CHAPTER EIGHTTEEN
I phone his mobile but it’s now switched off.
So I stand just outside the entrance for a while, gazing up at the snow swirling around me.
It should be a really gorgeous moment, this. One to remember. But all I can feel is a heavy sadness. Even stronger than my disgust at Ethan is a feeling of utter disbelief at myself that I could have been so utterly taken in by him. I feel sick and ashamed - and devastated that my lovely evening is in tatters.
I can’t bear to go back into the party on my own. So after trying his phone again with no luck, I walk across the gravel to the edge of the lawn, folding my arms against the freezing night air and wondering what to do. I need some answers. I need to know if Ethan ever felt anything for me. Or if his interest in me was all just motivated by the chance of a quick shag at some opportune moment! Like Cressida in the village hall office.
A noise attracts my attention. It sounds like someone crying and glancing across the lawn, I notice there’s someone sitting on the wrought iron garden bench there, huddled into a big coat.
As I walk over, the person – a dark-haired woman who looks in her mid-twenties – sits up straight and wipes her eyes at my approach. She looks warily at me.
‘Are you okay?’ I produce a paper hanky from my bag and hand it to her, and after a moment’s hesitation, she takes it and gives her nose a noisy blow.
Then she smiles wanly up at me – and I stare in surprise because I know who she is. I’ve seen her before, in the bar of the Swan Hotel.
It’s Alicia, who Ethan says is stalking him.
I see a flash of recognition in her eyes. ‘I saw you with him,’ she says. ‘He was kissing you in the bar.’
‘And you’re Alicia.’
She nods and we stare at each other for a moment.
‘I needed to talk to him that night but I didn’t want to spoil your date, so I just left.’
‘Right.’ So she did see him, despite the fact Ethan tried to hide from her. ‘Did you manage to get hold of him after that?’
She gives a bitter little laugh. ‘No. Ethan’s like the Scarlet Pimpernell - nowhere to be found, particularly when he’s feeling guilty.’
‘Why should he be feeling guilty?’
Oh God, maybe this woman is delusional. As far as Ethan is concerned, she’s the one who should be feeling guilty for following him around like this.
She shakes her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘How did you know he’d be here?’ I ask curiously.
‘I went to the Swan Hotel bar, hoping he’d be there, and someone told me he was here, at a party.’ A sheepish look comes over her pretty face. ‘I would never normally do something like this – go to a stranger’s home looking for someone – but he’s driven me to it.’ She laughs mirthlessly. ‘It’s amazing what desperation will force you to do. But he won’t take my calls, so what can I do?’ She shrugs hopelessly.
I sit down beside her. ‘Do you want to get back with Ethan? He told me you went out a while ago.’
She laughs, a hard, abrupt sound, filled with disbelief. ‘He told you we went out?’
‘Yes.’ A feeling of dread creeps through me. ‘Are you saying you weren’t a couple?’
‘Oh, we were in a relationship all right. We went out for a year and then we got married.’
I stare at her, feeling as if I’ve been punched in the stomach.
Ethan was married to Alicia?
I study her face, trying to gleam the truth from her expression. She might be making it all up. A fantasist.
I swallow hard.
The thing is, I actually believe her. Especially now the scales have well and truly fallen from my eyes as far as Ethan is concerned.
‘He never told me he’d been married.’ I say slowly.
Alicia smiles sadly. ‘There’s probably a lot of things he hasn’t told you. Like we first me when he came to live next door to me in Nottingham and I introduced him to the local amateur dramatics club.’
I stare at her. ‘Wait, that was you? He said it was a woman called Elsie who he still sends a Christmas card to.’
She laughs bitterly. ‘No, it was me, who he eventually married. And by the way, we still are. Married.’
‘Right.’ I stare at her. This just gets worse and worse . . .
‘Ethan said you have a flat in Guildford.’
She shakes her head. ‘No. I still live in Nottingham. I’m staying with an old friend here just now.’
‘And are you getting a divorce?’ I ask, wondering how on earth I can sound so calm when the world I thought I knew is crumbling around me.
Is anything Ethan told me the actual truth?
‘Oh, yes.’ She nods firmly. ‘I wish to God I’d never met Ethan Fox.’ She gives a big, shaky sigh. ‘Once the finances are settled, I hope I’ll never have to see him again.’
‘The finances?’
She bows her head. ‘Ethan owes me money,’ she says quietly so I almost don’t hear her. ‘But he’s refusing to answer my calls, which is why I’ve been forced to try and track him down. I thought if I showed him the scan picture, he’d understand why I need that money.’
My heart lurches. ‘The scan picture?’
‘Oh, yes. Didn’t he tell you?’ She looks up at me, her eyes haunted. ‘No, of course he didn’t. He’s claiming it’s not his. That I must have slept with someone else. But I haven’t.’
As I stare at her in horror, she lays a protective hand on her belly.
‘It’s definitely his baby. Ethan’s going to be a dad.’