by Jenny Kane
Jo shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t know the ins and outs of your situation, but from what you’ve told me so far, this Justin seems a total shit. Leave him.’
Cassandra, sandpaper still in hand, felt her jaw drop. Partly from hearing Jo swear in her defence about a man she didn’t know, and partly because it hadn’t occurred to her that she had the power to do the leaving.
Surely he’d already left her? Except he hadn’t really, had he? Justin had never said anything; he’d just stolen her life from her – and now, in this place, with Jo smiling and sticking up for her without asking any questions, Cassandra began to think that perhaps Justin had actually done her a favour.
‘Are you alright, Cass, you’ve gone a funny colour?’ Jo waved a packet of biscuits under Cassandra’s nose.
‘What? Oh, yes. Yes I’m fine.’ Taking a cookie from the offered pack, Cassandra sat down on a chair that was patiently waiting for Jo’s attention. She hadn’t been called Cass since she’d been with the boyfriend before Justin. He’d been lovely, and thoughtful, and had always called her Cass. She’d given him up for Justin. Idiot! Quietly smiling, she added, ‘I didn’t expect to be fine. Not for a long time, but I am. Thank you.’
‘Whatever are you thanking me for? I’ve made you work like a Trojan since you walked through the door.’
‘Which is precisely what I needed.’
Jo glanced up from where she was dusting the top of a recently smoothed shelf. ‘We have about an hour before I call it a day and throw you out onto the streets. Do you want to talk about Justin, or shall we file him as a waste of time and energy? I’m easy either way.’
Cassandra laughed. ‘I take it you don’t have a bloke in your life messing you about?’
‘I don’t have a bloke of any sort right now, but if I did, then I would not be letting him come between me and my smile.’ Jo winked at Cassandra’s astonished expression. ‘You have a great smile and a lovely laugh. You should use them more often.’
An image of Dan telling her she had a great laugh flittered though Cassandra’s memory as she muttered, ‘Thank you, Jo. I. . .’
Cassandra got no further, for she was interrupted by the buzz of her phone.
‘Oh, hell. Typical.’ She stared at the ringing mobile in disbelief.
Jo frowned. ‘You OK?’
‘I don’t know yet.’ Cassandra felt her whole body stiffen as she answered the call, ‘Justin. Good of you to bother to call. I think you owe me an explanation – a lot of explanations actually. And I should warn you, the answers to all the questions I am about to ask had better be phenomenally good.’
Chapter Nineteen
Getting the thumbs-up from Jo in recognition of the fact she was managing to retain a cool businesslike exterior, Cassandra mouthed ‘I’m OK’ to her new friend as Justin began to bluster excuses down the line.
Watching as Jo switched the shop sign to closed rather earlier than planned, before taking herself into the storeroom at the back of the shop, so that she could have some privacy, Cassandra waited for her erstwhile lover to stop talking long enough for her to get a word in edgeways.
‘JUSTIN! Will you please shut up!’
Instantly, Justin’s muddled ramble of apologies and excuses ceased.
Even though she felt churned up on the inside, Cassandra actually felt much calmer than she had expected to now Justin’s phone call had finally arrived. Speaking each syllable deliberately, and with a subtle hint of menace of which she felt quite proud, Cassandra said, ‘You have two minutes to explain why my business has disappeared, and, worse than that, why you lied to me. Start talking. Now.’
‘Darling, it wasn’t. . .’
‘Justin, I am not your darling. The clock is ticking. Talk.’
She heard him draw a breath of surprise, before he began to speak even faster than before. ‘First, the business; I was conned, as you well know. Secondly, I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t knowingly lie to you at the time.’
‘Implying that you are lying to me now? For fuck’s sake, Justin, I rented out my flat for you, making myself effectively homeless for the next six months.’ Cassandra looked at her free hand. She hadn’t noticed she’d been deflecting her anger and hurt by digging her fingernails into the palms of her hands again. There was a neat line of crescent-shaped marks in her flesh.
Sounding shocked, he snapped, ‘I phoned to find out if you were OK, and what was happening with the agency.’
