Come Back to Me (24 page)

Amy had begun to doze while Alex was in the toilet, but when he came back he woke her up, flinging himself into his seat.

‘What?' she said, surprised.

His eyes were two bullets of frustration as he looked at her.

‘Nothing,' he answered crossly.

‘Al.' She put a hand on his leg and he brought his own hand across as though to move hers off, but then paused and patted it instead. He leaned back in his chair and exhaled a long sigh.

‘I have no fucking idea what I'm doing,' he said loudly.

The woman across the aisle from him, a toddler on her lap, turned to glare at them for a moment.

Under her breath, Amy said, ‘Great, thanks,' feeling tearful.

Alex was still staring at the ceiling of the plane. ‘Oh, for god's sake, don't jump to conclusions about what I mean.'

Her tearfulness turned to anger. ‘Well, if you don't want to be here …' she hissed.

Alex turned to her, looking irritated. ‘What? What, Amy? What should I do? Just parachute out of the plane, and set my course back to England? I think I'm pretty well committed to being here, don't you?'

Now the woman in the aisle was openly staring at them, alarmed. Amy turned away and leaned against the window. ‘Just get some sleep, Alex,' she said over her shoulder.

He looked at her sadly but didn't reply.

‘Mark, are you sure you don't want to talk about your dad?'

Mark's lips formed a sudden dam against the wine that sloshed back into his glass. ‘No, he's fine,' he said irritably, putting his glass down, rocking back on the chair and looking at Chloe, sensing there was more to come.

‘He didn't look very good earlier on,' she said tentatively. ‘Do you think you should have left him?'

‘Chloe, this afternoon it's been one long marriage-guidance session at my place. My parents are just pathetic. Their relationship is more like that of business partners than a married couple – I realised on the way here that they don't communicate, they transact. Neither of them will talk properly to the other, they're just locking horns like a pair of fighting stags. Mum left in a huff an hour or so before I did, then I watched Dad count out four sleeping tablets and wash
them down with whisky, which he had to go and buy himself since I've hidden the small stash of my booze he hasn't got through already. I don't think he'll be going anywhere for a while, and I fancied chatting with someone who's a bit more than semi-conscious tonight.'

Chloe looked riled at his supercilious tone. ‘Charming – I'm so glad you picked me,' she said as sarcastically as she could muster.

‘You're welcome,' he replied, lifting his glass to his mouth and tipping his head back while he took an enormous slug of wine.

‘So, what's going on with Alex?' he asked, eyeing her carefully. ‘When's he coming back?'

‘Soon,' she said. But she had paused a fraction too long before answering.

‘Soon?' He raised a prosecutorial eyebrow. Like a fox at a rabbit hole, he was scenting just how close he was to trapping her.

‘Mark, don't,' she began, her voice cracking slightly as she said it.

Various sarcastic comments ran through Mark's mind, but then he leaned forward, took her hand, and said, ‘What's going on, Chlo?'

She looked startled by the sudden intimacy of his gesture. His hand held hers, steadily, and he waited. Her mouth twitched a few times before she eventually answered with a bleak, ‘I don't know.'

‘I presume it's all to do with Julia?' he asked, leaning in to her.

‘Yes,' she whispered. ‘Have you seen her?' Mark could
hear the begging note in her voice, the desperation for any information he might impart.

‘Not since I saw her here last week,' he said grimly.

Chloe cracked. ‘Well, it appears her real name might be Amy. Jamie just told me. What the hell is all that about? Apparently, she was attacked while they were together.' Chloe had been toying with the stem of her wineglass, but now picked it up quickly and took a large gulp. ‘I just don't know what to think,' she said. ‘It was only a week ago, that awful night at the restaurant.
Just a week.
Some beautiful ex-girlfriend turns up out of the blue and my husband is immediately doing her bidding.'

‘I don't think you've got that quite right, Chloe,' Mark said, wondering why the hell he was allowing Alex any leeway.

‘Go on then,' she demanded. ‘How does it appear to you?'

‘Like there's a lot we don't know,' he suggested. ‘But any fool can see Alex loves you.'

‘Really?' Chloe asked pathetically.

Mark tried to hide his grimace. ‘Really.'

