The Dilemma(68)

‘You were a long time in your shed,’ she murmurs.

‘Sorry.’

‘I didn’t mean to fall asleep.’

‘It doesn’t matter. You’re tired.’

In the dark, her hand finds my face and traces the lines of it.

‘You too.’

‘A little.’

‘It was a perfect day.’ Her mouth finds mine. ‘Thank you, for everything.’

I need to tell her. ‘Livia—’

‘Not now.’ She moves the towel from around her and slides herself closer to me, pressing her body against the length of mine, wanting me, and I shrink away because I can’t, we can’t. But the softness of her skin and the touch of her fingers draw me in until all I want is to forget, to forget what has happened and be like we’ve always been, like we’ll never be again. So I empty my mind and think only of Livia, of us, one last time.





Livia


Adam’s head is heavy on my shoulder, my arms are tight around his back. His exhaustion is so deep that I’m not sure anything would wake him. I feel guilty for falling asleep, for not waiting for him to come back from his shed, and even guiltier for using sex so that I wouldn’t have to hear what I know he was going to tell me. Poor Adam. I’d never use the word fragile to describe him, but there’s a fragility about him that makes me afraid. In the space of a day, something deep within him has changed. I’m not surprised; to find out that your beloved daughter is having an affair with one of your friends, someone you don’t particularly like, must be one of the worst things a man can experience. If only he hadn’t had to find out at my party.

And that’s when I realise – he was already stressed before my party started, so when exactly did he find out? I go back over everything. He was fine when we woke yesterday morning, fine over breakfast. Then I went out with Kirin and Jess, leaving him with Josh. At some point he went into town, supposedly to get my present, and came back with a migraine instead. There was the phone call he made to his parents in the afternoon, about seemingly nothing at all. The way he was off with Amy when she arrived and his conversation earlier with Nelson, when he had seemed distressed. There’s been too much that’s out of character. And what was it he wanted to tell me, when we were together in the garden, before the party started? Was it about Marnie and Rob? If it was, and I can’t think of anything else it could be, he must have found out about their affair while he was in town.

Everything points to it, I realise. It’s why he was so stressed this afternoon. The effort of pretending he didn’t know must have been awful, especially in relation to Rob. It had been hard enough for me, and it would have been harder for Adam because instinct would have made him want to rip Rob apart. I had secretly cried my eyes out for two days. Adam hadn’t had the luxury of coming to terms with it in private before meeting Rob publicly. That’s why he looked as if he wanted to kill Rob during the box incident. So his conversation with Nelson must have been about Marnie and Rob after all. Nelson had refused to believe it and had probably said something along the lines of My little brother wouldn’t do something like that, which would explain Adam’s almost hysterical laughter.

The phone call he made to his dad during the afternoon – maybe he’d wanted to talk it through with Mike, and had decided against it at the last minute because he felt he should tell me first. Which means that Cleo must have told Adam about her suspicions during the morning. Maybe they bumped into each other in town, went for a coffee together and it had all come out. It’s why Adam didn’t have my present, because once she’d told him, all thought of it would have gone from his mind. It also explains his migraine – it was just a made-up excuse to explain his low spirits.

Poor Cleo, poor Adam, I feel terrible for them. I need to wake Adam and tell him that I already know about Marnie and Rob, that I’ve known since Rob and Cleo went to Hong Kong. But – my heart sinks. He’ll be furious that I’ve let him drink and joke with the man who has betrayed us so horribly. It’ll be exactly what I’ve been afraid of; he’ll think I held back for six weeks – six weeks, not just a few hours like he has – because I wanted to make sure I had my party first.

I lie for another while, turning it over in my mind, hating myself for what I’m thinking, which is that I’ll let Adam tell me about Marnie and Rob when he wakes up, and pretend I didn’t know. I’d have to tell Max, though, so that he won’t give me away. A wave of shame washes over me, that I could even think of lying to Adam, and making Max part of that deceit. But it would make everything so much easier. Tensions are going to be running high. Why add to them by telling Adam that I already know what he so desperately wants to tell me?

Moving slowly, I ease my shoulder from under Adam’s head and carefully slide my arms from around him, ready to stop if he moves. But he sleeps on, unaware that I’m no longer holding him. I get quietly out of bed, pull a T-shirt over my head, slip on some jeans, push my feet into slippers and go quietly downstairs. Although the caterers took the crockery, cutlery and glasses away with them, there are some of my own dishes piled in the sink, and the floor needs a good wash.

My birthday cakes are sitting on the side, each of them covered in cling film. Just seeing them makes me hungry and I realise that I didn’t eat very much during the party, or drink. Every time someone handed me a glass, I only took a sip before I seemed to need to put it down. I set to work, loading what I can into the dishwasher and washing the larger dishes by hand. I put everything away, wipe down the sides, then make myself some coffee before washing the kitchen floor.