Lost Innocence (61 page)

‘Yes, he mentioned seeing her down by the bridge. He was afraid it might be some kind of trap to put him in breach of his bail, so he called his lawyer to report it.’

Robert nodded slowly and took a sip of his drink. ‘She’s still insisting she was telling the truth,’ he said, ‘but I’d like to think that’s because she’s astute enough to realise that if she admits she was lying there’s a good chance she’ll be prosecuted.’

Alicia kept her feelings about that to herself for now, not wanting anything to spoil today. However, if Annabelle continued to insist she was telling the truth, the ordeal wasn’t over yet. ‘So how are things at home?’ she asked. ‘I can’t imagine Sabrina’s too happy about the decision.’

‘No, she isn’t,’ he admitted, but that was as far as he went.

Steeling herself to confide what was uppermost in her mind now, she said, ‘I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing in telling you about this, but I’ve found a letter from Craig to Mum. In it, he’s talking about the affair, and what it meant to him. I wouldn’t…Well, I…Would you like to see it?’

After giving it some thought, he shook his head, ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he answered. ‘I’ve come to some decisions of my own lately, and I can’t see how going over old ground will serve any purpose.’ His eyes came up to hers. ‘Did it tell you anything you didn’t already know?’

She swallowed as she looked down at her drink. ‘Let’s say it laid a few ghosts,’ she replied. ‘It also turned into a cathartic experience for Nat when I gave it to him to read.’

As Robert sipped more wine, Alicia regarded him closely.

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘I can tell there’s more on your mind.’

He waved a dismissive hand. ‘Not now,’ he said, hearing the thump of footsteps on the stairs. ‘Maybe we’ll go out for dinner somewhere next week, just the two of us. It’s been a while since we did that. I’ll probably be able to tell you more by then, anyway.’

Her eyebrows rose. ‘I’m intrigued,’ she smiled, holding out a hand for Nat’s as he came into the kitchen. ‘That didn’t take long,’ she commented.

‘I did a round robin,’ he told her.

Her heart swelled as she looked up at him. The load seemed to be lifting from him by the minute, allowing her glimpses now of the brighter, livelier, and very handsome young son she’d always known.

‘So, do I get a glass?’ he asked, rubbing his hands together.

‘Of course. Help yourself, then come and sit with us.’

Glancing at his watch, Robert said, ‘Actually, I’m afraid I can’t stay much longer. I have to meet a colleague at the labs before he flies off to Dubai.’

‘Oh, I was hoping you might be able to stay and meet Cameron,’ Alicia told him.

‘Cameron?’ Robert echoed in surprise.

‘He’s Mum’s new mentor,’ Nat explained, sinking down in a chair. ‘He’s mega in the art world and has a fantastic dog.’

Robert gave Alicia a look of encouragement.

‘It’s not what you’re thinking,’ she informed him. ‘We’re just friends.’

‘He’s going to show some of Mum’s work in his gallery on Bond Street,’ Nat elaborated. ‘When she can find time to go up there. And he’s been helping her sort out some local talent to put in the shop.’

‘Well, it all sounds mighty friendly to me,’ Robert teased, drinking up his wine. ‘I’ll look forward to meeting him.’

Standing up to embrace him, Alicia said, ‘Thanks for coming over.’

Robert touched her cheek fondly. ‘There’s one other thing before I go,’ he said, looking from her to Nat. ‘I don’t know how you’re going to feel about this, and she’s likely to change her mind by tomorrow, but Annabelle wanted me to ask you if you’ll see her.’

Nat’s glass stopped in mid-air as his face started to drain.

Alicia’s eyes darted from him to Robert. ‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea,’ she answered for him.

‘Don’t worry, I told her it probably wouldn’t happen,’ Robert assured her.

Nat put his glass down. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but after everything, I just can’t trust her.’

‘I was sure that’s how you’d feel,’ Robert replied, ‘and I
can’t say I blame you,’ and after giving him a hug he allowed Alicia to link his arm as they walked to the door.

‘Actually,’ Nat said, coming into the hall behind them, ‘tell her as long as someone else is there, like you, then I’ll think about it.’

