we got to this place. I started to type a message: I wish we could go back to the way we were but I thought of him reading it with Ruby by his side and I just couldn’t do it. Tears blurred my vision and I deleted the message and switched the phone off.
By the time I fell asleep it was nearly seven and sunlight flooded the room. I slept until noon, then woke, my mouth dry and my head aching. There was a message from Harry on my phone, apologizing for not picking up my call the evening before. He said he’d been just about to board and couldn’t talk. I switched off my phone. My eyes focused on our wedding photo on the bedside table. Harry stood behind me, his arms around my waist. I leaned back against him, my eyes glazed with happiness and desire.
I could hardly recognize us now.
CHAPTER 27
Eighteen months earlier
Ruby
I could hardly wait to go back to work after New Year’s, after meeting Harry the week before. Tom was waiting for me when I came home on Friday night. He was still on his Christmas break. He had a glass of wine in his hand and I could tell from his flushed face that he’d started early that day. It was a bitterly cold day and I ran from my car up to the house, slipping on the icy patches on the driveway.
“Hi,” he said, as though he hadn’t been ignoring me for several days. “How’s work?”
“Fine.” I stamped my boots on the doormat, then sat on the stairs to take them off.
“Where are you working now?” he asked, as friendly as you like.
“Sheridan’s,” I said. “On the industrial estate. They sell healthy snacks and send them out by post.”
Within five seconds Tom was on his phone, looking them up. “Who’re you working for?”
“Harry Sheridan. The MD. I’m working with a woman called Sarah. We both work for him.” There was always safety in a female companion. I didn’t tell him that I hadn’t met Sarah yet because she was on holiday that week, or that Harry and I had spent most of the last two days chatting rather than working.
“What’s he like?”
I shrugged. “All right. Older than us.” I was so used to holding back what I thought, of having an impassive face, that the lie was easy. “I didn’t see that much of him. Sarah was showing me how to use their computer system.”
He seemed mollified. “Have a drink,” he said, and poured me a glass of wine. The bottle was empty now and he went to fetch another. I glanced at the clock. It was barely six. “I thought we’d get a takeaway tonight. What do you fancy?”
I knew his game. He was going to act as though nothing had happened and if I referred to it later, I’d be in the wrong. So I stood in the doorway and stared at him, silent. He realized what was going on then, of course. I could see his feelings flitter across his face, first fear, then anger, then regret.
He walked over to me and touched my cheek with his hand. I flinched.
“I’m sorry, Ruby.”
He leaned forward to kiss me. I tried to move back but I was up against the wall by then and couldn’t. I started to panic and shoved him away.
He followed me upstairs and in the bedroom he shut the door behind him, but kept his distance. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I lost my temper and said things I shouldn’t have said. You know I never want to hurt you.”
Part of me wanted to run a mile from him and the rest wanted to believe what he said. I didn’t want to think I was married to a man who could be cruel. So I just said, “If you say that sort of thing to me again, it’s over,” and he agreed, his head bowed, then he went downstairs to order a takeaway from my favorite restaurant, though he didn’t like the food there much himself. And for the next few months he was back to his old self: friendly, interesting,