“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I was stupid. And thoughtless. And cruel. But what do you mean, you’re without a home?” I was silent and then it dawned on him. “You’ve left home? But when?”
“On the day we agreed,” I snapped. “At the time we agreed. When do you think?”
“But I told you not to,” he said. “Or not until you were ready to.”
“What? Your last words to me were, ‘I’ll see you at around eight o’clock. Don’t let me down!’” Actually he’d told me he loved me then, too. I didn’t repeat that, I just couldn’t, though from the flush that stained his face, I saw he remembered it, too.
“But I e-mailed you,” he said. “I told you not to leave that night.”
CHAPTER 59
Ruby
I looked at him in confusion. “No, you didn’t.”
“I did! I sent you an e-mail before I left work that night. A really long e-mail. I told you about the baby, remember?” He reached out for my hand, but I moved away. “I asked you to forgive me.”
“I knew about the baby from Sarah, on the Monday afterward. I didn’t get an e-mail.”
“What? I sent it to your Gmail account; the one linked to your phone. Remember you told me the address one time?”
I certainly did remember. I was in bed with him at the time.
“I didn’t get it and I’ve used it dozens of times since then. But why would you do that? We never sent e-mails to each other.”
“I needed you to get it straightaway. I couldn’t call you in case Tom was there, and if I’d sent it to your work address you wouldn’t have gotten it until Monday.” He was quiet for a while and drank his coffee. “When you didn’t reply, I thought you were angry with me.”
“I was. I was furious.” I didn’t need to add that I still was; he must have been able to tell. “I wrote to tell you that.”
“You did?”
“Yes, I gave a letter to Sarah. She put it in your drawer.”
“No, she didn’t,” he said firmly. “You think I wouldn’t have seen it? Responded?”
“I didn’t ask her whether you’d read it. I thought that would sound pathetic.” I saw pity in his eyes and looked away. “Let me check.”
I sent her a message:
Hi Sarah, just checking you remembered to put my letter into Harry’s drawer at work. X
Within minutes she replied, Yes, of course I did. I told you I would.
She was definitely getting more annoyed with me.
Do you know if he read it? I asked.
Ruby, I’m supposed to be working! Yes, he opened it when he came back into work. I saw him through the window, reading it.
I showed this to Harry. “Did you read it?”
“No. I didn’t see a letter from you.” He reached over and touched my hand. I moved mine away, but could feel the warm pressure for ages afterward. “I would have called you if I had.”
“But that means she’s been lying to me,” I said. I sent another message: Did you see what he did with my letter?
She replied immediately. I’m really sorry, Ruby. He read it and then he threw it into the bin. I didn’t want to tell you that.
His face was grim as he read the message. “I’ll have a word with her. She’s lying to you.”
“But why would she do that? We’re friends.”
He looked awkward. “I know I should have told you this, but a couple of Christmases ago she made a pass at me. It was at the office party, just before you started working there.”
“What? Sarah did?”
“Yes. She said we could be friends with benefits.” He saw my expression and laughed. “I told her I wasn’t interested and she cried. She asked me not to tell anyone.”
“But she’s married!”
There was silence then as we both realized we, too, were married.
I thought of Sarah’s shock as she discovered I’d had an affair with Harry. I thought back to the things that had happened to me: Had Sarah had anything to do with them? And she’d listened to me as I wailed about Harry; I’d told her everything, and she’d said nothing at all, just watched, prompted me to confide in her, then lied through her teeth when I asked if she’d given him my letter.
It was obvious that she was impatient with me now. Had she always felt like that about me?
CHAPTER 60
Ruby
So you went to the hotel that night?” asked Harry.
I nodded, my face hot with shame. “I stayed there for a few nights. Nearly a week. I went home on Friday, told Tom, and left, just as we planned.” My mouth trembled as I spoke. “I waited for you! I thought you meant it when you said you loved me.”
“I did mean it,” he said. “I did. Listen to me.” He reached out and tentatively touched my hand again. This time I didn’t move, but every bit of me yearned to hold him. “After you’d gone that night, Jane came to my office. You remember she’s Emma’s sister?”
I nodded.
“I’d had a meeting with Rick Brown and I was there longer than I’d planned. Jane was waiting for me. We were to have an exit meeting. And for whatever reason she decided to use my laptop while she was waiting. I’m not sure why. She didn’t stop long enough to tell me. And she saw our messages from that afternoon.” He grimaced. “They went further back, actually. I hadn’t deleted them for months.”
I felt my face go crimson. Throughout the day we’d use the company’s instant messaging service, thinking we were safe. Once the conversation thread was closed, they were lost and there was no way anyone could retrieve them. I used to close mine down all the time, in case someone saw them, but I suppose Harry hadn’t thought anyone would look at his laptop.
“How much did she see?”
“Enough to see that we planned to leave home that night.”
“Oh God.”
“Eleanor came in then and we did the handover with Jane. Then when Eleanor went back to her room, Jane really let me have it. She told me that Emma had just found out she was pregnant. I hadn’t realized, of course. I hadn’t even thought she might be. We assumed we couldn’t have children.” He looked down. “We were tested years ago and were told it was unexplained infertility. Anyway, you don’t want to know about that. She told me that Emma was pregnant and that if I carried on seeing you, she would tell her everything. I knew Emma would leave me if she found out I was seeing you.”