Chapter Twenty-Five

After a near sleepless night, still deeply distressed by Annabelle’s behaviour, and worrying herself sick over whether she still had a future with Robert, Sabrina could hardly bear to look at herself when she got up in the morning. One glance in the mirror caused her insides to shrink. Her eyes were bloodshot and heavy, and her skin was as puckered and puffy as an old sponge.

Splashing cold water on her face, she dabbed it with a towel and began trying to repair the damage wrought by so much angst. She must do her best to remind Robert, when she saw him, of how attractive he’d always found her, or she wouldn’t be able to stop this runaway train she could sense heading towards her.

She knew he was already up, because she’d heard the guest shower running about twenty minutes ago. She’d also heard him return home from his meeting last night, but when she’d got up to ask him if he was coming to bed, he’d told her he still had a lot of work to do, so he’d sleep in the guest room in order not to wake her.

She’d known it was an excuse, just as she knew that something vital had shifted in their marriage, but no matter what decisions he might have reached, she wasn’t going to allow herself to believe that she couldn’t change his mind. She needed to talk to him and explain how foolish she’d been not to have realised before how very fortunate she was to have him for a husband. More than that,
much, much more
, she loved him in a way that made anything she’d ever felt for anyone else pale to insignificance (with the possible exception of Craig, but of course she wouldn’t be so insensitive, or stupid, as to tell him that, and anyway she was no longer sure it was true).

She would make it clear that she was prepared to do anything he asked to try to make up for all the heartache and pain she’d caused him, and Annabelle. They could start afresh, she’d tell him, draw a line under everything that had happened, including all this dreadful rape business. She might even consider apologising to Alicia for the remark she’d made about Nathan and Darcie at the Roswells’ party, if it was what he wanted. Anything, just as long as he didn’t say he could take no more.

Dressed in plain black jeans and a tight-fitting polo neck, and with her hair clipped in a tasteful tortoiseshell slide at the nape of her neck, she let herself out of the bedroom and went to listen at Annabelle’s door. Hearing nothing, she pushed it open. The curtains were still drawn, and she could make out Annabelle’s shape beneath the covers. Apparently she was still asleep, so she closed the door quietly and started down the stairs. She needed to straighten things out with Robert first, then she’d be ready to confront her daughter.

Tomorrow, Sabrina, you and I will need to talk
, he’d said yesterday. As she recalled the words now, they were resonating so ominously through her head, like dark prophecies of doom, that she almost stopped and ran back to her room. She wanted to hide, the way she had after Craig, to bury herself under the covers to try and escape a world that was turning into a place she was afraid to be. But there was no need to be afraid, she told herself firmly. It was only Robert she was dealing with, her husband, the man who loved her,
adored
her, and would forgive her anything.

Finding the kitchen empty, she set about brewing a fresh cafetière of coffee, which she placed on a tray together with two cups and a selection of biscuits, and a single rose that she plucked from an arrangement on the table and popped into a dainty vase. Then, steeling herself bravely, she carried it over to his office.

‘Can I come in?’ she called out, unable to knock.

When he opened the door her heart immediately tripped with unease. His expression was too grim to be welcoming, but she smiled anyway, saying, ‘I hope I’m not interrupting.
I heard you get up and thought you might like some coffee.’

Noticing two cups as he stood aside for her to come in, he said, ‘Are you intending to join me?’

‘Only if it’s OK,’ she assured him. ‘If not, I can always…’

‘It’s fine,’ he told her. ‘We need to talk, and I guess now is as good a time as any. Where’s Annabelle?’

‘Still asleep.’

He nodded, and closing the door, he waited for her to pour the coffee, then sat down on the sofa facing the one on which she was perching nervously. Yesterday Annabelle, today Sabrina.

‘How was your meeting last night?’ she asked chattily as she offered him a biscuit.

Declining, he said, ‘Much as I expected.’ He took a sip of his coffee, then putting the cup down again he gazed steadily into her eyes. ‘I hope you agree,’ he began, ‘that we can’t go on like this, so…’

‘I know,’ she came in hastily, ‘and I’m…’

‘Please listen to what I have to say.’

‘No, you need to hear…’

‘Sabrina!’

The sharpness of his tone brought her to a stop.

‘I think we have to accept that our marriage is no longer working,’ he said gravely.

