Chapters (52)
- COVER PAGE
- DEDICATION
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- PART TWO
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHORS
A few months ago, a statement like that would have burned straight through to her core, would have shattered her for days. But now Evie knew her self-worth, which was defined by her and only her. Taking him in one last time, she opened the door and slipped outside before he could say another word.
FORTY-TWO
Forty-two
Evie stirred, her back stiff and contorted. Keeping her eyes clamped shut, her ears pricked up, homing in on a rhythmic snip, snip, snip in the space around her. She peeled one eye open as she lifted her arms over her head and stretched.
The snipping became a voice: ‘Well about bloody time, it’s almost half eight.’
Evie let out a low grumble. Is this what her life had become? Back living with her parents and being ‘sleep shamed’ by Josie of all people. It was barely light out!
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Evie said groggily. ‘And why are you pruning a bonsai?’
‘It’s for you,’ she said, giving the plant one last little prune and shoving it unceremoniously onto Evie’s bedside table.
Propping herself up, Evie looked at the plant—so lovingly tended to—and had to force herself not to burst into tears.
‘When you called in sick—again—during one of the busiest times of the year, might I add, I thought I should come check on you,’ Josie said. ‘I went to your’s, but Hugo said you’d moved out. So, I called Steven and forced him to hack into management’s database to find your parents’ address. I only have to go to some naff train event with him in Oxford next month in return.’
‘That’s an awful lot of trouble to go to, Josie.’
‘Didn’t you tell me us ladies have to stick together, or something lame like that?’
Evie was touched, deeply so. When she’d arrived on her mum’s doorstep a week ago, feeling utterly stranded with barely more than the clothes on her back, she had gone straight up to her bedroom, put all her jumpers on and dived under the covers. She’d barely moved since, willing herself to go into a deep, painless hibernation like some kind of sad, single bear. Her mum had tried to coax her out of it, but her exaggerated sad eyes and pitying looks had begun to repulse Evie to the point that she now pretended to be asleep whenever her mother knocked.
‘I take it things aren’t going so well with pretty boy?’
Evie filled Josie in, choosing only to omit the revelation about Chloe’s involvement with the book. It was, after all, Chloe’s story to tell.
‘And you haven’t heard from him since?’ Josie asked, shocked. Like everybody else, she’d assumed everything was hunky-dory between them. It seemed that Hugo wasn’t the only good actor in the relationship.
Evie shook her head. ‘Nada. Not a peep.’