Her voicemail beeped as the message echoed down the line once more. ‘Libby, I wish you would answer your phone. I want to see how you are, how Izzy is. Please… Look, I am with Jules. We are in Sussex. I’m sorry but I do really care about Jules and we’ve decided to be together. We wouldn’t have done this to you or to Angus if we weren’t serious about each other. I hope one day you can forgive us. I’ll let you know when I’m back in London so we can arrange when I can come and see Izzy. I’m sorry. I wish things had worked out differently. You are an amazing person.’
Angus passed back the phone. Tears shimmered in his eyes. She couldn’t bear to see him like this. Libby had listened to the message so many times that she knew it off by heart. Jules had told Angus face to face that she was leaving to be with Luca, but Libby had refused to see him, to have any contact with him, so he had left her a voicemail instead.
‘I just can’t believe it,’ he shook his head again. ‘What kind of people are they?’
‘They certainly aren’t who we thought they were,’ Libby said. Her eyes were swollen from all the tears she had cried. Angus looked shell-shocked; they both did. Deep bags shadowed his blue eyes.
‘I think I would find it easier if it had been anyone else,’ Angus said. ‘I just feel so ashamed of her; I can’t believe she could do that to you… To me, yes. I could have seen it coming. Things haven’t been great between us for quite some time, but neither of us knew what to do about it. It was almost inevitable that something would break us. Not that it makes this any less difficult. I thought about ending it myself, you know. I almost did once. I wanted to start over with someone who could give me a family. I felt desperate to have a chance at becoming a dad… But I just couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t walk away from all those years of marriage. I would never have broken my marriage vows; to me that just was never and never would be an option.’
‘I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but I think this is probably going to be a good thing for you, Angus.’ Libby took his hand and turned to face him. ‘The fact that Jules could do that to you, and to me, just shows what kind of a person she is. She has clearly got no loyalty, no principals; she’s just so selfish that all she cares about is herself, what she wants.’
‘I think you’re right.’ He took a deep breath, putting his head in his hands and rubbing his temples.
‘You deserve so much more than that; you are the best person I know. And some day you’re going to make an incredible dad.’ She rested her head on his shoulder as they sat side by side on the sofa, partners in their misery. Tears rolled down her cheeks once again and she turned to rest her face against his chest. It felt as though they were grieving. Angus stroked her hair and held her closely. She breathed in the familiar, comforting smell of him and felt her sobs subside; she could feel the rhythmic beating of his heart against her cheek.
‘Thank god we’ve got each other,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
It was all slowly starting to sink in.
‘When do you think this all started?’ Angus asked her.
‘I’ve been thinking about that, going through any possible clues that I might have missed. Luca was clearly an expert at covering his tracks. Not that that should surprise me, given his history. God, I feel so naïve…’
‘I guess I just wasn’t paying much attention to Jules. I’ve been so engrossed in work. I preferred spending time in the studio alone to coming home to more arguments.’
‘I bet it was all that time they spent working on Jules’s portfolio.’
‘It must be.’
‘Luca said it had only been a few months. I’ve been thinking – maybe it started as far back as that weekend they spent together? When I asked Jules to entertain Luca because he was so bored and lonely? How bloody ironic. She certainly took that request to heart, didn’t she?’
‘Where do you think they did it?’ asked Angus, wincing at the thought even as he asked the question.
‘Don’t! I can’t bear thinking about it.’ Libby still couldn’t get her head around the fact that they had actually slept together.
‘Do you think they did it in our beds?’ he asked.
‘Probably.’ She shook her head in disbelief. The thought made her feel physically sick.
‘I can’t stop trying to piece it all together. I knew Luca wasn’t happy, but I thought it was just him missing Italy. I can’t believe how trusting I was.’
‘It’s not your fault, Libs.’
‘There were so many clues, so many times when he was down or distant… I just left him to it.’
‘I feel the same… I never thought she would cheat on me. It genuinely never crossed my mind.’
‘I should have known these client meetings he’d started having in the evenings were a load of crap. Him suddenly making plans at the weekends—’
‘Libby, please… Don’t be so hard on yourself. You are not the one at fault here. Luca is. I never really trusted him, you know. I never thought he was good enough for you. I’m sorry about the way I behaved when I found out you were pregnant. You know I think I was jealous in some way, that you were having a child when I wanted one so badly. That this random guy could just click his fingers and have you, a family, the kind of life that I wanted so much – and after such a short fling… I couldn’t bear it.’
‘He only stayed with me because of the baby,’ said Libby. ‘If it hadn’t been for Izzy, we never would have lasted past the summer. We certainly never would have got engaged. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t fallen pregnant…’
They sat in silent contemplation on the sofa, slowly processing it all, allowing it all to gradually sink in.