Summer at Tiffany's (21 page)

Her hand reached for his arm. ‘Henry, please don't leave like this. I can't bear for you to go when you can't even look at me. I've told you – I love you. I want to be with you. Only you. Why isn't that enough?'

He blinked, his eyes cold. ‘Because it isn't. There's no commitment. No security. And I've spent long enough waiting for you, don't you think?'

‘But you are the only man I want. I will never leave you.'

‘And yet you won't commit to stay because it's like Gem said – you want to keep your options open.'

‘That wasn't what I meant.'

‘I heard you, Cass.'

‘She just made me cross, that's all. She's infuriating to talk to.'

‘Do you have
any
idea how it felt for me to overhear you talking to her – almost a complete stranger to you – about something that's so intrinsic to
us
?'

‘I didn't know . . . I didn't know it was going to come out the way it did. I didn't realize it was how I really felt. They weren't feelings that I'd consciously admitted to myself.'

‘So then you do admit it is how you really feel?' He closed his eyes, his face scrunched with pain and his fists balled, trying to contain himself as the emotions grew and the clock ticked. There was so much to say, too much . . .

Bloody Gem! Cassie swallowed hard, knowing time was already against her and she felt her own anger grow. Why was she always painted as the bad guy in this? ‘Have you ever
tried
seeing it from my point of view? Some might say that if you really loved me, you wouldn't ask me to go back into something I've worked so hard to get over and away from; if you loved me, you'd just accept you've got me, without having to have some kind of ownership. You're trying to push me into something I just don't believe in anymore.'

She dipped her head low, trying to get him to meet her eyes, to forgive her, to see that love was enough, but the expression on his face floored her and she pulled back sharply. He withdrew his hand from his pocket and reached for her left hand, raising it to eye level, her Tiffany solitaire winking back at her like a cheeky child. ‘Then why did you say, “Yes”?' he asked, the words spinning out slowly, his voice barely more than a whisper. It was exactly the same question Gem had asked last night – the one she didn't have an answer to, then or now.

‘Because . . .' she faltered. ‘I was just so happy to be with you I couldn't think beyond that moment. I wasn't even divorced when you proposed. I hadn't had time to take a breath.'

He blinked back slowly. ‘Well, you've got it now.'

‘What do you . . . ?' She couldn't finish. Her mouth felt dry, her heart pausing in its beats.

‘While I'm gone, you need to make a decision.' His voice was deeper than usual, torn and ragged by sharp emotions. ‘Do you want to be my wife or not? I don't have any doubts or fears about us, and I won't entertain “what ifs?”. I don't want to live a half-life. I won't.'

Her mouth parted as she willed the words to come out, but she felt stoppered by the distinction he'd made. She wanted to be
his
, but she didn't know whether she wanted to be anyone's wife again. That was the honest truth of it.

His eyes, red-rimmed and bluer than usual, pinned hers, reading her mind, and he looked down again with a short, scornful laugh, his hands on his hips. She watched as he shook his head fractionally as though in disbelief.

‘Henr—'

‘Henry!'

Beau's toff shout filled the terminal, his voice and spirits seemingly unaffected by last night's excesses. Henry half turned, acknowledging Beau's signalling with an abrupt nod of his head.

He turned back to her, exhaling heavily as his eyes roamed her like a familiar land, seemingly consigning the sight of her to memory. She felt hollowed out by the sight of him so ravaged and her eyes filled with tears – grief that he was leaving, grief that he was leaving like this, rushing into the void. And then his hands were on her cheeks, his mouth on hers as he kissed her with all the passion and desperation of their first kiss, his tears mingling with hers so that she didn't know where his sorrow ended and hers began.

He pulled away just a little, his forehead pressed to hers, his eyes squeezed shut as though the sight of her was painful to him now, and she inhaled the scent of him – beery though he was – with rising desperation. He was going. He was really going, even as their relationship stood on the precipice.

With effort he stepped back, his hands dropped down, off and away from her for the final time, it felt like.

‘Make your decision, Cass.'

And he turned and walked away, leaving both of them to head into the unknown.

