Page 43 of Watch For Me By Candlelight

‘Are you all right?’ Saffy asked, quite sarcastically. ‘You’re very quiet.’ She tugged the robe closer, and something within Kate finally snapped.

‘You’re welcome to him. Just give him a little time to get bored of you — a few more drunken nights out, and you’ll be nothing but some slapper he once made use of. Chris is only concerned about himself and his work. You’re probably a reasonable distraction — but just remember all the times he’s been to visit me, he’s done the same to you. He’s slept with me — and, now I think about it, probably my assistant Jenna as well.’ Kate suddenly laughed. It wasn’t funny, really, but she just knew the unanswered questions, the skirted-around comments about where he had or hadn’t been with Jenna pointed in that direction. And hadn’t there been a few occasions when he’d left and Jenna had turned up looking smug a couple of hours later? ‘God, I actually pity you. Just think about that next time he’s on a business trip and invites someone else from the office instead of you.’

Saffy’s face flickered and Kate smiled. ‘Oh — I see. It’s happened already then. How awkward.’ Kate took advantage of the uncertainty in the woman’s demeanour to indicate the passageway behind her. ‘Do you mind?’

The blonde stepped away mechanically and Kate walked past, her head held high and her shoulders back. She got a whiff of expensive perfume as she passed.

She was halfway up the stairs before she realised she hadn’t taken her shoes off. Oh, well. It hardly mattered now.

Chapter Fifteen

It didn’t take her long upstairs. She took a clean duvet cover out of Chris’ airing cupboard and shook it out. She then proceeded to empty the en-suite of her toothbrush, hairbrush, hair drier, straighteners, odds and ends of make-up — in fact, everything that spoke of her, Kate Howard.

She dropped the items one by one into the duvet cover and systematically eradicated, properly, any further hint of her ever having being part of Chris’s home life. She moved into the bedroom, feeling strangely disconnected. She opened the wardrobe and took her few bits of clothes out, not even bothering to fold them as they joined the toiletries in the vast cotton depths. The chest of drawers was next. Out came her underwear; knickers, bras, tights. Everything. She turned back to the wardrobe and took her shoes out of the bottom — just a couple of dressy pairs that served no real purpose at Hartsford; the stilettos from the Great Cumberland Hotel night were tossed in with a pair of diamante studded sandals, some rainbow-coloured flowery flip-flops she’d bought on a whim at Camden Market and some cosy slippers that she’d purchased last winter and forgotten about.

She looked around the room, and saw the messy, unmade bed that indicated something raunchy had taken place not so long ago; seeing the hard, masculine edges to the furniture that spoke so clearly of Chris. There was a mobile phone dock on the bedside table; a phone was in it — a top of the range iPhone that so did not belong to Chris. A laptop bag tucked on the window seat; piles of paperwork strewn around; a linen pencil skirt and matching jacket, ever so tiny, lying on a chair. How had it ever come to this? At what point had it started to go wrong?

She thought the moment she made the decision to move to Hartsford had probably pushed it over the edge. She knew now, without doubt, that he had never had any intention of moving to Suffolk with her, and if she was honest, she had always known she had no intention of ever moving back to London.

He had felt sort of safe and sort of at a distance and it worked well because she didn’t — and hadn’t for a long time — want him around full time.

Truthfully, it was easier to be an afterthought. It suited her to see him so infrequently. She knew she didn’t want to marry him. They’d had fun, in the beginning; they’d enjoyed each other’s company. But it wasn’t enough. Kate knew she deserved more. And she would never get that from Chris. She didn’t even want to get that from Chris.

Then, from outside: ‘Babes, I got the coffees! Open up, Babes!’

Babes? What was it with him? Did he just forget their names and go for the generic option instead?

There was a rap on the door, and, being in the front bedroom, Kate heard his voice quite clearly as he shouted at Saffy again to unlock. She wondered whether she should do it — whether she should race down and fling the door open and go ‘Surprise!’ and watch him wear the coffee as it upended over him in shock. But she wasn’t that cruel.

And besides: he hadn’t even noticed her car outside, had he? He had, instead, Saffy, hanging around inside; and soon she would be joined by coffee, making up one neat package.

Kate waited, her heart pounding, until she heard Saffy pad along the hallway. The door clicked and opened and before she could speak, Chris barrelled in. ‘I was right, they did the Eggs Benedict to take away. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Then maybe we could go for round two afterwards?’ There was a throaty, sexy timbre to his voice that just irritated Kate.

‘Chris,’ Saffy interrupted in a lowered voice, ‘Kathryn’s here. She knows.’

‘Kathryn?’ There was a half-second where Chris seemed to try and place the name. ‘God, you mean Kate! Oh hell.’ He swore, loudly.

‘Oh, don’t panic. I’m just leaving!’ Kate yelled down from the top of the stairs. She didn’t bother to hide the disdain in her voice. ‘You’ve actually made this a hell of a lot easier for me. I came down here to break it off with you, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s done now. You can keep your Eggs Benedict and Saffy and everything else you hold dear. And by the way, I hate olives. And I bloody hate peanuts. And I would hate you, but I can’t be bloody bothered.’

She began to head down the stairs and dragged the duvet cover behind her like a low budget Santa Claus. She hefted it up in both hands to show them. ‘It’s all my stuff, I promise. I haven’t taken any of yours, Chris.’

‘Your stuff?’ Chris looked up at her, still holding his takeaway breakfast items. ‘Look, I can explain—’

‘Don’t bother.’ Kate cast a glance at Saffy who blanched. ‘I’ll dump it in my car and you can have the duvet straight back. Enjoy your lattes and your hedge funds and “round two” or whatever you’re doing today. Here.’ She dropped the duvet and fumbled for her keys. She tugged his set off her keyring and handed them to him.

Finally, it was done. And finally, she could move on.

* * *

It was late afternoon when Kate got back to Hartsford. She drove into the car park and, shattered as she was from the long drive, her heart skipped a beat. There was a van there — Theo’s van — and that meant Theo was here as well. Here to see her? She couldn’t take her eyes off his vehicle as she pulled the handbrake on, and ran out of the car towards the museum. It was closed today — he had to be here to see her!

Just as she reached the building, he came around the corner, white-faced. His keys were in one hand and his mobile phone in the other. He pulled up short at the sight of her.

The smile died on her face as his blank eyes fixed on her.

‘Theo. What’s happened?’

He shook his head. ‘I have to go. It’s an emergency.’