In the end, taking pity on her friends anguished faces, Rebecca said that she supposed they had to get back to pick up the children and both Helen and Emma shot out of their seats with a grateful look in her direction and said indeed they had and how lovely it had been before they fled out into the rain.
Rebecca watched them drive away, holding the door open despite the rain hitting her in the face.
‘Close the door Bec!’ Daniel shouted at her as he walked past. ‘I’ve got some work to do, I’ll be in the study,’ and minutes later Rebecca could hear the sound of his snores through the firmly shut door.
She spent the rest of the afternoon on one of her raspberry chairs staring outside.
She needed to tell Daniel that White’s, even at the original price was a bad idea, that the new price was suicide.
She needed to tell him about Parklands, that not only had she decided that she wanted to buy the business but that it was a good investment.
She needed him to understand that she was not changing her car, that she was not leaving Leeds, that she would be giving her friends a donation from her winnings and that she had organised trust funds for the children.
There was so much she needed to tell him but instead she sat there watching the rain fall, her cheeks wet with tears.
Daniel was whistling again. He had done a lot of whistling lately and it was beginning to grate on Rebecca’s already shredded nerves. She was used to starting her days with peace and tranquillity around her, not whistling. She glared at the back of his head and poured herself a coffee.
‘You do realise that we’ll have to go back to Darlington don’t you.’
It was said so casually, so friendly that for a moment Rebecca didn’t really take in its full meaning.
‘Do you still need some clothes?’ she asked sitting at the table.
‘No I mean when White's is mine. We’ll need to go back, we need to live in Darlington.’
Rebecca almost dropped her cup.
‘I mean I really don’t know why you bought this house Bec. You must have had a funny turn after getting all that money but we need to be in Darlington, close to White's.’
He opened the paper as though the conversation was already over.
‘No,’ whispered Rebecca sliding her cup onto the table so it didn’t fall from her shaking fingers. ‘No.’
‘Please let’s not go down the ‘I want to live back in Leeds’ rubbish for God’s sake. Get over yourself Bec, we moved to Darlington and that’s where we live now. Did you think you could just make a decision to move with no discussion?’
‘You did,’ answered Rebecca quietly.
Daniel closed his paper throwing it onto the table. ‘Oh don’t start! We moved to Darlington because we had to. I had to keep my job so you could keep a roof over your head. I had to move to Darlington so that you could carry on living the good life. I had to work my fingers to the bone so that the children had clothes on their back. It’s not quite the same as you winning millions and deciding to move to a different town without telling me!’
His face had its unattractive purple flush and he had jumped to his feet to stride around the kitchen in agitation.
‘But that’s the whole point Daniel, I have won millions and we can live wherever we want and you don’t have to work your fingers to the bone and we don’t have to live in Darlington.’
Rebecca’s voice was rising and as she finished she was almost shouting as she stood to face Daniel’s angry eyes.
‘Rubbish!’ shouted Daniel. ‘I’m about to buy a company in Darlington. Of course I need to live there. Are you totally stupid?’
‘Don’t buy it,’ the words were out before Rebecca really had time to think about them but it was too late to take them back.
‘Don’t buy White's Daniel. It’s too much of a financial strain and…’
‘A financial strain! You’ve just won 15.7 million. Of course it’s not a financial strain.’
He leaned in closely, a nasty twist to his mouth. ‘Or is it just that you can’t bear me to spend any of this money Bec. Is that it?’
‘No! No of course not, it’s just that…’
‘Oh don’t start giving me your half-baked explanations about waiting a while and planning and the other crap your bank manager is feeding you.’
‘It’s not half baked, you’re not looking at the bigger picture Daniel.’
He threw back his head and gave a great shout of laughter although it held little amusement.
‘The bigger picture? Don’t make me laugh! What do you know about finance and planning?’
Rebecca sat back down suddenly exhausted.
‘I know enough to understand that buying White's at this inflated price is a bad decision Daniel.’
‘You know nothing! You know nothing about White’s, you know nothing about business, you know nothing…’
‘Which is why I took advice.’
He stopped his pacing.
‘Advice? From who…oh don’t tell me, the little bank manager? Tell me Bec, what exactly is going on between you and the bank manager. Is he hoping for a little finance of his own?’
His tone was hard, nasty and Rebecca shook her head wearily.
‘I had to ask someone Daniel and he was the only one I could think of. I took the papers to him and…’
Daniel’s hand shot out and grabbed hold of Rebecca’s wrist.
‘Papers. What papers?’
Rebecca tried to pull her arm away. ‘The ones from the study, I took them to…’
‘You’ve been in my study?’
