‘I’m Amelia. Lexi’s big sister,’ Mimi said, unbelievably shoving me to one side and holding out her hand to Nick. ‘It’s nice to meet you in person. You didn’t sound this tall on the phone.’
Nick’s lips twitched but his eyes kept flashing back to my face, which was probably still cycling through from shock to dismay and back again.
This was a huge moment. Not just for me but for Amelia too. It was one thing for her to dismiss her confabulation about being married as nonsense. It was easy to look at a photograph and say:I’ve never seen that man before.But how did she feel when the man she’d been able to draw from memory with perfect accuracy was standing right there in front of her?
Her eyes travelled the length of the man I loved.
‘So, you’re Nick,’ she said artlessly, shaking his hand.
‘I am,’ Nick said, and for a moment I could sense a change of pressure in the air. Perhaps that’s what happens when five people simultaneously hold their breath.
‘They told me I dreamt of you.’
‘I heard that too,’ Nick said.
I was starting to feel light-headed from either lack of oxygen or suspense.
‘Is it rude to say I genuinely have no memory of you?’ Amelia asked.
‘It’s not rude at all,’ Nick replied, his eyes kind as they looked at my sister.
Every cell, fibre and sinew in my body that had been set to high alert received the signal that it was safe to stand down. A bubble of relieved laughter escaped from one of us – or maybe all of us. It was interrupted by the ping of the oven timer. I flashed a look of panic over my shoulder at my mother. I couldn’t sit down across the table from Nick, not with my entire family hanging on our every word.
But it would appear I’d seriously underestimated my mother’s Machiavellian capabilities.
‘That timer doesn’t mean lunch is ready. It means you have forty-five minutes before I need to serve up. I imagine you two must have quite a lot to catch up on.’
Still feeling like I was floating through a dream, I watched as Amelia reached past me and relieved Nick of the flowers and bottle of wine he’d placed on the low wall beside the door.
‘I’ll take these, shall I? Enjoy your walk,’ she said, giving me a gentle shove away from the door as she closed it behind her.
Alone again, although probably still being observed through the cottage windows, I turned to Nick.
‘I’ve rehearsed this moment a thousand times. I knew exactly what I was going to say to you if I ever saw you again.’
‘Was it good?’ he asked, smiling down at me as though he was never going to take his eyes off me again.
‘Yeah. It was excellent.’
‘Do you remember any of it?’
‘Not a single word.’
His laugh was soft and low and everything I thought I’d forgotten.
‘Well, that’s alright, because I’ve got a lot I want to say too. Shall we walk?’ he suggested, offering me his arm.
We stepped from the pathway on to the sand and somehow his arm slipped around me, pulling me against his side. I went willingly.
His opening words startled me. ‘I went to the airport that day, you know.’
‘You did?’
There was a sheepish look on his face that tore at every single one of my heartstrings.
‘I wasn’t going to try to talk you out of leaving. I just wanted you not to be there alone. I stood in the terminal, watching your plane as it took off.’
‘I wasn’t on it.’