to him, and then quickly away again. ‘I hoped you would walk away, I suppose. For Ryan’s sake.’
Josh stared hard at her. She was looking uncomfortable, and no wonder. Aside from the fact that this was basically emotional blackmail, did she not realise that he would never be able to look Ryan in the eye again? That twisted his gut, the fact that he’d betrayed his friend, even if Jemma had told him her marriage was over, that they couldn’t get past losing their first child. It might not have been a conscious lie – she and Ryan were separated – but she’d used Josh, and he still struggled to understand why. She’d needed some company, a shoulder to cry on after all that she’d gone through, he got that, but did she have to bloody well choose his? Christ, he’d been an idiot.
‘Why did you do it, Jem?’ he asked her, his voice choked. He guessed he didn’t need to clarify what he meant.
‘I don’t know,’ she repeated forlornly. ‘I was confused, grieving. I didn’t mean—’
‘Not half as confused as I am,’ Josh grated.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jemma blurted tearfully. ‘I was depressed, Josh. I’d lost a child. I was drinking too much, trying to feel something other than totally bereft. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen; to hurt you. Please try to understand. If you insist on being involved, it will only end up hurting everyone.’
Being involved? Josh laughed scornfully. He couldn’t be more involved, for Christ’s sake. She was having his baby. ‘I can’t do it, Jemma,’ he said, his eyes not leaving hers, making sure that she knew he meant it. ‘I can’t just turn my back.’ No way, he thought determinedly. He’d always sworn he would never cause any child of his the pain his father had caused him, making it obvious by his complete absence from his life that he was an insignificant nothing to him. ‘I want to be part of my child’s life. I have a right to be.’
Jemma’s expression was intense, a mixture of anger and frustration. Clearly she had been banking on him shirking his responsibility. Did he really come across as the kind of person who would do that? He had no clue any more how the bloody hell he came across. He thought he was doing everything right by Jemma. He’d evidently got it all wrong. He thought he’d behaved reasonably with Kim. He hadn’t said he loved her, because he didn’t. In truth, he’d felt manipulated into sleeping with her, which sounded ridiculous. She’d told him she loved him, though, after their steamy sex, and had obviously been upset when he hadn’t responded. He was beginning to think he needed relationship counselling – as in how to have a relationship without majorly pissing women off.
‘You’ll ruin my life!’ Jemma shouted, causing a bird in the trees above them to take flight. ‘You’ll ruin Ryan’s life. Can you imagine what it will do to him if he finds out? Do you even care?’ Swiping a tear from her cheek, she glared hard at him.
His anger now very close to boiling over, Josh cautioned himself not to lose it. ‘I care, Jemma, more than you give me credit for,’ he said tersely. Though it’s pretty clear that you don’t give a damn about what all of this is doing to me, he didn’t bother to add. ‘I’m sorry.’ He steeled his resolve. ‘I’m not prepared to walk away. I can’t. What kind of person would that make me?’
‘A selfish one!’ Jemma cried.
‘Right.’ Josh smiled cynically, and turned his gaze to the sky. There were no stars out. Everything looked pretty shitty black from where he was standing.
‘Will you tell him?’ Jemma asked shakily.
Tugging in a ragged breath, Josh looked back at her. ‘He’s going to find out eventually,’ he said quietly. ‘He can’t fail to.’
Jemma didn’t speak for what seemed like an eternity. Then, ‘I wish I was dead,’ she said wretchedly.
Josh’s heart dropped. ‘Jemma…’ He moved towards her. ‘Please don’t talk like—’
She whirled around. ‘I wish you were!’ she seethed, scrambling to get away from him. ‘God help you if Ryan does find out. You’d better make yourself scarce, Josh. I would if I were you.’
Twenty-Five
Cassandra
Something wasn’t right. Cassie couldn’t shake the feeling that her life was unravelling, that events seemed to be conspiring against her, pushing her already fragile emotions right to the edge. The texts and the shoplifting incident – assuming she hadn’t had a