Kate scoffed.

“It just feels so soon, Kate, like it’s all coming out of nowhere…”

“Out of nowhere? Honey, he knows it’s over. He knew it the moment he handed your bag over on Sunday night. And if he’s happy to pretend that it’s not, to continue playing happy families even though he knows that marrying him is not what you want, then he’s even more pathetic than I thought—”

“He’s not pathetic.”

She fixed Tilly with a glare. “He doesn’t respect you. You have to be able to see that.”

“Don’t look at me like that!”

“Like what?”

“Like you don’t think I have the courage to end it with him! I’m going to end it. You know I am. You know I’m yours.”

“So end it tonight. I know you—if you don’t, the deceit will tear you apart. Us aside, you need to end it with him.”

Tilly’s eyes turned electric green. She stood. “Us aside? Don’t pretend this isn’t about you too. Don’t play the martyr. You said you weren’t going to pressure me and that’s exactly what you’re doing!”

“I said I wasn’t going to pressure you into something you weren’t one hundred per cent sure you wanted! But I think that changed over the past few nights, don’t you?” The sarcasm tasted bitter on her lips. “You want this, Tilly. You came into my bed.”

Tilly’s eyes bugged as Kate pressed off the dresser and moved closer. Kate swallowed thickly. “You…” She shook her head, eyes burning at the memory of the intimacy of Tilly’s encouraging touch. Her response. Anguish coiled in her chest and she dropped her gaze. She couldn’t look at Tilly knowing that she intended to spend the rest of the weekend pretending to belong to somebody else. She turned. “I’ll go see Sister Ruth and then I’ll see you on the ferry.”

As she turned out of the bedroom and into the living space, Kate halted. Her stomach dropped.

Standing by the front door, Sister Ruth was wide-eyed, her lips fused in a tight, straight line.

Oh fuck. A rush of vertigo hit her, casting a hot flush over her skin. “H-how long have you been here?” she husked.

Sister Ruth wouldn’t meet her eye. “Long enough.”

The moment Sister Ruth was out of the front seat of Tilly’s car and disappearing up the staircase to the cabin of the ferry, Kate unclicked her seat belt and climbed from her own car.

Slipping between the cars parked in the steamy, dank undercarriage of the ferry, she pulled open Tilly’s passenger door. Tilly jumped in her seat, her gaze darting madly after Sister Ruth.

Yanking the door shut behind her, Kate sank into the seat. “It’s all right, she’s already upstairs. Are you okay?”

Tilly’s features were pinched with mortification. “How much do you think she heard?”

Kate fixed her with a look. All of it.

“Oh no.” Tilly looked like she was going to be sick. She covered her eyes with a hand. “She didn’t say a word from the cottage to the pier.” For a split second, she paused. “I need to tell him. Now that she knows what we’ve done, I couldn’t live with myself going along with it when she knows, when she’s judging me. I have to tell him tonight, it’s the right thing to do.” She pulled her hand from her eyes and looked at Kate. “What do you think she heard?”