Back The Perfect Couple
Chapters (46)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise for Lisa Hall
  3. About the Author
  4. Also by Lisa Hall
  5. Note to Readers
  6. Dedication
  7. Prologue
  8. Chapter One
  9. Chapter Two
  10. Chapter Three
  11. Chapter Four
  12. Chapter Five
  13. Chapter Six
  14. Chapter Seven
  15. Chapter Eight
  16. Chapter Nine
  17. Chapter Ten
  18. Chapter Eleven
  19. Chapter Twelve
  20. Chapter Thirteen
  21. Chapter Fourteen
  22. Chapter Fifteen
  23. Chapter Sixteen
  24. Chapter Seventeen
  25. Chapter Eighteen
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Chapter Twenty
  28. Chapter Twenty-One
  29. Chapter Twenty-Two
  30. Chapter Twenty-Three
  31. Chapter Twenty-Four
  32. Chapter Twenty-Five
  33. Chapter Twenty-Six
  34. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  35. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  36. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  37. Chapter Thirty
  38. Chapter Thirty-One
  39. Chapter Thirty-Two
  40. Chapter Thirty-Three
  41. Chapter Thirty-Four
  42. Chapter Thirty-Five
  43. Extract
  44. Chapter One
  45. Acknowledgements
  46. About the Publisher

‘Caro said the same things, sometimes, you know.’ Rupert speaks again, stirring at the remains of the coffee in his cup. ‘That things had been moved, that she thought someone was following her, but there was never anything concrete, nothing solid. It was exhausting, that constant act of reassuring her. I thought it was just the same thing happening again with you. I thought you were just…’ He puts his head in his hands. ‘You accused her of pushing Caro too far?’ When he raises his eyes to mine, they are bloodshot and watery.

‘It just slipped out. She denied it, but she admitted that she’d done all those things to me. That she wanted you for herself. Well, you know what she said, you watched the video. I haven’t been lying, or making things up, and I’m definitely not going mad.’

‘I’m just a bit stunned by it all,’ Rupert says, as he takes up the phone and watches the video again. ‘Part of me can’t believe that Sadie would behave as aggressively as that – I’ve known her for over twenty years! We went to uni together, I was best man when she and Miles got married and I never realized… I mean, she said stuff when she was drunk, like the night of the Easter party but she never meant it.’

I direct him on my phone to the video message that Sadie sent to me last night, watching the shock on his face as he sees himself and Sadie on the night of the party. ‘What did you say to her, that night?’

‘She was drunk,’ Rupert says, ‘she was saying something about how it should have been her, we were a good team, something like that. She always says stuff like that when she’s pissed… I always just brushed it away as a joke. I know she’s not one hundred per cent happy with Miles, but whoever is one hundred per cent happy?’ He reaches over and squeezes my hand, as if to reassure me that this doesn’t apply to him. ‘I said something to her about how I love her, but as a friend. I didn’t tell you I saw her when you asked the next morning because I didn’t want to upset you. You were already a bit down about the fact that someone had called you Caro by mistake.’

‘You should have told me,’ I say quietly, ‘and you should have believed me.’

‘I’m so sorry, Em,’ he picks up my hand, kisses the back of it, ‘and I should have known. I should have known that Sadie would be jealous, that she would cause trouble between us. I feel like an idiot for not seeing it, for just seeing her as good old Sadie, friends for years.’

‘What do you mean? Why should you have seen it?’