‘I don’t,’ Jemima pleaded.

‘It’s like you preferred me unemployed, single and with my life in a mess. But now I’ve landed a job, got a place to live and finally found a good man, you don’t like that.’

Remorse flickered through Simi as the lie tumbled from her. The truth was, she knew Chance’s true feelings for Jemima. That didn’t stop her wanting to push the dagger in just a little, make Jemima hurt as she was. The reality was Simi hadn’t seen or spoken to Chance since he’d left on Sunday morning. She also suspected the only reason he’d arranged that second date was as an apology for the London Eye incident. He really was a good man. If only Jemima could bring herself to let him in. Simi shifted her gaze. If she was going, she had to do it now. As much as she couldn’t inflict any more pain, neither was she ready to give Jemima the absolution she desperately wanted.

‘Please, Sim. Tell me how to put this right,’ Jemima begged, holding out her hand.

Simi wished she had the answer but her mind and her spirit were blank. With nothing more to say she turned away from Jemima’s outstretched hand, scooping up her bags. She yanked open the door and began hauling everything downstairs as a heart that had previously beaten as one was unnaturally torn in three.

Chapter 44

Jemima

Jemima’s phone blared for attention and she knew its klaxon ringtone meant one thing. It was Shaheena. She scrambled around in the folds of her bedding to silence her phone – again. It rang through to voicemail and she collapsed back into her pillows. She had been in bed for three days getting up only to say goodbye to Simi, pee and eat what she could scavenge from her bare cupboards. Last night she’d eaten baked beans from the tin and, if she didn’t get her act together, today it would be sauerkraut for breakfast again. Make that lunch, she sighed. It was already 2.15 p.m.

Jemima forced herself out of bed. She padded to the window to pull the curtains open and grimaced. It was a bright, crisp day but all she wanted was to block out the sun and extinguish its joyful rays. She wanted to pretend the world wasn’t happening, like somehow, existence itself was some huge, clerical error. Defeated, she slipped back under her duvet. She felt exhausted, as much by the daylight as her futile attempts to put right the waking nightmare she’d created. Her reconciliatory overtures to Meagan had been met with a nuisance-caller-whistle blown down the phone at her. She’d tried calling Simi but every time it had just rung and rung. She had even called Todd but as she’d listened to the ringing tone, she’d realised she hadn’t a clue what to say – sorry for outing your southpaw penis? In the end she’d hung up, eaten a mouthful of sauerkraut and gone to bed. Once more her phone klaxoned. Again, she let it ring through to voicemail purgatory. Straight away, a text message whooshed in.