flat out unbelievable. You must know that.’

Though she did, she remained very uncomfortable with this one. Opening up the Hindsight website on her phone she found the shots of George Symmonds-Browne with Lottie and Janina, and thrust the phone at him. ‘Do you know who he is?’ she asked.

Looking at it Robert frowned and shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen him before.’

‘But you do recognize Lottie?’

He nodded.

‘So can you explain what’s happening there, where this is …?’

‘I have no idea, I’m sorry.’ He put the phone down on the table. ‘I know you won’t want to hear this, why would you, but finding out that Carla is dead …’

‘Lottie. Her name was Lottie, and I think we’ve already established that she really wasn’t the woman you thought she was.’

His eyes hardened slightly as he said, ‘Maybe not, but we’re all capable of being different people at different times, and if, as you say, you’ve read my letters you’ll know how much she meant to me. I saw nothing bad in her, only good …’

‘If you loved her so much, why didn’t you leave your wife to be with her? You told her in one letter it was too soon, your children were still too young …’

‘They were, and they’re the only reason I wouldn’t end my marriage. When you’ve seen the kind of suffering I have, that Carla saw too, children, babies, orphaned and maimed … Losing parents to a divorce doesn’t equate, of course it doesn’t, mine would still have had a mother and father who loved them, a proper home to live in … Even so, I didn’t want to hurt them, to see that same look of bewilderment and fear in their eyes as I was seeing in the field and know I had caused it.’

‘Did your wife know about Lottie?’

‘Yes, she did.’ He gazed down at the phone, its screen dark now, masking Lottie’s image, and Cristy couldn’t help wondering how much he wanted to feast his eyes on her again.

‘Here’s the thing about my marriage,’ he said, circling a hand around his empty glass as if to stop himself reaching for the phone. ‘I know you’ll see my affair with Carla as cheating, a betrayal of my family, my principles, of everything really, but Jenny, my wife … We came to an agreement after our second child was born, which – here’s another coincidence you’re probably not going to like – was the year I met Carla, and yes my wife and I went on to have another child after that, in 2000. But the decision Jenny and I took in ’98 to have an open marriage was actually nothing to do with Carla. It was so that Jenny could be true to herself and stop pretending she was someone she wasn’t.’

True to herself? Pretending? Regarding him sceptically, Cristy said, ‘Are you about to tell me your wife is gay?’

‘She is bisexual,’ he confirmed. ‘The children know that now and have long accepted it. What they find slightly more unusual , or used to anyway, is that Jenny and I have chosen to stay together.’ He seemed to expect her to find it unusual too, even scorn it, but she said nothing.

‘It suits us both,’ he explained. ‘We like one another, enjoy each other’s company – I guess you could say we’re each other’s best friend, and yes there have been times – still are – when we’re intimate. She’s always been there for me when I’ve needed someone, and I like to think I’m always there for her. Certainly she helped me over the break-up with Carla. I might have gone mad otherwise. I simply couldn’t understand why she’d decided we shouldn’t continue our relationship. I could see, when she told me, that it was tearing her apart too, but nothing I said or did was enough to make her change her mind. She kept saying we had to move on, to stop the dependency on one another that was only going to hurt us more in the end.’

‘Did she know you were in an open marriage by then?’

‘Yes, and she’d always sworn she was happy with the way we were, that she could wait until I was ready to be with her completely, just as long as we kept seeing one another. Then suddenly it changed.’

‘When exactly did it change?’

‘In 2005. We were in Nairobi, as I said. She told me she couldn’t see a future for us even if I left my wife, so it was best that we let one another go right then.’

‘Did you see her again after that?’

He shook his head. ‘I wrote to her, of course, many times, but she never responded to my letters or emails and the number I had for her was disconnected. Obviously, I could have made contact through other people, but it clearly wasn’t what she wanted, and so in the end I … I was going to say I gave up, but I never consciously did that. I guess what I did was carry on hoping that eventually she’d change her mind and contact me.’

Realizing that the hope, on some level, had still been alive until a few minutes ago, when he’d learned of her death, Cristy’s tone was a little gentler as she said, ‘Why don’t you get us another drink and we’ll try to work out how we handle this now, with Sadie.’

