“What are you doing with Violet?” she demanded. “She has a boyfriend you know.”
As their coffees were placed in front of them, Andrew sneered. “You’re just jealous that I’m with someone else now.”
Her face flushed red, but it was with anger, not envy or embarrassment. “I’m not jealous at all,” she replied, voice strong and steady. “I deserve to be treated far better than the way you’ve acted towards me. I refuse to be with anyone who would raise a hand to me for starters.” It still mortified her that she’d accepted his apologies, and the promises that he wouldn’t do it again. But lesson learned. She would never make that mistake again.
Intrigued, she watched his face change, and his voice soften, and saw regret cross his face. But was it real? “I am sorry about that. You know that isn’t the real me, I was just so stressed – my ex-wife was manipulating me.”
She gazed at him, one eyebrow raised in challenge. “The wife you were just shouting at in the street? The one who rushed to get your son out of there because she was scared you would hurt him too?”
It had just been a hunch, that it was still his wife, that it had been his child, but as he stared down at the wedding band on his finger, his face gave away the truth, even if his words didn’t. “Okay, the divorce isn’t totally finalised, but we are separated,” he said through tight lips.
“And your son?”
“He’s living with Louisa, but I’m a caring father,” he insisted. She rolled her eyes again, then changed the subject. His marital mess was nothing to do with her – she only cared about Violet.
“What are you doing with my friend?” she repeated. “She’s in love with Mike, and he with her. They’re getting married a year from now. You have no right to come between them.”
“Oh Beth, still so naive,” he laughed, so mockingly, and her face reddened again. “Look, she may have loved Mike once, but she doesn’t any more. He was her high school sweetheart, yes, but now she wants a real man.”
Beth wanted to throw up, or shut him up, or both, but he was on a roll now. “Violet is not content to stay in that backwater village forever, like he is. She wants to see the world, explore everything it has to offer, meet new people. She’s a free spirit, and chaining her down would break her, would make her angry and resentful, you know that. She’s outgrown Mike, outgrown your village, and she wants to be with me. And she’s told you as much, hasn’t she, that she wants me, that she wants freedom.”
It wasn’t a question, and Beth had no answer anyway. But his look of triumph was making her even more frustrated.
“Even Mike knows,” he continued, and with a sinking feeling she realised this was probably true. Perhaps not consciously, not yet, but he’d just confided in her about the distance between them, and Violet’s obsession with Andrew.
“I could tell her about you – let her know how you treated me in the last few weeks in France. Your violence, your manipulation. I could mention your wife and child – that would surely put her off. Who needs that kind of complication?” Her heart sank as she realised that she’d accepted the truth of his assertion, that Violet was destined to break up with Mike. Now she was just trying to bargain him into leaving Violet alone.
“But if you tell her that, she’ll just think it’s sour grapes, that you want me for yourself, and are trying to come between us.”
She paled. It wasn’t true, but would Violet believe it regardless? She’d already decided it was too late to confess her relationship with Andrew to her friend, so her threat was empty, and he knew it.
A grin crossed his face, and she shivered.
“Besides, I know how much you love Mike, and how much you want him. I’ve seen the way you look at him. What do you think your friend would say if she knew you were trying to steal her boyfriend from her? What a terrible betrayal, and you just settling down here and starting your new life, with new friends. Surely you don’t want them to dump you so soon?”
She gasped. “You wouldn’t!”
“Of course I would,” he sneered. “And it’s a small town Beth. I can convince Violet to ditch you, and tell everyone that you’re a backstabbing boyfriend-stealer, a spoilt drama queen who just wants to cause trouble. Just like your awful mother. But who knows, maybe I’ll tell them anyway.”
He laughed, but she felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. He wouldn’t do that, would he? Wouldn’t destroy her reputation? But she knew the truth. He would do it, would do it happily. He’d already lied, and twisted the reading he gave Violet in class, just to make her think that she should be with him instead of Mike. Which seemed to have worked.
As despair started to swallow her, his voice changed. He became conciliatory, friendly.
“I don’t want to do that Beth,” he said, voice sly. “Surely you know that I would prefer that we were all happy, that we were all friends, that we were all loved. And it would be so easy. Because surely it would be better for everyone, better for Mike, that he finds a new girlfriend? Someone who will put him first, who will soothe his heartache and help him get over Violet. Someone like you?”
A flush of hope started to spread through her chest, but she tried to shake it off. She knew it was wrong.
“How can it be wrong?” he purred. “You’d be helping your friend get what she wants and needs, emotionally and physically.” She shuddered at his implication, but he continued, unabashed. “And wouldn’t it be better to be her confidant in that, and support her decision – since the outcome is inevitable anyway?”
She shook her head, but her resolve was weakening as she started to believe the truth of his words.
“And you’ll be helping Mike too, comforting him, reassuring him, offering him new love, better love. Which will make Violet happy too, of course. What a wonderful friend, to assuage her guilt in breaking up with Mike by being there for him when she no longer can be.” His voice was becoming more confident with every word, and Beth was drowning in the inevitability of the picture he was painting – and trying, without much luck, to smother the small, devious part of her that was thrilled it could all work out so well, so blamelessly.