‘Is that so? Then perhaps we can start with you telling me what you intend to do to compensate myself and my staff for the hurt you’ve caused?’
‘Me? I told you, I’m the one who’s been conned.’ Justin was getting angrier with each word. ‘I had a sizeable financial interest in that company, and you’ve destroyed it.’
‘I’ve destroyed it?’ Cassandra’s blood raced in her veins. ‘Don’t you dare blame this on me, when it was you who sent that bloody letter to everyone. It’s very tiresome listening to you getting angry when you feel threatened or guilty, Justin. I bet you didn’t even know you did that. Each time you know you’re in the wrong you go all belligerent and defensive. It’s so see-through.’
‘That’s low even by your standards! I do no such thing. And I haven’t seen any bloody letters. All I know is that Crystal was instructed to send out end of business messages by you.’
‘I wouldn’t waste your breath arguing that one, Justin.’ Cassandra’s chest began to tighten. The knowledge that part of her still loved this man, however much she didn’t want to, was beginning to batter its way through the defences she’d managed to create over the day. ‘Justin, please. Will you bloody well man-up and tell me the truth. What happened to make you destroy my business? My whole life was caught up in the agency.’
As if sensing that perhaps Cassandra’s heart hadn’t hardened towards him as much as she’d first suggested, Justin softened his tone. ‘I miss you, baby, but I’ve been put in an impossible position.’
‘You’re in an impossible position!? Have you been dumped in the middle of nowhere, with no friends, nowhere to go, no decent Wi-Fi connection, and no clue as to why the man you love has stolen your life?’
The sound of Justin swallowing carefully came down the line. ‘I’m sorry about the Wi-Fi. I didn’t know it was so bad there, but you can make friends, can’t you? And the seaside is beautiful. I know how much you love it.’
If she’d been hurt before, that was nothing to how Cassandra felt as reality hit her between the eyes. ‘You don’t know me at all, do you?’
‘What?’
‘I can’t stand the seaside. I have never liked it. Ever.’
‘Oh.’
‘Oh indeed.’ Cassandra sucked in an audible breath. ‘Now, your two minutes are up. Were you calling to tell me something worth hearing, like why Crystal is telling everyone you are in the States, when you clearly aren’t?’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that!’
‘Justin, you idiot, you’re at Waterloo Station. I can hear an announcement for a train to Guildford playing in the background.’
Not commenting on being caught out, Justin said bluntly, ‘Crystal and Jacinta are friends.’
‘You don’t say.’ Cassandra felt an acute desire to end the conversation. It was all so obvious. Crystal had been lying to both of them. Playing them off against each other. Of course she has. Crystal had always hoped to grab Justin for herself, so what better way to get revenge on the mistress by siding with the wife? ‘Justin, I have been waiting for you to call me for days. Why phone me now if you aren’t going to say anything worth hearing?’
‘I miss you, darling, and I got your call last night.’
Feeling her cheeks colour, Cassandra snapped, ‘That was more gin-inspired than anything else. Perhaps you could at least tell me the name of your lawyer so that I can get mine to talk to him or her directly, so I can discover what we can do about your wife and PA. I presume that if you had no hand in it, then they are behind the letters?’
‘What bloody lawyer? I’m your lawyer.’
‘No, Justin, you were my lawyer, and then you stole from me. I could have you struck off. Arrested, even.’
‘Don’t be foolish. That would kill your reputation as much as mine.’
‘What reputation? I don’t have one worth saving thanks to the letters you had sent to my employees.’
‘I told you! It was Jacinta. It wasn’t me!’
‘Actually, you didn’t say it was Jacinta. First you denied all knowledge and blamed me. Then, just now, you said it was your PA. Make your mind up!’ Pausing for breath, Cassandra added, ‘Give me one good reason why I should believe you haven’t planned all this with your wife, and that my being here isn’t your way of getting me conveniently out of the way?’
‘So Justin wasn’t the one who crashed your company?’ Abi wasn’t convinced, but tried her best to sound objective as she talked to Cassandra across a wooden table in the Old Success’ pub garden.
‘That’s what he said.’ Cassandra took a sip from her cola. ‘And the way he said it made me trust him.’
