‘Money.’ Her blue eyes stare back at him, cool and unwavering.
It hits him like a blow. That’s what this is. She’s blackmailing him. She wants him to pay her so that she won’t say anything to his wife. Why didn’t he see this coming? How could he have been so naive? He snorts. ‘Well, that’s too bad, because I don’t have any.’
‘A successful man like you?’
So that’s what she’s been doing, snooping around the edges of his life. Coming to his office, trying to get an idea of what he’s worth. He can feel himself sweating with nerves. ‘Look,’ he says, trying to sound reasonable, ‘business has been bad lately. I haven’t got any spare cash to give you, even if I wanted to.’
She leans in closer to him. ‘Who do you think you’re dealing with? I’ve done my research. I know your business is doing just fine. And I happen to know that your wife is loaded.’ She pulls back and looks at him, very matter-of-fact. ‘Money is not one of your problems.’
He feels his stomach drop. How does she know about that? Now he’s truly frightened. He sees it all, how his future might unfold – so very differently from what he’d planned. He must shut this down. He musters every ounce of resolve he has and says clearly, ‘I’m not going to pay you anything. You need to understand that.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Yes. I’ll tell Stephanie everything.’ He’ll tell her as soon as he gets home today, and then Erica will have nothing to hold over him. He has to hope – to believe – that Stephanie will stand by him, even after he admits to cheating on his first wife, even after he tells her exactly how she died.
‘Everything?’ She looks at him, disbelieving.
‘I’ll tell her the truth,’ Patrick says. ‘And I’ll tell her about you and what a liar you are and what you’re trying to do. Because I don’t lie to my wife.’ He leans forward so that he’s right in her lovely face and says, ‘I’m not afraid of you, and I’m not paying you a fucking cent.’
She says, ‘Maybe it’s not your wife you have to worry about.’
‘What?’
‘Maybe I’ll finally go to the authorities and get them to take another look at the death of your first wife.’
‘Why the fuck would you do that?’
‘Because I can.’
He stares at her in shock, finishes his drink in one go, gets up, throws some money on the table and walks out. He doesn’t look back.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE TWINS ARE in their high chairs and Stephanie is in the middle of giving them their little bit of baby cereal mixed with breast milk. Patrick hasn’t come home from work yet and she tries not to resent it. She’d smelled the Scotch on his breath the day before – he’d obviously been out for a drink after work, but she didn’t mention it, tries not to begrudge it. She expects him any minute. She could use a hand. She’s got a high chair on either side of her and she’s spooning the milky cereal into one little mouth after the other. My little birds, she thinks fondly.
There’s a sound at the front door but she’s focused on the babies. She hears Patrick come in, but he lingers in the front hall for a moment. Another spoonful for Emma – most of it ending up on her chin – then Stephanie scoops it from the baby’s face with the spoon. She wonders what Patrick is doing. Why doesn’t he come through to the kitchen and help her? ‘Patrick?’ she calls.
‘Yeah, I’m coming,’ he says.
‘What’s wrong?’ she says, the moment he appears in the kitchen, looking as if he’s had terrible news. Her stomach clenches. It must be worse than she thought at work. Maybe he has been shielding things from her after all, because she’s got her hands full with the twins. Her anger flares, along with anxiety.
He pulls out a kitchen chair and slumps into it. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
She imagines the worst. A serious problem – a lawsuit of some kind, a mistake. Architecture is a fraught, difficult field. And she’s never completely trusted Niall, even though Patrick does. ‘Is it work?’
He looks at her, surprised. ‘No.’
Now she’s the one who’s surprised. What else could it be?
‘Christ, I don’t know where to start,’ he says.
She’s forgotten about the cereal and now Jackie and Emma start to whimper. She goes back to feeding them, trying to remain calm, fake-smiling at the babies. ‘There you go, yum-yum,’ she says, in a singsong voice. Then, to Patrick, ‘Just tell me. I can handle it.’
‘You know I love you, Stephanie,’ he says earnestly.
She turns her head away from the twins and stares at him. Now she’s really worried. He has the tortured look of someone about to confess. What has he done? They haven’t had sex since the twins were born. Is that what this is about? She waits.
‘You know I told you that my previous wife, Lindsey’ – now tears are coming into his eyes – ‘died in a car accident.’
‘Yes.’ Her voice is uncertain. She can’t imagine what he’s about to say next.
‘I didn’t tell you everything.’
She goes absolutely still, staring at him.
His face has gone pale. ‘I never told you because … it was my fault.’
Oh, dear God. Her entire body tightens, as if for a blow. This is coming at her out of the blue; she’s not prepared for it.
He sags further into the kitchen chair. ‘I have to tell you what happened.’
‘Okay,’ she says.
‘It was winter,’ he begins. ‘There was a storm. We were going to visit her mother. There was so much snow. I didn’t want to go, but she insisted …’ His face is anguished and he stops, as if he can’t go on.
It’s difficult for her to look at him in such obvious, raw pain. ‘You were driving?’ she whispers. Even the babies are quiet now, as if they can sense the tension in the room.
He shakes his head. ‘No. We never got off the street.’
She doesn’t understand. He’s not making sense.
‘She got in the car to get warm. Lindsey was always so impatient. I told her to wait inside the house, but she came out before I was done. I didn’t know it was dangerous.’ He swallows.
‘What was dangerous?’ she asks, confused.
He takes a deep breath. ‘I had to shovel out the car. It was taking a long time because the snow was almost up to the roof. She was so desperate to visit her mother and her sister.’ He hesitates. ‘She was finding it hard, being away from her family – she was eight months pregnant – and I was working such long hours.’
Stephanie feels her stomach turn. She hadn’t known his wife had been pregnant when she died. She steels herself for the rest.
‘She wouldn’t stay inside. It was very cold. I told her to go back in the house, but she got in the car. And I just kept shovelling – I had no idea that the exhaust pipe was plugged with snow, that carbon monoxide was getting into the car – killing her.’ He chokes back a sob.
Stephanie gapes at him in horror, but he doesn’t meet her eyes.