wasn’t going to tell him that. I was going to tell him—’
‘What? More lies, dressed up as the truth? If you start down this road it will all come out. He will never forgive you. How could he? You’ll lose everything,’ Cassie warned her, her heart pumping with fear. ‘Your husband, your house. Everything. I can’t let you do this, Jemma. I won’t. Jemma? Jemma?’ she said frantically, but Jemma had gone.
Thirty-Eight
Jemma
The phone still in her hand, Jemma gazed out of the bedroom window, seeing nothing of the pretty view over the open fields opposite. Her silence had afforded her this. Thinking it was a way to save her marriage and provide the home she and Ryan could never otherwise have afforded, the home that Ryan had craved after spending his childhood in care, she’d been hugely relieved when Cassie had offered to help her. It was the least she could do, Cassie had said, to make sure the baby’s future was secure. She’d been so understanding, as only a woman who’d been through a similar bereavement could be, and had come up with a way forward for Jemma when she’d been flailing.
Jemma had thought her marriage was over until she’d found Ryan at the cemetery grieving the loss of Noah as deeply as she was. That was when they’d both realised they didn’t want it to be over. Ryan had been desperate for a family, somewhere he belonged. How could she have told him she was pregnant with another man’s child? She’d guessed that in offering her financial help, Cassie had wanted to be sure of her silence, and she’d readily agreed. If Ryan had ever found out, it would have broken his heart into a thousand pieces. If he’d found out on top of that what Cassie had told her about Josh, it would have destroyed him.
She hadn’t bargained on Josh wanting to be involved in the baby’s life, determined to put his responsibility as a father above his friendship with Ryan, above anything he’d ever felt for her. He’d loved her. Even when she’d been as vile as it was possible for a woman to be to a man, she’d suspected he still did. She’d been sure that he would hate her when she’d insisted she wanted nothing to do with him, that he would walk away, as any other man treated so badly would have done. She’d been shocked when he’d contacted her.
She didn’t know how to handle it. Cassie told her to deny him access. She’d tried, but Josh only grew more determined. He’d cared, genuinely. Recalling how gently he’d held her when, not long after losing Noah, she’d sobbed in his arms, she gulped back a deep sense of shame. She’d misjudged him. Hurt him so badly.
When he’d died, even as she mourned him, she’d prayed it would all go away. That she could bury what had happened between them and carry on as normal. How could she have been so naïve? Ryan knew something. How much, Jemma didn’t know, but she’d sensed a change in him. He’d been withdrawn, watchful. She’d been calling out in her sleep, he’d said. How much had she unwittingly told him? She’d caught him several times lately standing over the cot staring at Liam. Not in wonderment, but studying him hard, as if analysing his features. The comment he’d made about his eye colour had made her blood run cold. What should she do? If she told him, she would lose him. If she didn’t, she felt she was losing him anyway.
Goose bumps prickling her flesh, as if the ghost of Josh had walked over her grave, she rubbed her arms and turned from the window, and her heart leapt in her chest.
‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’ Ryan asked from the doorway.
‘God, you almost gave me a heart attack.’ Jemma attempted a smile.
Ryan didn’t smile back.
‘I… rang in sick,’ Jemma stammered. ‘I didn’t feel too well this morning.’
Ryan nodded, but his eyes were narrow, his expression inscrutable. ‘Feeling better now?’ he asked after a second.
‘A bit.’ Jemma broke eye contact, smoothing a non-existent crease in the duvet as she walked towards him. ‘I think it’s that bug that’s going—’
‘Who were you talking to on the phone?’ Ryan cut across her.
‘No one,’ she said quickly. ‘I mean, no one important. Just a friend. Kelly, from school.’
A frown crossed Ryan’s face. ‘Not Cassie then?’ he asked bluntly.
‘I…’ Jemma scrambled for something to say. ‘She did ring, yes,’ she offered lamely.