Trying to make sense of what she’d heard, Cassandra frowned into her meal. ‘The remainder of the conversation with Justin was a load of non-answers and bluff, but the idea that I believed him capable of deceiving me seemed to floor him. He kept saying he’d been conned, and that it wasn’t him, but someone else, possibly his wife, who had screwed up my business. All he was sure about was that I’d blocked him from being able to access the remaining company information, but he couldn’t find out why without phoning me. But, of course, I’d only done that after I had discovered my business was being attacked.’
‘This is all so complicated! So has Justin’s silence has been because he was embarrassed about not escaping his marriage as quickly as he’d planned after he’d got you down here?’
‘I think so – although I’m not one hundred per cent sure about anything.’
Abi pulled a face; the more she learned about Justin, the less she’d be inclined to have faith in anything he said. ‘The letters came from his company’s office, didn’t they? He must have known. I thought you said he’d signed them?’
Cassandra sighed as she looked around the pretty pub garden. She may have hated the beach, but her assessment of the seaside resort as a whole was very definitely taking an upturn. ‘It has to have been his PA. She’s been forging his signature with his permission for years.’
Stabbing a forkful of salad, Abi asked, ‘And if it was Jacinta using the crush Crystal has on Justin to her advantage, what can you do? You’ve been cheating with her husband for years. This revenge is extreme, but if you fight it, everyone will know.’
Cassandra pushed the remaining food around her plate. ‘That’s why it’s so clever. I’d take my hat off to her in different circumstances. No one knows about the affair. At least, I thought they didn’t. My family certainly don’t know. They all think I’m married to my work. They’d be so disappointed in me.’
Abi had been surprised by Cassandra already that day, mostly because of her invitation for a meal out to say a belated thank you for being so welcoming, but the fact she had family seemed even more surprising somehow. The slim blonde seemed so self-sufficient, so much a self-contained unit, that it was weird to associate her with parents. ‘Are they in London too?’
‘No, they don’t approve of the city. They live in a village in Oxfordshire. My father is the local vicar.’
‘No way!’
Cassandra smiled. ‘It’s OK, you’re allowed to laugh. I know it is an unlikely scenario.’
‘It is! Sorry, but it is.’
‘So you see why they don’t know about Justin.’
‘Quite.’ Abi contemplated a solitary piece of chopped tomato before impaling it on her fork. ‘Did Justin reveal what he was going to do next? I mean, forgive me if I seem nosy, but is he leaving his wife and coming to Cornwall, or not?’
Wishing that she hadn’t been quite so sensible, and had added a shot of Bacardi to her cola, Cassandra said, ‘Leaving his wife? I don’t know, but I doubt it. Being thrown out by her, maybe; but I doubt Jacinta has made him suffer enough for her own satisfaction yet. As to whether Justin is coming to Cornwall, I’m not sure. He said he’d come down here to sort things out face to face soon.’
‘Do you believe that?’
‘I want to. Is that mad, after all this? Surely I should never want to lay eyes on Justin again?’
Abi gave her companion a compassionate smile. ‘That very much depends on whether you love him or not. Do you?’
‘I shouldn’t.’
‘But?’
‘But, well, perhaps it’s habit, but Justin has been part of my life for years. I don’t feel I can give up on him until I know for sure what’s going on. He made no sense during the phone call, contradicting himself every five minutes. Plus, he did the stupid huffy defensive thing he does when he’s dug himself into a hole and isn’t sure how to get out of it, but otherwise he seemed as confused as I am.’
‘You think Justin wants to live with you down here?’
Cassandra’s voice was small now, reminding Abi of a wounded animal. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I’m sorry. I haven’t met Justin, and I shouldn’t judge, but I can’t help but ask, do you want to be with someone who treats you like this?’
Cassandra knocked back a swig of cola as if she was drinking a tequila shot. ‘It’s been so long. Who else would want me? I’m soiled goods, as they used to say.’
Abi shook her head sharply. ‘You are no such thing!’
‘Well, at least I’ve made one decision today.’
‘You have?’
