Chapter 36
of January, Evie started a new job at a midsize accountancy firm based just off Regent Street, a stone’s throw from Oxford Circus. At the end of her first week, she arranged to meet Zac after work in order to sort out the mortgage on their flat and to confirm their plans for Evie to buy out his share.
Things between them had changed forever, but the emails they’d exchanged since she’d returned home indicated they were achieving a new, fresh level of friendship. Through the polished-glass windows of Starbucks, she spotted him sitting at a table for two in a cozy corner. She watched him for a moment, a wistful ache in her heart that the good thing they’d once had together was no longer there.
He was texting someone. Teagan. Loneliness rattled and a pang of jealousy hit the pit of Evie’s stomach.
Until her phone bleeped.
Sitting in a corner. Got you a latte, extra milk.
“Thank you.” Evie approached the table feeling sheepish. She didn’t love Zac anymore and she had no right to be jealous just because someone else did. “How are you?”
He stood and leaned in. She expected a half-hearted hug, but he kissed her cheek and gave her a firm brotherly squeeze. “I’m good. How are you?”
They exchanged polite words for several minutes, before running out of things to say and staring at each other.
“This is weird,” Zac said.
“So weird.”
“It’s not us, is it?”
“There is no ‘us’ anymore, Zac. That’s why.”
“I know. It’s just . . .”
“Weird.”
“Yeah.”
They drank their coffee. After a long pause, Zac spoke again.
“There is still an ‘us,’ Evie. I still want to be friends.”
“Not the dinner party kind of friends, though, Zac. I can’t come to your house and chat to Teagan and play with your child. That’ll be too . . . weird.”
“Why? It doesn’t have to be. I’m not saying it’s what I want exactly, but why see it as the end of our friendship? Teagan knows all about you and I still care about you.”
“You lied to me for months.”
Zac bent his head. “I know. I’ve told you how sorry I am.” Then he looked her straight in the eye. “But it’s not all about you, Evie. It was a difficult pregnancy. There were complications at first, a high chance of miscarriage. We didn’t tell anyone. We were house hunting too and work was stressful. Did you really expect me to email you straight away with the news?”
“I—No.” Evie shook her head, feeling churlish and petty. “Not at first, but what about later? We emailed so many times.”
“You were on the other side of the world and I’d just met someone new. Someone I really clicked instantly with—just like I’d clicked with you. It freaked me out. I never expected it, and then, a month later Teagan was pregnant. I’d started to think I couldn’t have children, what with . . . you know. And we didn’t even plan it. It was an accident, the condom, it—”
Evie covered her ears. “Too much information, Zac.”
“Sorry.” He sighed. “I didn’t lie or keep secrets to hurt you. In a way, I lied to protect you. I wanted you to be happy, to have your adventure just like you’d planned for so long. I didn’t want to ruin it, knowing how you’d feel about the baby. I was in awe that you went by yourself, actually.”
“I was so scared.”
“I know, but you did it anyway.” He stared down at his coffee. “And I had Teagan to look after. She was so sick during those early weeks that . . . Sorry. It’s bad taste of me speaking about her.”
They fell silent for a few minutes. Evie wanted to tell him that it was okay for him to talk about Teagan, that she wanted to hear about the pregnancy and even the birth, but she didn’t want to know. Not now. Not when she was so tired and feeling so shit.
“I need to ask you something, Zac.”
Zac sipped his coffee and took his time swallowing. He looked older, his eyes dark, having lost their carefree softness.
“Did you sleep with Teagan before we split up?”
His eyes flashed in horror. “God, no! No, Evie, I promise! Nothing happened until I moved out.” He looked exactly how she knew he’d look, shocked, hurt and utterly offended at the suggestion. “You believe me, don’t you?”
She reached out to him. “Of course I do.” She’d never really been in any doubt. She knew Zac. There were many reasons why she had loved him for so many years.
“I always wondered if you’d meet anyone in Oz.” He paused, then nudged her. “Well, did you?”
Evie held the coffee cup to her lips, the warmth seeping through. “Yeah. This one guy.” She drank a frothy mouthful that was hard to swallow. If there was one thing worse than hearing about Teagan and the baby, it was talking about Adam—ugh, Michael. “So tell me what it’s like being a parent?”
She suspected Zac noticed her diversion but he let it go. “It’s hard. Exhausting. We question everything. Most of the time we wing it, hoping we’re doing things right.”
But Evie knew Zac. She knew that spark in his eyes, the way his lips were doing their best not to break out into the widest grin possible. He was a happy man. “You really do love her, don’t you?”
Zac nodded, and Evie hoped with all her heart that Teagan loved him back as much as he deserved.
“So, tell me about this guy,” Zac said, not letting her diversion go after all. “What’s his name?”
Hmmm. Good question.
The other night, she’d caved and googled Michael Adams again. She’d watched race footage on YouTube. He’d look so young and lanky, winning his first gold at just eighteen, and then, she’d watched his last Olympic race, fourteen years later. His body had broadened with maturity to the version she knew so intimately. His eyes creased at the corners as he waved to the crowd, moved to tears by their farewell applause. She’d cried with him, having seen that same vulnerability in his eyes the night she’d walked out on him.
She’d relented even more, allowing herself to imagine what she’d say when she contacted him about how she’d given his money away. Would she tell him she missed him? But then she’d seen another recent photo of him, taken just a week ago, and it had turned her stomach. Needless to say, Michael Adams had looked extremely handsome in his designer tux with the equally stunning Saskia Williams on his arm.
There’d been a lot of photos of them together recently. At restaurants and parties, or grabbing an early morning coffee as they strolled the city. He didn’t look like the Adam she had known. Probably because he wasn’t.
“He’s just someone I traveled with for a few weeks.”
The way Zac was studying her told Evie he was contemplating what she wasn’t telling him. “Are you still together?”
“No. It’s over.”
She took another sip of her latte, and in the same way that she knew Zac was happy, he knew the same wasn’t true about her. “Well, he sounds like a complete dickhead.”
Evie choked on her coffee, tasting caffeine up her nose.
“What?” Zac said. “He does sound like a dickhead. If he wasn’t, he’d still be with you.”
Hysteria bubbled over and she burst out laughing, bringing tears to her eyes. She wiped them with a coffee-stained tissue.
“Oh, Zac.” Evie squeezed his hand. “He used to say exactly the same thing about you.”
sat on her train home, which was crawling down the tracks thanks to some earlier hold up. It slowed, then halted again. Stop. Start. Stop. The man next to her huffed and she wondered if Michael Adams had ever sat on a delayed, overcrowded train after a hard day in the office.
Evie ended up telling Zac as much as she could about Adam without revealing who he really was, not wanting to compromise the nondisclosure she’d signed. She hadn’t wanted to risk it even though she knew he’d keep the secret—just like she’d known all along he hadn’t had an affair with Teagan.
Evie smiled thinking of the horror on his face when she’d asked him. It was so Zac. But then her smile faded, the gnaw of guilt that had been increasing ever since she’d left Darwin finally breaking through.
I’ve never felt like this before . . . It’s more than just a passing fling.
If she had believed Zac, why hadn’t she believed Adam?
Evie loved Adam. Adam loved Evie. But she had left him. She’d overlooked his love that last night, and she was overlooking his love now, so focused instead on trawling the internet for something to make her hate him. For some tangible proof that what they’d had in the Kimberleys was just one big fat lie.