by Melissa Hill
Rachel smiled as Terri gently tucked a lock of Daisy’s blonde hair behind her ear. She was really so good with kids.
Gary just stood there, looking uncomfortable.
‘No, it is all my fault. I told Dad.’ Daisy began fiddling with the hem of her dress. ‘I told him what I thought about the ring.’
At the mention of a ring, the hair on the back of Rachel’s neck involuntarily stood up. And was it her imagination, or did Terri shoot her a nervous glance when Daisy said this?
‘What ring, Daisy?’ Rachel asked, coming closer.
Then again, she realised she was probably just hypersensitive about rings, considering what had happened to her own.
The little girl’s eyes were filled with tears. ‘Vanessa’s ring.’ She hiccupped loudly. ‘The Tiffany’s ring was supposed to fit Vanessa, but it didn’t. Mum always said that she and Dad were the right fit, and that when you found someone you really loved, everything fitted. But the ring doesn’t.’
Terri pulled her into a big hug. ‘I understand why you might think that, honey, but I suspect your mum might have meant something other than jewellery.’
Rachel raised an eyebrow. Vanessa had a Tiffany’s ring too?
‘My mum also said that Tiffany’s was a magical place, so maybe the ring my dad bought there didn’t fit Vanessa because she’s not the right person.’ She looked at Terri, her eyes red-rimmed. ‘I know she’s been keeping secrets from my dad. That’s why they’re fighting now.’
Rachel struggled to keep up. ‘Like Terri said, adults often fight, even when they love each other,’ she soothed, wondering what on earth was going on with Ethan and his girlfriend. And what was all this about a Tiffany’s ring that was supposed to fit, but didn’t?
‘It fitted you, though,’ Daisy said, breaking away from Terri and looking directly at Rachel.
She frowned. ‘What?’
‘The ring. Dad’s ring. The one you got by mistake. Dad said that it fitted you.’
Rachel wasn’t sure what was going on but Daisy certainly seemed like one very confused little girl. ‘Daisy, what makes you think that? How would I possibly—’
Gary stepped forward. ‘Ah, Rachel . . .’
‘What do you mean?’ she whispered, approaching Daisy.
Terri stood up and put her arm around Daisy’s shoulders. ‘Rachel, I think you and Gary need to have a chat. Gary?’ she urged and Rachel’s fiancé moved closer.
‘Terri’s right. We need to talk,’ he said gruffly. ‘Something happened in New York, something really weird. I was going to tell you but—’
A knot of unease started to grow in Rachel’s stomach. There was something very off about what Daisy had said, about this entire situation, actually. And she realised yet again that she was the only one in this room who didn’t know what it was all about.
‘A chat about what, Gary? What is it you were going to tell me?’ she asked, her mind racing. Just as she started to try to put the pieces together, Ethan Greene came rushing through the door.
‘Daisy!’ he cried, going to his daughter and engulfing her in his arms. ‘What were you thinking, slipping away like that without telling me? I was afraid you’d— Oh Rachel, hi.’ He stopped short when he caught sight of her standing close by, and again she knew instinctively that his multiple appearances at the bistro lately had nothing to do with concern for Gary after his accident. Nothing at all.
‘Where’s Vanessa?’ Daisy asked.
‘She went back to her mum’s house, buttercup.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘I’ll tell you all about it later.’
‘I told Rachel about the ring,’ his daughter said, and she saw Ethan cast a wary glance towards Gary, who stood impassive, now saying nothing.
As the tension in the room between Gary, Rachel and Ethan increased and seemed to make the air vibrate around them, Terri noticed that Daisy looked near to tears again.
‘Daisy, I’m going on a break now. Do you fancy sharing a nice big hot chocolate with me – with marshmallows?’ Terri suggested brightly and Daisy looked at her father for his permission.
‘It’s OK, honey, go with Terri. I’m just going to have a little chat with Rachel.’
Daisy beamed. ‘That’s great, Dad! Don’t forget what I told you, OK?’ she said, casting a conspiratorial glance at Rachel.
The problem was that Rachel seemed to be the only one who wasn’t in on the conspiracy. Terri, Ethan and Gary were clearly all privy to what she herself was missing and whatever it was, it was becoming more and more baffling by the second.
