“Her heart splintered when he breathed ‘I love you’.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Emily hurled her phone onto the sofa with such force it bounced onto the floorboards. “Love? What on earth are you on about?”
“Em, please calm down. Let’s talk properly,” Andrew reached for her hand, but she snatched it back as if scalded.
“Properly?” She whirled to face him, eyes blazing. “You lied for eighteen months! Swore you were unattached, and now—’I love you’? After I stumbled upon your wife and child at Westfield?”
Andrew paled, gaze dropping. Silence thickened, broken only by the refrigerator’s drone in the kitchen. Emily stood in the lounge’s centre, arms wrapped around herself like armour against a chill that wasn’t there.
“I never meant you to find out like this. I planned to tell you.”
“When?” Her voice trembled with unshed tears. “Next year? In five? Or never?”
She paced like a wounded animal—approaching the bay window, retreating, picking up a trinket only to slam it back down. Andrew sat rigid on the sofa’s edge, watching the fantasy he’d nurtured yet never trusted unravel.
“Listen to me,” he stood, stepping closer. “Yes, I’m married. Yes, I have a son. But it’s… it’s a formality. Charlotte and I haven’t been proper husband and wife for ages.”
“Oh, formality!” Emily’s laughter turned shrill. “Is your child a formality too? The house you return to nightly—just ticking boxes?”
“You don’t understand,” he raked a hand through his hair. “I stay for Oliver. He’s eight. He wouldn’t grasp it if I left.”
“Wouldn’t grasp it?” She froze, pinning him with her stare. “But I should? That I’ve been a married man’s mistress for a year and a half? Played for a fool?”
She strode to the mantelpiece where their shared photo sat—taken last summer at her friend’s Cotswolds cottage, sunlit and entwined. Emily lifted the frame, studied their smiling faces, then hurled it to the floor. Glass exploded in a cruel chime.
“There,” she said, gazing at the shards. “Honest at last. Broken, like everything else.”
Andrew moved toward her. Emily raised a warning hand.
“Don’t you dare.”
“Em, I do love you,” his voice frayed. “For the first time in years, I feel alive. With you, I’m different. Can’t you see?”
“Oh, I see,” she nodded, tears streaking her cheeks. “I see I was an idiot. Believing in Prince bloody Charming who’d whisk me to his castle after divorcing his princess.”
She marched to the kitchen, Andrew trailing. Emily yanked open a cupboard, pulled out the brandy bottle they’d bought for her birthday last month—unopened. Poured a tumbler, downed it in one wincing gulp.
“Want to know what stings worst?” She slammed the glass onto the countertop. “Not the wife. It’s you saying ‘I love you’ now—after the truth blew up.”
“I wanted to tell you sooner—”
“Liar!” Her palm cracked against the table. “You were terrified to say it. Now you’re cornered, you play the love card?”
Andrew sank into a chair, head in hands. The smell of roasted potatoes she’d prepared for his arrival hung acrid now, mocking everything between them.
“I was frightened,” he admitted. “Frightened saying it meant changing things. I didn’t know how.”
“Exactly,” Emily sat opposite. “You didn’t know how… because you never planned to change a thing. Comfortable with a wife and son at home, a mistress for distraction here.”
“That’s rubbish!”
“Then what?”
He stayed silent. Emily watched him—not the charming bloke who’d brought roses and sweet talk, but a lost man drowning in his own indecision.
“Remember how we met? At Waterstones. You said you needed a gift for… your mum. I actually believed you.” Her smile turned brittle. “It was for Charlotte, wasn’t it?”
“Em—”
“Be truthful. Just this once.”
“Yes,” he whispered. “Her birthday.”
Emily laughed, sour as quinine. “And I was chuffed—met a man who cared for his mum. Thought he’d care for me too.”
“I did care!”
“You played me!” she lashed out. “Played at romance while your real family waited back in Guildford!”
She rose, walked to the window where drizzle streaked the panes like weeping. Resting her forehead on the cool glass, she closed her eyes.
“Want to know the worst bit?” she murmured, not turning. “That I truly loved you. First time since my divorce, I believed I could be happy. Dreamt of futures…”
“I dreamt too,” Andrew approached. “Em, believe me.”
“What did you dream?” She faced him, tear-tracks glistening. “Juggling two families? Explaining to Oliver that Daddy keeps a spare auntie?”
“I thought…” he faltered. “Thought it might sort itself out.”
“Sort itself,” she echoed. “While I sat waiting. Hoping.”
She brushed past him, knelt to gather broken glass. He crouched to help, but her arm blocked him.
“Don’t. I’ll manage. I’m used to managing alone.”
“Let me fix this,” he rushed. “I’ll talk to Charlotte. Divorce civilly, arrange fair access to Oliver—”
“Stop,” she froze. “You’re seriously asking me to wait for your divorce?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“You still don’t get it!” She stood, shards clutched tight. “You shattered my faith in you, in us, in love! Now you want more waiting?”
She dumped the glass into the bin, scrubbed her hands as if washing away eighteen months.
“When I saw your wife,” she’d dry her hands, “first thing I thought: how lovely she looks. Happy. Choosing toys for the boy… and I knew she still loves you.”
“Em, that’s not—”
“And how must it feel?” she pressed. “Loving someone who cheats? Raising his child, blindfolded?”
Andrew said nothing. Emily returned to the lounge, curled into an armchair hugging her knees.
“Then I realised,” she whispered. “We’re both victims of your cowardice. She doesn’t know you’re unfaithful. I didn’t know you were married. And you exploited our trust.”
“I didn’t exploit—”
“You did!” Pain deepened her voice. “Eighteen months happy with a phantom. A man who doesn’t really exist.”
Andrew stared out at the hammering rain. The flat felt tomb-quiet but for the downpour’s drumming.
“What now?” he finally asked.
“Nothing now,” Emily stood, tugged his wax jacket from the closet. ”
She wept alone on the cold floorboards, the steady downpour outside the only echo of her shattered trust.