Picking up their glasses, he said, ‘What is she actually thinking …?’

‘I’m afraid that you’re a liar, a cheat, someone who knows George Symmonds-Browne and who might have been involved in getting her to her aunts, even in harming Janina or Lukas, or both.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ he murmured, clearly appalled. ‘You have to tell her … Please tell me it’s not what you think too?’

She simply stared at him.

He swallowed dryly, but said no more as he went to the bar to order another beer and glass of wine.

As she waited she turned everything over in her mind, trying to get a sense of what her instincts were telling her about the affair, and deception, intended or not. Robert was right about coincidences, of course, they really did happen and sometimes they could stretch credulity to breaking point. So maybe he hadn’t known Carla and Lottie were one and the same person. Maybe he really hadn’t looked at the Hindsight website before today.

When he returned to the table and sat down again, Cristy said, ‘If I’m prepared to believe what you’ve told me then, the way I see it, we have two choices going forward: we either make a big deal of Sadie finding out about the love affair between you and Lottie and put your current involvement in Sadie’s search down to spectacular coincidence …’ She stopped, shaking her head. ‘It’s not going to fly,’ she said helplessly.

‘I think what matters is whether or not Sadie believes it,’ he said.

Agreeing with that, she picked up her drink and continued to think. ‘The alternative is that we pretend it hasn’t happened and carry on with no mention of it … But it’s bound to come out sooner or later, and if the public realize we’ve deliberately held back, duped them even … No, we have to run it, take a proactive stance rather than risk having our reputation trashed by what could easily be viewed as duplicity on our part to the point of outright deceit.’

He reached for his glass, made to drink, but put it down again. ‘Can I remind you that my mother and my children listen to your podcasts?’ he said quietly. ‘If you’re intending to use the letters, the cards … They’re very personal and from another time …’

‘I realize that,’ she said, ‘and I’m sorry if you think your family will be upset by it, but they’re adults, I’m sure they can cope with the exposure of an affair that ended twenty-odd years ago. And you have to understand that Sadie is my concern. Obviously, your secret will be safe if she doesn’t want us to reveal it, but we have to let her make the decision, and I’m afraid I will be doing my best to persuade her to let us dedicate time to it.’

When he didn’t protest further, she continued.

‘I think she might find it easier to accept if you were to go over there and talk to her in person.’

Though he seemed startled by the suggestion, and reluctant, he then began to nod slowly, until finally he said, ‘Yes, I should see her, but if you’re … If you intend to be there I hope you’ll consider it enough to have my letters broadcast around the world without having to add a very difficult conversation with Sadie to my humiliation.’

Recalling the letters, their tenderness and intimacy, and how genuinely upset Robert had clearly been on learning of Lottie’s death, Cristy said, ‘I can’t make any promises yet, but I can tell you that it will not be our intention to exacerbate or sensationalize either your, or Sadie’s, grief.’

*

After leaving Robert to walk back to his rented flat, Cristy drove out of Clifton, updating Connor by phone as she went. ‘It’ll be interesting to see what happens when he and Sadie do get together,’ she was saying as she edged between the parked cars on Granby Hill.

‘Even more interesting,’ he responded, ‘will be Mia’s reaction when she finds out about the affair. Presuming she doesn’t know already, and personally I reckon she does.’

‘I agree, but what I’d really like the answer to is why Lottie ended the affair when she did in 2005. They were still, according to Robert, very much in love, and he got the impression it wasn’t something she wanted to do, but she did it anyway, and never went back.’

‘And it was sometime in the same year that Lottie decided she didn’t want to be published any more.’

Cristy was frowning so hard by now it almost hurt. ‘What the heck happened?’ she murmured, forgetting to indicate as she turned onto Hotwells Road. ‘Sadie would have been seven at the time. They were in Guernsey, she was at school, but I can’t think of anything else that might be significant from around that time. Can you?’

‘Not off the top, but that’s why we need to speak to Corny. Where are you now?’