Terri took Daisy back out front, leaving Rachel with the two men. There was a momentary silence as she looked back and forth between them, unsure what to think.
‘OK,’ she said finally. ‘What’s going on here that I don’t know about?’
Chapter 43
‘Quite a lot, babe,’ Gary offered. He looked disdainfully at Ethan. ‘I’m sorry to tell you, Rachel, that this man here and your so-called best friend have been lying to you,’ he said solemnly.
Rachel looked at Ethan. ‘What is he talking about?’ she asked, and for the first time she noticed that Ethan seemed tired and defeated. Those typically lively blue eyes were flat and dulled.
‘You’re a good one to talk about lies,’ Ethan said to Gary.
‘Oh yeah? Tell us again about your book, Greene,’ Gary replied with a sneer. ‘The book you told Rachel all about at your cosy dinner.’
Rachel looked at Gary blankly, unable to figure out how on earth this was relevant. Gary knew all about her discussions during the dinner with Ethan that time, but she couldn’t understand why he was bringing it up now. Jealousy? He hadn’t come across as such before. ‘What does Ethan’s book have to do with anything?’ she asked.
‘There is no book, Rachel. There is no bloody book. It was just a big story, a big excuse to try to get into your knickers.’
‘Oh for Pete’s sake!’ Ethan glared angrily at the other man. ‘Why don’t you tell her why I was forced to come up with such a story in the first place?’
Gary shrugged. ‘Hell if I know. Because you were trying to manipulate her? And, anyway, if you were so sure, then why couldn’t you just say what you came here to say from the start?’
‘Because I didn’t want to hurt her, that’s why! Although you seem to have no problem with that and you’re supposed to be her fiancé.’
Rachel’s head was spinning with confusion. ‘There’s no book?’ she said to Ethan, who nodded grimly. ‘So what was all that about you coming here for research? And if you didn’t come here for that, then why did you? Clearly it’s something to do with Gary’s accident. Although Terri’s right: in retrospect, your concern for his well-being does seem over the top.’ Obviously there was more to Ethan Greene than met the eye, and for once Rachel realised that her friend’s initial suspicions seemed to have been founded on something after all.
‘I had a completely legitimate reason for coming here. But when it came down to it, I just couldn’t tell you. It’s stupid . . . I can’t explain it.’
‘Couldn’t tell me what, for crying out loud?’
‘About the ring.’ Terri had quietly re-entered the room. ‘Justin is looking after Daisy outside, and she’s fine,’ she told Ethan. Their eyes met and Rachel saw some kind of shared understanding pass between them. What was that all about? ‘I figured Gary might try to slither his way out of the truth,’ Terri went on. ‘Looks like I was right.’
By now Rachel was utterly bewildered. ‘My ring? The one I lost?’ She looked at Gary. ‘Slither out of . . . ? Can somebody please tell me what is going on as I’m completely lost,’ she demanded, suddenly irritated.
‘Gary didn’t buy that ring,’ Terri continued, before Gary could reply. ‘Ethan did.’
‘There’s no proof of that—’ Gary began, but Rachel cut him off.
‘But why would Ethan buy me a ring?’ Rachel said baffled. ‘He didn’t know me.’
‘I bought it for Vanessa,’ Ethan said gently,
as if she were a small child who wasn’t quite getting it.
He wasn’t wrong: Rachel wasn’t getting it.
‘But how would a ring that you bought for your girlfriend end up with—’
Then Rachel suddenly remembered the conversation she’d had with Ethan back at the hospital, when he mentioned losing something at the scene of the accident . . . then Gary’s half-hearted and, if she thought about it now, rather reluctant proposal when they exchanged gifts . . .
And just like that, coupled with Daisy’s comment about Vanessa’s ring being from Tiffany’s, all the pieces finally fell into place.
‘Oh my God,’ she gasped, turning to Gary, feeling sick. ‘It wasn’t yours. The bag, the Tiffany’s bag – it didn’t belong to you at all, did it?’
‘There’s nothing to say it belonged to him either—’ Gary began but Rachel put a hand up to stop him.
