Always and Only You

Chapter Seventy-Four

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

Present Day

I feel as if I’ve been smacked in the face. I also feel as if I’m flying. But he’s right once again. I don’t want this. I want to run away from it. Because it doesn’t feel safe. It doesn’t feel safe at all.

The only way I can come up with to protect myself is to attack. ‘You love me? And you think that’s an okay thing to say to me? I’m Simon’s fiancée! That’s a great way to show your loyalty to your best friend!’

‘I can’t help what I feel. What I’ve always felt. I tried so hard not to. You have no idea.’

He looks pained, but I can’t let myself be fooled again. I can’t give in to him. ‘Even if what you say is true, that it’s not just some “ha, I got you good!” scheme and you really have feelings for me, that makes it worse. It’s so manipulative! You made me think you were Simon so I’d open up to you in a way you knew I wouldn’t if I were talking to you. You lured me in and you made me trust you with things I’d never told anyone else. And I still don’t understand why. I was with Simon! What were you ever going to get out of it?’

He’s stopped from answering by a ding from my phone. I hold up a hand and check the text message that’s just arrived. It’s the cab company. There’s an accident on the road from Kingsbridge and they’re going to be delayed.

That can’t happen. I know I’m teetering on the edge of believing Gil, even though I want to hate him, I want to believe he’s the waste of space I always thought he was. ‘I can’t listen to this any more,’ I say.

Leaving my cases in the hallway, I stride past him into the living room and head for the kitchen drawer where he keeps all his odds and ends.

‘What are you looking for?’ Gil asks, his voice tense and heavy as I scrabble through the drawer looking for a small white business card I’m sure I saw there a week or two ago.

‘The number for the taxi driver who lives in the next village.’

‘If you really want to go back to London, I’ll drive you.’

‘No way. I’m booked on the 7.20 out of Totnes.’

‘You’re going to go all that way on your own?’

I’ve been through the mostly empty drawer three times now and the card is nowhere to be found. I spin round and take my frustration out on Gil. ‘Yes, on my own. I won’t die. I was a capable woman once upon a time, and I still have a few working brain cells, you know.’

‘I wasn’t doubting your ability. That’s not what I was saying. It’s just that some situations still make you nervous—’

‘There you go, telling me about myself again. But you know nothing about me, Gil Sampson.’

His gaze is steady. The fact he’s relatively calm while I feel as if I’m climbing the walls only makes me feel more out of control. ‘Then at least let me drive you to the station. I can explain on the drive there.’

‘No,’ I say quietly.

‘You’ve got to give me a chance!’

‘I don’t have to do anything you tell me to do. I’m my own person. I’m not going to stay here to please you. I’m going to please myself, and what I want to do is call a cab to take me to the station.’

He steps closer, runs a hand through his hair and then meets my gaze. It feels as if he’s letting me look into his very soul, but I know I can’t trust that feeling.

‘I’m not telling you to do anything. I’m begging you, Erin. Please let me explain. I’m not the person you think I am, I’m really not.’

I shake my head. I feel as if I’m in an earthquake, that his revelation he was the one I was talking to all those years ago has split the ground, making it shift beneath my feet, and now it’s all I can do to stay upright as the aftershocks roll through. I have to grab on to the one thing I believe to be true. ‘All you can do in this life is judge people by their actions, and you have betrayed me twice, Gil.’

Gil looks as blindsided as I feel. ‘Twice?’

‘First by pretending to be Simon, by manipulating me and lying to me and then … Because you did it all over again. Here. At Heron’s Quay. Over these last few weeks you made me trust you again. You made me—’ My next word was about to be ‘feel’ but I stop myself. I clear my throat and regroup. ‘What matters is you’ve just proved to me I was right all along. You are not worth my time or attention. You’re nothing to me.’

Gil stares back at me for a few seconds and I see the desolation in his eyes. If he isn’t lying to me, if he really has feelings for me, then I know I have just ripped his heart out with my bare hands and shredded it before him. I have to look away.

I hear noises and turn to see Gil rummaging in the open drawer. He pulls out a notepad and pen, scribbles something down on it and hands it to me: Jeff’s Taxis , with a number beneath. And then he turns and walks away.