‘But it can…’

His hand went up. ‘I’ve tried hard, since it started breaking down,’ he continued, ‘to hold it together, but we’ve reached a point now where there’s no more I can do. I’m sorry it’s come to this, but…’

‘No, no, wait,’ she gasped. ‘You don’t understand. I love you, Robert, I want us to be together…’

‘Whether or not that’s true…’

‘It is. I swear it. You’re angry now, and upset, after everything that’s happened. We all are, but it would be silly, and wrong, to do anything drastic. We can make things all right again.’

‘All this time, since Craig,’ he went on, almost as though she hadn’t spoken, ‘I’ve believed we could somehow get past the difficulties, but your obsession with him, and the
way you still can’t let go, even after all this time, makes it impossible for us to stay together.’

‘No! Please don’t say that,’ she cried, trying to stifle the panic. ‘What happened with Craig, I had it all wrong. I thought he was the great love of my life, but he could never be that, because it’s you. I know that now, more surely than I’ve ever known anything. I got carried away during the affair. I couldn’t see straight…’

‘It wasn’t just during the affair,’ he reminded her. ‘It’s the way you were after, refusing to come near me for months, going to pieces in front of Annabelle…You took to your bed and wouldn’t get up for weeks. You kept threatening to kill yourself because there was no point carrying on. And the saddest part of it all is that you still don’t seem to realise, or at least accept, how much damage you caused your daughter during that time. You have no relationship with her, Sabrina. You’ve become so wrapped up in yourself and your own world that you might just as well have walked out of the door and abandoned her two years ago, for how much good you’ve been to her since.’

Sabrina’s eyes were bewildered and defensive.

‘She has no respect for you, and who can blame her? She’s utterly devastated by the way you turned your back on her, and angry and frustrated and almost completely rudderless. She hardly knows right from wrong any more, and one of the most tragic things I’ve come to find out over this summer is how little respect she has for herself. That’s why she’s sleeping with anyone who wants her. She doesn’t care about herself. She thinks she’s worthless, because that’s what you’ve indicated in your treatment of her.’

Sabrina’s face was ashen. ‘I love my daughter,’ she said shakily, ‘and don’t ever try to say I don’t.’

‘I wouldn’t, because I know that deep down you do, but you never show it in the right ways. You don’t even seem to realise that this cry of rape has very probably been a cry for your attention. She’s trying to get through to you in any way she can, and you’re still not hearing her. Something happened out there in those woods back in July, and you’ve never really sat down to discuss it with her. Just two days
ago she had an abortion, and I’m not sure you’ve even asked her how she is.’

‘Of course I have…’

‘Your relationship with your daughter is the most important in both your lives. I’m aware that on some level you know that, but lately you’ve come to set so much store by being invited to the right parties, or book clubs, or God knows what else fills up your diary, that it’s really not surprising that everything between you and Annabelle is breaking down. She looks to you for guidance, as a role model, and all she sees is you attaching more importance to the trivia of your life than to her – or going to pieces over an affair that she didn’t even know about at the time. Imagine how confusing and frightening it was for her when you started to reject her. Try to think about how unprepared her survival instincts were when they kicked in, so is it any wonder they’ve got it so wrong?’

Sabrina’s eyes were heavy with confusion. ‘I couldn’t help the way I was,’ she said plaintively. ‘When Craig and I… At the time we were forced to part…’

‘You weren’t forced,’ he pointed out. ‘Craig chose to stay with Alicia, and in my opinion that’s what triggered the hysteria that came after. You simply couldn’t take the rejection. You thought you were better, or more deserving than my sister – actually I don’t know what was going on in your head, but the way you’ve fixated on trying to get rid of her since she came back to Holly Wood only proves my point. You’re jealous of her, and I think you always have been. For all I know it’s why you seduced her husband, to try to prove to yourself, or to her, maybe both, that she can’t always win, or that someone’s noticing you even if she isn’t – which she wasn’t when Darcie was a baby. Does it all stem from that? I don’t know, but I do know that you seem almost as obsessed with her as you were with Craig. You’ve tried to stop her earning a living, you’ve even gone so far as to try to use the situation between Nathan and Annabelle to force her out of the village. Well, Sabrina, you’re right in thinking that you can’t both go on living here, but you’re wrong in believing she’s the one who has to leave. This is her home, it’s where she belongs…’