‘I’m sorry, Rachel, but the ring is mine,’ Ethan insisted quickly. ‘There was obviously a mix-up when Daisy and I helped him after the accident, but I didn’t discover it until the next day, when Vanessa went to open her gift and she got yours instead.’
Rachel tasted bile in her mouth. ‘I can’t believe that you gave me a ring that you didn’t buy,’ she said to Gary, tears filling her eyes. ‘You stole a ring that was meant for someone else? What kind of person would do something—’
‘Hold on! I didn’t steal anything.’
‘What do you call laying claim to something that is not rightfully yours?’ Ethan interjected hotly, and the two men glared at each other.
‘What was my gift?’ Rachel asked then, her tone robotic.
There was silence and Gary stared at his feet.
‘You said that you discovered the mistake when your girlfriend opened her gift,’ she said to Ethan before turning to Gary again. ‘What was I supposed to get?’ she repeated forcefully, knowing deep down that although it was something from Tiffany’s, it clearly wasn’t a diamond ring.
There was a long, tension-filled silence until eventually Terri spoke. ‘He bought you a charm bracelet,’ said her friend, clearly wanting to put her out of her misery.
A charm bracelet.
Rachel’s heart plunged to the depths of her stomach.
She wanted to die.
So Gary had been just as surprised as she was by the appearance of the engagement ring. Which could only mean one thing: he had never intended to propose to her in the first place.
And not only that, she realised now, mortified, but they all knew. Ethan, Gary, Terri, possibly even Justin, knew what had happened, had maybe even known all along. They had seen her dancing around like a happy loon about her so-called fairy-tale engagement, and yet none of them had bothered to enlighten her. And this, possibly more than anything else, hurt the hardest.
‘A charm bracelet,’ she said stonily, and in a quick flash of insight she recalled the Tiffany’s transaction on Gary’s credit-card statement, which in retrospect made perfect sense.
Ethan and Terri were telling the truth; this was no bad dream, no embarrassing nightmare from which she’d wake up and feel silly.
She looked at her fiancé with disdain. ‘You proposed to me with a ring that belonged to someone else?’ she said, her voice barely a whisper. ‘How could you? How could anyone stoop so low?’
Gary was reluctant to meet her gaze. ‘What was I supposed to do, Rachel? Tell you it was all a big mistake? You were over the moon about that ring and the proposal, and I knew that if I said something you would—’
‘Of course you should have said something! Instead you chose to make a complete fool of me by going along with this huge . . . charade!’ She wanted to die of embarrassment when she thought about her recent behaviour, all the plans she’d been making, not only for the wedding, but for the rest of their lives. She’d been such a fool.
‘I didn’t know what to do. It caught me by surprise too,’ he said quietly, seemingly unable to offer any other explanation.
Then Rachel looked at Terri, unable to believe that her best friend could have kept such a thing from her. Especially when Terri knew very well what it was like to be betrayed, given how her last relationship had ended. ‘So you knew about this too?’ she said, her voice hoarse.
Terri looked distraught. ‘Not until that first time Ethan came here. I had an inkling that something wasn’t right and then –’ she looked sideways at Gary ‘– he let it slip the night he came back from Wicklow, when you were out with Ethan. He’d had a few drinks and . . . Look, none of us wanted to hurt you, Rachel,’ she finished sadly. ‘We were just trying to figure out the best way to—’
‘And you, you were going to propose to your girlfriend with this ring?’ Rachel turned her attentions to Ethan. ‘You knew the whole time, and you lied barefaced right from the beginning. All this nonsense about being concerned for Gary, and being in Dublin to research some book. Christ, you must all think I’m some kind of idiot.’
‘Rachel, no, of course not,’ Ethan replied earnestly. ‘It’s just that I didn’t want to upset you. None of us did. And, to be frank, it wasn’t up to me. Gary should have been the one to tell you.’ Again he stared accusingly at Gary.
‘Rachel, Ethan’s telling the truth,’ Terri said. ‘He was trying to consider your feelings.’