“And you’ll be helping yourself too,” Andrew continued. “Now that you want to stay here and become a teacher, you and Mike are ideal for each other. He wants to stay too, wants to raise a family here, and wants to love someone who doesn’t want to travel, doesn’t want to go off and see the world.”
The vision she’d had when the woman in gold had held her hands – her with a wedding ring, her with a baby – could it be Mike’s baby? Could her life really turn out so perfectly?
Andrew laughed triumphantly. “Of course it can turn out that way. The wheels are already in motion, all you have to do is continue the way you’ve been going. Agree with Violet, when she talks about me. Tell her that of course I could love her, of course she is worthy. And tell her that she has outgrown Mike, and her village, and deserves more from life.”
Beth blanched. Could she really manipulate her friend like that? Was it even true?
“Jesus Christ Beth, she’s already in love with me! She just needs someone’s permission to let Mike go. That’s all that’s holding her back now, her ties to her high school boyfriend, her guilt at hurting him if she leaves. She needs to be reassured that Mike will be okay – and he will be, with you there to swoop in and mend his broken heart.”
When he put it like that, she felt a little better about it all, but still, could she trust that all of this was true? Did Violet really love Andrew now, not Mike? She was certainly obsessing over him, but was it just a harmless crush on a teacher that would pass when the course ended, or what she really wanted?
“Plus, I can help you make Mike fall for you,” he said slyly. “Pair you up in class, slip you the odd love spell ingredient. It will be easy. He already trusts you as a friend – which is another reason you should help me, if you want that to stay true.”
His tone was threatening again, and a shiver of fear ran up her spine. Whe
ther Mike loved her or not, she would be totally devastated if she lost him altogether, if he wouldn’t even be friends with her. And she knew the man sitting opposite her would be quite happy to make that happen.
As Andrew pulled some money out of his wallet and threw it on the table between them, his tone became impatient again. “Beth, come on. You either encourage Violet to break up with Mike and turn to me – and get all that you want into the bargain – or I tell her all the very worst things about you, and she still ends up with me, but you’ll be miserable and without friends. It doesn’t bother me, because I win either way. It’s just up to you how you want your life to unfold.” And he stood up abruptly and walked out of the cafe.
So it was blackmail then. Which made it so much easier for her to decide. It would even make her mother proud of her, that she would be dating Mike. It really was win-win.
Beth smiled.
Chapter 28
A New Light
Rhiannon... Today…
Bright sunlight streaming in the window at 5am woke Rhiannon up, and she groaned. She loved summer, but the early dawns were challenging. At least the school holidays had started, so she could sleep in… Until a loud bang quickly followed by squeals of laughter from the room next to hers reminded her that she had to get up. It was her brother’s birthday tomorrow, and she’d promised she would spend all day baking food for the party.
Then she groaned again, as she remembered that today had been declared the perfect time for her to spend the day with a total stranger. She’d been putting off meeting Rose’s suddenly discovered seventeen-year-old granddaughter for three weeks, and her dad and Rose had grown tired of waiting.
Rolling out of bed with a sigh, she pulled on her jeans, then rifled through her drawer for a clean t-shirt. It was time to do more washing, but it would have to wait – there were only so many chores she could do in a day, and enduring several hours with the orphan girl while she churned out endless pies and cakes was going to be enough for today.
After casting a longing glance back at her cosy bed and its soft pillows, she headed downstairs for breakfast with her brother, then nervously made her way over to Rose’s ivy wreathed cottage. Meeting new people was not her favourite thing, and she was annoyed that her dad was so determined for her to become best friends with the girl from Australia. The girl who was the daughter of his first love. The girl who could have replaced her as her dad’s child, in a parallel universe where he had married Violet, not Beth.
She knew he was worried about her, and the fact that her relationship with Debbie and Sue had become so strained since her mum’s death – but that was inevitable, surely. They couldn’t understand what it was like to lose your mother when you were only sixteen, so it was awkward between them because the things they were interested in seemed superficial to her in light of her suffering. And they weren’t sure how to act around her anymore, so found it easier to do things without her, which she understood. But she figured that the gulf would heal eventually, given time.
And their last year of school would begin soon, so she was okay with hiding away from people and concentrating on her studies. Not that she actually knew what she wanted to do with her future, but she didn’t need a social life, and certainly not one engineered by others. While she did feel sorry for – Carlie, was that her name? – it annoyed her that somehow the girl had become her responsibility. Yet here she was.
Heart beating rapidly with nerves, she finally worked up the courage to knock on the cottage door. She’d been here a hundred times before, yet all of a sudden she felt like a stranger. Now that Rose had a real granddaughter, she was worried that she no longer deserved to feel such a bond with her. And despite the priestess’s assurances to the contrary, she feared Rose wouldn’t have time for her any more.
And what would this interloper be like? She didn’t understand how she could have never once been in touch with her grandmother. Left her sad and wondering all these years. Violet and her daughter must be pretty cold-hearted, to have ignored Rose all this time – until the girl decided to play up her family connection now that she needed her. Besides, the fact that the girl’s mother had been her own dad’s first love? That was just plain creepy.
