‘We’re going to be late.’

‘I don’t care,’ she shouts through her tears. ‘I’m not going.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, of course you’re going. Everyone is going to be there.’

‘Leave me alone!’

She doesn’t want to go to the stupid garden party anyway. She doesn’t want to do anything. Doesn’t want to leave the house, or leave her room, or even get out of bed. Not now. Not ever. Not after what he’s done.

She closes her eyes and pulls her knees up under her chin, the pain in her chest like a black hole swallowing every thought. How could she have been such an idiot? How could she have got him so wrong? How could he be such a bastard? Why did he do it? What had she done to deserve it?

She’d never felt that way about anyone before. She had done everything for him, allowed herself to imagine a future with him. And he’d just discarded her as if she was nothing, as if she didn’t matter. He had dumped her in the worst possible way.

She buries her face in the duvet.

Her mum is knocking on the door again.

Thursday

THURSDAY

Chapter 61

61

I woke with a ball of dread lodged deep in my stomach, in anticipation of what I had to do. I had put it off for more than a day now and the dramas of last night had shifted my attention elsewhere, but there was no avoiding it. No getting around it.

I left Sean still asleep in our bed, showering and dressing quickly as I mentally ticked off what I had found out in the last few days. Izzy had admitted she was seeing someone who was already married, but had refused to tell me his name. She’d admitted he came from Limerick, just like Sean. She had already tried to throw me off the scent by insisting that Sean would never betray my trust. Most damning of all, Izzy was the one who had appeared when I sent the message to CoralGirl from Sean’s phone. I had set the trap and she had walked right into it. She had come when summoned.

But what about the other evidence? His lingering embrace on the beach with Rowan, his wedding ring in her drawer, Russ’s insistence that she was having an affair? Sean had denied point-blank that anything was going on with her – he had looked me straight in the eye and sworn it, and he’d never been a good liar. It was one of the things I loved about him.

Had loved about him, I thought, with an ache deep in my chest.