‘Why would any of you think that leading me on this . . . this farce is considering my feelings?’ she exploded. ‘What kind of imbecile do you think I am?’ Much to her annoyance she began to sob and saw Terri move to comfort her. ‘No,’ she cried, stepping back. Tears stained her cheeks. ‘Don’t touch me. Don’t any one of you come near me.’
Then she thought of something else. ‘Where is the ring now?’ she asked, realising that its sudden disappearance no longer seemed so inexplicable. ‘Oh,’ she said then, answering her own question, ‘of course. I presume it’s back where it belongs?’ She remembered little Daisy’s comment earlier about the ring not being the right fit for Ethan’s girlfriend.
Well, how the hell could it be?
‘So what happened? Did you have a crisis of conscience or something?’ she asked Gary. But then why did he act so surprised when she admitted yesterday that it was lost? Christ, had he been upfront with her about anything?
‘As far as I was concerned it was your ring, and there’s no way I was handing it over just because some—’
‘It was me,’ Terri interjected guiltily. She looked at Ethan. ‘I helped Ethan get it back that time he was here. I knew that Gary wasn’t prepared to own up and I couldn’t let you—’
Gary took a step forward. ‘Look, there’s no proof that it was ever Greene’s.’
‘Save it, Gary,’ Rachel whispered. This was all becoming more mortifying and hurtful by the second. To think that all along the people she cared most about had been plotting and planning behind her back, and in the most patronising ways . . . ‘Don’t say another word to me, any of you. Stop trying to make excuses for your actions; you are all liars. Every last one of you.’
Terri reacted as if she had been slapped. ‘Please, Rachel . . .’ she began.
‘No, not another word,’ she said dully.
Gary went to move towards her and she held up her hand to stop him.
‘Ethan, I’m glad you got your ring back, and it’s on the right woman’s finger now,’ she told him.
Then she cast a withering glance at the two people she loved the most, and whom up until today she would have trusted with her life. ‘As for you two, as far as I’m concerned you’ve done nothing but lie, and I want nothing more to do with you.’
With that, Rachel walked out of the kitchen door, straight through the dining room of her beloved restaurant, and didn’t look back.
Chapter 44
When she was gone, Gary glared at Terri. ‘Are you happy now?’ he said. ‘Do you see what you’ve done?’
Terri was gobsmacked. ‘What I’ve done?’
‘Yeah. You’re the one who nicked the ring, to give it back to your boyfrien
d here.’ He looked disdainfully at Ethan. ‘The two of you seem to be in right cahoots these days.’
‘How dare you?’ Ethan replied, stepping forward, his jaw tight. ‘How dare you accuse us when all of this is your fault! The only reason I didn’t say anything right from the beginning was out of concern for Rachel.’
‘Bullshit. You were trying to get into her knickers. And when that didn’t work you thought you might try getting into Terri’s instead.’
Terri stood rooted to the spot, unable to believe what she was hearing.
Ethan, though, seemed to have no such problems. He took another step forward and, quick as you like, caught the other man by surprise – landing a well-placed punch directly under his right eye.
Gary stumbled, fell back onto a nearby worktable and crashed heavily to the floor.
‘Oh my God!’ Terri put a hand to her mouth. She looked at Ethan. ‘I can’t believe you did that.’
Ethan winced and gingerly held his right hand, already looking like he was regretting it big-time.
‘Well, after everything that’s happened I think he had it coming, don’t you?’ he said. ‘But disrespecting you like that, that was the last straw.’ He met Terri’s gaze, and was it her imagination or was there was a heavy charge to the air that hadn’t been there before?
It was the last thing she’d expected from a guy who seemed so mild-mannered he would hardly swat a fly. And the fact that he’d done it to defend her honour . . .
‘Especially when you’ve done so much to help me,’ Ethan continued, and just like that the air went out of Terri’s balloon.
Oh.
‘What the fuck . . . ?’ Gary was trying to stand up but still seemed dazed by the blow. And never mind being taken by surprise, Terri figured his male pride would have been seriously hurt from being decked by, for all intents and purposes, a schoolteacher. She smiled.
‘You deserved it and you know it,’ Ethan said, astounding Terri even further by going over and hauling Gary up from the floor.