His grip was tightening and Rebecca was pulling furiously trying to free herself.
‘No Daniel,’ she spat, ‘Actually I went into my study and took papers about a company you want to buy with my money so that I could ask someone who knows what they’re talking about whether it was actually a good investment.’
Suddenly her wrist was free but only because Daniel’s hand was raised in the air, his fist clenched and his eyes burning with rage.
Rebecca jumped up and faced him square on.
‘Do you really think I’m just going to hand over millions so that you can get revenge on someone who didn’t give you promotion Daniel. Do you really think I’m that stupid?’
The fist came down but Rebecca was too quick. She stepped backwards knocking her chair over in his path and he stumbled against the table. The pause seemed to bring him back to his senses. He brought his arm down quickly by his side and for a moment Rebecca saw a fleeting look of shame cross his face. But it was only fleeting
‘I knew you didn’t want me to have any money,’ he snarled. ‘All these excuses, all these stupid excuses. That’s why you didn’t tell me in the first place, you were trying to hide it from me.’
The guilt arrived, a great wave of it.
‘You’re wrong Daniel. Believe me you’re wrong,’ Rebecca picked up the chair and sat back down. ‘I don’t begrudge you any of the money. But you’re not looking at anything else we might want to do. You’re not looking at any other arrangements we might want to make. You’re so determined to buy White's you haven’t thought about anything else.’
Daniel raised his eyebrows disdainfully.
‘What the hell are you talking about. What other arrangements? What else do we need to do?’
‘Well there’s the children for one thing,’ started Rebecca, ‘trust funds and tuition fees and ...’
Another shout of disbelieving laughter. ‘Trust funds. TRUST FUNDS! Are you barking mad. You won some money Bec, you didn’t win a bloody title. What the hell do you want with a trust fund?’
‘We need to look after our children, we can take the pressure away from them by paying off the student loans and I don’t want them to have to wait until we die to get some money Daniel.’
‘Why not? Everybody else has to. Nobody gave me a trust fund when I was their age.’
‘That’s because your parents didn’t have the money,’ snapped Rebecca. ‘If
they’d had 15 million pounds in the bank I’m sure they would have sent some your way!’
Daniel leaned on the table, pushing his face close to Rebecca’s own. ‘Are you seriously telling me that you’re planning on giving the kids a pile of our money. You don’t want me to buy White's because you want to give it all to a couple of kids who should be out there earning their own living?’
Rebecca refused to flinch. ‘Yes I am.’
‘And how much exactly were you planning on putting in this trust fund?’
‘£250,00 each when they reach 25 and a further million each when they reach 30.’
For a moment Rebecca truly believed that Daniel was going to have a heart attack. His face changed from puce to grey in a second and he gasped standing upright and stumbling slightly.
‘Are you mad?’ he whispered, staring at her as though he had never seen her before. Are you completely mad?’
‘No. I…’
‘ARE YOU FUCKING MENTAL!’
Rebecca did flinch this time.
‘You want to give two perfectly healthy children millions of pounds. What for. So they can sit on their arses and never do a stroke of work again? Are you totally stupid?’
Rebecca stared at him, her eyes almost as angry as his own.
‘Can you hear yourself?’ she asked in disbelief. ‘These are your children we’re talking about. And you want me to do what? Sit in a huge house while they hold down 2 jobs each to pay their way through university because you won’t help them. Go on exotic holidays while they sit in a grungy bed sit wondering if they can afford to eat? Listen to what you’re saying Daniel.’
He took a step back. ‘They won’t starve,’ he grumbled. ‘But they need to learn the value of money, they need to work, they need to earn their own money.’
‘They will work, that’s why I’m not giving it all to them straight away. But I will not sit by and watch my children struggle when I could help them. I simply won’t do it Daniel.’
‘Well they don’t need that much,’ he compromised. ‘Change it to something less.’
‘No.’
Rebecca couldn’t remember the last time she had used that word so often in one day.
‘I will not.’
His face darkened again. ‘They are not having all that money.’
Rebecca stood up and set off towards the door, pausing as she opened it and turning round to meet Daniel’s eyes.
‘I think there is one thing you really need to remember in this whole debate Daniel. This is my money and I will decide what to do with it. The children get their trust funds,’ she turned to leave then paused. ‘Oh, and just in case I haven’t made myself abundantly clear, I am not selling the house and I am not going back to Darlington,’ and she left, closing the door firmly behind her.
Chapter 18
He let her go although not for long and the arguments raged on for most of the day - in the hallway, on the staircase, in every room of the house until almost hoarse with shouting Daniel finally stormed out slamming the door so hard Rebecca expected it to fly off its hinges.
