Page 74 of Friends Who Fake It

“Fine,” she pulled at her dress and it made a ripping noise, so she swore under her breath, leveraging it into place while a fever of emotions was storming her body. “I was working at the theatre and you were charming and unlike anyone I’d ever met. I had no idea who you were, only that you were dynamic and enchanting. You said you felt the same about me,” she murmured, the words hollowed out by disgust. Disgust at his silver-tongue and her gullibility. “You saw the show but you came to me at intermission and told me you hadn’t been able to stop thinking about me. You begged to take me to dinner afterwards. I agreed. Stupid, stupid me. I should have known better!”

His eyes narrowed but he didn’t speak. In fact, he stood across the room almost with his breath held, his eyes on hers, his manner strained.

“Dinner was foreplay. Every word made me ache for you, and you knew it. I was inexperienced…”

“You were a virgin?”

“No.” Her cheeks flushed. “But I might as well have been. I’d had a boyfriend in high school. Years before we met. And it was… short-lived.” She stared at the carpet at her feet. “I had no experience with men like you, and you made short work of my hesitation. We didn’t leave your hotel room all weekend. Not for food, not for air. We needed nothing but each other.”

He nodded, but his easy acceptance of that angered her.

“Oh, that’s what I thought at the time. Now I see the truth for what it was. You didn’t want to go out because you couldn’t be seen with me. Not everyone was as naïve as I was. People knew you. People even took your photo, I discovered later. There are paparazzi photos of you all over the internet. Youcouldn’tgo out and risk being seen with me, because you were engaged.”

A muscle jerked in his jaw and he took a step towards her, then another.

“I was halfway to being in love with you,” she lied, knowing she had loved him completely. “And you were just fooling around with me.”

He opened his mouth to say something but her angry glare forestalled him. Now that she’d started speaking, she needed to finish. She needed to tell him what weight had been pressing on her for four years. “When I saw you’d had an accident, I was beside myself. I raced to the hospital. I sat beside you all night, scared half out of my mind. And then your fiancé arrived. Your family. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but yes, you were engaged. She sat with you, in the chair I’d occupied, her hand on your chest, your ring on her finger, and she cried because she loved you and you were hurting. And I watched and I realized that this was all just a game to you.”

He paled, and closed the distance between them.

“I don’t remember you, but I know that cheating is abhorrent to me.”

“Apparently, it wasn’t then,” she snapped.

He shook his head. “You didn’t tell Arabella what had happened?”

She thought back to the hospital, the awful scene with his parents, the grief on Arabella’s beautiful face.

“No.” The word was weary. Defeated. She sucked in a breath, rallying her anger. “I had no interest in making trouble for you, nor in fighting for you. You weren’tworththe fight,” she hurled at him, glad to see her insult hit its mark. “I saw what kind of man you were and ran the hell away,” she said. “And I’m going to do it again now.”

ChapterFour

SHE DREAMED OF HIM that night. But not just of Xavier. She dreamed of him with Joshua, holding him, laughing at him, teasing him, loving him. She dreamed of him from the outside, looking in, and her heart was heavy when she woke, sometime before dawn.

Her body was stiff, muscles she’d forgotten she possessed twinging inside of her, begging to be pushed into service once more.

She was in limbo. Penance and pain.

She stepped out of bed, looking around the townhouse she’d moved into shortly after Eleanor had relocated to Greece. Nell’s husband was far too generous, but there was no denying him.You are Eleanor’s sister, which makes you my sister. Of course I shall take care of you.

In the year and a bit since Nell and Apollo’s marriage, Ellie had tried to curtail his generosity, but to no avail.

He’d insisted, again and again, arranging for the purchase of a townhouse in Elizabeth’s name, close to good schools and playgrounds, restaurants and a library that Elizabeth spent hours whiling away time in.

Joshua was flourishing in this beautiful neighbourhood. But he was getting bigger – already at nursery school, and soon he’d be old enough to notice that he didn’t have a father.

That his friends did, and that he was without.

Guilt simmered beneath the surface, but she ignored it, dressing for the day ahead and focusing only on what she had to get done. She dressed Joshua in his little winter uniform, adding a school beret and jacket for warmth, made him breakfast (‘dippy’ eggs and toast soldiers with a weak cup of tea, ‘just like mummy’) and caroling him out of the door just in time for the scooter ride to school.

She didn’t see the dark car parked across the street. Sleek and black, with tinted windows and an all-too-familiar frame at the wheel.

She walked beside Joshua, listening to his chatter, smiling distractedly, until they reached the Victorian townhouse that held his school.

“Love you, mummy,” he said, stepping off the scooter and handing it to her as always.

“I love you, too.” And she crouched down, wrapping her arms around his waist, holding him tight to her chest, and breathing him in.

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