This Man Confessed (20 page)

“Oh, everything’s in order, then?”

“Yes, everything.” I sound short and terse, but I’m trying my best not to be.

“Are you okay, flower?” My boss’s concern is clear, when he should actually be telling me to buck up and answer him properly.

I stop typing and turn to face my cuddly bear of an employer. “I’m sorry. Yes, I’m fine, but I’ve got a heap of things I want to get done before the day’s out.” I mentally applaud myself for blagging my way through that whole little speech.

“Excellent!” He laughs. “I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ll be in my office.” He lifts from the desk and for the first time in four years, it doesn’t creak, but I still wince anyway.

“Ava, I’m sorry to bother you,” Sal says, sounding apprehensive.

“What’s up, Sal?” I look up at our plain-Jane turned office siren, and force a smile, until I see the plaid skirt. It’s back, and I was so busy throwing cautionary looks at everyone when I arrived this morning that I hadn’t noticed. I also hadn’t noticed the lack of polished nails or scoop neck top. Or the face that looks like it’s just been dealt the most dreadful news. She’s been dumped.

“Patrick has asked me to run through all of the invoices due for payment. Here’s a list.” She hands me a printout of clients. “He’d like you all to gently remind your clients so we get the payments on time.”

I frown and cast my eyes over the spreadsheet. “But they’re not due yet. I can’t remind them when they’ve not even forgotten.”

She shrugs. “I’m just the messenger.”

“He’s never asked us to do this before.”

“I’m just the messenger!” she snaps, and I recoil in my chair. Then she bursts into tears. I should be jumping up and soothing her, but I’m just sitting here, watching her wail all over my desk. She’s snorting and sniffling, attracting the attention of everyone, including Patrick, who has ventured from his office to see what the commotion is all about, but he retreats hastily when he spots Sal in tears. Tom and Victoria sit tapping their pens, neither one of them rushing over to comfort Sal, so it’s down to me to sort her out. I stand, taking Sal’s elbow and leading her into the toilets, where I stuff her hands full of tissue and wait silently for her to pull herself together.

After a good five minutes, she finally speaks. “I hate men.”

My heart breaks a little for her. “Things not too good between you and—”

“Don’t say his name!” she blurts out. “I never want to hear it again.”

It’s a good job because I can’t remember it. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She rubs away at her cheeks. There is no makeup transferring onto the tissue. She has well and truly returned to boring Sal.

“He’s here, then he’s not. He calls, then he doesn’t. What does that mean?” She looks at me expectantly, like I might know the answer.

“You mean he’s messing you around?”

“I’m on call when he wants, so yes. I sit around waiting for him to ring me, and when he does want to see me, it’s lovely, but all he wants to talk about is me. My friends. My job.” She sniffles a bit more. “When will he want to have sex?”

I cough on a laugh. “You’re worried because he hasn’t tried to get you into bed?”

“Yes!” She collapses against the wall. “I don’t know how much more we can
talk
.”

“It’s nice that he wants to get to know you, Sal. Too many men are after one thing.” Is she sexually frustrated? Or is she sexually clueless? Has she ever even had sex? I can’t imagine it, and if I go by the deepening red of her cheeks, then I think I might have my answer. Sal’s a virgin? Fucking hell! How old is she, anyway?

Victoria’s head pops around the door, halting my intended interrogation tactics. “Ava, your phone’s ringing off the hook.” She can’t resist a quick inspection of herself in the mirror before she leaves.

“Sal, I’d better get that.” It might be Jesse, and he’ll be beside himself. “Will you be okay?”

She nods, sniffles, and blows her nose before running her teary eyes all over me. “Are you feeling better?” she asks.

“Yes.” I frown, forgetting my recent absences from work. I’m not ready to share my news yet.

“You don’t look it. What’s wrong, anyway?”

I search my brain for a feasible reason for my constant dashing to the toilet and bad moods. “Tummy bug” is the best that I come up with.

“And married life? Good? Honeymoon?”

I stand for a few silent moments, wondering how this turned around on me and where her usual genuine tone has gone. “All great,” I lie. “Maybe we’ll catch a holiday soon. Jesse’s busy.” I lie again, but Sal is one of the few people in my life who hasn’t worked out my bad habit, so I’m confident that I’ve not been rumbled. I leave her before she can pry any further and rush back to my desk, hoping to find a mass of missed calls from Jesse. I’m sorely disappointed. It’s Ruth Quinn. I haven’t spoken to her since I abandoned our meeting, and I’m not sure I want to, but it starts wailing again in my hand. I don’t need to call her back. She’s going to call me until I answer, and I can’t avoid her forever.

