‘I have not broken your heart – you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.’
When Nina woke up the next morning, she was groggy and disorientated. Couldn’t think where she was or why it was so dark and why she seemed to be snuggled up to a hot water bottle.
She lay there willing her brain to work until slowly the events of yesterday came back into focus. No wonder she was so achy and sore, slightly hungover too, and that was no hot water bottle; that was a hot naked Noah.
‘Nina? Are you awake?’ hot naked Noah whispered in her ear and she tried to say yes, but it came out as more of a grunt.
‘I think I am,’ she croaked out and it took all the effort in the world but she managed to find the energy to roll over so they were facing each other. ‘Hi!’
‘Hello. I missed you. Let’s never go to sleep again,’ Noah said and he kissed the tip of her nose and Nina had experienced enough awkward morning-afters to know that this wasn’t one of them. Noah wasn’t the type of man to get his goodies then exit stage left; he’d meant what he said last night about this not being a fling.
And Nina? Despite the aches and pains and the suspicion that some small woodland creature had crawled into her mouth during the night and died, she’d rarely felt more content. ‘Or we could have another sleep right now?’ she suggested, because she was still tired.
‘When you say sleep, do you mean sleep or do you mean something else?’ Noah asked, nudging Nina in a way that should have ignited all sorts of fires, but as it was all she could manage was a feeble smoulder and when he leaned in to kiss her, she had to shift her face away.
‘I did actually mean sleep,’ she said huskily. ‘You’ve worn me out and also, I have the worst morning mouth ever so stop trying to kiss me.’
‘Poor Nina.’ Noah didn’t seem to care that there was a small animal corpse in Nina’s mouth because he did steal one swift but tender kiss, then laughed and let her go. ‘Because you’re my current favourite person in the world, I’ll let you have a lie-in while I grab the first shower, but it’s gone nine already. I think we’ve probably missed breakfast.’
Usually Nina loved a hotel breakfast. No continental option for her, but full fry-up every time, but even the thought of bacon, eggs and a couple of rounds of toast couldn’t stir her from her recumbent position. She felt Noah shift off the bed and took the opportunity to burrow deeper under the covers. She could sleep for a week.
Her phone started ringing from across the room where it had been charging since before they went to dinner last night. ‘Shall I grab that for you?’ Noah asked.
‘No, leave it.’
‘Too late, lazybones,’ Noah said and Nina opened one eye to see him staring down at her ringing phone.
‘Please … it can’t be that important,’ she grumbled, keen to get back to dozing.
‘What?’ Noah asked sharply, sharp enough that Nina managed to prop herself up on one elbow, but then the phone stopped ringing and he shook his head and walked to the bathroom with such an unsteady gait that he cannoned off the wall.
It seemed like she wasn’t the only one who was tired, Nina thought as her phone beeped to let her know she had a voicemail. Then it started ringing again. Stop. Snuggle. Beep.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
The fourth time it rang, Nina flung back the covers with a growl of pure frustration. There was obviously some kind of emergency and someone needed to contact her urgently, or there had better be, otherwise Nina was going to hunt down her caller and hurt him or her terribly.
Her legs were very wobbly as she wrapped herself mummy-style in a sheet and teetered over to the sideboard and her phone.
It started to ring again, with Paul’s name and a picture of Ellie and Rosie flashing on the screen. Nina reached for it with fumbling fingers.
‘What’s up? Is it an emergency? Is it Gran? Oh God, it is Gran! Has she had another funny turn?’
‘It’s not Gran, she’s fine,’ Paul said cheerfully so there obviously wasn’t any urgent reason for him to bombard her with phone calls this early on a Saturday morning. ‘But you, you don’t sound fine. You sound rougher than a badger’s arse. Big night last night, was it?’
Nina blushed. Why she was blushing, she didn’t exactly know. And she also didn’t know how she was going to break it to Noah that she was the sister of his adolescent tormentor. That she, in fact, had gone to Orange Hill too and had witnessed her brother’s crimes first-hand.