‘Yes, I’m not going to fight to reform the agency, I’m going to let it go. I will instruct my lawyer in the morning to take steps to dissolve the company – or what’s left of it legally.’
‘Are you sure? That’s so brave after you started it from scratch. What will you do instead?’
‘It’s too soon to say, but it isn’t going to be in London.’
Abi beamed. ‘Well, I hope that whatever it is, it will keep you down here. You may not like the seaside very much, but I think it might like you!’
Chapter Twenty
Although she’d been a resident of Miners Row for two weeks now, Cassandra still hadn’t got used to living in an environment where neighbours chatted to each other and where people wanted her company because they liked her, rather than because they needed her business acumen. ‘Are you sure you want me to come?’
‘Everyone, that’s what Stan said. And everyone includes you.’ Max opened the door to his van. ‘Hop in. Abi is driving over with Beth and Jacob. We’ll see them there.’
‘But I’m not part of “everyone”.’ Still hanging back, Cassandra held her Gucci handbag in front of her like some sort of social shield.
Max grinned. ‘If you think I’m letting you escape the horror of wedding planning when I have to sit through it, then you are very much mistaken. Anyway, Dora’s issued a three-line whip. You’re required to be there.’
‘Why?’
‘She wants your brains and beauty apparently.’
Cassandra, feeling two spots of pink heat on her cheeks, realised she had probably blushed more since her arrival in Cornwall than she had in the whole of her life. ‘Dora said that?’
‘Word for word.’ Max got into the driver’s seat and patted the place next to him. ‘Resistance is futile!’
Laughing, Cassandra obeyed. ‘Is that so?’
‘Yep.’
As the van pulled into the car park at the Queen’s Hotel, Cassandra realised she had been so engrossed in exchanging plans and ideas for decorating the house with Max that she hadn’t noticed they’d turned, not towards St Buryan and the Chalk Towers flats as she’d expected, but into Penzance.
‘I thought we were going to see Stan and Dora?’
‘This is where they’re holding the wedding. It’s only two weeks until the big day, so we�
��re meeting here for an on-the-spot sort out. There is a surprising amount to do, even though it’s only a little affair – I mean wedding.’
Cassandra smiled at Max as he moderated his language. ‘It’s OK, I’m not that sensitive. But thank you anyway.’
Not wanting to pursue that line of conversation, Max pointed to Jacob’s car ‘Looks like we’re last to arrive.’
‘How about Dora and Stan?’
‘Dan drove them over earlier.’
As they walked towards the hotel’s once grand entrance, now aged and weather-worn, Cassandra tried to make her voice sound curious rather than hopeful. ‘Dan’s here?’
‘I expect so. You know what Stan and Dora are like. Letting them loose alone would be like sending two naughty schoolchildren out without a teacher! They’d probably march straight into the kitchen and sample the cakes at source.’
Cassandra had been expecting the inside of the hotel to be as worn as its exterior, but as soon as she stepped over the threshold she gasped in delight, her eyes scanning the perfectly proportioned marble columns and the crystal chandeliers. ‘It’s so beautiful.’
‘It was Mary’s, Stan’s first wife’s, favourite place.’
Cassandra raised her eyebrows. ‘And Dora’s alright with them getting married here?’
‘Dora isn’t in competition with Mary. She sees this as a mark of respect to her memory.’
Feeling embarrassed, Cassandra mumbled, ‘Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.’ Am I ever going to get used to this level of consideration?
Abi, Beth, Stan and Dora sat in front of a large bay window, gazing out across the palm tree-lined promenade and beyond the sea wall to the sea itself, which, despite the calm of the summer’s afternoon, was doing its best to see how far it could crash up the defences.
Seeing Max and Cassandra arrive, Abi got up and waved across the busy dining room. ‘Jacob and Dan are getting some drinks at the bar, if you don’t want champagne, Cassandra, then this is the right time to dash over and say so.’
‘Are you kidding? Champagne is always welcome.’ Trying not to feel as though she’d only been invited out of pity, Cassandra gave Dora and Stan her best smile, ‘Thank you ever so much for inviting me. You’re so generous.’
