Her voice was rising, but it quavered unsteadily, catching in her throat. Her hands were shaking, and she clenched her fists to make them be still. She was a tornado of hurt and humiliation. She knew it. She just knew it. This is what happens when you give your heart away.
“No! God, Mags, no, it was never like that. I told you—I didn’t work for him when I came here. I’ll admit I was curious when I first arrived, I remembered my uncle had plans for the building . . .”
“This is my life, my livelihood, my home. I grew up here, my mother died here, I raised my kids here!”
“Please just take a breath, let me explain.”
She shook her head as though trying to stop his words from touching her. “Don’t!” She put her hand up to stop him. “Just don’t. You used me. I let you into my life—into my bed—and you used me. God! I feel disgusting. How could I have been so stupid?”
Joe reached out for her, touched her arm lightly as he looked searchingly into her eyes for a gap through her defenses. She shrugged him off, clutching at the place he’d touched as though he’d slapped her.
“You have to believe me; it wasn’t how Patrick made it sound . . .” he pleaded with her.
“Just go.”
The hurt in his face was too raw, she couldn’t look at him, she didn’t have enough left in her to feel sorry for him after what he’d done.
“Please give me a chance to explain.”
“No. You don’t get chances. Thank god I didn’t let you talk me into making things official between us. Imagine if I’d told Verity!”
He shook his head sadly as he stepped away from her. “How did I not see it before? This is perfect for you, isn’t it?” he said.
“What?”
“I’ve just handed you your Get Out of Jail Free card. Now you don’t need to make room for me in your life. You never had any intention of telling Patrick or anyone else that we were serious, did you? There was never going to be an ‘us’ or ‘ours’ in this scenario. I was always going to be your dirty little secret because you are too afraid to let yourself be happy.”
“You are in absolutely no position to accuse me of anything.” The truth of his words sickened her further.
“Exactly!” He laughed bitterly. “I’ve relieved you of all responsibility. Stupid me, I walked right into it. Now you can throw me out of your life and still maintain the moral high ground.
“All I want is to be with you, but you make someone wanting to get close to you feel like an incursion. You push everyone away.”
“You lied to me!”
“I omitted the truth—it’s different!”
“That’s semantics. How could I ever trust you again?”
“If that’s the case, what about you? What about your lies? You want to talk about trust? I trusted you when you said you just needed a bit of time and then we’d tell the kids we were together, get a place together, start a life! I trusted that you felt the same about me as I do you, but the truth is, you were never going to let me in.”
He was right. But so was she.
“You’re turning this around. Don’t gaslight me.”
“I’m not. I know what I did. I take full responsibility for my mistakes. I fucked up. I should have told you straightaway and I will always be sorry that I didn’t.” He rubbed his hands through his hair, shaking his head. “I would shout my love for you from every rooftop in this village. For god’s sake, Maggie, I would give you everything, all you had to do was say the word. Please. Please don’t give up on us. Let me explain it properly.”
This was too much. And the worst part was that even as her heart was breaking, a part of her knew that he was right about her, that she was too afraid to let him in, that this was the perfect excuse to end it all before she got in too deep. Joe was looking at her, his expression haunted, desperate, pleading. She couldn’t let him see her tears fall. She couldn’t let him know that he had broken her.
“Maggie.”
“Leave me alone!”
“Please—”
“Leave! I want you out of my home. Go!”
He nodded once and left. She grabbed her phone and pulled up the Gilbert & Marks website. She clicked on About Us and scrolled through the pictures of staff until she found it: a picnic cloth laid out on the grass, loaded with food, a cooler to one side stuffed full of bottles of beer. And behind the feast, with his arms draped around the people on either side of him, grinning up at the camera with the gleeful expression of the freshly drunk, was Joe. Joe, who had joked on more than one occasion that he was an open book. Joe, who had made love to her and told her that he was in love with her. Joe, who had promised that her heart was safe with him. Joe, who was a liar.
44
When she’d managed to calm her breathing, Maggie called Star and asked if she would mind having Verity for an impromptu sleepover. She was not fit for good parenting right now. She was hanging on by her fingernails and she didn’t know how long she had before she’d fall.
“Are you sure everything’s okay? You sound weird.”
“Everything’s fine. I’ve got a ton of paperwork to do, and I just really need to get on. She’s been badgering me for a sleepover with you ever since you got here.”
“Bless her heart. Of course, I’m excited to have her over. And you’re sure you’re . . . okay? I thought we were meeting tonight to go over the final plans.”
“I’m fine! Honestly, I’m just really behind on my paperwork, what with the time taken up with the solstice festival . . .”
“Is Joe there?”
“Um, no. No. Not tonight.”
“Okay, I’ll be over in ten.”
“Thanks. You’re a star, Star.”
“Uh-huh.”
Verity was beyond excited at the idea of a sleepover with Aunty Star. She kept watch at the front window and when she saw Star crossing the street, she grabbed her rucksack and rushed down the stairs to meet her. Maggie followed her down and stood in the doorway, keeping the porch light off so that Star couldn’t get a good look at her face as she waved Verity off. Verity bounded out onto the street to greet her aunty and was so insistent to get over to the curios shop that Star didn’t have a chance to get within six feet of her sister.
“So, you’re all good? Yeah?” Star called over. “Nothing you want to tell me?”
“Nope. All good.” She forced a smile. Her cheeks felt like setting concrete as they lifted in response to her mouth’s movement. “Sameera’s dad is coming to pick Verity up in the morning at eight thirty for a playdate so that we can crack on with the festival. I’ll text him and tell him to pick her up from yours.”
“Okay, no worries.”
Finally, having her sleeve tugged by a very excited niece, Star turned with a hesitant wave and left.
Maggie kept the rictus grin on her face until she closed the door and then she let the smile melt down her face like candlewax.
She spent the next hour vigorously cleaning the shop in an attempt to get her thoughts straight. Her sadness was a physical pain, throbbing with its own heartbeat. At the same time, humiliation burned her, searing her cheeks and making her stomach twist so that in one breath she wanted to curl up in a ball of her own mortification, and in the next, she wanted to set the world on fire and watch it burn to ash. Her feelings were too big. There wasn’t room for them in her chest. She needed to scream them out, but there was nowhere in this goddamned village where a person could lose their shit without being seen. In the end, love would find a way to kick you in the fanny one way or the other. She set about mopping the floor with a violence that left no stain safe, and as the disinfectant fumes rose out of the steaming bucket, so too did the rage that was unfurling within her, and it wasn’t only Joe who had incited it.