Page 115 of The Wedding Pact
‘Spit it out, girl, I don’t want to die here of boredom.’
Looking directly at Mrs Haverley, August said it. ‘I’m not married to Flynn. We aren’t married. To each other.’
‘Have you separated, darling?’
‘No, it’s not a divorce, because it was never a marriage.’ August paused and added, just to make it absolutely clear, ‘We lied to you, Mrs Haverley, and I’m sorry.’
Mrs Haverley took that in for a second. ‘You aren’t married, but you are a couple.’
‘No, we lied about all of it. I heard you, at the open house, telling Abe you only wanted to rent to a solid, dependable, married couple, and I wanted to live in that house so much, and Flynn needed somewhere to live because he’d just moved here from Japan, and we were selfish and entitled and instead of respecting your wishes we barrelled on ahead.’ Wow, it was flowing out of her now. And Mrs Haverley, whose gaze was unwavering, her mouth unsmiling, just lay there listening to it all.
So August continued rattling on. ‘We feel awful, Mrs H, and rightly so, because we lied to you and everyone in that building, just so we could get what we wanted. We see it now, both of us, and I’m sorry it took months for us to come clean – I think we actually both knew we should come clean some time ago, but we were scared you might kick us out – but when I really started to get to know you, and found out that you knew my grandma, that’s when … ’
Mrs Haverley sighed in thought as August trailed off. ‘All the hand holding … ’
‘Fake,’ August explained. ‘I mean, you know, we were holding each other’s hands, not like, mannequin hands, but it was fake in terms of the feeling behind it – you get it.’
Mrs Haverley’s eyebrows were furrowed. ‘You share a bedroom.’
‘Not really, we don’t.’
‘You kissed at the Christmas party.’
August blushed at that. ‘Actually we onlynearlykissed in the end, all of them have been near-kisses, apart from, um, well we did rehearse one once.’
‘I’m sure you did,’ Mrs Haverley muttered. ‘But the wedding photos?’
‘Fake.’
‘I knew that was Weston.’ With that, Mrs Haverley lapsed into silence for a while, her gaze towards the window. ‘Tell me, August,’ she said eventually, pulling herself to sit more upright and shooing away August’s attempt to help. ‘What do you think your grandmother would have thought of all of this?’
August felt chastised, and rightly so, and the mention of her grandmother stabbed at her soul. ‘To begin with, I thought she would have found it comical. But when I realised you meant something to her, well, I now think she would have been pretty disappointed in me for lying to her friend and treating you like this.’
Mrs Haverley was quiet for a long time, to the point August was about to take her leave. Maybe she could come back tomorrow and see what – if any – amends she could make.
And then Mrs Haverley spoke, her voice quiet, but clear. ‘I don’t think that’s true.’
August looked up from her hands, to find Mrs Haverley fixing her with a soft stare. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
‘I remember Pearl quite well and to be quite honest, August, I think I agree with your initial feeling – I think she would have found the whole thing a hoot. In fact, I think she would have done the exact same thing herself in your position.’
‘You do?’
‘Don’t you?’
She thought about it, hard, and actually … she did believe her grandma would have seen the funny side. She would have demanded August confess to everything, and insisted she give a proper apology, which would have included anything that could make amends, but she probably would have been just a little amused by August and Flynn’s scheme.
‘Did Pearl ever tell you about Dear Richard?’ Mrs Haverley asked.
‘No, who was that?’
‘Dear Richard was her sweetheart before she got married. A brute who was in the Navy and away a lot. He was all muscles and military training and had the ability to ravish her like nobody else could whenever he came to town.’
‘What the hell?’ She’d never heard of ‘Dear Richard’ in her life. ‘Was this before she and my grandad got together?’
‘Your grandad stole her from him.’
Wow. August’s grandad must have been quite the Lothario to steal another man’s girl like that. Especially from someone who was ravishing her like never before. Vom.
