she said after a moment, but her voice was thick. She went to walk past him, to walk away. ‘Think what you like, it doesn’t matter to me.’
‘No. Clearly only Harry does.’
The comment was like a punch, a quick one-two knocking her sideways. She turned. ‘What?’
He took a step towards her. ‘Who is he? I’d love to meet the guy, see exactly what it is about him that’s made the rest of us consolation prizes.’
‘You don’t know the first thing—’
‘I know what I just heard. And saw . . .’ He looked at her pityingly. ‘He must really be something.’
‘Fuck off.’ She may as well have slapped him.
He recoiled, looking down at the ground and then back at her again, but his calm had slipped now too; she could see the frustration flash through his eyes, and his voice, when he spoke again, was dangerously low. ‘Well, I guess that’s something of a move on from what you wanted from me on Sunday.’
Her eyes narrowed and she stepped towards him, only inches away now. ‘You know what?’ she whispered, a sneer twisting her smile. ‘I’m glad you walked out. I’m glad you came away with nothing. It would have been a massive mistake and I would always have regretted it. As it is, I can just forget about you instead. Move on, and pretend we never even met—’
Just then, the gallery door opened and a dazzling cone of light shone into the courtyard, lighting them up like statues.
‘Lee? What are you—?’ Matt stood darkly silhouetted in the doorway, jolting slightly as he took in the sight of her standing out here in the dark, so close, with Sam. ‘Oh, I didn’t realize—’
‘It’s not what you think,’ she said, immediately stepping out of Sam’s orbit and only serving to make herself look guilty as hell.
‘Actually, it’s exactly what you think,’ Sam contradicted with an almost lackadaisical tone. ‘But don’t worry, I’m leaving.’ He looked back at her, a new coldness in his eyes that she hadn’t seen before. ‘It looks like you’re all sorted for tonight,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You can get straight on with forgetting me.’
For a moment, their eyes held the conversation in silent abeyance. She had done it – broken the thread he had been determined to keep – but she couldn’t reply. Just like at the shoot on Monday, he could undo her with a look, and unsaid words and feelings were tumbling through her, too fast to sort. Harry, Sam, Matt – falling over each other, crowding her. Her usually ordered life was suddenly a mess.
Sam stared at her for another moment in a silent goodbye. Then he walked past her, patting Matt casually on the shoulder as he went by. ‘Sorry about that, mate. She’s all yours.’
Chapter Ten
‘Mama? Mama!’ It wasn’t so much the words that woke her as the voice – that high pitch, the tone of bewilderment in it, a slant of fear.
She turned with a groan, having to hold an arm over her face as the light assailed her. It took a moment to get her bearings. This wasn’t her bedroom. ‘Wha—?’
Jasper was standing over her in his pyjamas, his hair standing upright on the back of his head. ‘Why are you sleeping down here?’
She looked across the bed in alarm – memories coming back in flashes – but it was empty, her velvet dress a crushed heap on the floor, her shoes toppled onto their sides, facing in opposite directions. ‘Oh God!’ she said with a start, trying to sit up but being forced back by the pickaxes being swung inside her skull. ‘Ow.’
‘Are you sick?’
She looked up at him, seeing the two-thirds-empty whisky bottle on the bedside table, the eggcups beside it. He had found that amusing, she recalled. Just the sight of it now made her stomach heave. ‘A little bit. But I’ll be okay.’ She tried moving again, more slowly this time.
What time was it? What day? . . . Oh God, was it Friday? Did she have to be a functioning adult today?
‘Are you ready for nursery?’ she mumbled, forcing herself to go through the motions, knowing it would mean she had to sit up, move . . . She was the worst mother in the world.
‘No. I’m hungry.’
Of course he was. He was five years old, the poor thing. He shouldn’t have to make his own breakfast. ‘Okay, well, we’ll get something sorted.’ The effort it took just to speak . . .