“Hello, Ruth.” I sound normal enough.

“Ava, how are you?” She sounds normal, too.

“Good, thank you.”

“I was waiting for you to call. Did you forget about me?” She laughs.

Actually, I did. Her lesbian crush has made way for other more important things. “Not at all, Ruth. I was going to call you later.” I’m lying through my teeth.

“Oh, well, I beat you to it. Can we meet tomorrow?”

I sink into my chair, my mind whizzing through a million excuses to put her off, but I know I have to face this head on. I can be professional. “Sure. How about one-ish?”

“Perfect. I look forward to it. Bye!” She hangs up, and I hang my head, but soon snap it back up when Tom coughs.

He lowers his fashion specs to the end of his nose. “She’s been dumped?” he asks.

“It’s complicated.” I brush him off and start to mark up some drawings, but something catches my attention outside the office.

My brother.

He’s standing on the pavement looking into the office and after what seems like an age of us staring at each other, he pushes his way through the door. “Hi.” He smiles.

My hand comes up in a little wave. “Hi,” I whisper. We’re in that awkward place again.

“Lunch?” he asks hopefully.

I smile and collect my bag, joining him at the front of the office. My simmering anger has cooled, but I’ll restoke it later. Right now, I want to fix things with Dan, get things on track before he goes back to Australia. He’s been a complete arsehole, but I can’t hold grudges, not with my brother. “Tom, I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Hmmm,” he replies. I look back and see him staring dreamily at Dan. “Bye, Ava’s brother,” he croons, waving a limp wrist. I purse my lips and shake my head, especially when Dan’s eyes widen in alarm and he starts walking backward.

“Urm, yeah.” He coughs and straightens his shoulders in an obvious attempt to make himself look more manly. “See ya.” His voice has gone deeper, too.

I laugh. “Come on.” I push Dan through the door. “You have an admirer.”

“Great,” he quips. “Not that I’m homophobic or anything. You know, whatever tickles your fancy.”

“I think Tom wants to tickle
your
fancy.”

“Ava!” He looks at me in horror, but then breaks out in a grin. We’re going to be okay.

Dan sets down the coffees and his sandwich, and I immediately tip three sachets of sugar into my cup, momentarily unaware that what I’m doing is completely out of character, until I look up and see Dan’s brow all knitted as he watches me stir it in. “Since when have you taken sugar in your coffee?”

I freeze midstir, frantically searching my brain for a viable excuse. We’ve not talked, but things are comfortable. Advising him that I’m pregnant will catapult us straight back to awkwardness. “I’m knackered. I need a sugar hit.” It’s the best I come up with.

“You look tired.” He sits down, eyeing me suspiciously.

“I
am
tired,” I admit. No hair twiddling needed.

“Why?”

“Work stress.” Half true, but now I’m fighting my hands to keep them on the table. “So, you’re okay?”

“Kate told me to take a leap, but I’m sure you know that already.” He unwraps his sandwich and takes a bite.

“You should never have gone there, and you really shouldn’t have gone there on my wedding day.”

“Yeah, I was out of line. I’m sorry.” He reaches over and places his hand over mine. “We’ve never had cross words.”

“I know. It was horrible.”

“It was my fault.”

“It was.” I grin, and he dips his finger in the froth of my coffee and flicks it at my nose. “Hey!”

“Congratulations, anyway.” He smiles.

“What?” I blurt.

“I never congratulated you on your actual wedding day. I was too busy being an arsehole.”

“Oh, thanks.” The relief that takes hold makes me sag in my chair, but just as quickly, I’m stiff as a board. Matt knows, and he has been doing a fantastic job of keeping my parents informed and up-to-date on my love life. He’ll be like a pig in shit over this. That cooling fury has just boiled over into the realms of panic. I quickly disregard the possibility that he’s called my parents already because if he had, then Dan would know, and he wouldn’t be sitting opposite me happily chomping his way through a tuna melt. I need to get to Matt before he gets to my parents. Or I could just ring my parents and tell them myself. But I want to see them with Jesse. I want to do this bit right, make it special.

“You okay?” Dan’s worried tone pulls me from yet more mental meltdown.

“Yeah, so when are you going back?”

“I need to check flights.” He dabs his mouth with his napkin and proceeds to launch into a proper apology speech.

I spend the next half hour listening, nodding, yes-ing and no-ing, but I’m a million miles away from the conversation, my head struggling to decide on what to do for the best. Why hasn’t Matt called them already?

“You’ll get sacked.”

