I didn’t really want to, but what choice did I have? I picked up my purse and stalked out of the shop and up the road to the Spice Heaven. Ten minutes later I was back, with a curry I didn’t really want.
Adam had moved into the back room, but his chivalry thing had decreed he wait for me. A parcel of fish and chips was waiting unopened on his lap. As soon as he saw me he dived in. I set to work opening my plastic tubs and dishing rice and curry onto a pink plate.
Adam wasn’t ‘twinkling’ so much now. He stared at his fish and chips in silence. It didn’t look appetising. But then cold fish and chips never do.
I ate a bit of my food, and then resorted to pushing it around my plate and taking the odd nibble when I felt Adam’s eyes on me—which was more often than not, unfortunately. Coconut milk and onion vinegar definitely did not make a good taste combination. This was no comfortable silence we were enjoying. I knew he was thinking hard, trying to work out what his next move would be.
‘I’m off in three days,’ he said as he bit into a chip, grimaced and dropped it back into the open parcel on his lap. ‘You sure you won’t change your mind and come with me? I think you’d really enjoy it.’
This was not just an invitation. I could tell by the wariness in his eyes that it was a test. I dabbed at the corner of my mouth with a pink paper napkin and shook my head. I needed Adam to go away on his own. This whole thing was going to be so much harder to accomplish if he didn’t.
He put his parcel down, stood up and walked across to where I was perched on the edge of my desk.
‘Please don’t, Coreen.’
I pretended not to understand. ‘I don’t do humidity,’ I said blithely, and attempted a cheeky smile. It wasn’t a good attempt. It stayed in place, but it felt as if it was only hanging there by a thread.
Adam took the plate out of my hands and put it on the desk behind me. ‘I told you that you don’t need to be this way with me. You don’t need to be that girl with me.’
And there, in a nutshell, was the problem. Because I really did need to be that girl with Adam. It was the only way I could keep myself intact. So if he didn’t want me this way then maybe he shouldn’t have me at all. I raised my chin a notch.
‘It’s who I am, Adam. If anyone knows what I’m like, you do.’
Liar. Coward. Those two words rang in my ears as I watched him digest what I had just said.
A siren sounded somewhere on my desk. My phone. My current ring tone was the song ‘The Girl Can’t Help It’ from the Jayne Mansfield movie of the same name, police siren and all. I never missed my phone ringing any more, but it drove other people nuts.
I retrieved it, grateful for an excuse not to look Adam the eye for a few seconds, but when I saw who it was calling I sent him straight to voicemail. Adam stared at me.
‘That was Nicholas,’ I said lightly, keeping a close watch on his reaction. ‘He’s not such an idiot after all, it seems. The plan worked. He wants me to go to dinner with him on Saturday evening.’
Reaction-wise, I got more than I bargained for. I don’t think sound escaped Adam’s lips, but he looked as if he were snarling. ‘Coreen…’
I slid my phone closed and smiled brightly at him. ‘Even Nicholas came to heel in the end. Just goes to show that no man is completely untrainable.’
Except Adam.
‘Stop it, Coreen.’
I don’t think my expression held quite the right level of innocence and guilelessness that I’d aimed for. Probably because everything inside me seemed four times heavier than normal. Even my face felt heavy. ‘What do you mean?’
He turned his head. Too disgusted to look at me, I guessed. I pretty much felt the same way.
‘I know what you are doing.’
And I knew that he knew. But I couldn’t stop. It was the only way to save both of us from a lifetime of heartache.
I didn’t say anything. I’d planned to tell him I was going to accept Nicholas’s offer of dinner, but it turned out even I wasn’t despicable enough to do that. It’s nice to have a least one redeeming feature: Coreen Fraser, not quite pond scum.
There was no point in lying any further, anyway. Adam knew Nicholas was just a diversion. He stood up, towering above me as I rested against the desk, only inches between us. Close enough to reach out and touch if I was stupid enough. Weak enough.
Soft fingers curled around my chin and pushed it upwards until I had no choice but to look at him. That’s when the tears started to fall, running down my cheeks and trailing down my neck, each one following the track of its predecessor. Adam’s expression softened. It was as if something in his eyes had opened and I could see deep down inside him, see all the treasure I’d been half-blind to all these years. Strength. Courage. Loyalty. All the qualities I lacked.
I knew my feelings for him were written clearly over my face, because I saw a spark of hope in his eyes. I couldn’t let it live. I tensed my jaw and the last pair of tears fell. With every ounce of my strength I arranged my features into blankness. I wound up my shutters, pushed him away without even moving. Without even breathing.
He saw it too. And I wished he hadn’t opened those windows to let me see inside, because now I saw it all turn to ash. I saw the desolation, the rage, the pain. I knew I was breaking both his heart and mine.
He stepped back, shell shocked, and I realised that up until that moment he’d never considered that there would be anything but a Happy Ever After for us, even if I had to be dragged into it kicking and screaming. That light, that welcoming light, the one that had always been there for me in his eyes, sputtered and disappeared.
Something really had been murdered this weekend. And I was the one who’d killed it.
I realised that holding all the power, having that ultimate control I had always craved, tasted nowhere near as sweet as I’d imagined it would. In fact it made me sick to my stomach.
Now Adam’s shutters came down too. He picked up his car keys, clenched them into his fist, and gave me one last rigid look. I knew those windows would never open again. Not for me, anyway. The thought of them doing so for another girl one day almost drew a cry from my lips, but I held it back, finally getting a handle on the ‘controlling my face’ thing.
Adam turned and walked away. Out of the shop and out of my life. I realised that somewhere in the back of my head I’d foolishly thought he’d eventually forgive me for this one day. After all, I was only being me. Vintage Coreen. He’d always forgiven me before. But as I ran to the doorway that led to the shop floor and hung on to the frame I saw him stride away down the road and realised he never would. I’d taken it too far.
I stood there motionless, hardly breathing, my fingernails folded into my palms. It would have been a good time for the violins to play, to swell around me in melody sweet and sad and sharp enough to make hearts bleed, but I made yet another discovery: there was nothing romantic about moments like this.
Nothing romantic at all.
A limousine arrived to pick me up at seven on Saturday evening. It took me over the river, wove skilfully through the London traffic and deposited me at an exclusive little restaurant in the West End. I was fussed over and shown to a table, where Nicholas was waiting for me.
He rose as I approached and kissed my hand. From anyone other than Nicholas I would have thought it was too smooth to be true, but he really was like that all charm and effortless manners.
‘You look stunning,’ he said as he pulled my chair out for me.
‘Thank you.’
I did look good. I hadn’t worn the red dress, though. I’d chosen an Audrey Hepburn-esque