‘Now, are you sure this is OK?’ Juliet asked Tiff for the hundredth time, ten minutes later.
‘It’s OK,’ Tiff patiently repeated, ‘I’m tired. I’m going to sleep in a minute. When I’m asleep, you and Jake are going out for something to eat, so if I wake up you won’t be here. But Mel will be here,’ he went on, beaming at his favourite nurse, ‘so it doesn’t matter. She’ll be like my babysitter.’
Cheerily, Mel said, ‘Better still, I’m free!’
Juliet wondered if all the nurses regarded her as a selfish, hopelessly neglectful mother, waltzing off to a restaurant leaving her fragile seven-year-old son all alone in his hospital bed.
‘Oh please,’ Mel tut-tutted good-naturedly, catching her look of anguish, ‘don’t even think it.
We’re sick of the sight of you! Off you go.’
‘ And Mel’s the boss,’ said Jake, whose idea it had been. ‘Do as she says or she’ll zap you with a defibrillator.’
‘Jake will have his phone with him,’ Juliet told Tiff. ‘If you want me, all they have to do is ring us. We can be back here in five minutes.’
‘Night, Mum.’
‘And we’ll be back in two hours, whatever happens.’ "K,’ mumbled Tiff.
Oh God, how could she do this to him? How could she heartlessly abandon him? ‘Look,’ Juliet said in desperation, ‘if you’d rather we stayed—’
‘Mum?’
‘What darling? What is it?’
‘Could you not make so much noise?’ Tiff murmured. ‘I’m trying to go to sleep.’
Chapter 48
‘I can’t believe it. Posh plates,’ Juliet marvelled. ‘Wine glasses made out of real glass, cutlery that isn’t plastic.’
‘And candles,’ said Jake. ‘Major health and safety hazard if ever I saw one. It’s playing with fire, having candles at a table.’
Juliet smiled. He’d brought her to Romano’s, an Italian restaurant around the corner from Pulteney Bridge with a good reputation for food and an atmosphere lively and buzzy enough to allow them to talk without being overheard. She didn’t know if Jake had chosen it for this reason but she was glad to be here.
‘Speaking of playing with fire,’ Jake went on, ‘do you feel like telling me how it all happened?’
Juliet nodded. She owed him that much at least. If she was honest, she’d wanted to tell Jake for years.
‘I met Oliver when I was twenty-five. I was working for a catering company, providing directors’
lunches in the city. I thought he was wonderful,’ Juliet said simply. ‘I also thought he was single. But he swept me off my feet, and by the time I found out he was married, I was already pregnant.’
‘Carry on,’ Jake prompted.
Juliet pulled a face. ‘Well, if this was a film, I’d be the plucky pregnant single woman telling Oliver to take a running jump and soldiering on without him. Except I wasn’t that plucky. I’m not proud of this, but at the time I was scared witless. I had a threatened miscarriage at five months, which meant the catering company couldn’t get rid of me fast enough and made me redundant. After Tiff was born, my landlord refused to renew the lease on my flat. When Oliver came up with his plan, I honestly didn’t feel I had any other choice. I was so grateful I just went along with it.’
‘So he brought you down to Ashcombe,’ said Jake. ‘Bought the delicatessen and set you up, so that he’d have his mistress and his child living just down the road from his wife.’
‘Ex-mistress,’ Juliet said firmly. ‘Our relationship ended the day I found out he was married. We haven’t been sneakily seeing each other, if that’s what you think.’
Jake shrugged and broke open a warm bread roll. ‘I don’t think anything. I’m just waiting for you to tell me.’
‘OK.’ Slowly Juliet exhaled. ‘Oliver didn’t want Estelle to find out, but he really wanted to be able to see Tiff growing up. I was desperate for somewhere to live. It seemed like the perfect answer. I loved Ashcombe from the word go. As long as Oliver’s family didn’t know about Tiff, where was the harm in it? We were all happy.’
And put that way, it sounded perfectly reasonable. But Juliet sensed that something else was bothering Jake.
‘And in seven years there’s never been anybody else,’ he said evenly. ‘Seven years is a long time.
So, all part of the agreement, was it?’
There was no point in trying to deny it. Facing him, Juliet said bluntly, ‘Yes, it was. Oliver didn’t want to see some other bloke moving into the flat he’d bought for me. Maybe it wasn’t fair of him, but at the time I was more than happy to go along with it. The last thing I needed, or wanted, was to get involved with anyone else. My number one priority was Tiff.’
Jake was incredulous. ‘And in all that time you’ve never met another man you’d be interested in getting together with? You’ve never even been tempted?’
‘ Never seriously.’ Shaking her head, Juliet said, ‘Of course there have been times when I’ve been ... um, tempted. But not getting involved has always worked out for the best.’
‘I get it. Now it all makes sense.’ Jake paused as the waiter arrived to clear their plates away, and this time Juliet knew exactly what he was remembering. ‘That first Christmas after you arrived in Ashcombe. I walked you home on Boxing Night from one of Marcella’s parties.’
Juliet nodded; how could she ever forget?
‘I tried to kiss you goodnight,’ Jake went on. ‘You were wearing a blue scarf with silver glittery bits woven into it. And it was really icy outside. Your nose was pink with cold. You wouldn’t let me give you a kiss.’
‘Wouldn’t I?’ said Juliet and Jake shot her a don’t-try-and bullshit-me look.
‘Then I asked you out and you turned me down flat.’ Oh heck. Did I?’
‘Now I know why. Because it was in the tenancy agreement. All part of the bargain you’d struck with Oliver. I really liked you,’ said Jake.
Juliet realised that it was her own rapid breathing causing the candles to flicker madly on the table between them.
‘I really liked you too,’ she told Jake, busily pleating the crimson tablecloth between her fingers.
‘Which is why I’m extra glad I turned you down.’
Jake’s eyes glittered. ‘Speak English.’
‘Oh, come on, you know what you’re like! Goldfish have a longer attention span than you.
I’ve spent the last five years watching you go out with girls and dump them before they’ve had time to tell you their surnames— What?’
Juliet demanded heatedly. ‘Why are you looking at me like that? You know there’s no point in denying it, because it’s true.’
Jake waved away the waiter, approaching with the sweet menus.
‘Of course it’s true. I’m not denying it. But has it occurred to you for one second to wonder why it’s true?’
‘That’s like wondering why snow is cold. It just is. And you’re the way you are because you’re you.’ Juliet prayed she was making sense; the intensity of Jake’s gaze was making it hard to think straight.
‘OK. Estelle’s found out about you and Oliver.’ Jake swiftly changed tack. ‘She’s left him. So, what now?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘I mean, is it happy families time? You, Oliver and Tiff?’ Juliet shook her head. ‘Absolutely not.
I’m completely over Oliver.’
‘But you let him rule your whole life!’ Jake exploded, causing the group of women at the next table to jump and nudge each other.