by Susan Lewis
‘What time?’
‘Two?’
‘I’ll be there,’ and he rang off.
By the time Elliot arrived the following afternoon Laurie had spent the evening with Rhona, talking it all over, then had managed to track down Rachel in New York to make sure Andraya was there, and that the relationship really was over.
‘Oh, it’s over all right,’ Rachel had assured her. ‘I don’t know the exact details, but it was loud and acrimonious and no surprise at all to anyone who’d seen him with her over the preceding days. He’d started looking at her as though she’d just dropped in from another planet, like he couldn’t understand what she was doing there and wished she’d get out of the way. I’m going to tell you this, Laurie, he deeply regrets what he’s done. I know that without him even having to say it, though he has actually admitted it to Chris, and the day he thought you were in trouble, on Hydra, it took him all of a split second to dump Andraya. He was on his way to the airport when Rose called. I expect she told you.’
‘Yes, she did.’
‘Look, God knows none of this has been easy for you,’ Rachel continued, ‘and to be honest, I don’t know how you forgive what he’s put you through, but if you can, I think you should at least try.’
‘You sound like Rhona,’ Laurie informed her.
‘We both want what’s best for you, we think you and Elliot are made for each other, but that’s us. What matters is you, and what you think. Ultimately the decision has to be yours.’
‘Of course, but you’re presuming he wants to come back. The day he told me about Andraya, he implied that even if their relationship didn’t work out, he still didn’t want ours. And now, to be honest, I’m not sure if I do either.’
For once he wasn’t late, parking his car outside the Grapes and crossing the street to the office. Laurie was alone when he walked in, feeling faintly queasy with nerves, but reasonably calm. As she looked up her heart immediately tightened. He was standing at the door, as tall and imposing as ever, and even glowering at her in the way he couldn’t help, though maybe this time she could detect a hint of uncertainty in his notoriously uncompromising eyes.
Before either of them could speak, the door to the screening room opened and Rose emerged with two of the crew. Laurie watched as they greeted Elliot warmly. They all knew each other well, and she could only feel grateful that their brief, but interested exchange about the recent trip to India covered what might have been an awkward encounter.
Aware that they still hadn’t greeted each other, she picked up her bag and started to the door. ‘Shall we?’ she said, looking at him.
After saying goodbye to the others he followed her out into the sunshine, and fell in beside her as they started across the cobbles to where a gate allowed access to the river.
‘It sounds as though you’ve got quite a programme on your hands,’ he remarked.
‘I think so,’ she responded, relieved to have something else to talk about for a while. ‘Whatever else Sherry did, she certainly got some stunning footage of the women. Put together with the material Rose managed to get in India, it could turn out to be one of our most effective programmes to date.’
‘Where are the women now?’ he asked, standing aside for her to go through the gate ahead of him.
‘Two are still in hospital, the others are in the care of social services. We’re keeping a close eye on them, making sure the authorities treat them right. Considering the kind of news coverage they’re getting they should be OK.’
‘How long were they in captivity?’
‘We think about six or seven months. By the time they were found, to quote the detective in charge of the case, they’d passed their sell-by date. In other words, they were filthy, scared out of their wits, even damaged beyond use, and not one of them a virgin any more, so they were about to be sold on to a bunch of Italians for snuff videos.’
Elliot remained silent as the horror seemed to sully the very air her words fell into. ‘Thank God you found them,’ he murmured.
‘The credit goes to Sherry.’
He took a breath. ‘What news on Eddie Cribbs?’ he asked, as they arrived at the river wall and stopped to gaze out at the view.
‘He’s on the Costa del Sol, apparently. But he’s as good as finished. He’ll never be able to come back to this country, and if I have my way he’ll never be able to go out in public in Spain. I’m in discussions right now with the English newspaper for the region to give away a free video of the programme with each of ten thousand copies of their November issue, so everyone, but everyone will know who that man is and how he’s made his money. If nothing else, it’ll turn him into a prisoner in his own home, with his wife as the gaoler.’
Elliot’s smile was wry. He’d always loved her sense of justice, and passion for a story, and listening to her now reminded him of how much he’d missed it. ‘And Sherry?’ he said. ‘What news on her?’
‘Since I saw her, at the magistrates court, nothing. I’m still not sure what to do, whether to stay in touch with her, or not.’
‘You’d want to, considering everything?’
She threw him a quick glance. ‘I have to look at the part I played in pushing her into it,’ she replied, unsure how much he knew about Nick, so going no further than that for now.
He said nothing, merely watched a speedboat roar past, his expression as inscrutable as ever.
‘How’s your book coming along?’ she asked, breaking the silence at last.
‘Slowly,’ he admitted.
More time passed quietly by, and this time she could feel them finally moving closer and closer to the reason they were there. It had to be faced, and she was ready to do it, but that didn’t quell the wretched nervousness inside her.