‘I’ll be driving past Spike Island in the next few minutes. Are you at the office?’

‘It’s Saturday night and I have a life. Also, you surely don’t need me to remind you that you’ve got other things to do this evening.’

As her heart fluttered, she said, ‘You’re right, I have, but we should meet tomorrow to discuss next week’s episode …’

The line dropped for a moment; when Connor came back he was saying, ‘… idea when Robert’s intending to go to Guernsey?’

‘He says he’ll reach out to Sadie tonight, and if she agrees to see him he hopes to go as soon as Monday. One of us needs to be there when it happens.’

‘A trip to the Channel Islands? Let me see, who should that be? Oh, hang on, that’s right, David’s already here, that’s why you’re in a hurry to get home. Jodi’s asking if you’d like to come for Sunday lunch tomorrow.’

‘Sounds great. I’ll ask and get back to you. He should be at the flat by now.’

‘Tell him we’d love to see him, and if you two haven’t straightened things out by then, bring yourselves here for a shot of Connor and Jodi counselling.’

‘That’ll sort everything once and for all,’ she commented dryly, and after assuring him she’d be happy to fly back to Guernsey with David on Monday, if necessary – provided all went well between them this evening, of course – she sped up along Cumberland Road, daring to hope that he really was there.

It seemed unbelievable in a way, and yet he really had rung this morning to tell her he was on his way and if she didn’t want to see him he’d wait until she did. How was that for assertive? And how could she resist when she wanted to see him more than anything? Given how insistent he was being she was ready to believe that she might, somehow, have got it wrong about him and Juliette.

Just please don’t let me be fooling myself and he’s about to tell me, in person, why we can’t continue seeing one another.

That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he want to do that when we’ve already stopped seeing one another?

So there’s nothing wrong with hoping this evening is going to turn out well.

Cristy was ready to believe that right up until the moment she pulled into the leafy courtyard outside her building to find Matthew’s car in her parking space. What the hell was he doing here? She was expecting Aiden to be inside the flat; he’d agreed to come and let David in, so she could only presume that some other pressing engagement had arisen for her son and he’d asked his father to step in for him.

She was going to brain the boy, she really was, but before that she had to work out how the heck she was going to get rid of Matthew. What if he decided to stay and screw things up for her while making an ass of himself?

As her neighbour was in Manchester tonight, she backed into his space, somehow resisting the urge to kick Matthew’s car as she passed. God only knew what was going on inside the flat by now, she just hoped David didn’t think she’d set this up, or worse that she was making some sort of childish point along the lines of: if you’re still involved with Juliette, don’t forget Matthew is very keen to get back with me …

For God’s sake, Cristy. Pull yourself together.

‘Hey, Mum!’ Aiden shouted, as she closed the front door. ‘We’re in here.’

Wondering where the hell else they’d be other than the sitting room, while relieved to know that her son hadn’t completely let her down, she shrugged off her coat and scarf and kicked off her shoes. Were those David’s loafers sitting comfortably between Matthew’s Timberlands and Aiden’s Nikes? Christ, this was starting to feel like some bizarre kind of alt-world where all the footwear got along while the owners – didn’t.

‘There you are,’ Aiden said, coming out of the sitting room to greet her. ‘Wasn’t my idea,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Tried to stop him, but you know what he’s like …’

‘Don’t keep us waiting,’ Matthew called out. ‘There’s a lovely white Rioja here, and we’re keen to open it.’

Wondering if there was such a thing as ex-mariticide – or was that just plain murder? – Cristy braced herself and followed Aiden into the sitting room. There she found Matthew ensconced on one sofa, as if he actually lived here, while David was in one of the armchairs, appearing perfectly relaxed and highly amused by the unexpected welcome he’d received.

‘Hello, darling,’ Matthew gushed, not bothering to get up. (Just as well or she might have knocked him down again.) ‘David and I have been having a lovely chat about deep sea fishing and how it’s a bit of a hobby of mine. I get the impression he’s way more experienced than I am, but too modest to admit it … Here, come and sit down,’ he said, patting the sofa cushion next to his own.