‘It's definitely just a rocky patch,' Kelly said calmly through the screen as Cassie took another deep gulp of her vodka and tonic – no lemon: Henry had forgotten to buy them before he left and Cassie had found it hard to find any enthusiasm to get off the sofa at all for the past three days – not even for the precious lemons that were ‘de rig' for her perfect V&T. He had landed in Sydney two days ago now, and today was the launch date, the day he stepped onto that bottle-boat and wouldn't be safe and dry again for three months – and she had heard nothing. Not a text, not a tweet, not a peep.

‘You said that last time.'

‘And I was right then too. This is the same fight. Nothing's changed.'

‘Everything's changed! Now he knows what I really think!' Cassie wailed, finishing with a signature hiccup.

‘Well, it was going to have to come out one way or the other. Did you really think you could just go on putting it off?'

‘Yes!' Cassie cried, closing one eye and staring into the bottom of her glass with the other – it made her thighs look
huge
! ‘Oh God, why did he have to come over just
then
? A minute before, a minute after . . . It's all Suzy's fault, you know.'

Kelly arched an eyebrow as she sipped her water. ‘How?'

‘She bullied me into trying to talk her cousin out of getting married. She's only twenty and Suze thought it would be a great idea if I told her all about my own disastrous child-bride marriage!' Cassie threw her hands in the air. ‘Oh yes, great idea!'

‘Well, I can see her logic. You get to speak from experience.'

‘No! No! Because she conveniently forgot to mention that her cousin has a PhD in arguing. She'd convert the Pope to Buddhism and have Vladimir Putin consulting his auras within twenty minutes of meeting them. She's impossible to talk to – she just twists your words and makes you say things you never knew you . . .' She trailed off. See? Gem had done it again and she wasn't even in the room!

Kelly's head tipped to the side, a sympathetic smile on her face.

Cassie double-blinked anxiously. ‘What if this whole issue is too big for us to get past?'

‘There's no such thing. It's just a matter of how hard you're prepared to work to find a solution. It's a long road that has no turns, Cass.'

Cassie was quiet. There was no future for her and Henry if she decided against marrying again. He didn't want to be happily unmarried.

‘You think I should marry him, don't you?'

‘It's up to y—'

‘Yes or no? Gut response.'

‘Fine, yes, I do. You're blissful together. It's nauseating to watch, but I'll be honest – I have sometimes wondered whether your year out after you left Gil wasn't a little too successful,' Kelly said. ‘Being independent doesn't mean you have to be invincible.'

‘Do I look invincible to you right now?' Cassie asked sardonically, indicating to her lank hair, pale complexion and the almost-empty glass in her hand.

‘No,' Kelly conceded. ‘But maybe you should let Henry see you like this. He probably has no idea that you'd fall apart without him.'

Cassie spluttered, suddenly, with laughter.

‘What?'

‘I just had an image of Anouk's expression if she'd overheard you say I should let him see me looking like this! “Are you mad? Looking like that? What is wrong with you?”' Cassie cried, mimicking their friend's accent perfectly. ‘“No man should ever see his woman looking like that. It is a wonder to me that you two are still together. Go wash your hair and match your lingerie. That is an order.”'

Kelly laughed too. ‘Ha! That'd be nothing! She'd die on the spot if she saw the shoulder-boulder bras I just had to buy . . .'

Cassie stopped grinning. She hadn't dared bring up the topic of the pregnancy yet. Kelly had determinedly kept charge of the conversation from the start, emitting non-verbal clues not even to raise the issue, but now . . .

‘Really?' She kept her tone light.

Kelly nodded, looking down at her own bosom, which was impossible to gauge for size in a black silk shirt. ‘They're ballooning, actually.'

‘Oh right. Did that happen last time?' She was careful to keep any trace of hope from her voice. It had only been a week since their last lock-in, meaning Kelly was at eight weeks now, with only four to go till she was officially – and statistically – out of danger and Brett got to know he was going to be a father.

Kelly shook her head. ‘But that doesn't mean anything, though,' she added quickly.

‘No, no, I'm sure.'

‘I'm still losing this baby next week.'

