by Susan Lewis
Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Susan Lewis
Title Page
Dedication
Author’s Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Book
Can love survive the test of time…?
When Lisa Martin and David Kirby were forced to part, they never dreamed they might one day have a second chance. Many years later, they meet again and it is clear that, despite everything that’s happened to them, they are still the big love of each other’s life. And nothing is going to keep them apart this time around. But then they are faced with a shocking truth.
However, David won’t be defeated. In spite of knowing this is a battle they can’t win, he decides to fight anyway, in the only way he knows how. When Lisa discovers what he intends she’s so horrified. Yet, through a chink in her fear, she can see the logic of what he’s suggesting. But can she bring herself to help him…?
About the Author
Susan Lewis is the bestselling author of twenty-seven novels. She is also the author of Just One More Day and One Day at a Time, the moving memoirs of her childhood in Bristol. Having resided in France for many years she now lives in Gloucestershire. Her website address is www.susanlewis.com
Susan is a supporter of the childhood bereavement charity, Winston’s Wish: www.winstonswish.org.uk and of the breast cancer charity, BUST: www.bustbristol.co.uk
Also by Susan Lewis
Fiction
A Class Apart
Dance While You Can
Stolen Beginnings
Darkest Longings
Obsession
Vengeance
Summer Madness
Last Resort
Wildfire
Chasing Dreams
Taking Chances
Cruel Venus
Strange Allure
Silent Truths
Wicked Beauty
Intimate Strangers
The Hornbeam Tree
The Mill House
A French Affair
Missing
Out of the Shadows
Lost Innocence
The Choice
Forgotten
Stolen
No Turning Back
Losing You
Memoir
Just One More Day
One Day at a Time
Dear Reader
Thank you for choosing Forgotten and welcome to the world of Lisa and David, the book’s two main characters. To go into any detail about them now would risk spoiling the story for you, but I can tell you that they both came to mean a great deal to me as I took the journey with them and I’m hopeful they will have the same effect on you.
It’s funny how people come into your life, quite unexpectedly, and end up influencing what comes next. I certainly hadn’t imagined myself writing about a member of parliament. If anyone had told me that I was going to make a romantic hero out of someone the public was holding in such low esteem at the time (I’m referring to the scandal of MPs’ expenses) I’m sure I’d have backed away as if they were trying to jinx me. But then I met an MP who was kind enough to offer a privileged insight into his world and an hour or so later I realised that a major character – David – was trying to find his way to me.
Over the past few years I have met more and more people whose lives have been changed completely thanks to a condition that almost no family will escape at some time or another. The way Lisa and David deal with this cruel turn of fate when it afflicts them, tearing their dreams apart and leaving them all but helpless to escape it, forms the main part of the book. This isn’t to say that their story is all struggle and no joy, because there are plenty of beautiful moments, full of tenderness and humour, as well as the kind of strength and togetherness that we would hope for should we ever find ourselves in their position. It is the relatives of those who have experienced this condition, their courage in the face of tragedy, and loyalty to those they love when they might not even be recognised any more that inspired me to tell Lisa and David’s story.
Whenever I write a book it is always with the hope that I will reach someone in a way that will make them feel less isolated or afraid of something life has thrown their way. I want to make them laugh and cry, feel pity and anger, as well as frustration and relief. Above all I aim to give a sense of hope and friendship where sometimes there might seem to be only darkness. Whether or not I succeed only you can say, which is why I would love to hear from you when you’ve finished reading Forgotten. If Lisa and David’s experiences touch you as much as I hope they will then please let me know, and perhaps we can share it with others on my Facebook page. Or you can write to me more personally through the Contact link on my website www.susanlewis.com.
Again, thank you for choosing this book and whether you’re reading it on the beach or in the bedroom, on a train or a plane, I hope you’ll find the journey as engrossing and moving as I did.
For Stella Elstob, a true friend,
with all my love and thanks
Chapter One
‘OH NO! THIS is like a dream coming true,’ Lisa Martin declared in a panic. ‘What am I going to do when I wake up and find out none of it’s real?’ Her jade-coloured eyes were showing equal amounts of laughter and misgiving as she looked around the house that was soon to be hers. Though she didn’t normally consider herself a pessimist, when life was treating her this well she couldn’t help feeling a tad concerned.
‘Yeah, like that’s really going to happen,’ her niece, Roxanne, retorted with a roll of her eyes. ‘No, don’t say any more or you’ll really start getting on my nerves. This is perfect, Lisa, and if you can’t accept perfect then you might as well give up now. Right?’ The question was directed at her mother, Amy, who appeared to be enjoying the moment between her sister and daughter.
‘Right,’ Amy agreed.
‘You don’t always have to side with her,’ Lisa complained.
Amy’s eyebrows rose. ‘Would you rather I said it’s all bound to end in disaster?’ she challenged.
Lisa looked faint.