“Huh?” I glance down at my Rolex, noting it’s two fifteen. I’m already late, but I feel no sense of urgency to hurry back to the office. The only urgency I have is to resolve my little Matt issue once and for all. “Yeah, I’d better shoot.”

“Nice watch.” He nods at my wrist.

“Wedding present.” I stand and brush myself down. “Which way are you headed?”

“Back to Harvey’s.”

“Okay, will you call me? I mean, you won’t just leave, will you?”

His eyes warm and he stands before pulling me into him and giving me the biggest cuddle. “Of course not.” He kisses my head. “Let’s not fall out again, okay?”

“Okay. Keep it in your trousers then.”

“I promise,” he assures me. “Take care.”

“You, too.” I leave Dan, but instead of going to the office, I call in sick again and go to get my car. I’m walking on thin ice, but this really cannot wait. Matt won’t be home, but he’ll be at his office, and I really don’t care where I verbally bash him.

B
ut he’s not at his office, and he hasn’t been for weeks. After driving across the city in midafternoon traffic, I pulled up at the firm where he works, only to be told that Matt lost his job a few weeks ago.

Despite his misfortune, though, I don’t feel pity or concern. Nothing is going to damp down my resentment and contempt. I sit in my car and pull my phone from my bag, full of determination. I’ll track him down.

It rings once. “Ava?”

I was expecting a voice laced with smugness and deep satisfaction, so when I hear this one, which is broken and strained, I’m thrown completely. It takes me a few moments to piece a sentence together and when I do, it’s not at all what I had intended to say. “Are you okay?”

He laughs, but it’s weak. “Why don’t you ask your husband?”

The back of my head hits the headrest of my seat, and I stare up at the ceiling of my car. I should have predicted this. “How bad?”

“Oh, just a couple of broken ribs and a black eye. Your husband knows how to do a job properly, I’ll give him that.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Because I want everything he has with you. Or I did. Kate took great pleasure in telling me you were marrying him, and then that letter fell on my doormat and I wondered why you would be seeking an abortion if you were married, so I guessed he didn’t know. I took a chance. Why are you having an abortion?”

“I’m not.”

“Then why—”

“Because I was shocked!” I shout defensively. I’m not explaining myself to him. An uncomfortable silence falls down the line, but I’m the first to break it. “I think this is where you give up, Matt.”

“Well, I won’t be setting myself up for another beating from your unhinged husband. Not even
you
are worth the pain I’m in right now. Oh, and don’t worry about Elizabeth and Joseph. I’ve been given a little taste of what will happen if I share your news. Can I suggest that you get your address changed so I don’t receive any of your shit in the future?” He hangs up, and I stare down at my phone in disbelief. I didn’t blast him with half of the words I’ve been mentally preparing throughout the day. I didn’t get to spit my hatred at him, or even slap his face. Despite that, though, it’s one more thing ticked off my list of
issues
. Sarah has apologized, for what it’s worth, but she’s gone and that’s all that matters. Kate and Sam are together, and Kate and Dan are not. I’ve made friends with my brother, and Matt has been trampled. But what I really need to be doing is finding my husband and making friends with him. I chuck my phone on the passenger seat and make my way back toward the city.

I feel like I’m on a cleansing mission, and it’s right now that I decide to tackle the final issue tomorrow. Mikael. I’ve still not heard from him, but I’ll call him. I’ll beat him to the punch. I’m full of determination to eradicate this final
issue
. There’s nothing he can say, nothing he can tell me, so I don’t know what the point of our
meeting
will be.

As I’m driving over London Bridge, I glance up to my rearview mirror and spot a familiar car. Jesse’s car. He’s dipping in and out of the traffic in his usual haphazard style, overtaking and generally causing traffic mayhem in his wake. I spend a few moments flicking my eyes between the road and my rearview mirror, the potential of what I’m about to face slowly settling in the pit of my stomach. He’s been following me, which means he has followed me to Matt’s office, which means he is going to hit the fucking roof. I’m not going to try and convince myself that Jesse wouldn’t know where Matt worked.

I know it’s him, but that doesn’t stop me taking a right, and then a right, and then a right again, bringing me back to where I started, and as I knew it would be, the DBS is still tailing me a few cars behind. I feel around on the seat for my phone and stab at the buttons.

“Yes?” he spits out, curt and clipped.

“Nice drive?” I ask.

“What?”

“Are you having a nice drive?” I repeat myself, this time the words pushed through clenched teeth.

“Ava, what the fuck are you talking about? And when I send John to fetch you, get in his fucking car.”

