that I let you think – or that I wanted to cling on to. Ben admitted to me that he’d been in love with her since I first introduced her to the family. They didn’t do anything about it until one night when Nadia and I had had a row about something trivial that blew up out of all proportion. I drove off up to the fells and Ben came round while I was out. He found her and I suppose he comforted her. That’s when they slept together … It doesn’t make what he did any easier but it makes it more understandable, I suppose.’
She waited for him to continue, unwilling to break the thread now he’d started.
‘In other ways it made it harder for me – that they were in love for so long and she must have been thinking of leaving. I just wish that we could all have been honest with each other and split up. She did only sleep with him once, I think. She told me she kept trying to put it behind her and hoped we could still make a go of it with Seb. But when we were in that scan, the baby became so real, and she had to be honest with me.’
‘Last Christmas, after I found out the baby wasn’t mine, and I stormed out of the hospital, I drove around for hours. Eventually, I went over to Ben’s flat and had it out with him. He was as shocked as I was – or so he claimed. Nadia hadn’t told him that Seb might be his. He had no way of knowing that she and I hadn’t had sex for a long time.’
Lottie thought that still didn’t excuse Ben, but she kept quiet.
‘We didn’t come to blows but I said some really horrible stuff to him. I meant it at the time but now, I wish I hadn’t blown up, no matter how upset I was.’
‘So how did Nadia feel about it all?’ Lottie asked.
‘Devastated – not that I cared. I didn’t go back home because I didn’t want to see her. I tried to pretend she didn’t exist, and directed all my hurt at Ben. I checked into the only hotel with a vacancy because I couldn’t bear to see her or Ben or my mum and dad.’ He glanced down at his hands. ‘So, I basically spent last Christmas Day in a motorway service area, with Trevor, feeling sorry for myself. When I went back to the flat on Boxing Day, Nadia had gone. She’d packed up and left for Ben’s place and she’s stayed there ever since.’
‘Oh, Jay. You can’t beat yourself up for being so upset. What happened after Christmas?’
‘I gave up the flat when the lease was up and applied for the job at Firholme here because I knew it had accommodation. I thought it would be a way of hiding away from the world. I’ve wasted a whole year wallowing in misery.’
‘Not the whole year.’
‘No.’ His fingers closed over hers. ‘You’re right. You showed me how precious families are and how I could trust and love someone else again if I let go of all the fears and bitterness. I wasn’t as healed as I thought – then I go and make the same mistake again.’ He grasped Lottie’s hand. ‘Ben and I, we’ve decided to bury the hatchet and at least be civil with each other.’
‘I’m so pleased to hear that.’ Their fingers were entwined, each seeking and finding the trust they’d missed for so long. ‘I want to tell you something about Connor and me.’
He frowned, perhaps expecting a fresh shock. ‘What?’
‘It’s about the engagement and why it hurt so much when it ended. You see, Connor proposed to me at the end of a holiday in Cornwall. On a beach at sunset. He even went down on one knee, produced a ring and went for the whole rom com movie scene.’
‘He really is a piece of work,’ Jay murmured.
‘I bought into the fantasy too … and when he changed his mind and wanted people to believe we’d split up amicably I went along with that too. I felt humiliated and stupid that I’d let myself be so easily … conned. The last thing I wanted was pity. I was ashamed at being jilted, even though I hadn’t been the cause of the pain.’
He grasped her hand again. ‘Ashamed? You shouldn’t have felt ashamed and yet, I do know how it