Cassie winced at the brutality of her friend's words. ‘Kell, you don't know that for s—'

Kelly sniffed. ‘Yes, I do. I know the pattern. It happens next week.' She stared back hard at Cassie – a warning for her not to push back.

Cassie looked away. She knew these hard-hitting words were Kelly's way of managing her own instincts, which were willing her to hope, daring her to dream that maybe this time, this time they'd get through . . . She shifted position, tucking her legs beneath her on the sofa.

‘Well, then I guess I'd better get off my lazy arse and buy some lemons.'

There was a pause. ‘Lemons?'

Cassie held up her glass. ‘If we're going to make this a daily thing, I can't carry on drinking poorly made V&Ts. A girl's got to have standards, right?'

Kelly cracked a grateful smile, getting the unspoken point. ‘Listen, I'm flying in to London the week after next. Are you—'

Cassie's eyes widened in horror. ‘Kelly, you can't!'

There was a pause. ‘Why not?'

‘Because that will increase the risk of miscarrying. Even I know that!'

There was a heavy silence as Cassie realized she'd missed Kelly's cue, broken their cardinal rule.

‘Cass, you promised,' Kelly said stonily. ‘It doesn't help me to have you fighting me too.'

‘I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just—' She bit her lip, physically restraining herself from saying anything more, even though she practically vibrated from suppressed frustration. ‘Sorry.'

Kelly inspected her nails. ‘Besides, there's no actual evidence that flying increases the risk; it's nothing compared to what my own body can do to this baby.' For a second Kelly's face crumpled, every muscle contracting from the sheer force it took to hold back emotions stronger than hope. ‘Obviously I wouldn't fly if it
didn't
happen,' she said in a voice so tiny it was only the fact that her lips were moving that convinced Cassie she'd heard it at all.

Kelly fussed with her drink, struggling for composure as Cassie hated herself from her spot on her sofa 3,500 miles away. How could she have been so tactless? She'd made a promise.

‘So anyway, are you free on the Thursday?' Kelly tried again.

Cassie automatically went to nod ‘yes', but pulled a face halfway through. ‘Oh crap. Actually, I'm not sure. Possibly. I said I'd go to Cornwall with Suze and Arch for a bit, to help out with Velvet.'

Suzy had been wearing her down on the issue ever since Henry had left, although Cassie wasn't sure if it was in response to Cassie's utter dejection at the manner of Henry's departure – and his ultimatum – or Suzy's own growing panic at the thought of living cheek-by-jowl with Gem. Either way, Cassie had found herself somehow talked into a week's haitus, with the ‘possibility'of staying longer.

‘Suze doesn't know how taken up she's going to be with Archie yet and I'm worried she's going to murder her cousin.'

‘Oh. Well, never mind.' Kelly shrugged, but her disappointment was evident.

‘But look, let me see, OK? Nothing's firmed up yet. What are you coming over for, anyway?'

‘Bebe's up for Best International Designer at the BFAs.'

‘Oh God,' Cassie grimaced. ‘So you really do need some backup.'

‘God knows what she'll be like once she's raided her hotel minibar,' Kelly groaned. ‘I'll be babysitting a monster.'

‘Well . . .' Cassie thought hard. ‘Do you know what, even if I am down there, I could probably get back for the night anyway. I think there are regular flights from Newquay, which is nearby. I'm driving down with Suze, but I could maybe fly back early.'

‘OK, well let me know. It would be good to see you, and . . .' She hesitated. ‘Well, I would imagine you're going to need to cry on my shoulder as much as I'm going to cry on yours. Sometimes even vodka isn't enough, am I right?'

Cassie frowned, puzzled. She sensed they had moved topic. ‘Huh?'

Kelly gave a tense laugh. ‘Wow, OK, so maybe not then. You really are over it.'

Cassie's frown deepened. ‘Over what? What are you talking about?'

The smile disappeared from Kelly's face. ‘Well, Gil and Wiz, of course.'

The distance between them contracted at the mention of her former husband and friend's names, all the air in the room sucked out in a vacuum so that Cassie felt her face was pressed to the screen as she waited for clarity. ‘What about them?'