The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,35

leaving a horrible stain on the rush matting.

‘Don’t hold back from politeness, will you?’ Ned said, sarcastically.

‘Sorry, but I’ve been used to something a bit better than cheap instant. I think this one must have been brushed up off the factory floor.’

‘I didn’t think it was that bad,’ he said defensively. ‘But I’m thinking of getting a coffee maker for the office. It would be nice for the clients.’

‘I’m only surprised you have any, if you give them this muck.’

‘I don’t have that many these days … but then, I haven’t been advertising for customers, since I moved here. But I do need some income coming in until the garden opens to the public and starts to pay its way.’

‘I’d get a cafetière or filter jug,’ I suggested. ‘That way you can put the grounds on the compost heap.’

‘I’ll think about it, but my coffee-making facilities aren’t really what’s on my mind at the moment.’

‘No, I don’t suppose they are. You want me to convince you that if you employ me, there aren’t going to be yet more scandals hitting the headlines,’ I said bluntly.

‘That’s about it,’ he agreed. ‘I’ve left all the media stuff behind me, so I’m not in the public eye any more, and that’s the way I want it to stay. I’m making a new life here – it’s always been home to me and a refuge when I needed it.’

‘With no serpents in Little Eden,’ I agreed. ‘And I’m certainly not that serpent, because I hoped Jericho’s End would be my refuge too, where I could literally get back to my roots and start over again, among people who didn’t know anything about my past.’

‘And then we came face to face,’ he said. ‘It’s a small world.’

‘It is, and now I’m going to have to drag the past up again, which is the last thing I wanted to do, and tell you about my marriage.’

‘I assume you aren’t married now? Elf seemed to think you were single when she told me she’d offered the job to someone.’

‘Not any longer. It was a brief marriage – little more than a year – and I’d have left sooner, except for the unexpected pregnancy and the miscarriage. It was a difficult relationship, because he was jealous and controlling. That kind of thing is talked about more these days and called coercive control. But he picked the wrong victim in me.’

I gave a bitter smile. ‘He was never quite sure he had me completely under his thumb, until I let him think the fight had gone out of me, those last couple of weeks. But I was just biding my time.’

I paused, but Ned said nothing, just sipped his disgusting coffee. I supposed he was used to it.

‘As soon as I was well enough, Treena – who is my adoptive sister, as well as best friend – helped me get free and over to France. I went to stay with my family first, then moved around their circle of friends after that, even when Mike – my ex – gave up trying to find me.’

‘He did try?’

‘Oh, yes, and attempted to convince my family I didn’t know what I was doing and needed him. He was good at that kind of thing and had already managed to come between me and my family once – and my friends. But they weren’t buying his lies this time. I kept in contact with my solicitor over here, though, and eventually Mike agreed to a divorce because he wanted to remarry. That was when I finally thought it was safe to come back again.’

‘I’m so sorry. I know how horrible jealousy in a relationship can be, especially when it’s totally unfounded,’ Ned said sincerely. ‘And I’m sorry about the miscarriage, too.’

‘It was totally the wrong time – just when I was about to leave Mike – but I did want the baby when I found out, even if it complicated things. Mike was delighted, of course – he never wanted me to work, but stay at home, where he could keep track of me. But after I lost the baby and was so out of it in hospital, he sent that resignation email in my name.’

When I had opened my inbox for the first time and found an email from the HHT accepting my resignation, I have to admit I’d doubted my own sanity for a moment, but I wasn’t about to tell Ned that. I’d tracked the resignation email down in