Page 68 of My Husband's Wife
‘What was Theo threatening to expose?’
‘I can’t talk about it. I don’t ever want to talk about it. It hurts too much. Please come away with me. We don’t have to go over this cliff. This doesn’t have to be our end. Let’s leave. We don’t ever have to come back. I know how to get us new identities. I have money stashed away. Please, Eva. I’m sorry I said all those things just now; I was angry, that’s all. I love you. It was always you.’
‘What about Madison?’
‘She’s nothing.’
‘Emily?’
‘I have choices to make and she’ll be better off with Madison.’
My thoughts move towards Emily, our twin girl that we lost. ‘You called her Emily because we lost our Emily, didn’t you?’
He shrugs. ‘My heart ached for her too.’
I pick up the raven toy. ‘Did you leave one of these in our new house in the hope that Caiden would find it and remember you?’
‘I’ve never been in your new house. It wasn’t me. I came over once and I swear, I only went in your garden to look through the windows. I just wanted to see Caiden, that’s all.’
‘Why do you have this then?’
‘I don’t know. It was left outside my shed. Someone came over and left your wedding ring in the fruit bowl.’ He points to the centre console and there it is, the wedding ring I buried beside our tree.
‘Do you know who?’
He nods. ‘Nicole.’
‘Nicole? Why would she do that?’
He turns to me. I stop fiddling with the rope and he grips my hands. ‘Forget about her and Madison. Please say we can go away together. We need to go to yours now, get Caiden and leave. Please, Eva. I’ve changed.’
I shake my head, and he lets go of my hands. Probing away, I push a finger through a loop and the binds get a little looser. For the first time in an hour, I feel as though I might have a chance.
‘You know Zach is a liar; you can’t trust him. If you’re sitting there thinking about how hurt Zach will be, don’t. His whole existence in your life is a lie.’
That has thrown me. It’s the last thing I’d have expected Hugo to say. ‘What…? I don’t believe you.’
‘He’s not who he says he is, and he and Nicole, you’ve suspected them for ages, haven’t you?’
Mum was right. I feel like such a fool. A part of me wonders if Hugo is saying this to manipulate me, but another part of me has suspected that Zach and Nicole are having an affair. I think of Nicole and the state she was left in back in the store room. She needs help. I wonder if I should even contemplate helping her if she’s trying to steal Zach off me, but then again, I’m not Hugo. I don’t know what Hugo was trying to stop Theo from telling everyone. My head is filling up with chaos again. I’m angry at Nicole and I’m livid with Zach, but I won’t leave her to die.
‘You shut me in a box and made me believe I was buried alive. I had to kick my way out.’ I wiggle my wounded ankle and it stings. ‘I don’t trust anything you say. I will never trust you again. I don’t trust Zach and I don’t trust anyone. Happy now? You have made me into this person.’
One of the knots has unravelled. I start on the next one.
‘I could never be with you again. You’re only saying all this to get yourself out of this mess.’
Another knot unravels.
He looks at what I’m doing. ‘Then you leave me with no choice.’
Sweat prickles across my forehead as he turns the engine on. He revs it up and releases the handbrake. I can’t undo the last knot.
‘Are you leaving with me?’
‘No,’ I yell.
‘Then it’s over.’