Suspecting he’d manoeuvred things to make sure she couldn’t sit with David, Cristy pulled out a dining chair and plonked herself on it. She was aware she hadn’t actually spoken to David yet, but she couldn’t think what to say with Matthew earwigging from three feet away. ‘Good flight?’ she managed in the end.

‘Easy,’ he assured her. ‘Everything on time, and Aiden was waiting outside when I got here.’

‘Dad drove me,’ Aiden confessed. ‘He was supposed to drop me off, but … here he is.’

Matthew laughed. ‘Here I am,’ he agreed, cheerily, ‘in the bosom of my family, and I must say, it’s a great pleasure to meet you, David. Sorry, repeating myself, but I’ve heard so much about you from Hayley and Aiden and what a wonderful time you gave them at Christmas …’

‘While you were in LA getting arrested,’ Aiden reminded him.

Matthew grimaced good-naturedly. ‘That happened after Christmas,’ he said, ‘but I admit it was an unfortunate incident for which I was entirely to blame. I haven’t been quite myself since Cristy and I …’

‘Are you going to pour the wine?’ Cristy cut in, noticing that Aiden was starting to see the funny side of this.

‘Of course, of course,’ Matthew declared, sitting forward.

‘And then you can go,’ Cristy told him.

He gave a hearty laugh as if she’d just cracked the most hilarious joke. ‘Don’t worry, no offence taken,’ he assured her, as if she’d apologized for it.

Deciding he’d lost his mind, she said to David, ‘I’ve made dinner reservations …’

‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ Matthew interrupted. ‘I’ve managed to secure us a table at Casa and you know how hard it is to get in there. My treat. I’d be at a loose end otherwise.’

‘What a shame,’ Cristy retorted, sarcastically.

‘I think we should accept Matthew’s invitation,’ David told her, and she felt she might like to kick him too, given the unmistakable laughter in his eyes.

‘Yeah, I think you should,’ Aiden agreed, clearly lapping it up.

She glared at the glass Matthew was passing her, and clocked the moment he realized it might be safer if he just put it down.

‘I think I’ve heard about the restaurant you’ve chosen,’ David said, as he and Matthew settled back into a friendly chat. ‘Doesn’t it have an award-winning chef?’

‘Peter Sanchez-Iglesias,’ Matthew confirmed, delightedly. ‘I know him quite well. It’s how we got the table. Aiden, you’re going to join us I hope.’

‘Actually, I’ve got to be somewhere,’ Aiden grimaced.

‘No you haven’t,’ Cristy informed him.

‘I have …’

‘You have not,’ she insisted.

Getting the message, Aiden choked back a laugh and said, ‘OK, I’ll clear the decks. Just making a few calls,’ and he disappeared into his bedroom.

Deciding to do the same, after all she needed to change, Cristy made her excuses and took her wine and phone with her.

As soon as she’d closed the door, she texted David, Sorry. I know he’s excruciating, but he wasn’t always like this.

A moment later a message came back, I kind of like him.

I don’t believe you.

He’s taking me out to dinner, what’s not to like?

*

In the end it was gone eleven by the time Matthew was persuaded that no one else wanted a nightcap; it was time for him to go home and take Aiden with him. Of course, he’d had too much to drink to drive, so he’d have to come back in the morning to pick up his car.

‘I’ll bring breakfast,’ he promised, as he got into an Uber.

‘Croissants are good for me,’ David told him. ‘Let us know when you’re on your way, I’ll put the coffee on.’

‘You might be even worse than he is,’ Cristy told him, as they went inside.

‘At least I didn’t bring Juliette,’ he retorted.

Laughing in spite of herself, she led the way through to the sitting room and feeling suddenly absurdly teenagerish – thrilled that David was here, excited by the prospect of him staying, anxious about the talk they needed to have – she said, ‘I actually wouldn’t mind a nightcap, if you’re up for one too?’

‘Count me in,’ and he began collecting up the glasses they hadn’t bothered to carry into the kitchen earlier.