‘It’s fantastic!’ Roxy insisted. ‘We’ve never even set foot in a house like this before, any of us, and now to think it’s going to be ours …’
‘Ours?’ Lisa cried, staging a revival.
‘Well, yours,’ Roxy conceded, ‘and David’s. Better not forget him, since he’s paying for it all.’
Relenting with a smile, while melting like a teenager, Lisa said, ‘And yours whenever you want to come.’
‘Oh good,’ Roxy piped up happily, ‘because we’ve already chosen our bedrooms.’
Lisa looked startled. ‘You have? Where was I when that happened?’
‘Hello? On the phone,’ Roxy reminded her. ‘“Oh darling, it’s so wonderful. I’m loving it more every time I see it, and the girls adore it too.”’
‘Too right we do,’ Amy confirmed, walking towards the sliding glass doors that vanis
hed into the walls when opened, but were currently spattered with rain and the sticky residue of installation pads.
Lisa heaved a little sigh of ecstasy.
They were in the magnificent, week-old Boffi kitchen of the spectacular Queen Anne manor that she and David would soon call home, admiring the brushed-granite work surfaces and chic, streamlined cabinets which occupied most of the east wing’s ground floor. Across the way, thinly veiled by a sweep of rain right now, the west wing with its long wall of beautifully arched French windows on the lower level, and fancy filigree railings that enclosed a long balcony on the upper, sat facing them with all the elegance of a courtesan showing off her superior assets. Inside this wing was the Romanesque swimming pool, with two luxurious en suite bedrooms above.
The main body of the house, which linked the two wings in a sedate sort of embrace, as though lending some of its older grandeur to the newer constructions, was mostly sitting room on the ground floor, plus a library for David, a spacious study for Lisa, and a large hexagonal entrance hall where a marble staircase rose to the landings above. Apart from the hall, cloakroom and David’s library, each of the downstairs rooms opened on to a deep pale stone terrace which descended in wide, low steps to a sunken courtyard below, where the landscapers were still at work.
Beyond the courtyard, and all around the house, the newly laid lawns were currently soaking up a downpour, while the short drive at the front of the manor which connected a set of black iron gates to the pale limestone facade was glistening in the wet between a pair of towering beech trees. Though the renovation was still some way off completion, it was already an exquisite home, made all the more so by its uninterrupted views down over the hillside to the glimmer and sweep of a lake that, today, misted by rain, was like an apparition coming and going across the valley floor.
As Roxy, who was a very busy eighteen-year-old, flipped out her mobile to take a call, Lisa wandered over to the kitchen window to link Amy’s arm.
‘It’s Granny,’ Roxy told them, ‘but I’ll take it out in the hall. The reception’s not very good in here.’
Barely registering her departure to go and speak to their mother, Lisa and Amy continued to gaze out at the view, each quietly pursuing her own thoughts, undisturbed by the hammer and drill of work going on around them. The day was so dreary that they could see their reflections in the glass almost as clearly as the scene beyond, and in spite of the trepidation in her heart, Lisa couldn’t help noticing her own smile.
‘Is it really happening?’ she whispered. ‘Can you pinch me please so I can make sure I’m not dreaming?’
Amy gave her a nip, then hugged her arm. ‘This is all yours,’ she told her softly, ‘and what’s more, it’s only the beginning.’
As Lisa’s heart caught on the thrill of it, her eyes returned to her reflection. She was tall and shapely with mesmerising green eyes, a wide, full-lipped mouth and a mane of ash-blonde hair that she invariably braided into a single French plait. At thirty-nine she was, according to David, even more sensuous now than she’d been when they’d first known one another almost twenty years ago. Whether or not that was true wasn’t for her to say, but she certainly hoped she had more sophistication and self-awareness than the gauche young thing she’d been back then.
‘To think you’ve waited this long,’ Amy sighed dreamily. ‘It has to feel worth it. I know it would to me.’ Though she was like Lisa in height and colouring, and many of their mannerisms were strikingly similar, she’d always lacked the aura that seemed to surround her sister. This used to be a problem when they were younger, but never was now, mainly because their lives had taken such different turns over the years – Amy’s to enduring marital bliss and domesticity, Lisa’s through a successful career and the kind of heartbreak she’d never want to experience again following a turbulent relationship that she was over now, so rarely discussed.
Out in the hall Roxy was saying to her grandmother, ‘No, David’s not here, but apparently he’s back at the weekend. Honest to God, Granny, I can so see why Lisa’s gone head over heels for him. He’s absolutely to die for. I mean, he might be quite a bit older than her, but you’d never know it from the way he looks and acts.’
‘He’s only fifty-three,’ Matilida retorted. ‘In my world that makes him a mere youngster.’ She gave a sigh. ‘To be honest, I am a bit worried about Lisa marrying an older man. It’s fine while you’re still young, you don’t think about getting old then, but later on … Anyway, we mustn’t look on the black side, must we, because I’m sure she knows what she’s doing, and the important thing for now is that you like David, because that’s what’ll mean the most to her.’
