by Dani Atkins
Praise for Dani Atkins’ novels:
‘Heartbreakingly brilliant’ Daily Mail
‘Truly magnificent storytelling’ Veronica Henry
‘Fans of Me Before You will love this’ Patricia Scanlan
‘For those of you who have ever wondered about you first love or thought about the one that got away, this story will speak to your heart. I read it in one sitting – and it’s heartbreakingly brilliant’ Sun
‘This is easily one of the best books I have ever read, and I don’t say that often!’ thelunamayblog
‘A gripping and emotional family drama . . . With breathtaking plot twists, Dani explores themes of serendipity, friendship and love’ Fabulousbookfiend
‘A heart-warming story of love and loss that will stay with you long after the last page’ My Weekly
‘A beautiful romance with a twist’ Woman
‘If you like Jodi Picoult then you’ll love This Love’ Lovereading
‘Such a beautiful book’ Brewandbooksreview
‘A true celebration of life, family and relationships’ culturefly
‘What a stunningly beautiful love story, I’m bereft that it’s over’ RatherTooFondofBooks
‘Heart-breakingly beautiful. A must-read’ blogsbybooksby
‘Flawless’ reabookreview
‘I wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone’ rachelsrandomreads
‘Poignant and heartfelt’ vivavoce
‘A heartbreaker of a book’ handwrittengirl
For Bev,
Whose story inspired this book
And whose courage inspires everyone who meets her
PART ONE
Chapter 1
Maddie
Thirty-eight likes. Not bad for the middle of the day when everyone is supposed to be at work and not browsing on Facebook. I sat back in my chair and took another mouthful of butterscotch latte, no longer worrying about the calories, which was probably unusual for a bride who was only four days away from her wedding.
I scrolled back up to the photograph I had posted earlier. It made me smile. I was sitting in the hair salon, about to go through the final trial run for my big day. Halfway through backcombing my hair the stylist had been called away to take an emergency telephone call, leaving me sitting in a chair beside the window, looking like Wurzel Gummidge on a bad hair day. I couldn’t resist. I’d leant down and slid the phone from my bag and taken a quick photo of my reflection in the mirror. Trying out a new look for the wedding. What do you think? was the caption I’d added to the photograph. I stared at the image and pincered my fingers to enlarge it, and frowned. I should have taken the time to crop the photo, I realised. I could have cut out the trainee walking towards me with a cup of coffee in hand, and also the burly-looking bald guy in the black leather jacket, staring through the salon’s plate-glass window from the pavement. Never mind. It was still amusing.
‘You do realise you’re a little obsessed, don’t you?’ Ryan had asked, a few months after we had started dating.
‘With you?’ I’d asked, looking up at him through long black lashes.
‘I hope, with me,’ he’d said warmly, threading his fingers through mine. ‘But actually I meant with the constant posting of every single moment of your life.’
I had looked at him carefully, making sure that he wasn’t genuinely annoyed, but all I could see was the same tender expression that he reserved just for me.
‘Not every moment,’ I said, meaningfully. Ryan’s eyes had twinkled mischievously. ‘But I do work in media,’ I’d continued, ‘so it could be argued that not being active on social media would border on career suicide.’
He’d laughed then and gently removed the phone from my hand. ‘Some things are definitely best kept private,’ he’d said, pulling me towards him.
Sitting in the coffee house, I smiled at the memory. It was growing uncomfortably warm beside the window, which was bathed in June sunshine, and for a moment I regretted my choice of table, but it had been the only one free. The early lunch crowd had taken all the booths, and the place was busy, as evidenced by the long snaking queue at the counter waiting for take-outs.
I swallowed down my last mouthful of panini, and just for a moment felt a sudden cresting wave of queasiness trying to interrupt my day. I wouldn’t let it. I had a list of chores that I was determined to get through and, despite his offer of help, most of them couldn’t be shared with my fiancé.