I glance back up to my rearview mirror, just to check I’m not imagining things. I’m not. “I’m talking about you following me.”

“What?” he yells impatiently. “Ava, I haven’t got time for fucking riddles.”

“I’m not talking in riddles, Jesse. Why the hell are you following me?”

“I’m not following you, Ava.”

“So I suppose there are hundreds of Aston Martins driving around London, and one just
happens
to be following me.”

Silence falls down the phone line, then his heavy breathing starts. “You’re driving?”

“Yes!” I shriek. “I’m driving around in bloody circles, and you’re following me. You’d make a shit detective!”

“My car’s following you?”

“Yes!” I actually hit my steering wheel in a temper.

“Ava, baby, I’m not driving my car. I’m at Lusso.” He doesn’t sound impatient anymore. He sounds concerned.

I take another look in my mirror and find the DBS is now only one car behind me, drifting in and out of my sight. “But it’s your car,” I say quietly.

“Fuck!” he roars, and I instinctively pull the phone away from my ear. “John!”

“Jesse? What’s going on?” My stomach is suddenly a knot of panic at his reaction.

“My car’s been stolen.”

“Stolen?”

“Where are you?” he asks.

Frantically looking around, I search for something familiar. “I’m on the Embankment, driving toward the city.”

“John! The Embankment. City bound. Call her in two.” I hear car doors closing. “Baby, listen to me. Just keep driving, okay?”

“Okay,” I agree, my earlier anger giving way to pure fear.

“I’ve got to put the phone down now.”

“I don’t want you to,” I murmur. “Stay on the phone, please.”

“Ava, I’ve got to put the phone down. John’s going to call you as soon as I hang up. Put it on loudspeaker and place it in your lap so you can concentrate. Understand?”

He’s trying to stay calm, but he’s failing to conceal his distress. It’s thick in his husky voice, and I’m frightened by it.

“Ava, baby, tell me you understand!”

“I understand,” I whisper, and then the distinctive roar of a motorbike pours down the line. One of Jesse’s bikes. The phone goes dead.

My heart has gone berserk and is punching its way through my chest, my hand is visibly shaking on the wheel and my eyes are glazing over with panic-fuelled tears. When my phone starts ringing, I fumble with the keypad until I manage to connect the call.

“John?”

“Hey, girl, are you on hands free?”

“No, wait.” I quickly place the call on loudspeaker before dropping my phone into my lap and replacing my hand on the wheel, gripping harder to try and stop the shakes. “I’m done. I’ve done it.”

“S’all good, girl.” He sounds so calm. “Just take a quick peek and tell me how far back Jesse’s car is.”

I do as I’m told. “It’s only one car behind.”

He hums a little. “I want you to drive as slowly as possible, without looking suspicious. Just below the limit, you got it?”

I instantly ease off the accelerator a little. “Okay.”

“Good girl. Now, tell me exactly where you are.”

I glance to my left. “I’m approaching Millennium Bridge.”

“That’s good,” he muses. “Concentrate on the road now.”

“Okay. Why are you so calm?” An air of serenity is traveling down the line and calming me, which is crazy, considering the source of it—a giant, mean-looking, wraparound-wearing black man, who oozes terror.

“One crazy motherfucker is enough, don’t you think?”

I manage a small smile through my growing fear. “Yes.”

“Now, tell me how you’ve been today.” He asks it like we’re having a perfectly normal conversation.

“Fine. I’ve been fine.” What sort of question is that when I’m being chased down in a car?

“He’ll be an extraordinary daddy, Ava.” John’s softly spoken words seep from the phone and seem to linger in the closed air around me, briefly pulling me away from this awful situation and putting a smile on my face.

“I know.” I can’t see John, but if I could, I know I would see that gold tooth.

“So you two are going to stop fucking about and sort this shit out?” He sounds like a father, and my fondness grows for the burly beast of a man.

“Yes,” I agree. “Oh!” I’m suddenly thrust forward in my seat and my seatbelt locks, pulling straight across my collarbone and burning the skin beneath my dress.

“Ava?” John’s voice is distant and muffled, and I can’t work out why. “Ava, girl!”

“John?” I feel around on my lap, but there’s nothing. “John!”

Bang!

I’m jolted forward again, my arms instinctively locking on the wheel and sending a sharp flash of pain straight up to my shoulders. “Shit!” I look in the rearview mirror and freeze when I see the DBS now directly behind me, but it’s quite a way back. “John?” I yell. “John, can you hear me?” My eyes are moving constantly from the road ahead to the mirror, back and forth, and each time they’re back on the mirror, Jesse’s car is closer. I attempt to step on the accelerator, but all body functions are failing me, except my eyes, which are watching in horror as the DBS gains on me.

