Chapter Twenty-Eight

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Present Day

It’s over fourteen hours before I see Gil again. I’ve practically been wearing a rut in the white painted floorboards of the cottage’s living room, pacing backwards and forwards in front of the French doors, waiting for him to return. Just after eleven, I hear the main door slam and I stand up.

Gil is still wearing the same dark trousers and dark shirt he had on last night and he looks as if he got about just as much sleep as I did. None.

I want to ask him where he’s been, if he’s okay, but I also know the bombshell I dropped last night gives me no right to ask those questions, no right to ask anything of him at all.

He strides past me through the sitting room without looking at me, jams a pod in the machine, and presses a button. When his coffee is ready, he takes it straight outside to the terrace.

Okay. So this is how it’s going to be. From enemies to not-quite-lovers to enemies again.

I hover in the doorway. Gil is facing away from me, deliberately, I guess, and I can’t blame him. If this were real life and I was in his shoes, I would do the same. No, scratch that. I’m not sure I could be this restrained. If Simon did this to me after our wedding, I think I’d push him over the deck railing.

But Gil has always been like this. One thing that I both admire about him but also irritates me the most is his iron-clad self-control. But I’ve never really understood it. Where was it that one night when he really needed it? The night of Megan’s accident? I’ve never even seen a chink in his armour since, but maybe that’s why. Maybe he feels worse about it than I give him credit for. Maybe he was determined to change, to atone in some way.

The hours tick by. Gil drinks three more cups of coffee, which I want to tell him is probably not good for his nerves, but I daren’t open my mouth and he says nothing to me. In fact, he doesn’t even look at me. It’s excruciating.

Evening closes in, and when it gets to about nine o’clock, my stomach rumbles. I’ve eaten nothing all day while I’ve been tiptoeing on eggshells around Gil. The room service menu is on the coffee table, so I pick it up, but it takes me ten minutes to pluck up the courage to venture out onto the deck. Gil is sitting at the little table near the railing, a row of empty miniature glass bottles lined up in front of him. From the order, I’d guess he started off with the whisky and bourbon, went on to tequila, gin and vodka and now has only vermouth left.

I clear my throat. ‘Do you … do you want something to eat? I was thinking of ordering room service.’ I’m definitely not in the mood to be seen in public, and I doubt he is either.

He turns his head slowly and looks at me for the first time today. ‘Fine.’

‘What do you want? I was thinking about getting—’

‘Whatever. I don’t care, Erin. Order whatever you like.’

I flinch at his tone. Usually, I’ll rush in if someone is annoyed with me, do or say something to defuse the situation and make things right, but I need to stick to my truth now I’ve said it, no matter how uncomfortable it is. But that doesn’t mean sitting in this fraught atmosphere isn’t chipping away at me. I’ve got to find some way to reach a truce with him, for his sake as well as mine.

‘I never wanted to hurt you,’ I say with a lump in my throat. ‘But I can’t help what I feel.’

He shoots me a savage look. ‘For Simon.’

I bite my lip and nod.

‘I hope the irony’s not lost on you – that those are the exact words I said to you the night we got together.’

Of course, I have no memory of this so I just keep quiet.

He shakes his head, his mouth twisting into a harsh smile. ‘I can’t believe what an idiot I was. Even though you’d been broken up with Simon for months, I held off telling you how I felt out of loyalty to him. Misguided loyalty, as it turns out.’

I look down at the menu in my hands. ‘You’re not an idiot, Gil.’

‘Yes, I am. For believing you were who I thought you were. For trusting you. With all of …’ He trails off, unwilling to expose himself that much. ‘What I can’t understand is why wait until now to say anything? Why not last month or last week or even when you reached the top of the aisle and you saw Simon and me standing there together? Why couldn’t you have made your decision then?’

I feel a deep sense of shame. Even though he doesn’t know what I know, he’s right. I could have said something a lot sooner, but I was being typical Erin, going along with what everybody else wants, not making any waves, thinking I could sort it all out on my own. ‘I’m sorry,’ I mumble again. Because that’s all I can say.