It was a very complicated situation, which would need to be handled with a lot of finesse. But she was getting way ahead of herself. The most pressing thing was to come clean: it was not going to be pleasant but what they had was so special, so rare, that surely it could overcome a few obstacles? She’d tell him when they got back to London.
‘Just a medium-sized night,’ she rasped, her voice scratchy. ‘I’m actually out of town for the weekend …’
‘Yeah, that’s nice, can we talk about me now?’ Paul obviously wasn’t calling to exchange social pleasantries. ‘You have to help me! It’s our ninth wedding anniversary and it will be my last if I don’t get Chloe an amazing present.’
Nina’s legs really didn’t want to keep her upright any longer so she collapsed onto one of the armchairs on either side of the fire. ‘Why have you left it to the last minute?’
‘Because we said that we weren’t going to make a fuss about our anniversary. We agreed! And now she’s got a right cob on because I haven’t got her anything,’ Paul said in an aggrieved voice. ‘Says that she still hasn’t forgiven me for her birthday present.’
‘You got her a vacuum cleaner,’ Nina reminded him. ‘You’re a monster.’
‘It was a top-of-the-range model …’ Paul tailed off because there was no way he was winning this argument. ‘You’re a woman. What do I get her?’
Nina tipped her head back. She couldn’t decide if she was hot or cold. She felt like she was burning up under the sheet but her legs, exposed to the air, were freezing. And her brain really didn’t want to work. ‘Do you want my help?’ Nina barked, which made her throat feel even scratchier. ‘Because if you do, you can lose the tone, mate.’
‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ Paul struggled to find a more genial manner. ‘It’s just she’s already pretty mad. I’ve already been shouted at for not putting my cereal bowl in the dishwasher. So, have you got any bright ideas about what to get Chloe?’
This conversation was giving Nina the mother of all headaches. ‘Isn’t there a gift assigned to each year you’ve been married. Like, silver for twenty-five years, gold for fifty … Hang on, I’ll Google what nine years stands for.’
She was busy Googling when there was a polite cough. Nina looked up from her phone screen to see Noah standing there, a towel tucked round his waist. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed. ‘Family crisis.’ And then she had to look away because last night she couldn’t see a thing and this morning, she could see everything. Or she could see that Noah was lean but muscly like all that kayaking and ziplining was quite the workout and yes, he was covered in freckles and next time, she was going to kiss every single one of them.
Which was probably why Noah was frowning because Nina was staring at him the way Strumpet stared at the fridge when it was still hours before his dinnertime.
‘So … you Googled it then? What’s nine years?’ demanded Paul who she’d put on speaker while she was searching and Noah seemed to flinch, then gathered up clean clothes and whisked himself back into the bathroom.
‘It’s pottery and willow,’ Nina told Paul distractedly.
‘Ah, that’s why Clo got me a cricket bat. Clever girl. What other stuff is made out of willow?’
‘Nothing that I can think of.’
By the time Noah came back into the room, fully dressed in jeans and ubiquitous navy jumper, the same frowny look on his face, Paul was under strict instructions to go to the nearest John Lewis (‘but that’s Kingston!’) to get a limited edition Diptyque candle in a beautiful, hand-made porcelain jar.
‘Fifty-five quid for a bloody candle!’ Paul shouted down the phone.
‘And get her some perfume while you’re there,’ Nina snapped back. ‘She’s the mother of your children. She spent two whole days in labour with Rosie so you can pony up on the anniversary present.’
‘I suppose,’ Paul grumbled but Nina knew that he’d do as he was told. He adored Chloe; she was the best thing that had ever happened to him and he didn’t really deserve her.
‘I mean, no one else but Chloe would put up with you,’ she reminded him sweetly. ‘Have I mentioned that lately?’
‘Maybe. Only about fifty times or so because you’re the most annoying sister ever,’ Paul said and Noah was packing his bag, still with the same grim expression on his face and Nina didn’t know why he looked so angry …
Oh!