‘God, but why couldn't she be twenty-five stone and covered in boils? Why did she have to be so stunning?'

‘You're stunning.' The words were out before Mark thought about them. He tensed. But Chloe didn't take it quite the way he thought she might. She laughed.

‘Yeah, right.'

Mark didn't want to repeat himself but nor did he want to let it drop. So he said, ‘Of course you are. In fact, I was just looking at that photo,' he gestured to their wedding
picture, ‘and thinking that you look quite a lot like Julia there … when your hair was longer …' He trailed off.

Chloe's face had blanched.

‘What?' Mark asked warily. ‘What did I say?'

Chloe stared at Mark, dumbfounded. She was remembering all too clearly.

He thought I was her. At the station. When we first met.

She could picture his face quite clearly: tentative, hopeful recognition quickly replaced with politeness.

He thought I was her.

Oh my god. What was she, really, to Alex? Just a second-string replacement in the absence of his one true love?

Mark had rushed round to her chair. ‘Chloe, what is it?'

She pushed him away blindly. ‘Nothing.'

‘Jesus, I thought you were going to faint. Here –' He ran over to the tap and got her a glass of water, came back and placed it in front of her. Meanwhile, Chloe stared at the wedding photograph on the shelf, her favourite photo becoming an image of the two of them smiling like imbeciles while stupidly clinking glasses.

Was he thinking of her on our wedding day? When I walked down the aisle, did he pretend it was her until I came into sharp focus?

Was nothing real?

‘Chloe, please talk to me,' Mark was saying, squatting down beside her chair. ‘You're freaking me out.'

‘I think I just need to have some more wine,' Chloe said, pouring herself a generous top-up, putting the baby right to the back of her mind.

This obviously signalled to Mark that she was coming out of her reverie, and he went and sat down again on the chair opposite.

‘I'm sure Alex will get whatever it is out of his system pretty quickly,' he continued, oblivious to her thoughts. ‘There is something really wrong with that woman. She's gorgeous, but … complicated … a bit, well, weird.'

Out of his system? Who did Mark think he was talking about Alex to?

Chloe clenched her fists under the table. She had no idea why she had ever dated Mark when he was like this. Now was one of those moments when she could see clearly what Alex saw – a smug, condescending, arrogant man. She sifted through her memories, recalling how he had made her laugh, how he had seemed confident yet, at times, uncertain when they'd first met. Every now and then he would show his vulnerability, and because of those times she had hung in there, but finding it was like hunting through heavy law books for the one small paragraph that might turn a case – both exasperating and exhausting.

‘How can you be so … so cold about it?' Chloe asked
sharply, ignoring the twinge of conscience she felt thinking of law books and the fact that they should both be going through the Abbott case notes right now. How could Mark dismiss someone he'd sounded so excited about just a week or so ago in a couple of swift sentences? ‘Doesn't anyone ever get under your skin?'

Mark looked into his lap and gave a short bark of laughter. ‘You think I'm shallow?' he said, looking up at her.

‘No,' Chloe began, and then a surge of impatience overtook her. Why shouldn't she say what she thought? ‘Well, yes, actually – at times.'

‘Now we're getting to it,' he said, staring at her, a malevolent glint in his eye. ‘You expect too much of men, Chloe. We're not given to excesses of emotion. To women, things might be myriad shades of grey – but to men, it's pretty much just black and white.'

‘Not all men.'

As soon as she said it, she knew she'd made a mistake.

Mark snorted loudly and derisively. ‘I presume by that you mean Alex? Really, Chloe, I thought you'd be the last person to defend him at the moment, since he's proved to be so flighty.'

Chloe stood up abruptly, her wine glass wobbling dangerously as she did so. She was so enraged that she didn't notice Mark reaching out quickly to catch the glass before it toppled. She had lost all efforts at control now. She came at him, her fists flailing, ready to inflict what damage she could. ‘How
dare
you!' she cried. ‘How fucking dare you!'

She tried to connect, but Mark caught her wrists tightly with a strength that surprised her. She struggled with him
but he held on firmly, and the small bolts of pain that shot through her arms stopped her in her tracks. Her face was contorted with anger as she spat at him, ‘Why do you have to be so bloody horrible, Mark? Why do you have to be such an arrogant, condescending bastard? You're always so bloody rude. And you've always hated Alex. What has he ever done to you except be civil?'

