Freya’s mind was working overtime on the walk over to Le Debut. There had to be some way of finding out more about who her father was – her mother must have confided in someone. If it wasn’t Auntie Linda, then who was it? Maybe her nanna had known. But if she had, then she’d taken the secret with her too. Maybe she should text her aunt, to ask if Linda could remember any of her mum’s friends from around the time she’d fallen pregnant. Sophie, Freya’s chief bridesmaid, would have been the first person she would have told if she’d found herself in similar circumstances. She might only have known her for three years, since Ollie had introduced them, but Freya could tell her anything. Her mother must have had a friend like that in her life – Freya was counting on it.
‘Do you have a reservation, madam?’ The maître d’ greeted Freya with an expression which sent out the same sort of warning a guard dog might, but somehow he was smiling at the same time. She’d been to Le Debut often enough to know that you couldn’t just turn up on the off-chance and get a table.
‘A friend of mine is dining here, and I was planning to wait at the bar to meet him afterwards.’ Even the house wine was over ten pounds a glass, so the irony of nursing one drink on a nurse’s salary, until Ollie finished his business lunch, wasn’t lost on her. And much as she was dying to tell him what she’d found out about her dad, there was no way she was going to interrupt his meeting. She’d already rushed over to her auntie Linda’s place like a tornado and left her reeling. She couldn’t put Ollie in that situation whilst he was at work. Now that she was actually here, a big part of her thought she should probably have done what she’d promised Jeremy, and headed home. But she was sure Ollie would understand why she had to tell him. He knew her better than anyone and he’d promised to love her forever. So he’d forgive her getting over-emotional and turning up unannounced; he was the kindest man she’d ever known – aside from her father – and it was just one of the things she loved about him.
Sitting at the bar with nothing to do but scroll through her phone and try to sip her wine as slowly as possible, Freya took the opportunity to text her aunt.
✉︎ Message to Auntie Linda
I hope I didn’t upset you too much today and thanks for telling me what you know. I was wondering if speaking to Mum’s friends might help, in case she confided in one of them? xx
Halfway through her first glass of wine, Freya’s phone pinged.
✉︎ Message from Auntie Linda
I think most of your mum and dad’s friends were people they got to know after they got together, but I do remember one girl your mum was close to back then. They went down to Kelsea Bay together every summer. Her name began with an M, I think. I’ve just texted Dave to see if he can remember more as he’s much better with names than me. Chin up lovey and I’ll text you if there’s more to tell xx
Patience had never been Freya’s number one virtue, but waiting for her aunt to text back was testing it to the limit, and she forgot all about the plan to slowly sip her drink. Ten minutes later she was already halfway down the second glass, a warm glow settling in her stomach, and the smell of mulled cider drifting across from the other side of the bar was becoming increasingly tempting. Another ten minutes passed, and she’d just drained the last of the second glass of wine, when her phone pinged again.
✉︎ Message from Auntie Linda
Good job Uncle Dave’s got a better memory than me. Your mum’s friend was called Denise Johnson. Don’t know where I got the M from! Dave’s going to help me look through Facebook later to see if either of us recognise her, but chances are she’ll have changed her name. I’ll keep in touch xx
Freya read the message twice, nerves suddenly fluttering in her chest at the prospect of trying to track down a stranger who might be able to tell her who her biological father was. He probably hadn’t told anyone the secret her mother had kept from her either. There might be a very good reason for that. Maybe he’d already been married when Freya was conceived and here she was planning to crash into a life he’d chosen to keep her out of. Her aunt had probably been right; the chances of this ending well weren’t good and yet she already knew she wasn’t going to be able to stop searching for him. At the very least she had to know if he was still alive, to see his face and say his name. If that was all she got from this, she could accept it. As long as she had Ollie, she could get through anything.
Freya ordered a glass of mulled cider from the barman, which slipped down even more easily than the wine had. Never mind waiting for Uncle Dave and Auntie Linda to start their detective work, she’d search for the name herself. There were hundreds of Denise Johnsons on Facebook, though, and there was no way of knowing if she still went by her maiden name – even if she was on there. It was just her luck that her mum’s friend had a common name. Why couldn’t she have been called something outlandish like December Cinnamon-Stick, anything to narrow the search down.
