The next day, Rory woke up before her alarm and lay in bed for a while, staring at the ceiling. She was going to have to talk to Belle this morning and she wanted to make sure that she got it right this time.

First, she called her mum back to talk about George and Olive and fill her in on the two search parties. As she’d expected, her mum was cross.

‘Why didn’t you call me, Aurora?’

‘You couldn’t have done anything Mum and, anyway, you had enough to worry about with Olive.’

‘That’s not the point; you should have told me. I could have come with you. The thought of you driving around on your own: panicking. You might have had an accident.’

‘I wasn’t on my own.’ Might as well get it over with. ‘John was with me.’

There was a pause at the other end of the line.

‘John Prince?’

No. Rory wanted to say. John McEnroe. ‘Yes. John Prince.’

If it was possible to hear a smile breaking, Rory could have sworn she heard it. ‘Oh. Well. I’m glad. Glad that he was there to help you out.’

Rory had been glad, too. It had been such a tough day. She would never admit it to her mother, but maybe Sheila was right about this ‘need’ versus ‘want’ idea.

---

When Belle woke up, she was less hesitant than Rory had been in admitting that her mother was right.

‘Before you say anything, I know. You were right.’

That wasn’t how Rory had expected this conversation to begin. ‘Right about what?’

‘About men. About trusting them. About them all being after one thing.’

Rory felt winded. She hadn’t meant to give Belle that message. She had only wanted to protect her. Prevent her from making a mistake. Ensure that she was ready for a world which might hold some disappointments.

‘I never said that, Belle. I never told you not to trust men.’

‘Well, you talked about life not being a fairy tale often enough. That there wasn’t a perfect prince waiting for me. And you were right.’

This was too much to cope with at 7 a.m. Rory should be in the shower by now, but she couldn’t expect Belle to go to school as if nothing had happened.

‘Can we start with the events last night?’

Belle scrunched up her eyes and then opened them again. ‘Nothing happened last night.’

Rory put her hand up to her head. She was exhausted. ‘Belle, please.’

Belle jutted out her chin. And her hip. ‘I mean it. Nothing happened. We didn’t sleep together.’

Must not let the relief show on her face. Tread carefully. Teenagers are a volatile and unpredictable material. ‘But you had planned to?’

Belle’s face coloured. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. We’d talked about it but, I wasn’t sure. I do… did… think I loved him. But when it got to it, I just wasn’t ready.’

Slowly. Carefully. ‘And he didn’t try to… force you into anything?’

Belle shook her head. Then stopped. ‘He did try to persuade me a little bit. But I just kept saying not yet. And then…’ Her lip started to quiver.

Rory couldn’t bear it when the edges of Belle’s mouth turned down like that, but it was her fight to keep her voice from shaking that really churned Rory’s insides. ‘Then?’

Belle rubbed her nose. ‘Then he started to get cross. Well, angry.’

Rory was trying to keep a lid on the anger herself. ‘What did he say?’

‘He said I was being pathetic. Childish. That we were supposed to be a proper couple and I was just ruining everything.’

Rory had to squeeze her hands together to stop her from banging them down on the table. ‘And that’s when you left?’

Belle nodded. ‘That’s when I started to’ – she looked down at the floor – ‘to put my clothes back on and he… he said… he said…’ She started to cry.

Rory put her arms around Belle and pulled her in close. How could her baby girl be dealing with this already? Why hadn’t the world moved on by now? ‘Whatever he said will have been an absolute lie.’

Belle’s face was scrunched up against Rory so her voice was muffled. ‘He said that he was going to tell everyone that I had slept with him anyway and they would believe him. And he’d tell them that I was really rubbish and didn’t know what I was doing.’ She started to sob.

There was no way Rory could leave her and go into work. She would just have to be late for once. Let Nathan Finch call her into his office and complete one of his stupid ‘why I was late to work’ forms if she had to. Right now, she needed to be here with Belle. She laid her cheek on the top of her daughter’s head. ‘More hot chocolate?’

A soggy face nodded into Rory’s chest.

---

Rory called St Anthony’s to let them know she was delayed, packed Charlie off to school and then made hot chocolate for herself and Belle. Extra marshmallows.

‘Before we start to talk about this…’ Bastard? Demon? Excuse for humanity? ‘…boy, I think I need to apologise to you and clear up a few things.’

Belle nearly choked on a marshmallow. ‘Apologise? What for?’