‘It’s sweet of you to volunteer, but these are down to me. And besides, there’s no way you’re going to see me in my wedding dress before Saturday. That’s assuming they’ve managed to let out the seams, of course,’ I’d added, a tiny frown puckering my brow. ‘Otherwise I’m getting married in jeans and T-shirt.’
‘You’d still be the most beautiful bride, ever,’ he had said loyally as his hand strayed down from my waist to the small, but now visible bump. It hadn’t been there when I’d ordered my wedding dress, and I could only hope the team of seamstresses at Fleurs Bridal Gowns were miracle workers and could give me a few more inches of fabric for Saturday. Most of my family were still unaware of our news, and we really didn’t want to go public with it until after the wedding.
I glanced at my watch. Fleurs was over on the other side of town, and the tube station was close by. There was no real need to catch a cab, despite my assurances to Ryan that morning that I would do so. A vaguely troubled expression had been etched on the planes and contours of the face I’d grown to love, as he kissed me goodbye at the door. If it hadn’t been for a business meeting he couldn’t cancel, I doubt he’d have left me that morning. His concern was easy to read as he did a silent appraisal of my colour, which was always pale, but today was only one shade up from alabaster. So much for that bloom of pregnancy that everyone likes to talk about. For the past fourteen weeks I’d looked more like an extra in a vampire movie.
‘Perhaps you should take things easy this morning, and go back to bed for a while?’ he suggested gently.
That was the moment, the only moment, when perhaps I could have rewritten my own future. But I’d felt nothing, no lurking feeling of foreboding, no presentiment of danger, no inkling that events in the next few hours were going to spiral so dramatically out of my control.
‘Too much to do,’ I replied, winding my arms around his waist for one last hug. ‘There’s time enough to sleep when you’re dead.’ I’d said those exact words. I really had.
Although I still had my own flat, I spent practically every night at Ryan’s, and as soon as we returned from our honeymoon we planned to start looking for a place to buy. Somewhere with a garden, I mused, lost in an image of the two of us sitting on a lawn, with a tiny version of us gurgling up from a chequered blanket, chubby little legs riding an invisible bicycle in the air. That one would definitely be going on Facebook.
That morning had begun no differently than any other. I’d woken in Ryan’s bed, his arms locked tightly around me, as though he was afraid I might inadvertently wander away during the night. My eyes had fluttered open to a room bathed in early morning sunbeams with dancing dust motes, but I had no time to appreciate their warmth, for I was already on my feet and racing for the bathroom. My thoughts were only on that early-morning sprint, which I’d taken to timing. Today I achieved an impressive eight seconds. A ‘PB’. I would have congratulated myself, if I hadn’t been too busy throwing up at the time.
Ryan’s hand had been there moments later, cool against the back of my neck as he held back a thick handful of my long black hair. In his other hand he held a glass of iced water which I gratefully reached for when I was done. Swill, spit, swallow, my new morning mantra. I looked up from my kneeling position and saw his deep blue eyes once again clouded with concern.
>
‘I’m so sorry, Maddie.’
I took the hand he offered, and got to my feet, already feeling loads better. ‘Why? You didn’t make me sick.’
‘But I did make you pregnant.’
My eyes softened as I inched closer towards him. ‘I think we both did that.’
Ryan’s smile was like a beacon, drawing me in. It was the first thing I’d ever noticed about him. It had lasered across a crowded room at the boring industry event where we’d met. He’d been looking directly at me, this stranger who seemed so inexplicably familiar that I’d almost waved. Instead, I’d glanced awkwardly over my shoulder, certain that the person he was actually smiling at would be standing right behind me. But no one was there, and so I’d smiled back. That had been eighteen months ago, and I’d pretty much been smiling every single day since then.
Ryan had joined me beneath the refreshing jets of the shower. My eyes were shut beneath the cascade, which rained on my head like a miniature waterfall, but I’d felt the sudden cool draught of air on my soapy limbs as the door of the cubicle opened and then closed. My vision was blurred by the water, but when it cleared all I could see was him; tall and broad-shouldered, still tanned from the holiday we’d taken in Spain. The holiday from which we’d returned with a far-from-expected souvenir. My hands had slid unconsciously to the small bump that could no longer be disguised beneath my clothes, and was the reason for the last-minute wedding dress alterations. Ryan’s fingers tangled with mine, all slippery with soap bubbles as they glided over my belly.