Sitting in the kitchen she poured herself a glass of wine and with a slightly shaking hand took a long drink. It was so long since she had stood up to Daniel, really stood up to him about anything remotely important that the effort had drained her. The phone rang and with a sigh Rebecca reached over and picked it up.
‘Hello?’
‘Rebecca it’s me. Look, I had to phone and apologise, Emma and I are both so sorry.’
‘Helen! Sorry about what exactly?’
‘Lunch - leaving so early- not so much leaving as running!’
Rebecca couldn’t help the smile. ‘It’s not a problem Helen, I would have gone with you if I could! I really don’t know what got into Daniel, it was like having a stalker.’
She laughed, expecting to hear Helen join in but there was just silence at the other end of the phone. She waited.
‘Why do you put up with it Bec? I mean after everything he’s done, why on earth do you put up with it? You’ve got money now, why not leave him?’
It seemed the popular topic of conversation at the moment, whether Rebecca should leave her grumpy husband.
‘I can’t leave him just because I’ve suddenly got some money Helen. It just wouldn’t be right,’ explained Rebecca gently. ‘I know he’s a pain but it’s a shock to the system suddenly having millions in your bank account. He’s still getting used to it.’
‘I know Bec…. but on top of everything else! It’s not just the money, it’s.... oh look I know we’re not supposed to talk about it but ever since he dragged you off to Darlington I’ve been waiting for you to phone up and tell me you’ve left him! Money or no money, you’ve put up with so much no-one would blame you if you just walked away.’
When Daniel had broken the news that they were moving to Darlington, Rebecca had been so upset she literally couldn’t speak about it without crying. In the one kind moment that Daniel had shown during the whole episode he had asked her friends to let them just get on with it and not discuss all the details with Rebecca. So despite the fact that Helen’s eyes were almost as red as Rebecca’s own, she had put a brave face on things, never analysing the move, never discussing it in any detail with Rebecca right up until the day the removal truck pulled out of the village and Rebecca stood shaking at the passenger door of Daniel’s car. Helen had thrown her arms around her friend’s neck and pressed her lips to her ear. ‘I’m here for you Bec, if you want to come back I’m here for you,’ she had whispered and then Rebecca had climbed in the car waving goodbye numbly to Helen and Emma.
She had hated Darlington with a passion but it wasn’t a reason why you left your husband.
She sighed. ‘Helen, he’s my husband and I can’t just abandon him because I’ve had some good luck. He deserves more than that.’
Helen snorted. ‘You’re too good for him Rebecca, always were!’
Rebecca paused for a moment. ‘You see Helen, I didn’t tell him.’
‘What?’ Helen’s puzzled voice echoed down the line. ‘Didn’t tell him what?’
‘I didn’t tell him I’d won. I won weeks ago. I came to Leeds and collected the money but I just - didn’t tell him. I bought the house and I didn’t tell him. I bought a car and I didn’t tell him.’
She paused, waiting for Helen to comment but there was nothing but a stunned silence on the other end of the line.
‘He finally found out because he - well he thought I was having an affair because I was spending so much time in Leeds. He followed me and found me at the house so I had to tell him everything.’
Still nothing from Helen.
‘Helen, are you still there?’
‘He thought you were having an affair?’ whispered Helen. ‘He followed you to Leeds because he thought you were having an affair? Oh my God!’
Rebecca sighed. ‘Well it’s the only conclusion he could come up with because I was spending so much time in Leeds. But the point is that he had to follow me here before I actually told him the news.’
‘Why didn’t you tell him?’
Such a simple question, if only there was a simple answer.
‘Oh Helen, I don’t know.’ Rebecca passed a hand wearily over her face. She had been trying to answer this for so long. ‘I really don’t know. It was just so much fun, being in charge, deciding things for myself. It all got out of hand and then Daniel had trouble at work, well he didn’t think it was trouble he thought it was good news and he needed it - the good news I mean. I suppose I thought it might help him, change him back somehow into the Daniel he used to be but it didn’t and it actually made things worse and then I still couldn’t tell him….’
She realised that she was rambling and stopped with a sigh. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t tell him Helen but the fact is that I didn’t. He had to find out and of course now there will always be that unspoken question, was I ever going to tell him. He will always wonder.’
‘It’s a bit hard t
o keep 15 million pounds a secret Bec. Especially from your husband!’
Rebecca laughed half-heartedly. ‘I know, and I truly was going to break the news but I didn’t and now he doesn’t really trust me. I feel so guilty Helen. It was an unforgivable thing to do.’
Did I Mention I Won The Lottery? Page 19