‘The estate agent’s been to value the flat,’ she told him in the end. ‘I don’t think we’re going to make our money back after everything we put into it, but the price she’s suggesting seems fair. Someone’s coming to see it tomorrow. Cash buyers, I’m told, so it could happen quite fast.’
For a long time he merely continued to watch the river traffic, keeping his thoughts to himself and seeming to close her out in a way only he could. Then, he turned to look at her, and for a moment, when she saw his expression, she almost wanted to stop him saying whatever was in his mind.
‘I know I’ve screwed up badly,’ he said, sounding more strained than she’d ever heard him, ‘and I can’t even think of the words to use to tell you how sorry I am. All I know is whatever I have to do to make this up to you, I’ll do it.’
Since the night he’d left this was all she’d wanted to hear, all she’d thought about, all she’d prayed for. Yet now, as she looked at him, searching the familiar features she’d always loved so much, hearing the echo of his voice, sensing his sincerity, she could feel no stirring of the elation she’d expected.
‘Is it too late?’ he said gruffly.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered truthfully. ‘Maybe. I just know it isn’t that easy.’
His eyes stayed on hers, and for the first time in all this she could really see his pain. ‘Because of Nick?’ he said.
She felt a stab of anger. ‘No,’ she retorted. ‘It’s about you and what you’ve done, for God’s sake. Don’t you understand that? Don’t you have any sense of how much you’ve hurt me, what I’ve been through these last two months? What my parents have been through, too. I can’t pretend none of it happened, Elliot. We can’t just go back to the way we were, as though it doesn’t matter that you called off our wedding so you could screw someone else. Or that you told me you didn’t love me. It doesn’t all come right again just because you’ve decided you don’t want your Brazilian whore any more. It doesn’t work like that. You’ve done a lot of harm, not only to me and my parents, but to our relationship, and frankly I don’t know if it can be repaired. Right now, I actually don’t think it can.’
He looked almost as though he’d been struck, though he surely c
ouldn’t have imagined she’d respond any other way.
‘I understand how you feel,’ he said, ‘and I only wish I could explain what happened, why I did what I did, so we could at least try to work things out. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking these last few days, asking myself questions, trying to find answers, but all I can tell you is this, it was like an aberration, a compulsion, a need to break out, not just from you, from everything. Maybe it all stemmed from the Phraxos thing, the guilt and impotence I felt over that. I hated myself for taking that money, you know I did. I should never have let them pay me off … No, listen, please,’ he said as she started to turn away. ‘I know how weak all that sounds, that it doesn’t even begin to excuse what I did. I’m just saying it probably played a part in it. What the hell else was going on in my head, I just don’t know.’
‘Andraya!’ she reminded him bitterly. ‘I think she was going on in your head, don’t you? Or at least some other part of you.’
‘It’s true, I wanted her,’ he admitted.
‘Badly enough to call off our wedding,’ she added tightly.
‘I couldn’t marry you when I wanted another woman the way I wanted her,’ he said, his lips turning pale with the strain. ‘It seemed dishonest, disloyal. It wasn’t what you deserved. I loved you too much to do it to you.’
‘Oh please!’
‘It’s true. I never slept with her while we were still together …’
‘And that’s supposed to make it better?’
‘Obviously it doesn’t.’
‘No, Elliot, it doesn’t. Nothing’s going to excuse what you did, or the way you handled it.’
His face was taut as he registered the words. ‘I’m not trying to excuse myself, I’m trying to explain,’ he said. ‘I lost it there, for a while. It was as though I’d come unhinged. It happens. People act out of character, and I just wasn’t seeing straight. I told myself all kinds of things that make no sense at all now. I thought I didn’t love you, that I couldn’t if I could feel that way about Andraya. I told myself we weren’t doing the right thing, that I wasn’t worthy of you, which I guess this proves I’m not … There was so much crap going round in my head. I can’t even begin to explain it, but if you want me to go and get help to sort myself out, I’ll do it. Anything, if you’ll just say you won’t give up on us without at least giving us one last chance.’
Though she was listening, and in a way feeling for him, her heart still wasn’t softening. ‘But what about trust, Elliot?’ she said. ‘What kind of relationship can we possibly have without trust?’
‘I admit it’s going to take time to rebuild,’ he replied. ‘But I swear, I’ll never do anything like this again.’
Her eyes remained steely and unrelenting as she looked up into his. She didn’t doubt he meant what he was saying, now, today, but she meant it too. There could be no relationship without trust, and she just didn’t know if she could ever feel it again.
After a few minutes she shook her head and looked off towards the pier. ‘There’s no getting away from the fact that you’ve spent these past weeks with another woman,’ she said. ‘You made me cancel our wedding. You told me you didn’t love me …’
‘It seems insane to me now that I could ever have thought that,’ he interrupted.
Hearing the turbulence in his voice, she turned back to look at him again. ‘Words are fine,’ she said quietly, ‘they can mean a lot, but in the end it’s actions that count, and I can’t just forget what you’ve done. I don’t know if I can forgive it either.’