Oh God!
No!
Surely there was no way he could know. Not yet!
Because Nina needed time to explain this properly, oh so carefully, and once she had done so and reintroduced them, then Noah would see how Paul had changed, was a completely different person from the hateful boy he’d been at school. It would be all right. It had to be all right.
But that was in the future. Not too long in the future but he couldn’t know yet. Could he? Nina said a quick goodbye to Paul and turned her attention back to Noah. ‘Sorry,’ she said, blood rushing in her ears. ‘Boring family drama.’
‘It’s fine,’ Noah said, putting his phone charger into one of the pockets of his holdall. ‘Look, I hate to rush you but you should probably have a shower and I’ll go and see if breakfast is still an option.’
Nina wasn’t that hungry but she flashed Noah what she hoped was a brilliant smile. ‘Lifesaver,’ she said, but he didn’t smile back, just nodded his head and maybe she was reading too much into the taut lines of his face. Maybe he was just one of those people who were really grumpy in the morning until they’d had at least one caffeinated beverage.
There was still so much to discover about each other, Nina mused, as she stepped into the shower. Noah hadn’t even seen her without make-up as she hadn’t had a chance to take yesterday’s slap off. She was tempted to angle her face away from the stream of water and just retouch what she already had on but when she eventually left the en suite she was showered, dressed and fresh-faced.
‘I’m not a natural beauty, all right?’ she thought she’d better clarify to Noah who was sitting stiff-backed in one of the armchairs. She’d obviously taken much longer than she intended. ‘Sorry, was I ages? Were you about to scrounge up some breakfast? Even a couple of pieces of toast would do. I’m not even that hungry, which is weird because normally …’
‘This isn’t going to work,’ Noah said abruptly, one hand held up to cut through Nina’s ponderings on her lack of appetite.
‘Oh, it’s all right,’ Nina assured him. ‘We can easily go out for breakfast. Though I suppose it would really be brunch by now. Have I got time to do a light daytime make-up?’
Noah sighed. ‘I’m talking about us. We’re not going to work,’ he said heavily and with such an air of finality that it was like a door slamming shut in Nina’s make-up-free face.
‘What are you talking about?’ She’d felt heavy and achy ever since she’d woken up, but now there was a leaden weight inside her so it seemed as if all of Nina’s organs were hurtling towards the ground. ‘We’re fine! Last night was great. Better than great and this morning you said …’ It was hard to remember what Noah had said … Then she remembered the nudge of his hips and … ‘You said that you’d missed me while I slept. You wanted to go again!’
He shut his eyes as if the memory of those delicious moments caught between sleep and waking was painful. Nina could hardly look at him. She had this crazy notion that if she did, she might turn to stone like in the Greek legends, but when she did steel herself to look at Noah, her eyes blazing, it was he who looked as if he’d been turned to stone. ‘There’s too much baggage for this to work.’
Nina’s lips twisted. It wasn’t the first time she’d had this conversation with a man the morning after. ‘It’s not like I’m a virgin. I’m nearly thirty,’ she said bitterly. ‘But I haven’t slept with as many men as people think I have. And anyway, even if I’d had sex with a thousand men, that shouldn’t matter. It should only matter that I’m having sex with you.’
‘I’m not talking about that kind of baggage.’ It would have been easier, better, if Noah were red in the face and raising his voice. That was familiar territory for Nina; stand-up rows. But Noah’s face was as dull as the flat tone in which he spoke. ‘I saw his picture flash up when I went to get your phone. It’s been a while, but I’d recognise him anywhere. Paul O’Kelly. He’s your brother.’
It wasn’t a question. Just an absolutely unequivocal statement that Nina couldn’t deny. Couldn’t fudge. Couldn’t come back to at a later date. ‘Yes,’ she answered in a broken whisper. ‘He is and I wanted to …’
Noah held up a hand to silence her. ‘You know, I did wonder if he was your brother. I mean, you do have the same surname and I was sure I saw him outside the soft-play centre when I picked you up the other week, but I told myself I was being silly. If he had been your brother, you’d have mentioned it, but you didn’t so I thought it was just an unhappy coincidence.’
