Page 83 of A Colourful Country Escape
‘Finished, is what you are. If you ever even started. My son does not want to be associated with a criminal and a junkie.’
The words, spat so cruelly into her ear, seemed to smash against her delicate eardrum and shatter into a million shards. Just like her heart. Ben knew – her lie was out. Her past was finally catching up with her to drip its oily colours all over the fresh canvas she’d been naively trying to repaint. Because that was what lies did, in the end. They caught up with you and exposed you for who you really were. Who you’d always been. Just a hopeless trier with a head full of air and a pocket full of nothing.
‘I’m not a junkie,’ Lexie whispered into the phone. ‘I don’t take drugs. Never have.’ That bit was true, other than the odd experimental puff that had given her a nasty headache. ‘Nor a criminal. Not really. The charges were dropped almost immediately. It was a horrible mistake.’ But still on her record. She could have applied to have it removed, if only she hadn’t been so bloody scared of paperwork. Maybe that was why she was scared. It had been skulking in there for far too long.
‘A mistake that you arrived back from your travels with a suitcase full of class A drugs?’
‘Not full. It was just one packet. And it wasn’t mine.’ Lexie tried to hold her chin up, for what it was worth. But the traitorous thing was quivering.
‘It was your boyfriend’s. Same thing.’
‘No! I didn’t know anything about it.’ Sodding Inkie and his desperate attempts to get rich by any means. Money truly could turn people grotesque. She would never forgive him for that, even if seven years had passed.
‘So you say. And so the police seemed to believe, with your fluttering eyelashes and your dizzy fake smiles. But don’t think for a second that Ben or I will trust you again. You’ve lied to us, and we’ve no proof you didn’t lie to the police too. I knew I should have got that pack of powder you brought into my house properly tested.’
‘That was chalk. To make chalk paint! You can test it to your heart’s content.’ Lexie stood up, feeling a glimmer of hope that all of this was ludicrous. Ben would surely believe her. He had to. She wasn’t going down as easily as this. ‘We can talk about it when we get back.’
‘There will be no morewe, Alexis Summers. I suggest you pack your bag and leave that hotel immediately. Your replacement camper van has arrived at Nutgrass Hall. You will take it and you will never return.’
Lexie pulled her phone away from her ear and stared at it. Who was this woman, speaking to her as though she was the queen of the tossing world? No. She could just piss off.
‘I’ll speak to Ben,’ Lexie told her. They would find a way.
‘I wouldn’t waste your breath; he’ll be otherwise engaged. With Cynthia. He knows what’s expected of him if he’s to inherit what he wants.’
And then the phone went dead. That bloody woman had hung up on her. And what was she talking about? Ben wasn’t her puppet. Lexie stormed out onto her balcony to look for him. Who had he been on the phone to after his mother? Because if Lexie had just been talking to the old dragon, he must have been ringing someone else.
Aha – yes! Lexie felt a wave of relief as he walked back out onto his balcony. She gave a hopeful wave, but he didn’t see her at all this time. He still seemed hassled. And … what? Who was that woman joining him? Lexie narrowed her eyes. Cynthia. Was his awful mother right?
Why had Ben let Cynthia into his bedroom? Onto his balcony? She had her own room. Is that who he’d just been calling? Lexie felt her stomach drop as she took in Cynthia’s black satin dressing gown. There was surely no mistaking what she was up to? And yet Ben had let her in – just like his mother had said.
She watched as Ben turned around to face Cynthia, so Lexie could just see his back. Her throat felt tight. What the hell was going on? And suddenly it became excruciatingly clear. Cynthia flung her arms around Ben’s neck, and Ben’s whole body seemed to sag into hers with sheer relief. Jesus, that was exactly the way she’d imagined him sinking into her tonight. How could this be happening?
But neither Ben nor Cynthia was letting go. They were clutching one another as though they’d been waiting years for that moment. Lexie could not believe what she was seeing and yet she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Something inside her was still clinging to the hope that Ben would throw Cynthia off in outrage. Not that she could hear a thing against the maddening noise of those pipe players, their repetitive snake-charm music gathering speed by the second.
And then, at last, Cynthia let go of Ben, her bright red nails disappearing from the back of his neck. He walked purposely towards the bedroom without looking back. Cynthia let her black dressing gown fall to the floor and followed Ben inside, wearing a skimpy black teddy that was absolutely not daywear.
She closed the balcony doors behind them.
Chapter 41
Lexie was frozen to the spot, staring at Ben’s closed balcony doors, desperate for them to open and for the whole scene to be rewound and played back differently. But, deep in her wretched heart, she knew it was hopeless. The evidence had been there, right before her. Mrs Carrington-Noble had warned her and now she’d seen it with her own eyes. Behind those doors, Ben was with Cynthia. Wearing not very much and doing what he needed to do to secure himself a rich wife and get his hands on his mother’s cash.
Somehow she’d fooled herself into thinking that he’d changed, but he hadn’t changed at all. When it came down to it, he was just like her cheating ex, Drew. He couldn’t steer himself away from the promise of wealth. In fact, he was no better than her first ex, Inkie. Money had made him grotesque.
Or maybe it was just her. She was the common thread, after all. The idiot who kept falling for men who valued money more than her affections. Maybe she wasn’t as good as having pockets full of cash. Maybe her sister was the wise one after all, in her commune full of simple values and hessian.
As she stood there on her budget balcony in the clammy evening heat, the pipe players whipping the air into a frenzy, she had never felt colder. It was as though the blanket of happiness and hope that had been cosying around her had been suddenly snatched away. She looked down at her bare arms – a sea of goosebumps. She was shaking. A sob fought its way up her throat, but she swallowed it down. Now was not the time to cry. She had to pack.
Her arms and legs took over, as though they knew what to do in times of crisis. She felt herself moving back into her room and closing the balcony doors. Just like Cynthia had done, although with less of an entitled look on her face. It was a look Lexie remembered well enough from her school days. All those rich girls who knew that wealth was their legacy and the world their shiny oyster. They’d been right.
Lexie moved around her room in a trance, stuffing things into her broken-wheeled suitcase. She was not sticking around to be jettisoned for Cynthia and her collection of Fendi swimsuits. Each item she shoved away tried to summon the threatening sob, and each time she gulped it back. This charade did not deserve her tears and she had no time for them. She wanted to be out of there before anyone noticed. Although, judging by Cynthia and her flaunty black satin, no one would be giving a shit where Lexie was right now.
She blinked furiously as she pushed that afternoon’s outfit into her suitcase. The spotlight above her head caught the harem-pant sequins in a taunting peacock tail of colour. They were stupid trousers and she should have thrown them away after her travelling days. She pulled them out and hurled them into the bin. As she snatched up various designer items she’d borrowed from Grace, she tried not to chide herself for pretending to be someone she wasn’t. She would give it all back. These clothes. Those dreams.
And then she felt one last pathetic hope crawl into her. She hated herself for it, but she could just give it one last try. Just a quick double-check that she hadn’t been mistaken. God, did she enjoy being kicked in the teeth? Looking at the clock, she realised her date with Ben should have started fifteen minutes ago. They’d agreed he would knock on her door. He was never late. She still had her dress on; maybe it was a sign. Maybe he would just answer his phone and tell her he was on his way.
Against her better judgement, she grabbed her mobile and called his number. He would surely answer. Tell her he was not with Cynthia, and he hated his mother, and …
