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