‘I wanted to tell you,’ Nina offered weakly, all of her cold and clammy now that the awful truth had come out when everything had been so perfect. ‘I meant to tell you.’
‘And my grandmother, you remember her, a regular visitor at your aunt’s salon? She was insistent that the girl who used to work there who did her colour was Paul O’Kelly’s sister but I decided that couldn’t be true because she’s always getting things muddled and anyway, Nina would have told me. Just like she would have told me that she’d gone to Orange Hill,’ Noah said. ‘Because you did, didn’t you? You knew me back then.’ His eyes bored into her and Nina dropped her gaze to her feet. ‘When did you figure it out?’
There was an edge to his voice now too: the dullness starting to crack under the sheer weight of Noah’s anger. Not just anger; when she dared a fleeting glance up at Noah’s face she could see hurt, betrayal, confusion all play across his features. ‘After the quiz, when you were walking me to the bus stop,’ she admitted and she shivered because she felt as if she’d been entombed in ice. ‘But … but …’
‘But you never thought to mention it? It just slipped your mind, did it?’
‘I didn’t want to drag up the past, when I knew it was so painful for you.’ Nina held her hand out towards Noah but he took a step back. ‘You don’t know how I’ve tortured myself over this …’ Nina began and Noah smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile.
‘Torture? Like the way your brother,’ he spat the word out like it tasted rotten in his mouth, ‘would punch me, hit me, throw things at me, spit at me, the names he would call me … God, I think his words hurt the most.’
‘Don’t!’ Nina clapped her hands over her ears because she couldn’t bear to listen to the catalogue of Paul’s crimes and then she closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see the ugly expression on Noah’s face.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Nina, am I upsetting you?’ Noah snapped and when Nina forced herself to open her eyes, his expression was grim, resolute, uncompromising. ‘He’s a monster.’
‘He’s my brother,’ Nina said helplessly. ‘That doesn’t mean that he gets a free pass for what he did to you, and he and I weren’t close then, God, we barely tolerated each other, but it was years ago. He was the person in the accident that I told you about and he nearly died, and it made him take stock of everything, of who he was and how he’d behaved. And now he has Chloe and the niecelets.’ The tears were prickling, soon they’d be streaming down her face.
This was meant to be different. Noah was different to all her others. And last night, she’d even imagined that he was the one; that rare mix of passion and staying power. Not even imagined, but had been sure of it in a way that Nina was rarely sure about anything.
And now?
Everything, them, the us they could have been was dust and ashes and it was all her fault, but there had to be a way, something she could say, to turn this round. To make Noah see that the past was nothing to do with their future. ‘He’s not the same person he was when we were at school. He’s changed and only for the good and he knows that what he did was wrong. He wants the opportunity to say sorry, to make it up to you,’ she said, her words distorted by the sob that was rising up in her throat.
‘There is nothing he could say or do to make it up to me. Nothing,’ Noah said. He put his hand to his temples. ‘You should have told me! Instead you’ve deceived me. Lied to me. So many lies! You even brushed away the very simple fact that we were at school together.’
‘I never meant to lie,’ Nina cried. ‘How was I to know that you and I were going to become something? That I’d have feelings for you?’
She broke off so Noah could say that he had feelings for her too but he didn’t and judging from the tight cast to his face, any feelings that he did have for her weren’t good ones. Still, she was determined to soldier on.
‘I’ve felt terrible about not telling you, felt so guilty and ashamed about what Paul did to you when we were at school … it was why I agreed to go on that first non-date. Because I felt so sorry for you and I wanted, in some small way, to make it up to you.’ It wasn’t what she meant to say but Nina could hardly think. Her head seemed to be stuffed with cotton wool.
‘You felt sorry for me?’