A few minutes later, as they sat down with their brandies, he said, ‘I know we’re both tired, and we’ve had a few drinks, but I still want to get this off my chest tonight. And I hope that by the time I’m done this gulf,’ he gestured to the space on the sofa between them, ‘might have closed a little.’

Very much hoping the same, she said, ‘I need you to understand that I …’

His hand went up. ‘I think I can guess what you’re going to say so please let me speak first.’

Her eyes stayed on his, her anticipation building as she thought, God he’s gorgeous . Then, Just don’t let yourself be swayed by it, or drawn into anything until you know what he’s going to say.

‘First of all,’ he said, ‘I am not involved with Juliette in the way you seem to think. In the way I confess I probably allowed you to think … It wasn’t a conscious decision to hurt you, far from it, but when I realized what was happening I was angry that you didn’t trust me.’

She started to speak, but his hand went up again.

‘Obviously, she and I are close,’ he continued, ‘and I won’t apologize for that. She’s my son’s mother and it means a lot to Laurent that his parents don’t only get along, but that we feel at least a little bit like a family to him.’

She held her silence, as he took a sip of his drink.

‘The last time Juliette and I were intimate,’ he continued, ‘was back in August, in Paris … It’s not the only time it’s happened since we split up, but I can promise you that it doesn’t happen often, and it certainly hasn’t since you and I got together.’

Knowing she was far too eager to believe that, Cristy countered it with a reminder of Juliette emerging from the gazebo on New Year’s Eve, and how closely they’d danced together after. ‘I think she still has very strong feelings for you,’ she said, ‘and whether you return them or not, you disappeared with her on New Year’s Day, and no one saw you for the next couple of hours.’

He frowned, as though trying to recall it, until his expression cleared and he said, ‘Laurent was sick. Actually he was hungover, but that’s another story … He wanted us both to sit with him, to feel sorry for him, I guess, so we did.’

‘But I saw you take wine with you …’

‘I came back for it because Juliette thought the smell might help Laurent to throw up. It worked, and after we’d cleaned him up all three of us fell asleep on the bed. That’s why I was gone for so long.’

Although it was believable, and David certainly seemed sincere, she had to point out how cold he’d been with her after, right up until she’d left.

‘Because that’s how you were being with me,’ he told her. ‘I knew you were worried about Matthew and I could see you wanted to get away … I didn’t blame you, I understood, but at the same time I was angry, jealous, I guess … And you were behaving as though I was holding you back, or standing in the way … Obviously, I should have done the grown-up thing and tried to get you to talk, but in my stubbornness, arrogance if you like, I decided that if you couldn’t come out and say what was on your mind then I wasn’t going to ask.’

Having to accept that she probably had gone into some sort of passive-aggressive routine, Cristy started to speak, but he said, ‘There’s more. It’s my guess, well, it was my mother’s actually and I saw right away that she was probably right … She thinks that because of your experience with Matthew, what you went through after the break-up, it’s made it difficult for you to trust someone again. She also said that if I want you in my life, I need to be mindful of your past and make sure I don’t give you cause to doubt me or my feelings. And that was exactly what I’d done over New Year, whether I realized it or not.’

Having to swallow a lump in her throat, Cristy said, ‘I’ve always loved your mother, since the day we first met.’

He smiled. ‘You probably know the feeling’s mutual.’ Then after a pause, ‘So this is me apologizing for not being sensitive to your feelings, and for not coming here sooner to try to make things right between us.’

The gulf was definitely closing, almost faster than she could keep up with. ‘I realize I didn’t make it easy for you,’ she said, ‘I know I can be very defensive. I’m so afraid, probably too afraid, of being hurt like that again … It’s almost like I keep expecting it, and because we still don’t know one another that well, I guess it’s inevitable that we – that I – will get some things wrong. I just wish I’d faced down my demons …’ She stopped as he got up from the sofa and held out a hand.

She allowed him to pull her up into his arms, and said dryly, ‘I guess that’s the gulf dealt with then.’

He laughed and brought the length of her body against his. ‘I was just thinking,’ he murmured against her lips, ‘maybe that’s enough talking for tonight?’

Mmm, she thought as their embrace deepened, he was right, it probably was.