Bang!

“No!” I cry, as I swerve and struggle to regain control of my Mini. I don’t stand a chance. My brain is being inundated by a million different orders, but I can’t gather any cognitive thought to establish my best move. I straighten up my car to be immediately hit again. Now I’m crying. My emotions are taking hold, telling me that I should be crying, that I should be frightened. And I am. I’m terrified.

Crash!

This time I lose complete control. I scream as the wheel starts spinning of its own accord, and I’m suddenly traveling sideways down the carriageway. Then I’m hit again and facing forward once more. I frantically grapple with the steering wheel, but it’s got a mind of its own and in a total panic, I yank at the handbrake. I’m not sure what happens next, but I’m thrown forward and back again, and dizzy, blurred images whirl past the windows—buildings, people, and cars all spinning around me until eventually a loud crash rings through my ears, my body jolts violently, and my eyes close. I don’t know where I am. But I’m still. I’m not moving anymore.

I flex my neck on a groan and open my eyes to look out of the window. The traffic has stopped. All of it. And people are getting out of their cars and wandering over to me. I shuffle my legs and move my arms, quickly noting that I have feeling in all of them, before I unclip my belt and let myself out of my car. People are walking toward me, but I’m walking away. I’m walking toward the DBS, which is sitting a few yards away, the engine still purring. I should be running in the other direction, but I’m not. I’m running toward it. The desperate need to know who would do this has suddenly flattened my fear. Drugged, threatened, and now this? I’m only a few yards away when the engine starts revving, like some sort of eerie fucked-up threat. It doesn’t stop me. What does, though, is the sound of a high-powered machine getting louder and louder. I halt and stand rooted to the spot as I watch the DBS screech off, and then John’s Range Rover go sailing past in pursuit. This isn’t happening to me. I want to pinch myself, slap myself across the face, or, at the very least, wake up. I slowly turn when that high-powered machine sounds like it’s speeding around in my head. He skids to a stop and throws his bike down before sprinting toward me, no leathers, no helmet, just some faded jeans and a plain black T-shirt protecting his body. I can’t move. All I can do is wait for him to reach me, and he soon does, his hands starting to work fast strokes all over my stunned face as I stare blankly into his green eyes, which are drowned in pure terror.

“Ava? Jesus, baby.” I’m pulled into his chest, one hand cradling the back of my head, the other wrapped around my waist to hold me tight. I want to hold him, I need to hold him, but nothing is happening when I tell it to happen. I hear Jesse’s phone ringing and he releases my head to fish around in his pocket. “John?”

Being buried under Jesse’s chin, I can hear the low rumble of John’s pissed-off voice, and I distinctly hear him asking why the fuck he has to own such a stupidly fast motherfucking car.

“Where are you?” Jesse asks, kissing my head between words.

This time I can’t hear him. All I can hear are sirens—coming from every direction are sirens. I pull out of Jesse’s chest and find a mass of police cars and two ambulances. Just for me? But then I notice a crumpled heap of a car, and it’s not mine. Neither is the one wrapped around a lamppost nearby. I search through the chaos of people and abandoned cars and spot my Mini crunched up against some railings that are separating the road from the pavement. I shudder.

“John, don’t stop until you’ve found out who’s in my fucking car.” Jesse hangs up and stuffs his phone back in his pocket. He pulls at my chin. “Look at me, baby.”

I gaze up at him. “Where’s your helmet?”

He takes a deep breath and claps my cheeks in his palms. “Fucking hell.” He kisses me hard on the lips. “Why do you refuse to play ball?” He kisses my nose, my lips, my eyes, my cheeks. “I sent John to get you, Ava. Why didn’t you let him take you to work?”

“Because I wanted to shred Matt,” I admit. “But you beat me to it.”

“I was so angry, Ava.”

“I would never have seen it through. I wouldn’t have killed our baby.” I know I need to say this, at the very least.

“Shhh.” He continues placing his lips all over my face and my arms finally lift to hold him tightly. I never want to let go.

“Excuse me, sir.” The strange voice pulls our attention to the side, where a policeman is standing. “Is the young lady okay?”

Jesse looks back at me and starts doing an all over visual assessment. “I don’t know. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I smile awkwardly.

“You’re very lucky. Shall we get you checked over before we run through some questions?” The copper smiles and signals over to an ambulance.

I feel all dramatic and a bit of a bother. “I feel fine, honestly.”