‘Not sorry, guilty,’ Nina amended as if that made it any better.
It didn’t.
‘So, it was a pity date. Not even a date, but a non-date?’ Noah queried, but he still wasn’t shouting or swearing at her so that had to be good.
‘Well, yeah. I mean, you’re hardly my type or me yours, but that was before …’
‘Actually, now that I think about it, it’s obvious that you’re his sister. Cruelty apparently runs in the family,’ Noah said.
Nina gasped. It was a low blow, the lowest, and she deserved it – though that didn’t mean that she was going to take it either.
She opened her mouth and was all set to point out that it hadn’t just been Paul; he alone couldn’t be held responsible for the bullying – and then she realised how that sounded. She would be diminishing Noah’s pain, the fear and loathing that had characterised his adolescence, and the fact that her brother had been the chief architect of Noah’s destruction.
What was that saying? Love the sinner, hate the sin.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said and she tried to make those two words count, to mean something and everything. Noah was sitting there, his limbs arranged awkwardly, his head hanging low, as if he was broken. ‘Going on a date with you out of guilt was before I got to know you. And now …’
‘Now, I wish I’d never got to know you. In fact, I realise I didn’t know the real you until I saw your brother’s face on your phone.’ Noah gave a short, humourless chuckle. ‘You’re still the same mean-spirited girl like all the other girls at that school were. The ones who would jeer as they watched your brother beat the hell out of me.’
‘I never jeered. Not once,’ Nina protested, though the picture Noah was painting of his school days was familiar. She never jeered, but she’d definitely hurried past with her head down. ‘I’m not mean-spirited. I’m not like that at all. I was just as pleased to leave Worcester Park as you.’
‘All the evidence indicates otherwise.’ Noah’s face was ashen white. ‘I think it’s pretty mean-spirited to have been lying to me this entire time.’
‘I didn’t set out to lie to you. I didn’t lie lie, I just lied by omission. If you’d asked me if Paul was my brother, then I’d have told you the truth but you never did,’ Nina said and again, it wasn’t what she meant to say and she shook her head to try and clear the fug where her brain should be, but it just made everything throb.
‘So it’s my fault for not having better deductive reasoning? Honestly, Nina, how did you think this was going to play out?’ Noah demanded.
Nina rested the tips of her fingers on her aching forehead. ‘You were the one who asked me out,’ she mumbled.
‘You didn’t have to say yes … OK! I get it!’ Noah nodded. ‘This is exactly what you wanted, isn’t it?’
‘How can you think that this is what I wanted?’
‘As you don’t seem to be at all familiar with the concept of honesty, allow me to give you a few home truths. The reason that you want passion and drama is because you haven’t got what it takes to make a real relationship work. A relationship is about loving someone, it’s about kindness, being selfless sometimes – all qualities that you’re lacking.’ Noah threw his words at her as if they were poisoned darts, each one aimed straight at Nina’s heart.
For someone who insisted that he was a cold fish, in this moment, Noah was more passionate than Nina had ever seen him – apart from the night before. And yes, this was the drama and passion that Nina craved, but it was destructive and corrosive and suddenly Nina didn’t want anything to do with drama and passion ever again.
Because Noah was half right. There was something lacking in her and she tried to disguise it with hair dye and tattoos and leopard print, but underneath it all, there wasn’t much substance, hardly any depth. Nina knew that she could be hard and abrasive, but surely she was never spiteful? There was a softer side to her and now Noah would never see it. See her. See a woman that he might fall in love with.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said yet again but she’d never meant the words as much as she meant them now.
Noah’s gaze flickered over her dismissively. ‘It wasn’t even as if last night could make up for this. It wasn’t that good,’ he said as he hammered the final nails into the coffin of what they could have been. ‘Get your bags packed, we’re going back to London. I had a whole day planned for us, but not now, not with you.’
Then he got up and walked out of the room as if he couldn’t bear to look at her, which was fine with Nina because she couldn’t bear for him to see her cry.