She watched the two of them with a sense of exclusion.
“You should try some Soph.”
Sophie wrinkled her nose. “I’m still recovering from our champagne bonanza,” she said with a shrug.
“Bonanza.” Olivia shook her head with mock disappointment. “My sister just can’t handle her liquor, I’m afraid.”
“I have noticed,” he said with a laugh. “Where will you stay in Vegas?”
“I don’t know.” She grinned. “That’s part of the fun.”
“We have a home there. Of course you may …”
“No, no.” Olivia held up a finger. She’d had several wines with dinner and three different scotches with Alex afterwards, and yet she seemed completely in control. “You’re not going to deprive me of my fun.”
He arched a brow inquisitively.
Sophie smiled, despite the gnawing certainty that something was very badly wrong in her marriage. “Liv loves the thrill of destitution. She’s not a big believer in having money in the bank, nor a steady job.”
“I see.” He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Sophie understood, too late, what she’d said wrong. It was not a joke to him. Alex had lived that life. He’d been destitute for real, and he knew, better than most, that it was not funny, nor was it fun. She searched for something to say – anything – to move the conversation forward before Olivia could add something else to the insensitive remark. “I’ve never been to Vegas.”
“I thought you went with Edwin,” Liv remarked, lifting a finger to her chin thoughtfully. “Didn’t you go when he had that conference?”
Sophie’s eyes flew to Olivia’s with shock. She knew they couldn’t speak of her former employer!
Alex, still in his chair, was instantly alert. He saw the panic in Sophie’s face.
“Edwin?” He aimed his query towards Olivia, who was far more communicative than his secretive wife.
“Sophie’s boss back in Sydney. A real pig of a man, but you thought the world of him for a while.”
Sophie winced at the poor choice of words.
“I see,” Alex nodded, but Sophie could see that he didn’t.
“Liv,” Sophie’s voice held a warning, but Olivia ignored it. She might have seemed unaffected by the alcohol she’d imbibed, but of course she wasn’t.
“Oh, come on. It’s ancient history. Besides, you must have told Alex about him?” Before Sophie could reply, Liv turned back to Alex. “This guy was a real piece of work. He fell completely in love with Soph and got really creepy for a while there.”
Alex, who had seen the report for himself, knew Olivia’s version of events was incorrect, but he did a good job of pretending otherwise. “Creepy how?”
“Olivia.” Sophie stood, and her face was completely white beneath her tan. “You must stop.”
“Why?” She sat up straighter, as if realising for the first time that she’d said something wrong. “Oh, Sophie. What did I do? I’m sorry. I’m such a blabber mouth. I just presumed he knew.”
“No,” Sophie was bewildered.
“Because of the agreement. Right.” She slapped her forehead. “No more scotch for me.” She stood, her expression contrite. “Having dropped that messy little bombshell, I might absent myself now.” She smiled weakly at Alex and then crossed to her sister. In a whisper, she said, “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Sophie smiled kindly. “I know you didn’t mean it.”
She watched Olivia leave the room with a sinking heart. Confidentiality agreement or not, she certainly owed some explanation to her husband.
She toyed with her fingers and sighed. “It’s not a big deal. And it was a long time ago. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
“Tell me now,” he said quietly, fascinated to see how convincing she could be.
She nodded jerkily. “It was basically like Liv just said.” She shook her head in frustration. “But he wasn’t like it all along. In the last few months, he got a bit weird.” Her cheeks flamed. “It’s hard, when you’re working as a nanny. Those lines can get blurred.” She closed her eyes. “I’ve looked back and I’ve tried to see if I did something that encouraged him. I mean, I was always there, living with them, playing with the kids. It’s really intimate. Maybe he thought I was encouraging him.” She looked down at her tangled fingers. “I wasn’t though. At least, not intentionally. When he … made it obvious that he thought we were more than we actually were, I quit.”
“How did he make this obvious?” Alex pushed. And though he knew his wife was creating a fiction to save her hide, he still felt a sharp pang of jealousy for this man.
She shook her head. “Details aren’t important.” Sophie didn’t want to remember that night, when he’d come to her hotel room uninvited and drunk. It had taken all her strength and presence of mind to lock herself in the bathroom and wait until he’d calmed down.
“A secret, Sophie?”
“No.” She bit down on her lip and her look was so intensely vulnerable that Alex wanted to pull her into his arms. “Just … not something I like to talk about.” She sighed. “The next day, I quit. He had me sign a confidentiality agreement.”
“In exchange for what?” Alex pushed.
“Money.” At his look of disappointment, she added quickly, “I used it for my airfare to London, and then gave the rest away. I didn’t want a penny from him. I didn’t want him thinking that he’d paid me off, and that what he did was therefore somehow okay.”
“To whom?”
“To whom?” She repeated, lost by his question.
“To whom did you give the money?” He clarified impatiently.
“My sister Ava.” Sophie decided that some secrets could be lifted. “She’s a single mother. She runs our family vineyard and the little row of cottages we rent out for accommodation.”
