CHAPTER SIXTEEN – HAYLEY
I went downstairs to the dining-room. I finished my coffee. Then I went upstairs again to my room. I felt as if I was on autopilot. Inside, I was furious. But I was also really calm. It was as if a cold wall of rage possessed me, driving me through the motions of living while keeping my heart frozen inside me.
I am leaving. I can’t believe he did this to me.
I closed my eyes. Breathed in the soft, rose-scented air. Breathed out.
All the memories of the last two weeks flooded my mind. Beckett in town, kissing me in the car. Beckett on our sham-wedding-day, kissing me. Beckett in the office, teasing me. Grabbing the newspaper from my hand. Beckett at breakfast, gentle and kind. Beckett at the play. In the office, confiding in me a story he had never told anyone before.
Beckett trusted me.
I paused. Of all the things that had filled me when he told me first—rage, pain, hurt—that fact had settled into my mind more slowly. But it was true.
Beckett Sand had told me a secret that could ruin him. He told me because he trusts me.
I sighed. Of all the things that had worried me—my reputation, the fact that he had set me up without telling me, the ridicule that I would potentially face from former colleagues—all of it disappeared. He had told me a secret he hadn’t told anyone.
Beckett Sand loves me.
I knew it. The look in his eyes, the way he touched me. His lips as they stroked over mine, so tenderly, so loving.
He loved me as much as I loved him.
The realization drove through my heart like a fast train, hurtling down the track. I leaned back in the chair, letting my body relax as that sank in.
He loved me and he trusted me. And I had lost my temper with him. Walked out on him.
I didn’t know what to do. The clock said it was ten-thirty. It was Sunday. I should go and find him, try and talk to him. But what can I say?
I sighed again. There was no easy way to go back from what I had done. When someone trusts you, there is only one chance to live up to that. Once you’ve reacted so badly, going back again is pretty hard. I looked at my face in the mirror. I looked haggard.
My mirror showed me a long, pale oval face with huge eyes, gray rings stamped around them like they were drawn in dark ink. My dark hair was wavy, falling about my shoulders. I looked disheveled and defeated.
I’m not going to make a good impression like that. I chuckled sadly.
Mourning my lack of expertise, I opened the drawer, which had carefully been stocked with the best studio-quality make-up anyone could wish for. I cast my mind back to my theater days and reached for the concealer, painting out the rings of fatigue bracketing my dark eyes.
A good ten minutes later I bit on a tissue to seal the color of my lipstick, and wearily got to my feet. During the time it took to fix my makeup, hide the tears and the stress written on my face, I had come to a plan.
I went up to his office. Knocked on the door.
“Beckett?”
I paused.
“He isn’t there,” a voice called from the hallway. I turned to find Estella, at the top of the stairs, wearing leggings and a long pullover, hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She saw me and grinned at me. “Sorry, Hayley, but he just went out jogging. Later than usual too. Lazy fellow,” she grinned.
“Have you just been?” I asked, taking in her outfit. She shook her head. “I’ve just been in the gym,” she explained.
“Oh,” I said mildly. I should have known there was a gym here, but I hadn’t. She looked at me with those bright blue eyes.
“You’ve used the gym before, right?”
I shook my head.
“It’s awesome. I am trying to persuade Daddy to get one of those new all-in-one exercise machines, but you know how he is. Stubborn as a brick.” She laughed.
I laughed too. The description was refreshingly apt. “Quite so.”
“Come on,” Estella said, taking my arm in a confiding manner. “Let’s go have breakfast.”
I smiled. “I’ve had some toast,” I said carefully.
“Toast.” She pulled a face. “That’ll help a lot,” she said sarcastically, then laughed at my surprised expression. “I’m sorry,” she said more gently. “I’m just starving.”
“I’ll come and have some coffee while you have breakfast,” I suggested. I didn’t really feel like it, but it wouldn’t seem polite to leave her there on her own. Besides, I was feeling miserable and I felt like company.
“Okay! Great.”
We went downstairs together, her taking them two at a time, her trainers surprisingly loud on the marble-tiled surface. I hurried after her.
“Is your dad liable to be out for long?” I asked, sitting sipping coffee in the warm, close space of the dining-room.
“Depends,” she said, licking some muesli off the spoon and then reaching for her own coffee. She was a hearty eater, which made me smile. “Sometimes he stays out for an hour, sometimes more. He’ll be back for lunch, though. Unless business comes up.”
“Oh.” I nodded. I leaned back, feeling somewhat relieved. As soon as I saw him again, I would discuss this.
He didn’t come in for lunch. By six o’ clock, I was starting to worry. The sky was darkening fast out there, the clouds gathering. I thought there might be a storm.
Beckett Sand, so much for your weather-prediction ability.
I smiled grimly to myself. I so badly wanted him to come back. Even if all he did was shout at me, tell me to get out, I wanted him to come back. I wanted to see him again. I needed to make peace with him before anything else happened.
“Looks like it’s going to rain soon,” Mrs. Delange commented quietly.
I was standing in the sitting-room, looking out through the windows that faced the drive. It was the fourth time she’d found me in here, staring out of the curtains, waiting for him to come back.
“It does,” I agreed. “Mrs. Delange?”
“Yes?” she asked, drawing the curtains and turning around to face me, hitching her apron back to her shoulder carefully.
“You have seen him stay out this long before?”
“I’ve seen him stay out all day and come back next morning,” Mrs. Delange chuckled. “It’s always like that—expect the unexpected. But he’ll come back.”
I nodded. “I’m sure he will.”
I leaned back on the couch, tried to read a magazine. But the content and the photos and gossip bandied about just served to remind me of why I hated the media so much and I leaned back, looking at the ceiling. I closed my eyes.
I have to talk to him.
I had dinner with Estella, who told me she was going out with friends. We enjoyed ourselves—laughing and chatting and talking about school and the people she knew, her friends—and then she was heading off, leaving me alone in that vast, empty house.
I sighed. It was seven o’ clock. I had texted him a few times during the day, but he had not replied to my messages and by sometime around midday I’d given up. He wasn’t going to get in touch.
I went for a short walk in the garden, but I could smell the rain and the electricity in the air and it felt eerie and threatening so I went back inside. I went upstairs to my room and settled down in a chair, trying to read a book.
At last, I managed to find some peace. I was immersed in the book I was reading, caught up in the excitement of the plot, when a crash of thunder erupted, making me jump.
Outside the window lightning splintered the sky and I whimpered. I had always been scared of storms. The thunder lashed through me again and I sat down on the bed feeling completely exhausted and finished. I had betrayed someone who trusted me. I felt like the worst person on earth. The craziness of the storm only served to highlight my sadness. I curled up in a ball on the bed and wept.
He arrived as the storm broke. Just as the thunder deafened me again, I heard another sound. A small one, familiar and close to me. Knocking. On my bedroom door.
“Hayley? Are you in?”
I held my breath. Considered, for about two seconds, not telling him. He had tortured me with worry all day, after all! I wanted to let have a taste of that. Then the thunder washed through me, making my heart beat faster and setting my hair standing on end. I went to the door and opened it.
“Beckett.”
He looked into my eyes and I looked into his.
Then he fell into the room and we were in each other’s arms, and suddenly nothing was as it had been before.
Everything had changed. We had crossed a line to a place of intimacy, a place of trust. His hands were on my body, and my lips were on his mouth, and there was no going back.