At 8.30, the taxi arrived to take her to Paddington. She hugged Didi. ‘Bye, love. It’s been so lovely to see you again. Not long now till the wedding!’
This was awful. Didi hugged her back. ‘It’s been lovely to see you too.’
‘Now that I’ve got the travel bug, we’ll be able to meet up more often.’
‘Oh yes.’ Feeling like a politician who knows he’s not going to be keeping any of his promises, Didi said, ‘We definitely will.’
‘Don’t forget to follow me, will you?’
For a split second, Didi thought she meant follow her to Paddington, which was actually the plan just as soon as she’d finished finishing with Aaron.
‘On Instagram.’ Kay nodded encouragingly. ‘Otherwise you won’t be able to see all the photos I post. I’m hoping to go viral!’
At last she was gone and it was just the two of them, alone together in Aaron’s ultra-modern eighth-floor apartment.
‘Is there anything left to drink in the fridge?’ said Didi. If Raj and Kev had polished off the lot, she was going to have to hire an assassin.
‘There’s a glass of white left.’
A glass? She could do with a full bottle. ‘That’ll do.’
‘Mum loves you,’ said Aaron. ‘I’m so glad you two get along so well together.’
‘OK, there’s something I have to tell you.’ She didn’t have time to lead into it gently. She reached for the glass he was holding out to her and took a giant gulp. ‘We need to talk.’
He grinned. ‘Sounds ominous.’
‘Well, it is kind of . . . ominous. Sorry.’
‘Is this to do with Mum?’
‘No, no . . .’
‘About the wedding?’
She took a breath. ‘Yes, it’s about the wedding.’ God, this was hard.
After a second, Aaron said, ‘If you’d rather elope, that’s fine. We can change anything that needs to be changed. You want to fly to Vegas and get Elvis to do the honours? No problem.’
OK, enough of playing twenty questions. Didi blurted out, ‘It’s the whole getting-married thing. I’m sorry, you’re great and you haven’t done anything wrong. I just don’t love you enough to go through with it.’
Aaron was no longer smiling. She saw the confusion on his face morph into stony disbelief. ‘Is this a joke?’
‘I wouldn’t joke about something like this. It’s just been a feeling building up and up . . . I realised I should be more excited about us spending the rest of our lives together.’ She spread her hands helplessly. ‘And I just wasn’t.’
‘Because I’m not exciting enough? You mean I’m boring?’
‘You aren’t! Of course you aren’t boring! This is nothing to do with you, it’s all me!’
‘Oh give me strength . . .’
‘I’m sorry. I can’t help how I feel.’
‘And you’ve just this minute decided you need to break it to me,’ said Aaron.
‘Well, no . . .’
He figured it out. ‘You mean it was the whole reason you came down here. And you’ve been waiting since last night for the chance to say it. Jesus.’
‘I didn’t know we were going to have non-stop visitors.’ Didi’s stomach squirmed with misery; she hated having to be the bad guy.
Aaron was looking at her as if she were a stranger. ‘So is it just the wedding that’s off? Or the whole relationship?’
She swallowed. ‘Yes. I mean, the second one. Both of them.’
‘I don’t believe this is happening.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Stop saying fucking sorry. Why are you sorry anyway? This is what you want.’ He paused suddenly, his eyes narrowing. ‘Oh I get it now, there’s someone else. You’ve found a replacement, some guy who’s better than me, more exciting than me.’ His jaw taut, he said icily, ‘Now let me think, I wonder who that could possibly be.’
Didi’s heart was thudding like the hooves of a runaway horse. She shook her head. ‘There’s no one else.’
‘No? I wonder why I find that so hard to believe. It’s all been going on, hasn’t it? The old boyfriend who came back, better-looking and oh-so-much-richer than before. And like an idiot I trusted you completely, because I thought you loved me as much as I loved you. Go on then, tell me, how long have you been shagging him?’
‘Nothing’s been going on and I haven’t been shagging him. Or anyone, because I’d never do that. I can’t force you to believe me, but it’s the truth.’
‘And I still don’t believe you.’ Aaron took a step back and raised his hands. ‘I’m not the jealous type. Did you notice that I didn’t say anything about him to make you think I was worried? That’s because I wasn’t worried.’
‘It’s not you. It’s not him. This is all down to me.’ Didi twisted the diamond ring off her finger and held it out to him. When he didn’t move, she placed it on the glass-topped coffee table. Filled with sadness and suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion, she said yet again, ‘I really am sorry. You deserve better than me.’
‘Too bloody right I do,’ Aaron snapped back.
She’d only said it to be polite, but fair enough. In a situation like this, it was no fun at all being either the finisher or the finishee.
It didn’t take long to throw her few belongings into the overnight case. As she added the toiletries bag that had lived in the cupboard under the bathroom sink for the last year, he sneered, ‘So that’s why you brought the empty case down with you.’
When it was time to leave, she said, ‘Sorry. Bye.’
‘If you were actually sorry, you wouldn’t be leaving.’ Aaron paused. ‘Have you really not slept with him?’
‘I swear I haven’t.’
‘Do it then.’
‘What?’
A muscle was twitching in his temple. ‘Have all the sex you want with the guy for a week . . . or two or three weeks. Until the novelty wears off and the pair of you come to your senses. There you go, how about that for an offer you can’t refuse? Because you can deny it until you’re blue in the face, but I know it’s Shay Mason. He’s the one behind all this. So do it,’ he continued evenly. ‘You’ve got a free pass from me. May as well make the most of it. Go ahead and get him out of your system.’
Didi was on the verge of saying so many things, but in the end her words deserted her. It would be wrong to deny his comments, seeing as the basic accusation was true. She looked at him and said, ‘I’m going now.’
He held open the front door and she walked past him carrying her case. As she made her way down the staircase, she heard him head back into the flat then come out again. When she reached the ground floor, he called her name and she looked up through the rectangle of space that formed the central well of the stairway.
‘Take this,’ said Aaron.
‘Take what?’ She saw him drop something small, then heard a tiny metallic clink as it hit the ground six feet away.
‘I can’t take it,’ she called out.
‘Well if you leave it lying there, it’s just going to get stolen.’ He turned and disappeared inside the apartment, the door slamming shut behind him.