Page 77 of The Wedding Pact
She shook her head, gulping in oxygen, and faced him.
‘What is it? Do you feel ill?’ he asked, seeing the worry in her eyes.
‘I need to talk to you about something,’ August blurted out.
‘Go for it.’
She hesitated, letting the wind cool the dampness on her face, causing goose bumps to form on her arms. ‘It could be nothing. It could be nothing at all, but I feel like I need to give you the information and then it’s your call. Do whatever you want with it. You probably already know anyway.’
‘Know what?’
‘It’s about … Poppy.’
August spotted the flicker of a smile cross his face at her name. She felt like the biggest cow for being the reason that smile would soon leave.
‘What about her?’ Flynn asked, concerned.
‘I think … Iknow… that we’ve met Poppy before.’
‘At the Roman Baths?’
‘No,beforebefore; before you started dating her.’
‘Where?’
Here goes, August thought. ‘Do you remember at the open house, when we first arrived and some girl came bursting out of the flat in a huff?’
Flynn crinkled his brow. ‘Not really.’
‘She made a comment about howwe’dbe right for the place but it had been a big waste of time for her? She was one of the people who already knew Mrs H only wanted a married couple, before we did?’
‘Oh … ’ Flynn gazed off towards the river for a moment. ‘And you think that was Poppy?’
‘I’m sure it was. She looked really familiar to me when you first introduced us but it wasn’t until I saw her yesterday on the landing, when you two were heading out to go for your drink, that it hit me who she was.’ She watched as Flynn absorbed what she was saying.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
August nodded.
‘So she went to view the same house as us,’ shrugged Flynn. ‘She’s settled somewhere now.’
‘Did she mention it though, the first time you brought her over?’
‘No … ’
‘Don’t you think that’s weird?’ August said. Flynn flinched at that, like it was something he didn’t want to hear, or that he didn’t want August to say. She tried to smooth it over by adding, ‘I just mean that I would have turned up and gone, like,Oh, you live here? That’s so funny, I came to view this flat a few months back too, if it were me.’
‘To be fair, August, not everybody thinks and says what you think and say.’
‘I know, I just—’
‘Maybe she was just a bit embarrassed because she felt like she wasn’t “selected” for the flat, or whatever. Or maybe she just doesn’t remember because she’d seen a hundred flats for rent that week.’ He paused, regarding her, a look in his eye that she hadn’t been on the end of before, like he wanted to say something but was holding back. ‘Or maybe it wasn’t even Poppy.’
They were all good, reasonable arguments, and August had argued with herself the same points over and over again for the past twelve hours. She didn’t know what was the truth, she just knew she needed Flynn to be privy to all the same information as she was. Which is why she said, with conviction, ‘It definitely was Poppy. I know it.’
Flynn ran a hand over his sweaty brow. ‘It’s just that I can barely remember that woman. I doubt she can remember seeing me that day.’
‘Or maybe she does remember, and she recognised you in the bar, and that’s why she came up to you in the first place.’