‘December Cinnamon-Stick.’ Freya giggled as she said the words out loud, earning a raised eyebrow from the barman, who was busy drying glasses, and had probably seen it all before. ‘I think this cider’s going to my head.’
‘Can I get you something else, instead?’ The barman gestured towards the coffee machine at the end of the bar, but she shook her head.
‘I just need to nip to the loo, that’s all.’ She stood up. Her whole body seemed to have flooded with warmth, and her face felt more flushed than ever. Two large glasses of wine and half a pint of mulled cider, on an empty stomach, probably wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had. She’d have to leave the car where it was, in the car park near Ollie’s office, and pick it up the next day.
‘There’s a cracked pipe in the bar washrooms, I’m afraid. So, unfortunately, you’ll have to use the restaurant facilities.’ The barman furrowed his brow and Freya giggled again. There was something incomprehensibly funny about the way he’d said facilities, almost like it was a rude word.
‘That will be fine, thank you.’ For some reason, her attempt not to sound as tipsy as she felt had resulted in a very bad impression of the queen. Maybe she should order that coffee when she got back. Walking across to the heavy doors that separated the bar from the diners, she stepped into the restaurant. Not wanting to catch Ollie’s eye by accident and risk him seeing her, and interrupting his meeting, she kept her head down. He’d have to walk out through the bar to exit the restaurant, so there was no way she could miss him leaving unless she happened to be in the washroom just at the wrong moment. She’d have to get back to the bar quickly, just to make sure.
Less than a minute later, she was in and out of the cubicle and staring at her reflection in the mirror as she washed her hands. Her cheeks were flushed red, just as she’d known they would be, but the rest of her face looked normal, exactly as it had that morning – before Ollie left for work, when she’d still been Colleen and John Halliwell’s daughter. She still had her dad’s nose, or what she’d always thought of as her dad’s nose. Any likeness could now only be put down to the fact that they’d both broken their noses during their teens – her falling off a horse, and him on the rugby pitch. It was purely coincidental.
She definitely didn’t want any more alcohol – it wasn’t going to do her ability to search for Denise Johnson online any good. And it was in danger of making her melancholy and undoing all the good intentions she had after speaking to Linda – to see the search for her birth father as an opportunity. Her existence might not be a deep, dark secret after all. For all she knew, her biological father could just have been too young and overwhelmed to cope with the news that her mother was having a baby and he might have spent the last twenty-eight years regretting that. It could all be really different now and there was a good chance she had a brother or sister out there somewhere, maybe even two or three, and that was something she’d always wanted.
‘Let me get that for you.’ She’d been seconds away from going back through to the bar when she’d stopped to help the elderly lady in front of her, who was struggling to manage the heavy doors. Stepping backwards, her eyes automatically scanned the restaurant. And that’s when she saw them – Sophie and Ollie, their heads so close together that they were almost touching, her hand reaching out for his. The intimacy between them was as obvious as the lie he’d told Jeremy about having a working lunch, and the even bigger lie he’d told Freya about not having time to stop for a break at all.
The shock of finding her mother’s journal had sent her running to her aunt’s house, but this time the shock seemed to have rooted her to the floor, and she couldn’t take her eyes of her fiancé and his oldest friend, staring at each other, oblivious to the rest of the world, including Freya.
Sophie, her chief bridesmaid, and the friend who’d supported her almost as much as Ollie and his family had, when her mother had died. The same friend who’d helped her pick out everything for the wedding, from the dress to the menu, when Ollie had just said she should have whatever she wanted. ‘As long as you’re happy, I’m happy.’ Those had been his exact words, but all the time Sophie had been the one making him happy. A weird, guttural sound escaped from her lips, as she finally stepped towards them. She was almost close enough to reach out and touch Ollie by the time he spotted her, his head jerking back from Sophie’s caress and his eyebrows shooting up in surprise.
‘Freya.’ His eyes darted from her face to Sophie’s and back again. A few more bits of the puzzle were suddenly clicking into place. The times when Sophie had asked Freya if she was sure she wasn’t rushing into getting married, and if it wouldn’t be better to get settled in London first, so that it wouldn’t be so stressful. To give her credit, she’d played the part of the concerned friend amazingly well.
‘So you still remember my name then, Ollie? Despite it slipping your mind this morning that you had this cosy little lunch booked with Sophie, when you didn’t even have twenty minutes spare to meet me.’