His blond hair had darkened to brown beneath the water. ‘Is there room in your busy schedule to add one more item to your agenda?’ he’d asked, pulling me gently towards him.
You always remember the first time you make love with the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. But the last time can somehow just trickle through your fingers, unremarked and without ceremony, like water circling a drain.
Off to Fleurs wedding dress shop. Let’s hope it fits! I tweeted rapidly as I got to my feet and gathered up my cardigan and the collection of carrier bags I’d accumulated so far that day. Perhaps that’s why I failed to notice that I hadn’t picked up the most important bag of all, my handbag, which was still hanging over the back of my chair. I’d only gone a hundred metres down the road when I discovered my mistake, and the realisation made my stomach lurch more violently than even the worst bout of morning sickness.
Inside the bag was an envelope containing more cash than I’d ever withdrawn from the bank in my entire life. Even before the cashier’s concerned enquiry, I was apprehensive about carrying around so much money. Too late I realised that this was one job that I should definitely have passed to Ryan. This much money should never be entrusted to a woman who was clearly suffering from a prenatal case of ‘baby brain’.
I turned and ran back towards the coffee shop, fearfully anticipating the worst-case scenario. How would we pay the caterer, the venue, and the balance on my dress if the money I’d withdrawn from the bank that morning had been stolen? The pavements, which I swear had been empty only moments before, were now strewn with buggy-pushing mothers, meandering tourists stopping to take photographs, and idle window-shoppers. I ran with my head down, like an American footballer in a tackle, and in my panic crashed into a man who was hurriedly emerging from a doorway. My shoulder collided with his, and for a second I teetered on the edge of falling. Suddenly all thoughts of the thousands of pounds dangling temptingly on the back of that chair were swept away by a much larger concern. The baby. If I fell, would I hurt the baby? Luckily after a second or two when it could so easily have gone either way, I regained my balance. I glanced back at the man who’d barged into me – or had I barged into him? Either way, he hadn’t bothered to hang around to apologise or see whether or not I’d ended up in a crumpled heap on the pavement. All I could see of him was a broad black-jacketed shape, disappearing down a side street.
The bag was exactly where I’d left it. And although the young couple who were about to occupy the table looked somewhat startled as I charged towards them, all red-faced and out of breath, they smiled benignly and handed over my handbag. They looked quite embarrassed as I thanked them repeatedly between wheezy gasps.
I walked towards the tube station on legs that were still tingling from the unexpected sprint, and kept my handbag securely clamped under one arm as I descended the escalator.
It was only eight stops on the underground, and it was one of the best times of day to be travelling on the tube in the summer. With the trains half empty there was less chance of finding your nose pressed up against the armpit of the one passenger in the carriage who’d forgotten to apply their deodorant that morning.
If the train had been any busier, I would never have noticed him. If I’d brought a book to read, or even my kindle, I would never have been glancing idly up and down the carriage as the train rumbled slowly past the stations. He was sitting on the very end seat by the door, about as far away from me in the carriage as it was possible to get. My eyes went past him the first time, but then some silent trigger woke up in the depths of my brain and a metaphorical light began to flash. I knew that man, didn’t I?
He was in his forties, heavy-set and stocky, in a way that made it difficult to tell if he’d got like that from hours spent in the gym or the pub. He was wearing heavy Doc Martens boots, but he didn’t look like a labourer, because they were immaculately clean. As were his blue jeans and white T-shirt. There were tattoos on both his forearms, but from this distance I couldn’t make out their design. Where did I know him from?