‘And you know what the real cherry on top is?’ Gil unscrews the lid on the vermouth, knocks it back in one go, and grimaces.

‘There are no seats on any flights out of here for the next three days, at least.’

I blink. He’s leaving?

Well of course he wants to leave. Isn’t that what I’ve wanted all along too? I’ve just been so focused on waking up that it didn’t enter my head that I could have bought a ticket and flown out of this awkward situation. He must be really desperate to see the back of me if he’s willing to stump up for a last-minute fare back across the Atlantic.

‘No flights at all?’

Gil screws the lid back on the bottle and lines it up with the rest. ‘Oh, there are flights, but they are all rammed full. Something to do with a storm or hurricane to the north-east of Guadeloupe yesterday, meaning there’s a lot of people wanting to head back to Europe whose flights were cancelled and every available standby seat is spoken for five times over.’

‘I had no idea …’ I suppose we’ve been in our honeymoon bubble, even if it hasn’t been much of a honeymoon.

‘So we’re stuck here …’

With each other, I add silently.

He closes his eyes, and I can tell the same images are flashing through his head that are through mine – us cooped up together in this cottage, studiously avoiding each other, trying to be civil when civil is the last thing we feel.

And then I have an idea.

‘Look … I understand that you’d be on a plane in the next forty seconds if you could, that you can’t stand the sight of me at the moment. But it’s going to be days until we can get out of here and I’ve got all these activities planned—’

‘Are you kidding me, Erin? Seriously?’ He stands up, pushing the chair back from the table with a clatter. ‘You’ve just taken a torpedo to our marriage and you want to do couples massages or go walking through the rain forest hand in hand, playing the part of the perfect happy honeymooners?’

He’s looking at me as if he’d like to blister my skin with the heat of his stare, and I can’t help it. Gil being oh-so-superior and oh-so-right flips all my trigger switches. It always has. Any sympathy I have for him is drowned out by the voices of a thousand old resentments. ‘I know this sounds bonkers, but hear me out before you bite my head off!’

He gives me this supercilious look and waves his hand as if he’s actually giving me permission. I’m tempted to … to … I don’t know what I’m tempted to do, but it’s going to involve blood and pain. And possibly a fall from a great height.

I remind myself that I am the bigger person. Always. I will not let him make me lose my cool. I take a moment and centre myself before starting again, even though my jaw muscles are so tight I can hardly move my mouth to speak. ‘I’m not saying we do things together . I’m suggesting we split the activities. Like, I’ll do the massage and you can do the zip lining, for example.’

Gil stops looking quite so smug. ‘That’s not a bad idea.’

If I weren’t so shocked he’s given me credit for something, that he’s actually agreeing with me, I might feel pleased with myself. I decide to press my advantage, knowing that this plan is the only way either of us is going to survive the rest of our honeymoon with our sanity intact.

‘This way, we won’t be pacing around in this atmosphere of fire and brimstone for the next few days. And then you can get an early flight out, I’ll get the one we booked home, and we never have to see each other again if we don’t want to.’

Gil’s expression had become thoughtful instead of haughty, but now it hardens again. I’ve gone too far, I realize. And I was so close to brokering a fragile truce as well. I shouldn’t have said that last bit, reminding him of our impending divorce … or annulment … or whatever the heck it’ll be.

‘What do you think?’

‘I agree.’

‘About me doing the massage and you doing the zip lining? Because we can switch if you want?’

‘To never having to see you again for the rest of my life.’ The way he delivers it, so seriously, without any of the evil sarcastic humour he usually employs, is an unexpected stab to my heart. I know Gil and I have always squabbled, but no one has ever despised me this thoroughly. And then he twists the knife once more, echoing my own words back to me. ‘If I don’t want to.’

‘I’m going to bed,’ I say, with the most dignity I can muster.

I take long strides towards the bedroom door, but Gil is too quick for me. He gets there first and stands in my way. ‘Not so fast …’

He takes a couple of pillows off the bed and throws them at me. ‘I’m sleeping in here …’ He nods in the direction of the living room. ‘Since you’re so desperate to get away from me, you can take the sofa.’