Page 90 of Stolen

chapter 41

alex

Much as I might want to, I can’t leave Marc standing on the doorstep. I’ve been caught out too many times by paps with long lenses and, with the Foundation’s funding on the line, I don’t need any more scandal.

‘I’ll be right there, Wendy!’ Mum calls from the kitchen. ‘I wasn’t sure if you wanted the ground cinnamon or the—’

She stops dead as she sees Marc standing in the hallway.

‘Actually, I think I’ll just take this over to Wendy now,’ she says stiffly. ‘Save her a trip. Nice to see you again, Marc.’

‘You too, Mrs Johnson.’

She doesn’t tell him to call her Mary, as she has done every time they’ve met since I left college. She can’t even meet his eye, in fact, as she hangs her apron on the newel post and goes next door.

‘Come into the study,’ I tell Marc. I don’t want Dad to know he’s here. He’s not as forgiving as Mum.

Marc hovers awkwardly by the door. I gesture impatiently towards the sofa. ‘You’re here now. Sit down.’

‘I know you don’t want to see me,’ he says. ‘But I had to come when I heard the news. I was in South Africa last week or I’d have come sooner.’

‘You shouldn’t have bothered.’

‘Do you really think you saw Lottie?’

‘Yes.’

‘Alex, that’s incredible,’ Marc says. ‘It’s only a matter of time, now. The police will be able to track—’

‘We both know you don’t believe it was her. Let’s drop the act. Why are you really here?’

He stares down at his hands, which are loosely clasped between his knees. No wedding ring, of course. His hair is thinning on top, I notice, and he’s lost weight since I last saw him, almost a year ago. I know it’s not fair to blame him for everything that happened, but I’ve long since lost the capacity to shoulder anyone’s pain but my own.

‘You know why I’m here,’ he says.

‘Nothing’s changed,’ I say.

He looks up, his expression hunted. There are bags beneath his eyes and his skin has a grey pallor. ‘Alex, it was just akiss.’

‘We both know that’s not true,’ I say.

I’m not such a delicate flower that I can’t cope with a man who crosses the line and presses his suit where it’s not wanted. I swim with lawyers. I’m used to sharks.

And it was ‘only’ a kiss. I was never in any physical danger; Marc backed off the second I slapped him down. If it’d been anyone else, it would barely have registered.

But it wasn’t anyone else. It was Marc.

We’d both been working late on a new marketing campaign at the Foundation. The rest of the team had left the office and, when we’d finally finished work, drained and exhausted, Marc had offered to give me a lift home as he had so many times before. Why wouldn’t I accept? We’d been friends for more than a decade. There had never been a question of anything more between us. Marc wasmarried.

And then, as he parked outside my house, he’d leaned across and kissed me.

Even as I shoved him away, he confessed he was in love with me and had been for years. As if that made itbetter.

An impulsive kiss, a clumsy pass: that I could have forgiven. But Lottie was abducted from hiswedding. And now he was telling me it was all a mistake, because he’d been in love with me the whole time.

He should never have married Sian.

Lottie should never have been in Florida.

---