Page 51 of The Lucky Escape

I sounded deranged, but preferred that than him having to solemnly take my hand and reject me explicitly. No way could I be in that position and survive. Not one bit. I was stronger, but I wasn’t that strong. I didn’t want it to be a thing, even if for one-tenth of a second I’d almost enjoyed it. That’s not what this was. I knew that. I did.

‘I don’t know about you,’ I said after a while. ‘But I’m ready to hit up that dance floor again. Shall we?’

‘If you’re feeling better.’

‘I’m feeling great,’ I insisted, already trotting off ahead, determinedly holding my head up high. ‘I might even put a request in. “Mustang Sally” should do the trick, don’t you think? These guys are really very good.’

We were too self-aware after that, and so lasted fifteen more minutes before I caught Patrick looking at his watch, and I told him I was ready to go if he wanted to leave.

‘Doyouwant to leave?’ he shouted over the music.

‘I want to do whatever you want to do,’ I yelled, affably.

‘It’s a yes or no question, Annie!’

His tone took me aback. He’d never snapped at me before.

‘Yes!’ I cried. ‘Sure! I want to go back!’

We found the car and drove in silence. I couldn’t get a handle on why Patrick was the one acting likehisknickers were in a twist, unless he thought I’d overstepped the mark by kissing him.

Had I kissed him?

Or had he kissed me?

I tried to rewind the night and play the moment back in slow motion but it was a blur. We’d been dancing, and then somehow our faces were pressed together, and just as quickly as it had happened it had stopped happening. I hoped he wasn’t building up to some big speech about how he would never have come away with me if he’d have known I had ulterior motives. I hadn’t asked him for that reason. And plus, he’d basically begged to come!

About an hour into the drive, I reached forward to the dials of the radio so that I didn’t have to examine my thoughts, but as soon as I flicked it on, Patrick flicked it off again.

‘Before, down by the river …’ he said, as if we were already halfway through a conversation and hadn’t just spent the past sixty miles brooding and confused.

I didn’t say anything. I wanted to stop him from doing this. I couldn’t bear to have him remind me that I was not the woman that men chose, not least him, a man still in love with the wife he had so tragically buried and who nobody would ever replace. My heart broke for him because of that, but I was devastated for myself, too. I knew nobody wanted me. I didn’t want him to remind me of it. And it’s not like I was in love with him or anything.

‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Really. We don’t need to do this.’

He hit the steering wheel with his hand. Not hard in a way that scared me, but hard enough that I could tell I was really making him cross.

‘For crying out loud, can a man just say what he needs to say? Jesus!’

I shut my mouth.

‘It just blows my mind that you can’t see what a lucky escape you’ve had from Alexander. The way you talk about him, how he made you feel …’

His voice trailed off, his mouth and brain needing time to catch up to each other. He sighed. ‘It’s not even about how he left you outside the church that way. He didn’t do just one bad thing to you, Annie. He continually made you feel like you aren’t enough when all the evidence to the contrary is that you are perfect. It’s driving me up the wall that you can’t see that. I know you’re hurting, but get it in your head. It was all him. All of it.’

‘Oh,’ I said. Nothing else came out.

We drove. The quiet roads got busier, and the lights of the city guided us up ahead, our lighthouse out at sea.

‘I’m hardly perfect, Patrick,’ I settled on. ‘But I get what you’re saying.’

‘I don’t think you do get it. Youareperfect. You’re bossy and shy and unaware of how absolutely gorgeous you are. You snore—’

‘What?’

‘On the plane. Sorry to break it to you.’

‘That doesn’t count. Even in business class your neck is at a funny angle.’

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