Page 42 of The Holiday Cottage

“I apologize.”

“You already did that. What I haven’t heard yet is an explanation for the fact that you suddenly disappeared and were uncontactable in the middle of a working day.”

“There are no excuses.”

“I wasn’t asking for excuses. I was asking for an explanation. I assume there has to be one, because people like you don’t just suddenly decide to stop doing your job for no reason.” Rosalind paused. “I understand that Midas is missing—”

“That’s not the reason.”

“Then what is?” Rosalind removed her glasses and rubbed her fingers across the bridge of her nose. “I can’t force you to give me that reason of course, but I believe I deserve to hear it.”

Imogen stared at her miserably. She did deserve to hear it.

She’d worked hard to keep strict divisions between her work and homelife, but now they’d been well and truly breached. And she was out of a job anyway, so there was no longer any reason not to tell Rosalind the truth except that it revealed her for the total fraud she was.

But she still couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t.

She thought of her colleagues, out there now doing everything they could to find her dog. Her fake dog. Having her back when she made a mistake. Leaving chocolates on her desk. Her eyes filled. She couldn’t bear to see their faces when they found out that everything she’d told them about her homelife was a lie. Their support comforted her, even though it was based on a lie.

She blinked hard. She wasn’t going to cry. No way.

“Imogen?”

Imogen flinched. Rosalind was waiting for an explanation.

And she needed to give her something so that this could all be over. She’d tell a part truth, and maybe Rosalind wouldn’t ask too many questions.

“I was on my way to the Work Nook event when I had a call from the emergency department at the hospital.”

Rosalind frowned. “The hospital? Someone had an accident?”

She licked her lips. “My mother.”

“I thought your mother lived in Dorset.”

“She was in London.” Imogen improvised, although this time she did it with caution because her overenthusiastic spontaneity with Midas hadn’t worked out so well. “Christmas shopping. She fell.”

Rosalind stared at her for a moment. “I’m sorry to hear that. No wonder you were concerned. I know what a close family you are. So why didn’t you just call and explain you needed time off?”

“Because I didn’t think I needed time off. I’d had several conversations with Sophie, and I’d promised to go across early to try and calm the client down. I was in the cab when I got the call from the hospital and I thought I could see my mother and still make it to the event on time.”

“But that didn’t happen. Clearly, you were delayed. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t call someone and let them know that you had a family emergency. We would have covered for you. Was no one else in your family able to help?”

Imogen fixed her gaze on the photographs on Rosalind’s desk. It was of Rosalind and her two daughters when they were young. Rosalind had parents, siblings, a whole network of people connected to her. She had a stack of Christmas cards on her desk ready to send. A list of gifts to buy.

Imogen didn’t send Christmas cards. She didn’t have any gifts to buy apart from the single Secret Santa for work.

Rosalind wouldn’t be able to begin to understand Imogen’s life.

“It turned out to be—more complicated than I was anticipating. I was upset.”

Rosalind’s expression softened. “Having a relative in hospital is always upsetting, naturally.”

Not “naturally.” Nothing about her relationship with her mother was natural.

“If you were upset,” Rosalind said, “then that was all the more reason why you should have phoned for support. We are a team, Imogen. We support one another.”

“I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t thinking.”

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