‘It’s not what it looks like.’ Even Ollie had the grace to cringe, as Sophie trotted out the age-old cliché.
‘So what exactly is going on then?’ Turning to look at the woman she’d thought of as her best friend, almost since the moment they’d first been introduced, Freya was determined not to cry. Deep down she still couldn’t believe that Ollie would cheat on her, but after what she’d discovered in her mother’s journal, anything seemed possible. She thought they’d shared everything, and she thought she could trust Ollie with her life if she needed to. But if her mother could live a lie for all those years, what made Ollie any different? Especially when the evidence seemed to be stacking up against him.
Suddenly, Sophie’s throwaway comments about missing the opportunity to be more than friends with Ollie, because they’d known each other since before they could talk, took on a whole new meaning. ‘He’s a great guy, but it would have felt weird. I love him, just not like that.’ She’d said it more than once and then laughed it off, but Freya would almost certainly have heard the regret in her voice if she’d really listened. Maybe she was just easy to deceive, or maybe she’d allowed herself to be because she wanted to live in the little bubble where everything had been simple and perfect. Either way, it was like everything she thought she’d known about her life had all come crashing down in one day.
‘This is my fault, not Ollie’s.’ Sophie turned towards Freya, her face so drained of colour that it almost matched the white linen table cloth in front of her.
‘What’s your fault?’
‘I just wanted to be sure… you know, that this was right for all of us.’ Sophie dropped her gaze and Freya’s fingers twitched, the desire to tip the bottle of sparkling water on the table over her bridesmaid’s head, almost overwhelming.
‘Funny that. I never realised there were three of us in this relationship. Silly me; all this time it was about all of us, not just the two of us.’
‘Freya don’t, I—’ Ollie barely had the chance to open his mouth before she cut him off.
‘Don’t you dare! Whatever it is you’re going to tell me to think or feel, just don’t. You lied to Jeremy about having a working lunch, and you lied to me. What possible reason could you have for doing that?’ She didn’t wait for an answer, but a realisation was setting in like concrete. Whatever reason he’d had for lying, it didn’t matter. Cheating had always been a deal breaker for both of them, he knew that, but suddenly lying for any reason was a deal breaker too. She’d been lied to for her entire life and she wasn’t about to start a new life with someone who found it this easy to lie to her too.
‘There’s nothing going on, Freya. Sophie wanted to see me because she was struggling to accept that things are going to change when you and I get married. I was just trying to stop things getting awkward between the two of you. I didn’t want this to affect your friendship, because it’s only ever been you for me. You’ve got to believe me.’ Ollie sounded desperate, but it was too late. He didn’t have enough faith in her to trust her with the truth, even if he was being honest. No one in her family had had enough faith in her either. Freya was just someone who needed to be kept in the dark on the outside of every circle of secrets and there was no way she was going into a marriage like that, even if Ollie’s reason for meeting Sophie had been totally innocent.
‘I don’t have to do anything. Not any more. How am I supposed to decide which lies to fall for, anyway?’
‘I asked him to keep how I’ve been feeling a secret.’ Sophie had no idea how little she was doing to help the situation every time she opened her mouth.
‘And in doing that he chose you.’ Freya’s fingers twitched again, but this time she wasn’t even tempted to tip the water over Sophie’s head. She was vaguely aware that everyone else in the restaurant was looking at them, and she wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of making a scene. Having her heart broken twice in the space of five hours was something she couldn’t do anything about, and she might not be walking away with much, but she could at least try to hold on to her dignity. ‘Enjoy your little club of two, sharing all your secrets, and don’t worry there aren’t three of us in this relationship any more, because I’m done.’
Dropping her engagement ring on the table, Freya spun around, but Ollie was up on his feet with his hand on her shoulder before she’d made it even halfway back to the doors that led out to the bar. She couldn’t stop; if she did, everything might come bursting out – the discovery that her dad wasn’t her birth father, and the true extent of just how badly her fiancé and her best friend had just broken her heart by lying to her too. Even if he hadn’t physically cheated, the secrets felt every bit as painful of a betrayal. But Ollie had no right to even know about her mother’s secret any more, and she’d do anything not to let either of them see her cry.
