I nodded as though I understood what that would involve. But of course, I had no idea. Maybe that was just as well.
‘Rhys?’
Our heads snapped around with perfect synchronicity. Annalise was standing at the entrance to the corridor. She was looking only at Rhys as though if she concentrated hard enough, she could simply pretend I wasn’t there.
‘They’re taking her up now. Are you coming?’
His eyes went to mine.
‘Go,’ I urged.
Annalise coughed pointedly.
‘Please go home, Ellie,’ Rhys implored.
‘I’m perfectly fine here,’ I said, even though every vertebra in my spine was screaming out in protest.
‘I don’t want to worry about you too,’ he said, quietly. ‘And I will if you’re down here for the rest of the night.’
Insisting on staying was selfish, I could see that. It was for me and not him.
‘Okay,’ I said, taking his hand and giving it a squeeze. ‘I’ll go. But keep in touch. You can phone me at any time. It doesn’t matter how late it is. I won’t be asleep.’
And I kept my word. I stayed awake, bolstered upright in my bed by a mountain of pillows and fuelled with strong black coffee until dawn painted the sky a lighter shade of grey. But Rhys never called.
Chapter Forty
‘That has to be the fifth time you’ve checked your phone in the last hour,’ Mel observed from the seat beside me. ‘I’ve a horrible vision that right in the middle of the “I dos” and the “Does anyone here object” you’re going to pull out your phone and start checking your WhatsApps.’
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ I said.
She raised one of the eyebrows the make-up artist had just finished defining with a pencil. ‘Only because our dresses don’t have pockets.’
She made a good point, and I returned my phone to the dressing table to allow the hair stylist to continue trying to persuade my wedding curls to cooperate and fall where they were meant to.
It was hard being so far away from Rhys, so out of the loop, and he was understandably more concerned with helping Tasha and liaising with the doctors than updating me every five minutes. I just felt so helpless being half a country away from him and had to keep reminding myself that this was what he’d wanted me to do.
I hadn’t seen him until mid-morning the day after Tasha’s emergency hospital admission. He’d left her bedside briefly to go home for a shower and a change of clothes but had swung by my flat first.
He looked exhausted.
‘Have you eaten anything? Can I make you some breakfast?’
‘No thanks. I want to get back as soon as I can. But I’d love a coffee.’
He drank it scalding hot, as though even the minute or two it would take to cool was time better spent with Tasha.
‘Have you spoken to her doctors yet?’
‘We’re meeting with them later this afternoon.’
He looked sad as he reached for my hand across the breakfast bar. ‘I’m so sorry about messing up our plans.’
I silenced him with a finger pressed against his lips. ‘Don’t give it another thought. We’ve all the time in the world for mini breaks and holidays. Tasha is the most important thing right now.’ A pang of regret crossed the features I’d grown to love. ‘And Jackson will totally understand, I’m sure of it.’ The pang rearranged itself into an expression of confusion.
‘The wedding,’ I explained. ‘He’ll understand why we can’t come now. He’ll be fine with it.’
‘I can’t go to the wedding—’ Rhys began.