Page 78 of Spiralling Skywards
She stopped at the breakfast bar that separated the kitchen, but I walked around the other side of it, wanting the safety of something solid between us.
Her dark hair was pulled back into a sleek pony tail, and she was wearing a long, camel-coloured cardigan over a black dress. Her boots, handbag, and scarf matched her cardigan in colour perfectly and complemented her dark hair and eyes.
Once again she looked beautiful, while I simply didn’t.
“I know we haven’t been formally introduced, but it’s Sarah, right?”
I nodded my head, she nodded hers and licked her lips. Was she dry? Should I offer her a drink? Strychnine? Arsenic? No, she was pregnant. I was hurt, not evil.
Perhaps she was nervous. Was she? What did she have to be nervous about?
“I’m sorry about turning up like this but I was desperate. I tracked down your address via the company.”
“The company?”
I was officially confused.
“Yes. Liam and I still share a business, Luke worked for our business in Australia and you’re listed as his next of kin.”
“Is that even legal? Doesn’t that breach confidentiality laws?”
Her lips twitched with the hint of a weak smile.
“Probably, but I was desperate, Sarah.”
“Why?”
“Well, here’s the thing, I don’t know what you know about me, but I came here today wanting to find out a little bit about you.”
I stepped back and lent against the worktop, putting further distance between us.
“Me? Why do you need to know anything about me?”
I watched her as she pulled a handkerchief from her large black Chanel bag . . . I wasn’t a massive follower of up-to-the-minute fashion, I preferred retro stuff, but I knew shoes and bags and that was from this year’s winter collection.
“I’ll be totally honest with you, and in return, I hope that you’ll be honest with me.”
She licked her red stained lips without waiting on a response from me.
“I came here to win my husband back. Our marriage has had its problems, but before Liam left Australia to come here, we were dealing with them. We’d started dating again, and we’d even started spending the night together over the last few months.”
I felt like I was going to throw up. My hands and my insides shook uncontrollably. I wrapped my arms around my middle and attempted to hold myself together.
He lied. He lied so much, and I believed him. I opened myself up to him. I let him inside my heart and my body, and he lied.
“I honestly thought he and I were on the same page, working towards getting back together, but when I told him that I was pregnant, he took off. Without a word, he packed up and left me. I’ve attempted to call and email, but he ignored me.”
He knew. He knew she was pregnant before he even left Australia. I reached out and held on to the worktop. It looked like I was striking a relaxed pose when actually my legs felt like they’d just been knocked out from under me and I needed the support to stop from falling over.
“I thought that maybe he’d just panicked and needed time to get his head around the news of the baby.”
Her hand slipped inside her cardigan and rested over her flat stomach.
“I thought that by coming over here, I’d be able to convince him that we need to be together, either here or back in Australia. I really don’t mind which, as long as we’re together, but then last night . . .”
Her bottom lip trembled, her eyes once again filled with tears.
“I saw you, Sarah. I saw that he was holding your hand. I watched him let go when he realised I was there, but I saw and watched his reaction when you left. When you took the other guy’s hand, Will was it?”