She saw him swallow, and couldn’t help feeling sorry, for she knew how dreadful it was to see everything that mattered slipping away. ‘You say you don’t know,’ he responded. ‘Could that mean that maybe there is a chance? Given time?’
She didn’t answer.
‘Can we at least not shut the door completely?’
Still she didn’t answer.
‘Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.’
She was tempted to remind him that was how she’d felt when he’d left, and he hadn’t given her a chance, but why do it? Scoring points like that now would just be petty and vengeful, and anyway, he knew what he’d done. ‘This isn’t easy for me to say, Elliot,’ she told him solemnly, ‘but as far as you’re concerned something in me died over the last few weeks. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but I do know that the fact you could have done what you did …’ She took a breath to cut off the self-pity. ‘I’ve lost a lot of respect for you, and without that there’s no relationship worth having.’
His expression was hard to read, but she knew her words had hurt him deeply. ‘Would you consider some kind of trial period?’ he asked with small hope in his voice. ‘See if there’s something there we can at least work on.’
After looking at him for some time she started to shake her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered, realizing she didn’t have it in her to crush him completely. ‘I’ll have to think about it.’
‘Then can we take the flat off the market while you do?’ he asked. ‘You go on living there, and I’ll still pay my share until … Well, until we come to a decision.’
‘Where will you go?’
‘I’m sure Chris will let me carry on using his flat.’
‘Isn’t that where you were with Andraya?’
‘I’ll find somewhere else,’ he said immediately.
She turned away again, gazing upriver in the direction of their flat, though it wasn’t visible from where they were standing. In a way it was like their relationship, there, but just out of sight. However, it wasn’t going to be anywhere near as easy as just taking a river taxi or a train to find it again, and if, despite everything, she didn’t love him so much she wouldn’t even want to try.
‘I have a suggestion,’ he said, after a while. ‘I’m not sure how you’re going to take it, but would you consider coming with me to Bali? Before you say no,’ he went on hastily as she turned to him in amazement, ‘please just think about it. There are still two weeks left, and maybe it would do us both some good to get away, give us a chance to talk, to see if we think there is a way of sorting things out.’
Still stunned by the very idea, she only managed to say, ‘I’m very busy with the programme …’
‘You always were going to be away right now,’ he reminded her.
‘That’s true, but …’ She caught her breath, and looked away. Bali? Now? The two of them, after all that had happened? It had never crossed her mind he’d even think of it, let alone suggest it. It was crazy. It didn’t feel right at all, and yet … ‘I’m not going to deny that we need to talk,’ she said finally, ‘but I don’t know if I’m ready to go any further than this yet. I need some time to decide who you really are, because looking back now, I think I idolized you, maybe even more than I loved you. You were my hero, the one person I could always count on. You meant everything to me, and in my eyes at least you could do no wrong. I guess now I’m finding out that you’re human after all, with as many failings and weaknesses as the rest of us. Maybe it’s a lesson I needed to learn, but I still can’t tell you our relationship can be saved.’
His eyes were bleak as he said, ‘Then just tell me this, do you still love me?’
‘I think you know the answer to that, but it’s not enough. I’m sorry, it’s just not.’
‘It could be a start though.’
Again she turned to look upriver towards their apartment.
‘The beginning for us last time,’ he said, ‘happened in a moonlit garden in Mexico. Maybe we could make a new beginning in Bali.’
She didn’t answer, nor did she look at him.
‘There’s a flight at ten in the morning,’ he told her. ‘I’ve reserved us two seats. If you decide you don’t want to come I’ll cancel them, but I still won’t give up. I want you back, Laurie. I don’t care how long it takes, or what I have to do.’
Turning round, she lifted a hand and put her fingers over his lips. They were going in cir
cles now, and to stay here any longer would just be prolonging the agony for them both. ‘I’m going back to the office now,’ she told him. ‘I’ll call you later with my decision.’
As she started to walk away her heart was aching for him, knowing how hard he was going to find these next few hours waiting for her call. It was giving her no pleasure to be putting him through this, even though many would say he more than deserved it. Maybe he did, but they didn’t love him as much as she did, so they wouldn’t care how he felt. Probably because she did, and because underneath it all she might just not be ready to give up on him completely, she turned around and, walking backwards, quoted a line of Mimi’s from La Bohème, ‘Sei venisse con voi?’ Suppose I come with you?
It took a moment, then, recognizing the words, he gave a response from Rodolfo. ‘El al ritorno?’ And when we return?
‘Curioso.’ Wait and see.
As he started to laugh she turned away again, not wanting him to think it was an answer. ‘Sappi per tuo governo, che darei perdono in sempiterno,’ he called after her. For your future guidance, I would be constantly forgiving you.
Unable to stop herself laughing at the misquote, she left it there for now and carried on walking.
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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781409008750
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Published by Arrow Books 2010
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Copyright © Susan Lewis 2003