‘Don’t touch me.’ It was a hiss and the people sitting closest to where Freya was standing weren’t even pretending not to watch them now.
‘Please Freya, I love you so much and I know I handled it badly, but I was just trying to protect you both. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but I didn’t know if you’d understand.’
‘Nice to know that you prioritised Sophie’s feelings over being honest with me. I said don’t touch me.’ Freya shrugged off his hand, as he tried to comfort her again. ‘Conveniently enough, my stuff’s already packed for the move, so I’ll clear the flat by the weekend.’
‘Are you seriously telling me you’re ending everything over this? I should have told you, I know that now, but you can’t let this break us up’ He looked at her. ‘We’re getting married in a week and I love you far too much to let this happen, over an idiotic error of judgement on my part. I’ll do whatever it takes to put this right.’
‘We were getting married, you mean.’ Freya bit her lip in a vain attempt to transfer the emotional pain into something physical. ‘I don’t trust you any more, Ollie. I’ve been lied to my whole life, and now it turns out you’re lying to me too.’
‘What do you mean you’ve been lied to your whole life? You’re not making any sense.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Freya didn’t look him in the face. She hadn’t meant for it to come out, but she couldn’t think straight and she needed to get out of there before she told him far more than she wanted to.
‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it? I know you, Freya, I can tell.’
‘You might think you know me, but you don’t. No one really does.’ That was as much as she was going to give him, and the audience of diners hanging on their every word.
‘Freya, please, whatever it is that’s happened you can tell me. It’s the reason you’re overreacting to all of this.’
‘Overreacting?’ Freya’s voice shook. The emotion was so close to bubbling over, if she didn’t get out of the restaurant in the next two minutes she was definitely going to lose it. ‘Do you know what, Ollie, I have got something to tell you.’
‘What is it?’
‘Goodbye.’ Breaking into a run, Freya shot back through the bar and had almost reached the exit on to the street before the barman called out.
‘Madam, your bill?’
‘Just add it on to Ollie King’s restaurant tab. He owes me.’
Uncle Dave puffed heavily as he carried the last of the boxes into the living room, stacking it on top of the others next to the white tinsel Christmas tree that Auntie Linda had covered with what looked like about a hundred strings of tinsel, all in brightly clashing colours. Freya’s head was pounding so hard she couldn’t even look at it.
‘Did you see Ollie?’ She turned to her uncle who nodded slowly. As well as collecting her stuff, Dave had dropped the car back to the flat. Ollie had a company car, but the one Freya had been using was registered in his name too, and she didn’t want to give him any reason to come looking for her.
‘He really wants to see you, to explain.’ Dave shrugged. ‘I didn’t get half of what he was saying, he seemed so distraught, but I could tell the boy’s genuinely heart-broken.’
‘Don’t let him fool you. He’s proven just how capable he is of lying.’ Freya hugged the cushion she was holding into her body.
‘Are you sure he didn’t have a point about you overreacting? With the day you’ve had, no one would blame you lovey.’ Linda’s tone was reasonable, but Freya shook her head so hard the pounding sensation seemed to double.
‘I’m not, and you weren’t there.’ A tiny voice was nagging at the back of Freya’s brain, that maybe there was something in what her aunt was saying. She’d played the scene over and over in her mind and it had definitely been Sophie leaning in towards Ollie with him patting her shoulder as if he was comforting her, rather than anything else. But she squashed the voice down again. She couldn’t trust what she saw, or what she thought, because somewhere along the way she must have lost the ability to recognise the truth. Maybe it was something she’d never learned… She’d been lied to from almost the moment she was born, and she couldn’t imagine ever really trusting anyone again.
‘But moving all your stuff and cancelling the wedding…’ Linda sighed heavily. ‘There couldn’t be a worse time for us to be heading off to Australia and leaving you here all on your own.’
‘I’m not staying here.’ Freya had made up her mind sometime in the haze of white-hot fury that had descended on her as soon as she’d left the restaurant. She’d had no idea where to turn and it had felt as if she’d been rejected from every safe haven she thought she had. Her closest family had lied to her and so had the man she loved. Where were you supposed to go from there? Much to her surprise, the threatened tears hadn’t come. Instead, it had been like some unstoppable momentum had taken over, and within seconds she’d been making her first call to cancel collecting the wedding rings and her final dress fitting. Seabreeze Farm had taken over a lot of the arrangements, but she’d cancelled anything that hadn’t been booked through them. They’d be losing a lot of their deposits, but the prospect of losing money barely registered. It was nothing compared to everything else she’d lost that day.
