The Other Woman(55)

‘But that’s how she is with everyone else. She’s seen as Little Miss Innocent, who kindly surprised you by bringing an old friend along to your hen do, begged to come along to your dress fitting because she’ll never have her own daughter to share that special experience with . . . blah, blah, blah. And to be honest, Em, everyone’s buying it. Even her own son can’t see through her, and see the hurt she’s causing you.’

‘So, it is me, then?’ I could feel tears welling up, and swallowed hard.

‘Of course it isn’t,’ she said, moving up the sofa to put her arm around me. ‘I can see what she’s doing, but I’m no use to you, apart from at times like this.’ She pulled me towards her. ‘You need your husband-to-be on side, to make him see what she’s doing and how miserable she’s making you. You can’t begin a marriage with this much resentment hanging over you, because it will ultimately destroy it, if not you. You’ve got to talk to him, tell him everything.’

‘I’ve tried that,’ I cried. ‘But when I say it out loud, it just sounds so pathetic, like I’m a spoilt child. Even I think that, so God knows what Adam makes of it all.’

‘What did he say about Charlotte being on your hen do? That’s not pathetic. That’s a very real line she crossed, one that many wouldn’t even think of, let alone do.’

‘I haven’t told him . . .’

‘What?’ exclaimed Pippa. ‘You’re getting married in two weeks, and you haven’t told him something as important as that?’

I shook my head. ‘We’ve only been back a few days, and the odd times we have been together we’ve either spoken about Las Vegas, or the wedding itself.’

‘You’re burying your head in the sand,’ she said stiffly. ‘It’s going to make you ill.’

I nodded weakly, already aware that the situation was having an adverse effect on me. ‘I’ll talk to him tonight.’

When I got home, Adam was in the middle of watching a rugby game on TV.

‘Can we talk?’ I asked quietly, almost not wanting him to hear me, hoping I could push the inevitable under the carpet for another week.

‘Yep, sure,’ he said absently. ‘But can it wait until the game’s finished?’

I nodded and walked into the kitchen. I took some peppers out of the fridge and started hacking at them aggressively. He hadn’t even asked how the day had gone.

‘Actually, no, it can’t,’ I said, sweeping back into the living room, knife still in hand.

He sat up a bit straighter, but only to see past me to the telly. I grabbed the remote control from the coffee table and switched it off.

‘What the hell?’ he called out. ‘It’s the semi-final.’

‘We need to talk.’

‘What about?’ he moaned, sounding like a petulant child.

I sat down on the coffee table, directly in front of him, so that he couldn’t shirk or fidget. He looked warily at the knife in my hand.

‘We need to talk about your mother,’ I said, placing it gently down on the wooden top beside me.

He groaned. ‘Really? Again? I thought we’d got over all this?’

‘You need to talk to her,’ I went on. ‘Her behaviour is just not acceptable, and I will not allow it to cause problems between us.’

‘It doesn’t,’ he said naively. ‘I thought you were getting on better. That was certainly the impression I got from her after your hen weekend.’

I rested my head in my hands, rubbing at my eyes, to give me time to think how best to approach it. ‘She did something utterly unforgivable in Portugal,’ I started. ‘And it has caused me so much anxiety and pain that I can’t move on until I tell you about it and you realize what she’s done and how it’s made me feel.’

He leant forward, but I could see he was in two minds as to whether to touch me reassuringly, or hold back for fear of being seen to go against his mother. He chose the latter. ‘Well, what did she do that was so bad?’

I cleared my throat. ‘She invited Charlotte.’

I waited for him to leap up and say, ‘What the hell?’ but he stayed where he was. ‘Who’s Charlotte?’ he said, unfazed.

This wasn’t going how I wanted it to go. ‘Charlotte. Tom’s Charlotte!’

He shook his head, nonplussed.

‘Are you doing this on purpose?’ I cried. ‘My best friend, the one who slept with Tom.’

He looked confused. ‘How did that happen?’

‘Exactly! That’s my point. Your mum thought it would be a good idea to reacquaint us, so she tracked her down and brought her to Portugal.’

‘But that doesn’t even make sense,’ he said. At last we were getting somewhere, but he wasn’t making it easy.

‘She did it to spite me,’ I went on. ‘She went out of her way to find her.’

‘But she wasn’t to know,’ he said defensively. ‘How was she to know what went on between you?’

‘Because my mum told her!’

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ he said, rising up from the sofa. ‘If Mum had had any idea of what had happened between you, she’d never have done it. She obviously thought she was doing a good thing, a nice thing, by surprising you.’