Page 14 of The Last Kiss Goodbye

‘Is that where you think this is going, Nick? A mini-break in some boutique hotel where we have kiss-and-make-up sex in a four-poster bed. Is that how the script goes next?’

‘You said you always wanted to go to Babington.’

‘Not under these bloody circumstances.’

She sat down on a bench. She could feel her anger being slowly replaced by a sad, weary resignation.

‘How did we get here, Nick?’ she said finally. She looked at him closely and noticed pale lilac semicircles under his eyes.

‘I was an idiot.’

‘Yes, you were.’

It was another few seconds before he spoke.

‘We let it die, though, didn’t we?’

She turned round and looked at him in shock.

‘All this time, since the second I found out about you and that woman, I’ve been torturing myself. Was I not beautiful enough for you, funny enough, smart enough? Anna, Ginny, Suze, they all told me I was being stupid, they all told me it wasn’t true. You had the problem, the wandering eye, the overactive libido, not me. But now you’re telling me this somehow is my fault. We let it die.’

‘Abby, I have never met anyone as lovely as you. I never will.’

His natural confidence, the easy-going intelligence and charm, had evaporated.

‘I was wrong to be unfaithful and I will never, ever forgive myself. But the last two years . . . the ovulation kits, the timetabled sex, clinics, doctors, acupuncturists . . . Everyone just treating me like a sperm donor. It got so mechanical, Abby. So joyless. We were trying so hard to have a baby that we lost sight of us. You lost sight of us.’

‘So you jumped into bed with the first slapper that batted her eyelashes at you in a hotel bar.’

She closed her eyes, the breeze brushed against her face, and instead of visualising her husband in bed with another woman, she could only think about the night that he had proposed. Christmas Eve in New York City. The first time she had ever been to the Big Apple. She had always wanted to go there at Christmas, and when Nick’s fledgling IT business had won a big client, he had decided to treat them to a mini-break. They’d had a room with a view of Manhattan and the park, and it had begun to snow. He’d stood behind her, arms wrapped round her waist, chin resting on top of her head, and they’d watched the snowflakes flutter past the picture window of their hotel room.

‘My forever girl,’ he’d whispered into her hair. And she had never had a reason to doubt him. Nick and Abs. Abby and Nick. Everyone said they made the perfect couple, and she had wanted to believe it. Until now. My forever girl had been a lie.

‘I should go. I need to get some lunch.’

‘I bought you a sandwich,’ he said, thrusting a Pret A Manger bag at her.

‘The grand gesture,’ she muttered, remembering her conversation with the girls yesterday.

‘Abby, please. Give me a chance.’

‘A chance? To do what?’

‘To make it better, to make it right, to show you how much I love you.’

‘My forever girl,’ she said softly.

‘What?’

‘You don’t even remember,’ she said, shaking her head.

Tears were collecting in her eyes and she didn’t want him to see her cry.

‘You should know I have instructed a solicitor,’ she said, trying to save some face.

It wasn’t strictly true, but Matt Donovan’s business card was sitting there in her purse.

‘And that’s what you want?’ he asked slowly.