The Vow - Debbie Howells Page 0,49
that she wouldn’t betray him. He’d even given her his grandmother’s engagement ring.
Were they happy, I asked him. When he looked evasive, I added, Your grandparents? When I told him that a ring conveys the joy or sorrow of its previous wearer, a shadow crossed his face. Clearly they hadn’t been. If you believe these things, as far as his marriage went, he’d already signed its death warrant.
All the time I listened to him talking about her, the penny had yet to drop that I’d once known Amy. I found out one evening, when he went to the bar to order drinks. At the table, I was deep in thought when my phone buzzed. But when I glanced at it, I’d realised it wasn’t coming from my phone. It was Matt’s.
When the face flashed up, shock washed over me. Recognising the woman, I felt the past come flooding back. I had never imagined she was this Amy. We’d been close at one time, until the end of one summer, when she’d suddenly dropped me without warning. Since, I’ve seen her only once. As a lawyer, I’d come across many unbelievable coincidences, but this one was too much – even for me. In an instant, everything fell into place. The behaviour Matt had described; that her ex-husband had left her. I had a feeling I knew where their house was, too. Even the thought of it fills me with dread. But what I didn’t know was how much Matt knew – about her past.
Once I’d discovered who she was, I became obsessively curious, unable to understand how someone like him was living with a woman like her. As our relationship developed, I was still wary, but his compassionate side drew me in. Then the day came when he told me how he felt. ‘You and me,’ he whispered. ‘Isn’t this how it should be?’ His eyes were earnest as he looked at me. ‘Until I met you, I didn’t know.’ Coming closer, his arms had gone around me and my deep frozen heart had started to thaw. To meet a man who wasn’t like the others, a man I liked, who wanted me, meant that I broke my own rules. Something told me Matt was worth waiting for.
But it hasn’t been at all easy. So many times he mentioned his reluctance to leave her, how he dreaded what state he’d find her in when he got home. He’d already told me how often he’d gone home to find her after a few drinks, lost in her own world, loud music blaring across the garden. He needed me to trust him, be patient. For a while, I was, but as more time passed, my patience wore thin. I’d listened to enough of his endless excuses about poor frigging Amy. So much so that I reached the point of no return.
After calling Matt and asking him to meet me after work, I knew exactly what I had to say. In the same bar off Brighton seafront where we always met, I waited for him, filled with sadness at the thought of what I had to say to him. When he came in, I watched his eyes light up as he walked towards me. A light that left as I started talking. ‘I can’t do this any more, Matt. You and me …’ I shook my head, not wanting to do this but knowing for my sanity that I had to. ‘I think we’ve come to the end of the road.’
In silence, he reached across the table, taking my hands in his. ‘This isn’t what I want.’
The look in his eyes was hollow, empty. ‘But I can imagine how you feel. It must be impossible for you.’
I’d hoped to shock him into action, but any hope I had of him seeing sense evaporated into the ether. There was no point in dragging it out. Getting up, I kissed him on the cheek, my heart aching as I walked away. But underneath, there was a much deeper sense of injustice that burned. Not for the first time, Amy had one over on me.
For a couple of weeks, I avoided Matt, before he called me again, asking if we could meet. Against my better judgement, I agreed. This time, he told me, he wasn’t spinning me a line. He knew now: he wanted to be with me.
The night he disappeared, he’d come to my flat. Fobbing Amy off with a story of a non-existent client, he