For a moment she thought of fleeing, but before she could, the door swung open, and Rose’s face lit up as she pulled her into a hug and welcomed her the same way she always had.
The silver-haired priestess led her out to the kitchen, where a girl with long dark hair was perched on a chair in their glass-walled breakfast nook, looking embarrassed as she tried to finish her cereal. Rhiannon’s heart thawed a little as she saw how uncomfortable she was. It appeared that she wasn’t exactly delighted by the idea of spending the day with someone she didn’t know either.
“Sweetheart, this is Rhiannon, Mike’s daughter,” Rose said. “We were wondering if you could help her – it’s her little brother’s birthday tomorrow, and she needs a hand to make all the cakes and party food. I have to go in to work, but I said she could do the cooking here, so she wouldn’t ruin the surprise.”
Rhiannon giggled as Carlie rolled her eyes. It looked like she’d been completely unaware of their baking date, and was just as thrilled about it as she was. But Rose’s hopeful face pierced the defensive armour of both girls, and Rhiannon smiled as she watched some of the new arrival’s surliness fade, until finally she shrugged her shoulders and held out her hand.
“Ever feel like you’re part of a conspiracy?” the girl asked her, in a strange and unfamiliar accent, and Rhiannon nodded as she offered a wry smile in Rose’s direction.
“They have our best interests at heart, I’m sure,” she replied with a touch of sarcasm. “But I can do this at home, if you have other things to do. I don’t want to put you out.”
Carlie sighed, but shook her head. “It’s okay, I didn’t have anything planned for today,” she conceded. “I haven’t cooked for a while though, so I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.”
Rhiannon was amused that the girl was clearly as unexcited as she was to have a friendship forced upon her, which made her relax a bit. She’d been expecting someone needy and draining, but the defiant seventeen-year-old looked fiercely independent, and as though she would refuse any offer of help, even if she really needed it.
The thought softened her towards the stranger, and she reminded herself that Carlie was in a foreign country, all alone, trying to deal with a life-changing event that would send most people off the rails. She vowed to be a little more understanding. Perhaps sensing this, Rose left them to it and headed off to work. Both were shy at first, but slowly they relaxed and began to open up a little.
Despite her misgivings, Rhiannon found herself liking Carlie – she looked just as annoyed with the adults and their clumsy attempt to bring them together as she was, and seemed to be just as sceptical as her too, which made her feel better. And hadn’t she been yearning to meet someone who understood her own grief and loss?
“I’m so sorry about your parents,” she ventured, her voice shy, but kind. “Dad told me. I know how hard it was to lose my mum, so to lose both must be twice as bad, at least.”
She hadn’t meant to bring up her own loss, and hoped Carlie wouldn’t be upset that she was changing the subject back to herself. But the other girl expressed shock – clearly she hadn’t been told as much about Rhiannon as she’d learned about Carlie – then sympathy at her pain. She was genuinely empathetic, and asked her questions in a kind, compassionate way.
It made Rhiannon realise what a relief it was to be able to talk about her mum, and how she felt about her death, without having to censor her words, or worry that she was making the other person uncomfortable. But she should probably be listening to Carlie, whose bereavement was so much more recent than hers, not burdening her with her own grief. So she asked questions in return, trying to be as sensitive as the girl she was slowly getting to know.
In reply, Carlie forced a smile, but in her hesitant, halting sentences, Rhia
nnon could see that beneath her politeness and understanding, anger was still bubbling close to the surface. And as the dark-haired girl tried to push it back down, Rhiannon realised that a lot of her own fury had lifted. How odd, that meeting this stranger was making her understand how far she’d come on her own healing journey.
* * * * *
The next day, Rose and Carlie delivered the party food for Brodie’s birthday gathering. Impressed by all they’d whipped up, Mike allowed the girls to hide out in Rhiannon’s room for most of the day. And although she had been worried they wouldn’t have anything more to talk about once they’d revealed their stories of grief and loss, she was pleasantly surprised by how smoothly their conversation flowed, and how much she genuinely liked the angry, sad, yet somehow still-caring Australian teenager.
When Mike later knocked on the door and asked them to come down and sing Happy Birthday and help Brodie cut the cake, Rhiannon was actually smiling, and for the first time in almost a year, feeling genuinely happy. She almost laughed when she remembered Rose’s words – that being of service made you feel better about yourself, and that it could give you purpose when you were feeling lost. She’d doubted that could be true, yet in trying to help Carlie, she did feel a little better, a little more cheerful.
After watching her brother unwrap his presents, then setting him and his buddies up with a new game, she saw Carlie leaning against the wall looking sad, so she grabbed two plates of cake and led her outside into their back garden, seeing it through the stranger’s eyes.
It was beautiful, the scent of lavender perfuming the air, apple trees offering shade down the back, and the blue sky so vibrant overhead. As Rhiannon had a vision of the black clouds and threatening skies of the storms that had followed her around all winter, she marvelled at the healing power of the sunshine and its ability to warm the heart and lift the spirits.
Into the Storm: Into the Storm Trilogy Book One Page 31