Galvanising Uncle Dave and some of his mates from the pub into action, had taken a bit more persuasion. Especially when Auntie Linda kept interrupting to say she was sure it would all blow over, and shouldn’t Freya give it a few days before she started cancelling the wedding plans. The promise of a couple of rounds of drinks, after they helped out, had been enough in the end to get Dave’s mates on side, and one of them had a transit van that was perfect for transporting the boxes she’d already packed. Another of her uncle’s friends had even agreed to throw Freya’s clothes and the contents of her dressing table into a couple of suitcases. If he didn’t quite get it all, she could live with that, as long as she didn’t have to face Ollie.
‘What do you mean you’re not staying here?’ Auntie Linda knitted her eyebrows together, and Dave grunted again as he sat down on the sofa beside her.
‘I’m not sure I can face moving all your stuff again just yet, sweetie. My back’s not what it used to be.’
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked you to do it, but I was desperate. You and Linda are all I’ve got.’
‘Hey.’ Dave reached across to the armchair where Freya was sitting and touched her hand. ‘Of course you should have asked me, and I’d do anything for you, but I just can’t face another removal yet.’
‘I can’t see why you’d have to.’ Linda was running a hand through her hair as she spoke. ‘I thought you staying here, and looking after the place whilst we’re in Australia, would be the perfect solution. It’ll give you time to think.’
‘I don’t need time to think.’ Freya looked from Linda to Dave. ‘But don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to move my stuff again. If I can leave that here, just until you get back from visiting Scotty, that would really help.’
‘And what about you, where are you going to stay?’ Linda’s eyes searched her face and Freya tried her hardest to smile, even if she ended up feeling about as convincing as a shop mannequin.
‘I know what I need to do and I’ve got a plan.’
‘Are we allowed to know what this plan is?’ Linda was going to end up pulling a tuft of hair out the way she was running her hand through it, and Freya resented Ollie even more for forcing her to involve her aunt and uncle in this. But there was no way she was going to let this ruin the trip to Australia they’d been planning for almost two years.
‘I’m going to stay at an old friend’s place over Christmas and decide whether I still want to take the job in London. Or if I should apply for something else, as far away from Ollie and Sophie as I possibly can.’
‘What’s her name, this old friend?’ Uncle Dave had narrowed his eyes, as if he didn’t quite believe her.
‘It’s Karen, but I’m not going to tell you where she lives because then Ollie might get it out of you and I know a part of you still thinks I should give him another chance. But that’s not going to happen; I’m done with secrets and I’m struggling to cope with everyone else telling me how I should feel about them.’ She held out her hands to both of them. ‘I love you both, but I’ve got to do this for me. So much has changed, so quickly, and I just need time to process it all. On my own.’
‘What do you mean “on your own”? What about Karen?’ Auntie Linda’s eyebrows had knitted back together again.
‘I just mean without anyone who knows Ollie or Mum and Dad trying to influence me. I won’t literally be on my own.’
‘Good because I couldn’t stand the thought of you being alone for Christmas.’ Uncle Dave was built like the proverbial side of a barn, but his voice cracked as he looked at her again.
‘I promise I won’t be, and I promise I’ll have everything sorted out by the time you get back from Australia. But I need you to promise me something, too. I don’t want you to tell Ollie what I found out about Mum, no matter how much he pushes you for information. He’s got no right to know about any of that and, whatever you might think, my decision to call off the wedding has got nothing to do with finding out about my father.’ Freya’s tone was forceful and if there was a part of her that was trying to convince herself, as well as Dave and Linda, she wasn’t going to acknowledge it.
‘If that’s what you really want, then we promise. But you won’t do anything stupid, will you?’ Auntie Linda suddenly looked so much like her mum, as she tilted her head on one side.
‘Of course not. I’m all out of stupid anyway.’ Freya forced another smile. If it had been stupid to trust the people who claimed to love her, then she’d been about as big a fool as she could be. She had to get away, and if that meant telling a lie of her own to the only two people she still trusted, despite everything, then it was a price she was willing to pay.