He arched a brow and Sophie didn’t know what more he wanted her to say.
“I didn’t tell you because I’m not really allowed to discuss it. And also because I hate to think about it.” She fixed her gaze on his. “Even now, I wonder if I did something wrong. I’m … a friendly person. Maybe I was too friendly.”
Alex could have said dozens of things to assuage her worry, but he didn’t. He wasn’t sure he believed her version of events, given the dossier he’d received from his investigator. And yet, there were several sides to any story, and particularly this one. The wife had blabbed. Sophie had not. Sir Edwin Thomas had not. Perhaps the wife had put two and two together and got five.
In the same way he’d first thought Helena might have been mistaken, until he’d gone to London for himself to see the degree of affection between Eric and Sophie.
“Are you going to say anything?” She whispered, after several long minutes of silence had passed.
“Let’s go to bed.”
Sophie’s heart sunk further. Yes. Her marriage was in a state of decline and she didn’t know how to arrest it.
She put her hand in his, and with it, all her hopes. She loved him. Surely he would see that, and he would let go of whatever was bothering him.
8
“How long will you be away for?” Sophie was amazed by how well she kept the emotion from her voice. Liv had left them earlier that day, and now, Alex had lifted a few of his immaculate suits from the wardrobe and layered them into a hanger bag.
“I do not know yet.”
“I see.” She toyed with the ends of her hair and forced her gaze beyond him, to the window that framed the sea. “I was just thinking I might go back to London for a while.”
He froze, his heart decelerating to a soft, slow thud, before cranking back to fever pitch. “What for.” A statement, it showed that he was displeased. But she couldn’t care. Her heart, her broken, aching heart, could not hurt her more than it already was.
“Why do you think?” She murmured.
He snapped his zipper to the top and spun around to face her. “No.”
“No?” She mouthed the
word with shock. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
He stared at her long and hard, and then walked slowly towards her. “I mean that I am not going to let you do it.”
“Are you kidding me?” She stared at him as though he’d turned into a Martian. “I’m not your prisoner. You can’t actually keep me here.”
“No,” he agreed. “But nor can I let you continue to ruin my sister’s marriage.”
The words hung between them like tiny little bullets. They sat heavy in the air and then flew swiftly towards Sophie. She staggered back as though she’d been hit, and reached for the edge of the bed. She sank into it weakly. “What are you talking about?”
Alex could have strangled himself, if it were at all physically possible. He had not intended to say so much to his wife, and yet it had simply blurted out. Now? What choice did he have but to have this discussion? Perhaps, if warned off, Sophie might choose not to go after Eric.
“I know about you and Eric.”
She stared at him with a host of emotions storming across her face. “What do you know about me and Eric?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
He refused to feel sorry for her. The obvious discomfort was because of her actions and culpability, not his.
“I know that you and Eric, my friend, a man I trusted and cared for, have been having an affair. It is making Helena miserable. I will not allow it to continue.”
Sophie wrapped her arms around her waist, as realisation after realisation continued to explode in her brain. There was no affair, but she was chasing after him, down a rabbit hole into the bizarre reality she now realised he’d been inhabiting. “How would you stop it?” She wondered aloud. “I mean, you did stop it, didn’t you? By marrying me… That’s what you think?” She closed her eyes. “Oh my God. Am I the most gullible idiot in the world or what?” She stood up but swayed a little on her legs and had to sit back down again.
His mouth was grim. “I needed to remove you from the situation.”
She felt as though she was about to be sick, but she had no intention of letting him see how completely he’d devastated her.
“You married me because you believed Eric and I were having an affair and you wanted to end it. Right?”
His temper spiked. “I married you because I knew you and Eric to be engaged in an affair.”
“How did you know?” She pushed, her body limp-feeling.
“That is hardly relevant.”
Sophie nodded slowly. “I guess not.” Tears sparkled in her eyes. She steeled herself to find a hidden reserve of strength, and tried to stand again. When she spoke, her words were little more than a whisper, but he heard them clearly. “Except that you were wrong. Completely wrong.”
“Even now, you lie to me? When I know the truth?”
“You don’t know the truth,” she said thickly. “But I’m glad I finally do.”
A sob was threatening in her chest. She swallowed it back, but it made her throat ache.
His voice was a soft plea – unusual for a man like Alex. “You will ruin her life if you continue this.”
Sophie was numb to her core. “I’m not involved with Eric. He loves your sister.”
“Bullshit. He loves you. I’ve seen the two of you together. I saw him come from your room late at night. I heard you speaking to him on the phone a few weeks ago. Talking about the secret you must keep from me, because Helena and I could never forgive the two of you. Do not make me think worse of you now, Sophie, by failing to own up to what you have done.”
Her laugh was bitter. “You’re sick, do you know that?” She moved to her wardrobe on autopilot and scanned it for her more practical clothes. She grabbed things at random. Jeans. A shirt. A dress. Shoes. And then, her arms full, she threw them onto the bed while she hunted around for a bag.
“I have already told you that I am protective of Helena. She was miserable about the affair. She begged me to help.”
