There was nothing in the box but on the outside there was a document, taped to the box. It was facing away from Harry.
“No,” I said. “That’s odd, I can’t see anything. Oh well, someone will call soon and claim it.” I picked up the box. “Harry, would you do me a favor and run a bath for me? And put some of that bath oil you gave me in it?” I gave him a winning smile. “I’m so tired.”
“Of course!” He bounded upstairs and I ripped the delivery note off the box and shoved it into my handbag. Later in the bathroom with the door locked I opened the note. Attached to it was a card with a message typed on it. It said:
For our baby. T x
CHAPTER 56
Emma
I opened my eyes the next morning to find the white teddy bear staring me in the face. Harry was kneeling by the side of the bed, holding the bear up in front of him. He moved it toward me, to stroke my cheek with its nose. I jerked away, pushing it to the floor. He laughed when he saw my expression. “He just wanted to say good morning.”
My stomach leaped. “Who did?”
“The bear.” Harry sounded like I was the one that was mad. “Who did you think I meant?”
“Sorry. You startled me.”
I went into the bathroom to get a bit of peace. I couldn’t have that bear in the house, but how could I get rid of it? It was huge; I couldn’t exactly lose it. Even if I persuaded Annie to bring her kids round and persuaded them that they wanted to adopt the bear, I’d still know it existed. That it was meant for me.
As soon as Harry left for work I called Tom.
“What the hell are you playing at?”
“Hello, Emma. How are you today?”
“How dare you send things to my house? And that message—well, Harry didn’t see it, despite your efforts. And anything you send to me again will be sent back to you, unopened.”
“I just thought it would be good to start buying things for the baby,” he said calmly.
I wanted to scream at him, but I knew the power he held. He could come round to the house anytime and tell Harry what had happened. I know that Harry started all this with his and Ruby’s affair, but I was the one who was pregnant. The more I thought about it the more I realized that Harry would simply deny any involvement with Ruby. She wasn’t even working for him now. I was the only witness to their affair and I was pregnant after sleeping with another man.
At that moment I wished I could just go to the airport and pick a flight—any flight—and just disappear and leave the whole lot of them behind.
“If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll get a restraining order against you,” I hissed.
“I don’t think that’s how it works, babe,” he said. “All I did was buy you a soft toy for our baby. But okay, if you’re superstitious, I won’t buy anything else.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“I’ll save the money instead.”
“Okay. You do that.”
* * *
• • •
That night Harry and I were in bed, about to go to sleep, when his phone beeped.
“Sorry, honey,” he said. “I’ll just check this in case it’s work.”
He was always open with his phone and was always happy to let me use it. I knew his password. He thought he knew my password, but I’d changed it since I’d started getting messages from Tom. I’d turned off the notifications, too, so that Harry wouldn’t see a message from him pop up on the screen. Honestly, I was living as though I was the one having an affair.
“That’s odd,” he said. “I’ve got a message from PayPal.”
At that point I was thinking I needed to have my blood pressure checked. I was two days from my test results and every time I moved that stupid bear into another room Harry brought it back again. It didn’t seem to bother him that he hadn’t a clue who’d sent it to us. Right then it was sitting on the armchair staring at us both. I was trying to relax, ready for sleep, but my eyes kept meeting the bear’s eyes. I panicked, wondering whether Tom had fitted it with a recording device, and went over to put it in the spare room.
“How strange,” said Harry. “It says someone’s sent me a hundred pounds through PayPal.”
“It’ll be a scam.” I was half-asleep and just wanted him to switch the lamp off and shut up. “The newspapers are full of this sort of thing. Someone puts money into your account and says it was a mistake. You send it back but they’ve already withdrawn their money. Just ignore it.”
“No.” He sounded confused. “There’s a message. It says, ‘You might need this after the baby’s born!’”
My eyes snapped open. “What?” I sat up and took his phone.
The sender’s name was simply T.
“Who do we know whose name begins with T?” asked Harry. Thankfully he’d turned the lamp off by then and couldn’t see my face. I didn’t answer and pretty soon he went to sleep.
I lay there for hours, thinking about Tom, just as he’d intended. I knew that he was going to keep going on and on until I snapped.
I didn’t think he’d have long to wait.
CHAPTER 57
Ruby
The first thing I did that morning was to e-mail Gill, the letting agent, to ask whether she could have someone put a bolt on the front door. I told her I was concerned about security and was happy to pay for it. It was something I could have done myself but of course I didn’t have any tools with me. I knew I could have asked Tom if I could use some of ours, but he’d insist on coming round to do it for me and I didn’t want him to see where I was living. Gill replied quickly, saying she’d send someone around as soon as she could, but that I wasn’t to do it myself, as per the rental agreement.
I got to work by nine o’clock as usual and found another woman sitting at my desk. She was very tanned and heavily made up, and her eyes were swollen and pink. I guessed she’d been crying. She looked me up and down and I knew she must be part of the gang that worked in the admin office.
“Hi.” I smiled. “I’m Ruby Dean, the temp.”
She scowled. “I’m here now,” she said.
I stared at her, wanting a further explanation, but she said nothing, just took out her makeup bag and focused on her eyebrows.
Mike, our manager, came out and saw me standing there. He ushered me into his office. As I left the reception area I heard the woman yell, “What’s this computer doing here?”