Page 19 of Love in the Air at The Cornish Bakery

‘I haven’t forgotten. I just figured it was best to move on, to live in the present.’

‘Seriously?’ Turning, she looked at him. ‘You might be able to forgive and forget and pretend that our relationship hadn’t meant anything. Hey, maybe it didn’t, not to you. But it had meant something to me. At one point I was convinced that...’ Tailing off she turned back around, following the ribbon of a river beneath them as it meandered through trees until the canopy was so thick and they were so high it seemed to disappear entirely.

‘You were convinced that what? That we’d be together forever, that we were made for each other? If that’s the case, you weren’t the only one.’

‘What do you mean?’ She kept her voice low and steady. If he was saying things to see a reaction, she wasn’t about to give him one. She wasn’t about to open up to him just to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he’d hurt her.

‘Just that. I was going to propose to you. I’d planned it all out. I was going to take you to that waterfall you’d always wanted to visit. Pistyll Rhaeadr in Wales. Do you remember the one? I even had the ring.’

She scoffed. ‘Yeah right.’

‘Too right. You can ask my sister if don’t believe me. She came with me to choose the ring.’ Closing his eyes, Rowan shook his head. ‘I planned it all and then out of the blue, you left.’

Was he telling the truth? Had he really been going to propose? Had he really bought her a ring? ‘I don’t know if I believe you.’

‘That was always the problem, wasn’t it? You could never believe me.’

Shaking her head, Nina sighed. He was right; she’d never fully trusted him. Anyone. She hadn’t been able to. She still struggled. After years of watching her dad lie to her mum, she struggled to believe anyone. After all, lies can sound just as convincing as the truth. ‘Not just you. Anyone.’

‘What happened with your parents shouldn’t have affected our relationship. I’d told you time and time again that you could trust me. I proved it to you.’

‘I...’

‘I know you watched your dad lie to your mum, cheat behind her back, but that was years ago, that was when you were young. It had happened years before we even met.’

‘Time doesn’t wipe memories away.’ Turning away, she wiped her eyes with the pad of her thumb. It had been her dad’s lying and cheating that had led to her mum passing away, she was sure of it. If she hadn’t been trying to track him down after he’d left, she would never have been involved in that car accident.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’ Reaching out, Rowan touched her arm.

Pulling away from him, she shook her head. ‘I’m not upset.’

‘Can you just answer me one question, please? And then I promise I won’t bring up anything about our past again.’

‘What?’ She could hear the croak in her voice as she tried not to cry. He’d been going to propose. She’d thrown it all away. Their whole relationship.

‘Why did you leave that day? What made you choose then to walk out?’

Closing her eyes, she tried to steady her breathing. None of it made any sense, not after what he’d just told her. Not after he’d said he was planning on proposing. ‘I thought you were going to leave me.’

‘Leave you? I was going to propose to you. Why would you have thought I was going to leave you?’

‘Your ex, Samantha, she was temping at my work. Do you remember?’

‘I remember. But what has it got to do with her?’

‘She told me she’d been seeing you behind my back. She told me you’d taken her out for dinner the night before I ended things.’

Rowan was silent.

It was true then. If it hadn’t been, he would have said so. He would have jumped straight in with an excuse. His silence said it all. His silence told her she hadn’t been imagining things. It told her that she should have taken Samantha’s constant claims that Rowan had been texting her non-stop seriously. She’d confronted him about the texts the first time Samantha had told Nina. It had been the first day Samantha had started working in the office. Of course, Nina hadn’t known who she’d been then. She hadn’t known she was Rowan’s ex-girlfriend. Samantha had seemed to know exactly who Nina was, though. She’d approached her that morning, before their coffee break, and told her that she was sorry she was causing upset between her and Rowan. She’d then introduced herself properly and told Nina that she and Rowan had been texting for months. Rowan had denied it. Of course. ‘She was telling the truth then.’ It was a statement. She didn’t need an answer, she already had one.

‘No, it wasn’t true. Just like the text messages weren’t true either, but you’re not going to believe me, anyway.’

Downing the rest of her bubbly, she crossed her arms. ‘So, no explanation. You just expect me to believe you.’

‘What explanation can I give you? I can’t fight against what you believe to be true. I can’t take away the mistrust you’ve been left with from your father’s actions. Samantha lied about the text messages. I proved that time and time again when I showed you my phone. When she claimed to have received messages from me when we’d been together. Even that time I’d left my mobile at home and yet she’d told you the next day that I’d been messaging her. I can’t. I just can’t prove my innocence to you anymore. I shouldn’t have to. We’re not even together.’

Turning back around, she looked down. They were travelling over a small village now. She could just about make out a windy road leading to a beautiful little cove. There were so many lovely places down here. So many places just waiting to be explored, treasured. She focused on her breathing, focused on the roads, the fields, the buildings. He had to be lying. If he hadn’t taken her to dinner, if it had all been lies, then she’d been trusting the wrong person, she’d been putting her trust in Samantha and not Rowan. Why? Why had Samantha’s claims held more weight than Rowan’s, than the man she’d been in love with, the man who had been about to propose? She couldn’t be wrong. She couldn’t.

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