The problem was, she did. She really, really did.
Sunday
BREAKING FOR LUNCH was worse on the second day because instead of walking past a row of very similar-looking Dundee cakes, running a spectrum from “kind of okay” to “kind of rubbish,” you were walking past a row of very different-looking cakes, several of which blew yours out of the fucking water. When planning the recipe, Rosaline had thought decorating her chocolate beetroot cake with a simple drizzle of melted chocolate would make it look classy and elegant. Unfortunately, it just made it look . . . dull. As if the girl from the start of the movie had never taken off her glasses or let down her hair.
Which sort of summed up how she felt about the whole weekend. She hadn’t expected to come on and be instantly amazing. Except, well, maybe deep down, she had a little tiny bit? Because Cordelia and St. John had raised her to be amazing, and she’d been amazing at school and, once you adjusted for Cambridge standards, amazing at university. She was even amazing at work, although mostly because the job sucked and most of her coworkers were teenagers. And obviously, parenting had been kicking her arse solidly for eight years. But that wasn’t the kind of thing where you got marks out of ten at the end.
Her one consolation was that—for the most part—chocolate cakes were all some variant of brown, so while hers was dull, at least it was dull in company. Of course, that made Anvita’s, with its vivid pattern of crushed red chillies, stand out even more. To say nothing of Alain’s gorgeous spring morning of a creation, smoothly enveloped in pale green buttercream and crowned with basil leaves.
Having fallen afoul of the tea decanters the day before, Rosaline nervously poured herself a cup and grabbed a wrap she probably wouldn’t be able to stomach. She’d just found a quiet spot on the lawn to nurse her encroaching sense of inadequacy when she spotted Alain coming towards her, looking—as Miss Wooding so often did—not angry but disappointed.
Oh God. He knew. He definitely knew.
“Rosaline,” he said. “I don’t quite know how to put this, but—” “Okay. Yes. Um, I should—”
“Can you please let me finish?”
She would have preferred to say no and come clean before he could lay her bad behaviour before her like a piece of unfinished homework. But since she was supposed to be apologising and not conducting a hard-hitting interview, she couldn’t. “Sorry. Yes. Of course.”
“Several people have mentioned in passing that you have a daughter. And I feel, honestly, a bit strange being the only person you haven’t told about her. And I confess”—here Alain ran a hand through his hair—“I’m a little confused about how your whole life story fits together. Did you, ah, meet someone in Malawi?”
There had been never been a scenario in which this didn’t go badly. Yet, somehow, she hadn’t quite been prepared for the crushing humiliation of being confronted with her own terrible behaviour. She hung her head. “No. There’s no Malawi. I mean, there is a Malawi, but I’ve never been there. And I’m not a medical student, I’m a . . . nothing, really.”
“But you do have a daughter?”
“Yes. Her name’s Amelie. She’s eight. She’s wonderful.”
“I’m sure she is,” he told her. “I just . . . I don’t understand why you lied to me. And I certainly don’t understand why you only lied to me.”
She risked an apologetic smile. “I guess I’m a bad liar and didn’t think it through?”
“Rosaline.” He looked if not devastated then at least lightly pillaged. “You’ve fucked me about here. You can’t cute your way out of it.”
“Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . cute. And I didn’t mean to lie either. I . . . I panicked.” This was awful. This was unbelievably awful. “Because . . . we met the way we did and you were clever and funny and successful and I thought we . . . maybe clicked maybe?”
He blinked, his eyes grey and wounded. “Well, we might have. But how can I tell when I don’t even know who you are?”
“You’re right. I fucked up. I’m sorry. I just liked you and I didn’t want you to . . . oh God . . . think things about me.”
“What do you mean, ‘things’?” he asked impatiently.
“You know”—she stared at her sandwich, which was the only object in a ten-foot radius she could trust not to have strong opinions about her life choices—“that I’m whatever sort of person you think the sort of person who gets pregnant at university is.”
“I . . . I don’t understand.”
“I just . . . ” The words fell pathetically out of her like socks out of a laundry basket. “I just didn’t want you to think less of me.”
He gave her a look that was colder than any look she’d thought he was capable of giving. “I’m not sure that makes it better. Because not only did you lie to me, but you also apparently think I’m the kind of man who’d judge you for a mistake you made when you were still a teenager.”
It was nothing she hadn’t heard before. But there was something about the word “mistake” that always made her feel queasy. I never planned for this to happen was too close to This should
never have happened, and then it stopped being about Rosaline’s past and started being about Amelie’s future. And the thing was, she couldn’t say any of that. Because, right here and right now, Alain wasn’t wrong. By every standard she’d ever been taught, she’d messed up her life. She’d had everything going for her, and she’d thrown it away on a careless night with a guy she wasn’t even that into. Worse, she’d been ashamed of herself for so long that here she was projecting her own mess onto someone who would probably have been fine if she’d had the courage to trust him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry.”
Alain’s mouth, with its generous curve and its tantalising brackets, was particularly expressive when he was upset. “So you keep saying. But what exactly am I supposed to do with that? Or with you?”
She’d ruined it. She’d completely ruined it. “I don’t know. Can we . . . can we start again? I mean, I’m still me. I just haven’t been to Malawi.”
“You sat next to me last night and let me reassure you that being on this show wouldn’t get in the way of your fake medical degree. Are you really so desperate for . . . for I don’t even know what . . . that you have to gaslight people into telling you things are okay?”
Oh God. Had she done that? She hadn’t meant to, but did that make a difference? If this had been the kind of movie where their leads got tangled up in a dog park, then being insecure enough to tell someone she fancied a pack of lies would be quirky and amusing and forgiven with a kiss in the pouring rain. But now she’d accidentally behaved that way, it was . . . it was hurtful.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I don’t know what to say.”
He gave a sharp laugh. “Whatever you said, would it even be true?”
“Alain, I . . .”
“I’m sorry. I’m not doing this.” He turned and walked away into the mellow afternoon sunlight.