‘He has you,' Mark murmured fiercely, holding her wrists tight.

‘What?' Shocked, she was suddenly still. ‘What do you mean?'

‘You know full well what I mean, Chloe,' he said, his voice full and deep. His grip on her wrists slackened and he leaned forward as though to kiss her. But she quickly stepped backwards.

‘You're outrageous!' she said, her voice high-pitched and shrill. ‘What on earth are you doing? You HAD me, Mark. A long time ago, you HAD me. And you blew it. You ruined it completely with your selfishness, your complete lack of … of …' She felt agitated, breathless, and sat down suddenly, putting her head in her hands, trying to resist the urge to sob. What the hell was going on with her life?

She heard the scrape of a chair as Mark drew his closer to hers. She could feel his breath on her face, even though she wouldn't look at him. He was quiet for a moment, and she waited, every nerve primed for what might come next.

‘Chloe.' His voice was a sigh. He wrapped his arms around her, and she held herself stiff but didn't push him away. ‘I know I ruined it. I know. I just didn't realise … what I had, how important it was, until it wasn't there any more.'

She could feel his chin resting on the top of her head. It felt so nice to be held. She closed her eyes and imagined they were Alex's arms wrapped around her, then wondered if that was what Alex did when he held her – imagined she was Julia – or if, at this exact moment, her husband's arms were wrapped around a stunning brunette. For a second, hatred for Alex pulsed through her, and she gasped at the strength of it.

The noise made Mark move. He pulled back from her and looked into her face. ‘What are you thinking, Chloe?' he asked.

She stared at Mark. She saw him every day. She thought she knew his every expression, but here, just at this moment, it seemed there was more kindness and concern in his features than she'd ever seen before.

He leaned towards her.

I don't know where Alex is, she thought blearily. Or who he is any more. Or even if he cares. And Mark is here. He's here for me, right now.

Mark saw how she was looking at him, and immediately pulled her close. As his lips pressed against hers, she blanked all other thoughts from her mind, just let herself feel his warm touch against her skin. As though brought back to life by it, heat was transmitted to her through that small, soft connection, and she felt herself stir, her own mouth beginning to respond in kind.

The plane journey was bringing back uncomfortable memories for Alex, of his journey from Australia ten years ago. Now he'd made another choice, and once again he was questioning the wisdom of it. Meanwhile, he was going through the motions, sitting as though in a cramped theatre, watching movies, sipping wine, eating questionable food, while they hurtled through the air in a reinforced metal rocket. He kept trying to focus on Amy and what she needed from him, but his thoughts reverted back to Chloe at every opportunity. Plus, now Mark was in their house, and he was helpless to do anything about that. And Chloe was vulnerable, and he had seen the way Mark looked at her – predatory – wolfish, almost, at times. Alex wasn't blind to the truth, even if he didn't always choose the best course of action in dealing with it.

He remembered the first time he had seen Chloe. It had
been Amy he was looking for, but through the brief cloud of disappointment he had focused enough to see the possibility of something else – the emergence of a new fork in his path. And so he had taken it, and never regretted it. Even after the past week he had never once wished himself back to a time before Chloe; he had only wished away the pain of it all. How on earth had he got into this, and how was he going to get out?

The lights were dimmed so they could get some sleep. There were so many forms of entertainment to choose from on the LCD screen in front of him that he couldn't seem to make a decision, but he knew he wouldn't rest. Amy appeared to be sleeping, though he thought he knew better. She was a little too still. Her head had fallen towards his shoulder, but the only thing connecting them was a few fine wisps of her hair. A little earlier, as he glanced towards her, he'd thought he saw the damp course of tears on her cheeks, but had feigned ignorance. They were sitting too close to others to be able to talk.

He leaned his head back, closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the drone of the engines. He wanted the practicalities of the court case to take precedence in his mind, for he had the feeling that getting Amy and himself through the next few days was going to be quite a task. But one thing kept coming back to him: that this wasn't over – and although he didn't know exactly what would happen during the next few days and weeks, he was starting to dread it. If only this aeroplane could have flown him further away from the inevitable, but, like everything else in life, it was moving inexorably forward.