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The Greystones wait up for her, but I know she won’t come back. When she makes a decision, that’s it. Good or bad, come what may, once made—total commitment. That much I do know about her.
I can’t tell which one of them is the worst hit. They all seem totally floored by her revelations. And what she’s done as a result.
Xan and I change our plans and move into the Greystone house. I take Evie’s old room. Walking in, I’m assailed by the lingering scent of her perfume. I close my eyes and images of her and I before Christmas, in here together, before I fucked it all up, again, flash into my mind. I can see her face, the desire, the smiles. Hear her husky laugh. I drop onto the bed, looking up at the ceiling, shaking my head, disappointment, annoyance hitting me all at once. Images, memories, it’s probably all I’ll ever have going forwards.
James and Bucky’s rooms are left vacant for them, Jonno nearly decapitating Xan as he’s about to go into James’s room to get some sleep.
Then Jonno starts to drop bits in about how he knew she’d bought the Manor House, near where their farm was, twelve months ago. Jude and Jackson cross examine him on the facts and musing about why she did it. Jude’s convinced Marshall and Evie are going to resurrect the racing licence that was attached to the place and set up a racing yard. He’s trying to rationalise why she would dump him with the property business when she loves buildings so much.
I think it’s more of a case that he hurt her the most out of all of them. After all of it, it all comes down to Isobel. What a mess. Isobel begged Jude not to dump her, said it was a stupid stunt gone wrong. She just wanted to scare Evie a little, not actually hurt her. She then tried to rationalise her decisions. How she disliked Evie, who never gave her a second look. How high and mighty Evie always was and how she felt inferior to her. All petty teenage stuff. How it got worse when I started hanging around them all, and how much it hurt her when I took a special liking to Evie. How you got from that to nearly killing her and my son, I don’t know, but Isobel was desperately trying to explain it.
Why or how Evie had hung onto that one for so long, I have no idea.
I’m sitting in the kitchen, reading some papers from my solicitors regarding the estate (what a great way to spend a Friday night), when Jonno comes in.
“No word from James?” he asks me. I shake my head no. “Are you worried about that?”
“No, James will let me know what he’s doing. Do they have to come back for school?”
“She’s rang in sick for them, so they’ll be ok until Monday. I think they’ll come back Sunday night. My parents and Jake saw her yesterday. James and Bucky were hungover. Marshall ‘force fed them’—James’s words—whiskey.”
I laugh at that. I can’t remember Marshall very well from when we were young. It’ll be good to meet him again.
“Did they say if she’s coming home?”
“She isn’t. I’m trying to think of how to tell Jude. He’s in bits now, wait ‘til he finds out what she’s been doing.”
“What has she been doing?” Jude says as he walks in. “And why are you trying to protect me? I think there’s been too much of that going on. Perhaps a bit of honesty is required so we can sort this shit out.”
“I’ll get everyone in, so we don’t have to repeat anything.” Jonno bellows down the house and waits until we’re all assembled before he drops the next bomb on everyone. “She’s not coming back. She bought Cornhill Manor twelve months ago. She’s renovating it and staying there.”
There’s silence as everyone digests that.
“What about the business? How's she going to run it from there? She…”
“Jude, brother, she resigned and gave the lads her shares. There is no property business, no Bowman Group, with her. She doesn’t sit on our boards anymore so she only has to attend shareholder meetings. And even that she can proxy. She doesn’t need to be in London for us.” They all sit like statues whilst they start to adjust to the situation they’re in.
Jude starts, “Can’t, won’t, she’ll…” then he trails off and sits in silence, looking out the window. “She’s really gone,” he says quietly. “I don’t think I can run it on my own. She ran it, really. I know everyone deferred to me, and I used to let them think it was me, but it wasn’t. I’ll have to sell it. I’m not sure, I’ll speak to Ev….” He stops and looks away again, the realisation of what he said sinking in.
Jonno decides might as well get all the blows out of the way.
“She also owns a massive amount of land on the outskirts of London. Some derelict docklands, not far from the building she bought and did up. She’s owned some of it for two years. She’s got grants, regen money, green money, infrastructure money, you name it, she’s got it. I’ve looked up the plans, it’s amazing. Will be worth millions of pounds. And it’s in her own name now, so I don’t think she won’t be around. Just, not with us.”
“Were we really that bad?” asks Jackson, in shock as the reality settles in.
Jude turns to me and says, “It wasn’t ‘til he turned up that she got fucking weird.”
“Don’t fucking blame me, Jude. If she bought that stuff two years ago, and that house twelve months ago, I’d say something was not right with her long before I re-entered the picture.”
“Oh you fucking know her so well. You fucked her over at that party and now we’re all paying the price.”
“You fucked Isobel,” Xander puts in. “Just saying, Jude. And to be honest, that seemed a pretty big issue for her."
“You tried to have sex with her,” Jude spits back at him. ”She was your fucking friend. She told you no the night of that nightclub, even when you were here and you wanted to get into her bed. In fact, I had to throw you out of it. Does he know that?” He thumbs at me.
I look at Xander with raised eyebrows.
“It was a joke. She knew it. She’d already said no at the club. I was just winding you up, Marcus. Besides, I slept with Grace, so…”