Sophie sniffed as she stuffed her clothes into the suitcase. Everything would need to be ironed again, and she hated ironing, but packing neatly would take time, and she couldn’t stay in the house a moment longer.
“There was no affair,” she said again, zipping the suitcase up ferociously. It snagged her nail and she swore.
“Then what secret are you and Eric huddling over so conscientiously. What were the ‘late night sessions’ you spoke of engaging in with him?”
Sophie thought about lying to Alex, to protect Eric further, but in that moment, she hated Eric and Helena almost as much as she did her husband.
With a voice that was surprisingly calm, and eyes that were devoid now of feeling, she faced her husband and said, “Your sister isn’t well. I believe she has severe depression. Eric is beside himself with worry. We would meet secretly to discuss what we had noticed and plan a way to help her.”
Alex was as still as a statue. Only a muscle that ticked in his cheek showed that he felt any emotion. “Another lie.”
“No.” She continued in the same tone. “I would never lie about something like this.” She swallowed another sob. “Helena needs help. But Eric was worried that if he told you, you’d go all crazy and act like an overbearing bastard. Actually, he clearly had a point.” She lifted the bag over her shoulder.
“Where are you going?” He demanded.
“Away.”
“Where?”
She laughed, a harsh, jangling sound. “Nowhere you’ll be able to find me. I need time to myself.”
“Sophie, you need to tell me what you mean about Helena.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t need to do any damn thing you say.” She pulled the bag over her shoulder. She moved towards the door, a strange emptiness spreading through her. “Did you really marry me just for the sake of your sister?”
He stared at her long and hard; his silence, though, spoke volumes.
“Okay.” She could no longer stop the tears that were moistening her eyes from falling. She turned around and walked back to him. She tilted her face up to his. “You need to know that I married you because I loved you completely. You need to know that, because one day, you’re going to realise that I’m telling the truth. And on that day, you deserve to feel as guilty as hell for using me like this.” She saw the shock on his face with some satisfaction. “I don’t love you anymore. In fact, I don’t think I ever really knew you.” Her cheeks were wet and her chest was heaving with the pain of breathing. “Goodbye.”
“You cannot leave like this. We have to discuss …”
“I beg your pardon.” She paused just outside the door. “We have nothing to discuss. Everything we were was a lie.”
Downstairs, in the long hallway, she pulled her credit cards out of her wallet and left them on the mantle. Her ring she added to the pile of things she no longer needed. They belonged to Alex’s wife, and Alex’s wife had just been some poor sucker who’d allowed herself to be manipulated into believing in love.
That woman was not Sophie anymore.
She would never believe in love again.
9
“I am afraid I do not comprehend what you are saying.” Alex sat down in his leather office chair with a gnawing sense of disbelief. Could this be some kind of trick? Had Sophie fooled her replacement into spreading these lies?
“I’m sorry, sir, but you asked me to report anything untoward to you.”
Yes, he had, but he’d meant a secret love affair between Eric and Sophie. Not this, of all things.
Elaine continued, when Alex didn’t speak. “I believe your sister needs to see a specialist. Perhaps even to be admitted to hospital for a time.”
“And on what do you base this conclusion?”
“I have seen it before. The sense of disconnection is a hallmark. Your sister is … vacant … even when she is with the children.”
“She’s not maternal,” he countered firmly.
“This is different, sir.”
He stared out of the window. Sophie had warned him. And he’d ignored h
er. He hadn’t wanted to believe that she might have been right.
Sophie. Had she really been gone three weeks already? He lifted her ring from his desk without noticing that he was doing it. It was a constant reflex with him these days. He would stare at it and remember the way her face had looked at it in complete confusion, the first time he’d shown it to her. The way she had insisted it was far more than she needed. The way she’d said she loved it, because he’d chosen it.
His gut twisted.
Everything in the house reminded Alex of Sophie. Everything. She was everywhere he looked, and yet she was nowhere.
“Are the children affected?”
“On some level, certainly. There is a wariness with them. An obvious preference for their father and me. They try to orchestrate outings that exclude their mother, as though they’re attempting to form a family unit with me and Eric.”
Alex had seen all this before. Only he’d blamed Sophie. He’d blamed Sophie and Eric. “And what do you do?”
“I do as they wish, of course. Their emotional wellbeing is my primary goal. I do, however, think you need to enable support for your sister.”
“I see.”
He lifted the ring to his cheek. Where was Sophie? He knew only that Harry had taken her to the airport, and that she hadn’t touched his bank accounts since leaving.
He didn’t know where she was living, and on what money she was surviving. Did she have savings? Did she have a job? Did she have a comfortable home? The thought of Sophie in discomfort or squalor flooded him with anger.
“Elaine, I’m going to come to London. Do not mention this to Eric until I arrive. I will … require an element of surprise.”
His mind made up, he set about organising the logistics. For a man like Alex, this was not difficult. With an army of staff and a jet at his disposal, it was only a matter of hours before he was back in London; staring at the house he’d first seen her. Sophie.