Page 87 of Winter at Wishington Bay
I glanced over his shoulder. Serena was watching us. Suspicion clouded her eyes. ‘Did you lie about who you were?’ he pushed on.
‘No,’ I snapped. ‘And I have no need to explain myself to you anyway.’
‘What’s going on here?’ Serena narrowed her eyes. ‘Nate? Are you sleeping with her?’
‘Don’t start on me, Serena. I’m really not in the mood.’
‘You cheated on me!’ she screeched. There was something in her tone that suggested the thought he would even consider doing this was more astonishing than the actual situation.
‘I didn’t cheat on you, Serena,’ Nate snapped, whirling round on her. ‘We were separated and getting a divorce. Remember that whole thing about you leaving me to go and live with your tennis coach?’ A muscle flickered in his jaw as he ground the words out.
‘Looks like you didn’t waste much time being alone, though?’ she snapped back.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t need to explain myself to you. I don’t even know why you’re here!’ The snow of earlier had begun to fall more heavily now and was dampening his hair and soaking through his t-shirt, but he didn’t seem to notice.
‘I thought you’d be pleased to see me! I thought we could try to rebuild our marriage but I didn’t realise you were already sleeping with your cleaner!’ She practically spat the word out as she glared at me.
‘Do you know what, Serena? It’s actually been pretty relaxing to be away from you and all your drama. I didn’t realise quite how bloody exhausting being married to you was until I got the chance to put some space between us.’
‘From the sounds of it, space has been the last thing you’ve had.’
Nate let his head fall back for a moment, turning his face to the sky, the snowflakes landing softly before melting. From the waves of tension still radiating out from his body, they might be cooling his skin but they were doing nothing to cool the anger wound tight within him.
‘Nate…’ Her voice had softened now as she reached out. ‘Come back inside. Let’s talk about things. I made a mistake. Maybe we both did.’
Nate looked back down, his gaze fixing on me. ‘Maybe we did.’ The warmth his eyes had once held was gone and now they were as cold as the ice crystals that had settled on his long lashes. With that, he let Serena encourage him back inside and with one last cold look, she closed the door.
For a moment I just wanted to sit. To slump down on the cold, wet path. I already felt numb inside, so what would it matter if the rest of me froze too? Instead I forced myself to turn round and walk back towards the village and the comfort of my cosy flat. There I could lock the door and shut out Serena’s glare, and Nate’s cold accusatory look. I never lied to him. Admittedly, I hadn’t told him who I was, but I’d been planning to for the last couple of weeks. It wasn’t really the sort of thing you just blurted out and I knew part of it was me not wanting to bring it up because that was the old me, and Nate and I were part of the ‘new’ me. Not that there was any Nate and I. Not now. I knew now I’d been stupid to think there ever would be. Women like Serena always got their way, however smart the man was. When it came to beauty and wiles like that, they didn’t stand a chance. Nate McKinley might have thought his marriage was over and might have even been reconciled to it – but it appeared Serena had other ideas and I already knew, just as I was sure Nate did, that what Serena wanted, Serena got. And right now, it appeared she wanted her husband back.
* * *
I powered on back through the village, the snow soaking through my shoes, my hair now plastered to my head. As I passed Flora’s shop, she waved at me through the window. I gave a brief wave in return but right now I just wanted to get inside and shut myself away from everyone. This morning the world had seemed bright and full of promise but now that had all seeped away. Why on earth had I let myself fall for Nate? Because I knew now that was exactly what I’d done, no matter how many times I tried to deny it to myself on my walk home. I’d had no intention of developing any sort of feelings for Nate, let alone love, and our first meeting had reassured me that wasn’t something I had any need to worry about. But, as barriers were lowered on both sides, something had changed. Somewhere along the way my heart had decided to take matters into its own hands and, without any rational consultation with my brain, had decided to leap in with both feet. And while, initially, that hadn’t actually looked like the disaster it could have been, the firm ground I’d landed on turned out to be quicksand, and I was now scrabbling to pull myself out before my heart became irrevocably damaged. Although, from the tight, painful feeling in my chest, it had already suffered far more injury than I’d anticipated.
Inside the shop, Flora was moving towards the door, flapping at me to wait. Pulling the door open, she beckoned me in.
‘I can’t today, Flora. I really need to get home.’
She studied me for a moment. ‘You know already.’
I shook my head, pushing a stray, damp lock of hair back behind my ear. ‘About Nate? Yes. I had the pleasure of meeting his ex-wife. Or apparently not so ex-wife. So yes, I know. Hence I just want to get inside, not to mention I’m soaked.’
She pulled me in. ‘I can see that. Come in here a moment.’ I didn’t have the energy to protest any further. ‘Nate’s ex is here?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I thought…’ she trailed off. I knew what she’d thought. She’d seen him leave my flat earlier this morning for a start.
‘Yes, I thought so too,’ I shrugged.
She gave a brief shake of her head. ‘We’ll come back to him in a minute.’
‘There’s nothing to come back to, Flora. Honestly. I’d rather just forget about it all.’
Flora gave me a look. ‘Somehow I don’t think that’s going to be as easy as it sounds.’
I shrugged. ‘It was just a couple of days. How hard can it be?’ I tried to smile but the action felt alien and from the look on my friend’s face, it didn’t look much better from the outside. ‘Anyway, what did you mean, what should I know?’
The sympathetic look on Flora’s face caused my insides to twist into even more knots, which, considering how my day was already going, took some doing, but my stomach still managed it. She took my hand and led me over to the counter. From underneath she took a tablet and woke it up. The page displayed a website of a popular gossip magazine and right in the middle of it, splashed in big letters were the words ‘Mystery Influencer Unveiled!’