‘Absolutely no way could you not like him,’ Roxy insisted. ‘And she really deserves to be happy. I mean, I know she always goes on that she doesn’t mind being on her own, but it’s not right, is it, someone like her not having a man? She’s so gorgeous, and all my friends think she’s sex on legs.’
‘Mm,’ Matilda grunted disapprovingly, ‘I don’t know about that, but I can tell you this, it’s good to see the smile back on her face after all she went through with Tony, but don’t tell her I said that, because we mustn’t mention him, must we? So now, you just make sure you don’t go causing us any scandals when you’re up at Oxford, because as a politician’s wife Lisa’s going to have the spotlight on her from all sides, and I know you and your shenanigans, young lady, so don’t think I don’t.’
In the kitchen, Amy was saying teasingly, ‘So tell me, how many properties did he have to sell to buy this one?’
Lisa’s tone was mild as she said, ‘Only two. The flat in London and the house … well, the house.’
Amy cast her a sidelong glance. The house meant the family home that David’s now deceased wife had created over many years.
‘He signed the lion’s share of the business over to the darling daughter last week,’ Lisa added.
At that Amy’s eyes glinted. ‘Well, isn’t she a lucky girl,’ she commented tartly.
‘Indeed, since this now makes her the proud owner of an apartment block in the centre of Bristol, three town houses that she rents out on the floating harbour, and however many projects the company has in development.’
‘Plus her own personal pile right here on the lake. Have you found out yet where it is? Can you see it from here?’
‘No, apparently it’s too far over, and slanted more to the next lake than this one.’
Easily able to imagine what a desirable home it would be, Amy was shaking her head in quiet amazement, and, if the truth be told, no little envy. ‘I only wish we had a dad who was half as generous,’ she said ruefully. ‘Actually, it would be a start if he was half as rich.’
‘Not to mention alive,’ Lisa commented wryly. ‘Anyway, none of David’s properties – correction, Rosalind’s properties – is worth what they used to be, thanks to the economic downturn. Not that she’s going to suffer, I’m sure.’
‘And I’m presuming David has enough to get by without all these assets?’
Lisa’s eyes twinkled. ‘Apparently,’ she replied, ‘but we don’t get into big discussions about what he’s worth.’
‘Well, whatever it is, it’s obviously a lot less now than it was a month ago, thanks to his daddy generosity.’
‘Indeed,’ Lisa murmured. Being able to downplay David’s personal wealth, even to Amy, seemed important right now, when the country’s economy was still staggering towards a shaky recovery. In David’s position, as the honourable member for the West Country constituency of Northavon Valley, to be seen to be surviving too high on the hog was never going to play well with the electorate, especially while everyone was still extremely sensitive over the MPs’ expenses scandal. Fortunately, David had come out of that scurrilous affair relatively unscathed. However, he’d lately been treated to some unwelcome publicity over his haste in planning to marry again, and over this house, which, one of the local tabloids had gleefully reported, was costing somewhere north of two milli
on pounds. David’s only comment, delivered by Miles, his head of staff, was to remind the reporter who’d run the story that Mr Kirby’s business affairs were a matter of public record, and that his property portfolio had been built up long before he’d been elected to office. No mention had been made of Lisa, since it wasn’t an issue he was prepared to start defending himself over when his personal decisions were his own business and nobody else’s.
‘So, do you know if Rosalind’s seen this house yet?’ Amy asked, as Roxy came to join them at the window.
‘Oh God, we’re not talking about her, are we?’ Roxy protested. ‘I’m sorry, I know her mother died and everything, and it must be really hard for her, but hey, it happened eight months ago, so isn’t it time for her to start getting over it? And anyway, it’s not as if you were having an affair with her dad while her mother was still alive, is it, so I don’t get what her problem is.’
Lisa and Amy avoided exchanging glances, since these days nothing got past the vigilant Roxy. However, it was true David and Lisa had only started seeing one another after Catrina’s death, but they did have a past which neither Lisa nor Amy had yet got round to telling Roxy about. The fact that Rosalind knew at least something about it, however, had become abundantly clear when her father had informed her, less than a month ago, that he was intending to marry again. The shock of discovering he’d been in a secret relationship almost since her sainted mother had passed away had been bad enough, but on learning that his choice of bride was to be no less than the woman her dying mother had feared he was having an affair with … Well, Lisa hadn’t been there to witness the explosion, but she’d seen for herself how badly shaken it had left David, doting father that he was, so she wasn’t holding out too much hope of her and Rosalind becoming bosom pals any time soon.
‘You know, what really gets me,’ David had said on his return from breaking the news, ‘is that she’s a grown woman with a family of her own, yet she still seems to think she’s running my life.’
‘Girls are always very possessive of their dads,’ Lisa reminded him, remembering how she and Amy had always been with theirs until he’d died suddenly when she was twelve and Amy was fifteen.