As though rifling through a file index, I began to flip through the possibilities. Was it through work? I met a lot of people and attended many events, yet somehow he didn’t seem to slot comfortably into that category. His appearance seemed more ‘raw’ than the types I usually met in those circles. For a moment I wondered if I knew him off the TV; there was a definite look of Grant Mitchell from EastEnders about him. Almost as if he could sense my eyes on him, the man suddenly straightened in his seat and glanced up. He looked right past the dozen or so people sitting in between us, as his eyes fixed on me. A smile hovered uncertainly on my lips. If I did know him from somewhere, and had forgotten him, it was going to be really embarrassing if he recognised me now. But he didn’t say anything, or nod, or wave in acknowledgement. His eyes were dark and flat, like a shark’s, which I’m sure was just a trick of the weird lighting they have on the tube. Those eyes flickered over me, in that unpleasant assessing way some men do quite unconsciously, and then he looked away, clearly disinterested. He picked up a discarded newspaper from a nearby seat and flicked it open.
I didn’t look his way again, because the last thing I wanted to do was engage in another unfortunate locking of our eyes. The first time had felt uncomfortable enough. I pulled the cloak of invisibility, the one that commuters so frequently shroud themselves in, a little more tightly around my shoulders, and dismissed him from my thoughts.
I saw him again as I was exiting the station. He was halfway up the escalator ahead of me. It was a popular destination, and not a huge coincidence that we’d both got off there. As I continued to watch him, he shifted position and then, like a matador with a cape, swept a black leather jacket over one shoulder, dangling it on one finger by its loop. And that’s when the penny dropped – well, it felt like lots of pennies actually, as though I’d scored a jackpot on a one-armed bandit. He was the man I’d accidentally photographed and put up on Facebook in my post from the hair salon. I gave myself a small mental pat on the back for finally placing him. In your face, baby brain. I was still firing on almost all my cylinders.
I was halfway across the zebra crossing, and could see the entrance to Fleurs a short distance up ahead, when it occurred to me that in a city as large as London, how weird was it to randomly bump into the same stranger in two different locations?
Thirty anxious minutes later, after breathing in as much as I could possibly do without passi
ng out, my wedding dress successfully zipped up. There was a definite spring in my step as I left Fleurs, despite parting with a sizeable chunk of money to pay the balance. Beneath the soles of my sandals I could feel the heat of the pavement, and the day was now bright enough to make sunglasses a necessity, and not merely a fashion statement. I was in no particular hurry to repeat my underground journey, so decided to walk for a while and then perhaps hop on a bus.
Buying an ice cream cone, complete with a crumbly chocolate flake, seemed like a decadent indulgence, but I did it anyway, taking the quickly dripping cone to a bench tucked away from the main thoroughfare.
I pulled out my phone for another peek at the last photograph I’d taken. It was impossible not to smile as I studied the image I’d captured in the wedding shop changing room. The dress had looked even better on than I’d remembered, and the champagne-coloured silk suited my pale complexion and long dark hair far better than white would have done. As I enlarged the photo, my eyes widened accordingly. Pregnancy had been kind, because I’d never had that kind of cleavage before. I looked down at the scooped neckline of my T-shirt and smiled. ‘You can both stay,’ I said, then laughed as a passer-by glanced my way enquiringly. I guess sitting on a bench talking to your boobs was a bit eccentric, but what the hell, everything was finally falling into place. It was one of those rare moments of pure unadulterated happiness that flood through you. If my blood was tested right this minute, I bet the endorphin level would be right off the chart.
A group of excitable Japanese tourists walked past, exclaiming delightedly at absolutely nothing at all, as far as I could see, and I smiled at them, because I felt exactly the same. But that smile faltered a moment later as I noticed a figure on the far side of the crowd. He was largely obscured by the rest of the group; there was no way to see anything of him, except a shiny bald pate. There was no reason at all to assume it was the same man whose path had crossed mine twice before that day. For God’s sake, there were thousands of bald men in the city; it was highly unlikely to be him. Yet all at once some of the joy I’d been feeling began to seep away. The ice cream suddenly seemed too sweet, too sticky, and the chocolate flake was melting unappealingly over the edge of the cone. I threw it into an adjacent waste bin, my appetite abruptly gone.
