Page 74 of A Cornish Love Story
I rubbed my forehead. ‘I’m fairly certain I’m about to be incredibly angry with you, but could you explain exactly what happened, and I can decide just how angry I’m going to be?’
Spence laughed, and I already knew “incredibly angry” might not cut it.
‘Of course.’ Her eyes were bright. ‘But I hope you understand that this wouldn’t have happened if you’d questioned my plan. You agreed that we needed intimate knowledge of the new house for Amelie and Connor’s resurrection. You didn’t bat an eyelid.’
‘I had my own reasons for going last night,’ I said, a slow shame creeping over me that I hadn’t thought more about her motivation. I’d said two words to Ethan and he’d challenged it, but me? I’d just nodded along, as usual. Spence was looking at me curiously. ‘That’s not important now,’ I said. ‘Tell me what happened.’
‘Certainly.’ She cleared her throat, as if she was preparing to give an after-dinner speech at a grand gala somewhere. ‘A couple of years ago, I got the planning notice through the letterbox for Alperwick House – Tyller Klos, as you insist on calling it.’
Not any more, I thought but didn’t say. ‘The whole village did,’ I said instead. ‘We’ve known about the renovation for a long time.’
‘Yes, but I was particularly curious. It was a house I’d lived in for years, and I wanted to know what they were proposing for its new chapter. I called someone at the firm to talk through the details of the application and find out who would be transforming it.’
‘The planning team at the council?’
‘I called them first and asked them to put me in touch with the build team: the firm that was going to be responsible. They were reluctant to begin with, but I can be persuasive as you know, and eventually they gave me the details. I phoned, and spoke to a lovely young woman called Sarah.’
I pressed my lips together, gesturing for her to go on.
‘I explained who I was and why I was interested, and she was very receptive. She told me that she’d known about the house, had lived in Alperwick for six months, and that her brother had even spent some nights there with his friends, during the time it had been abandoned. I listened to a sad story about how unhappy she’d been, how she’d turned into a teenage tearaway. Her older brother had always looked out for her, kept her on course when she was so close to veering off into the weeds. How, without his sacrifices, she wouldn’t have had the chance to turn things around. She told me that, once he’d established his architectural practice, he’d brought her on board to work with him, using her skills in digital security and monitoring systems to create a new Smart system.’
I gulped my coffee for something to do. ‘Ethan’s sister.’
‘Of course,’ Spence said smugly. ‘And it wasn’t that long into her story that I realized I’d heard echoes of something similar, but from a different perspective. You’d recently started working for me, and it honestly felt like this was fate, destiny – whatever you want to call it. I had my own admission for Sarah, about my dedicated PA and what she’d been through.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘And you know,’ Spence continued gleefully, ignoring my horror, ‘Sarah is a spirited thing, and she still clearly has an adventurous streak, despite her dedication to her job. We stayed in touch during the build, she gave me titbits of information – though of course she didn’t want to betray her brother’s trust by telling metoomuch. Then, when it was close to completion, I asked about the Sparks system and what it was capable of, and she said there were ways it could be manipulated – not wholesale, but as a one-off while it was still in Beta mode, because she’d had a hand in engineering it. She told me she could personally tap into the mainframe, hear and respond to any Sparks requests, overriding the automatic process.’
‘You set the whole thing up?’ My voice was a scratch.
‘I asked her about Ethan, and about you. Sarah said that he’d never got over you, and that she felt partly responsible for you splitting up. I offered her a chance to redeem herself.’
‘All those little asides,’ I murmured. ‘The things the house said that made no sense, that seemed more human than algorithm. Shewaslistening.’
‘She could only respond to requests,’ Spence said firmly. ‘She assured me she couldn’t listen to everything – that the system doesn’t work like that – and, considering this involved her brother, I’m confident she was telling the truth.’
‘I played right into her hands. I was the one who said it was an emergency, but she would have found some other way to lock us inside, to activate Panic Room Mode. She was always going to do that.’
‘Forced proximity romances are very popular these days,’ Spence said, and I couldn’t get over how she didn’t seem to have even a glimmer of remorse.
‘You thought you could trap us in the house together, and it would turn into some kind of magical love story for the ages?’
‘It didn’t?’
‘Do you see Ethan anywhere? Is he here right now, holding my hand and staring adoringly into my eyes?’ I flung my arms wide. I felt exhausted all of a sudden.
‘So what happened? Sarah and I were sure that you only needed to see each other again, that the love was still there, for both of you.’
‘You werethatcertain?’ I sat up straight. ‘Even though all you know is what I’ve told you, and you’ve never even met him? You were sure we’d perform the way you wanted us to? We’re not your characters, Spence.’
‘Georgie, come on.’ Her tone was mollifying. ‘A beautiful clifftop house he’d created, partly with you in mind. A secret you’ve been keeping that made convincing youto go back there easier than I’d expected – though I still don’t know what that is – and a chance for the two of you to be together, with absolutely no distractions. It’s the perfect plot.’
Spence had always followed her own path, but I still couldn’t believe her audacity or the assumptions she’d made, and that she’d thought it was perfectly OK to ask Sarah to mess with the Sparks system for Ethan’s crucial event. I felt a twinge of guilt, because when I’d seen the messages on Ethan’s phone, I’d thought that it was all her – or her and Ethan, conspiring against me. But Spence was the driving force, and I knew all too well how persuasive she could be. Sarahhadchanged, she’d got her shit together – I’d seen the results at the open house – but she had still been lured by Spence into breaking the rules.
‘You didn’t bank on a whole lot of messy emotions,’ I said quietly. ‘On people not being quite as predictable as you expected. On you not being the only one making assumptions.’
For the first time, she looked unsure. ‘You really can’t work it out?’