This wasn’t going to be easy. ‘I think I may have… overdone the whole “life is not a fairy tale” thing.’

Belle put her mug down. ‘No, Mum. You were right. If I had been a bit more…’

Rory held up a hand. ‘You do not need to be a bit more of anything. You are absolutely exactly as you should be. A little naïve, maybe. But no more than any girl of sixteen. I think that I kept on about the fairy tale thing because I didn’t want you to be disappointed. To be hurt. To be…’

‘Like this?’ Belle gave a wry smile. ‘Didn’t really work out too well, did it, Mum?’

Rory put her hand onto Belle’s cheek and stroked her face with her thumb. ‘No, my lovely girl, it didn’t.’

Belle covered Rory’s hand with her own. ‘I’ll be okay, Mum.’

There was a lump the size of a fist in Rory’s throat. ‘Of course you will be, sweetheart. You will be absolutely fine. And I want you to know how proud I am that you stood up for what you wanted. Some girls are not that strong. They end up doing something they regret and that can make life complicated.’

‘Is that how you feel about Dad?’

Rory was surprised. Where had that come from? ‘Your dad? No. Definitely not. I loved your dad. And he loved me. I think. In his own “Scott” kind of way.’

‘So why didn’t it work out?’

‘We were really young, Belle. We probably weren’t ready to be parents. And we were both far too young to commit to one person.’

‘You mean Dad went with other women. I’m not a baby, Mum. I know what he’s like.’

‘It wasn’t just his fault. When your grandad died – my dad – I was pretty angry for a while.’ Pretty angry was an understatement. There had been a large glass table and several items of crockery which hadn’t survived that period of her life. Scott was definitely no saint, but he hadn’t been the one throwing breakable items around.

‘But you regret getting pregnant young and you were worried that I would be an air-head fairy tale princess who would end up doing the same.’

Rory sat back and looked at her daughter. When had she become so wise? Rory’s mum was right, Belle wasn’t a child any more. Perhaps that was part of the problem. Rory hadn’t seen that. She took her time before answering.

‘Maybe I did want to protect you. Make sure you were ready for the reality of life. But if you are asking me if I regret getting pregnant, the answer is no, Belle. Definitely not. How could I ever regret something that brought me someone as wonderful as you?’

Belle smiled. It took Rory’s breath away. It was like looking at herself, twenty-two years ago. ‘I am pretty wonderful, aren’t I?

Rory laughed and hugged her. She was going to be okay.

She held Belle out at arm’s length. ‘And I want to be clear about something. I don’t think all men are the same. Your grandad is a good example. He was a very good man.’

‘And John.’

If that fluttering feeling didn’t go away soon, Rory was going to the doctor. ‘John Prince?’

‘Granny says John reminds her of Grandad. And John’s a good man too, isn’t he?’

Rory smelled a conspiracy. She was going to kill her mother. ‘Yes. He has been very good to us.’

‘So maybe you could stop telling yourself that life is not a fairy tale, too.’

Rory sighed. How was she going to get out of this one?

Last night had been truly awful. But John had been wonderful. Having someone to share some of the worry, to help to find a solution, to tell her she was doing all right – it had helped more than she could have imagined. When they had talked about his mum she had felt… a closeness? She shook her head. That was just his way. He was a helper. That’s what he did. To read more into it was setting herself – and her mother and daughter – up for a disappointment.

‘Belle, John isn’t interested in me. He is a kind man and I am grateful, but there is nothing between us other than friendship.’

But Belle wasn’t to be put off that easily. ‘Do you honestly not like him, Mum? Do you promise me?’

Damn her clever daughter. She knew that Rory would not promise something she didn’t mean. They had never promised anything to each other that they couldn’t keep or that wasn’t true. Rory couldn’t promise Belle that she didn’t have feelings for John. But she couldn’t tell her how she did feel, because she didn’t really know herself. Just avoid answering. Change the subject.

‘Look, you don’t need to go to college today if you don’t want to.’

Belle groaned and leaned back on the sofa. You could always rely on the self-absorbed nature of teenagers if you wanted to distract them. ‘What if he’s told everyone we slept together? What am I going to do?’

‘Actually…’ Rory smiled; she had been thinking about this when she’d gone to sleep last night. In between fantasising about which part of Alfie she would like to dismember first. ‘I might have an idea about that.’

But before she could explain, her mobile rang. It was Susie.

‘Where the hell are you? We got the call!’