Three Weddings and a Baby

‘Insufferable? Judgemental? High-handed?’ The smile twisted his face further, and he walked towards her. ‘Heard it all before. I can keep going with adjectives until I come up with something more fitting, if you like.’

‘I… You…’

His eyes narrowed. ‘How about this for a description? The man you deserted before the ink was dry on the marriage certificate? I promise you, that’s a brand new one for me.’

Jennie wanted to laugh, but it came out as a cough. What parallel dimension was this guy living in? She felt like punching him on the nose, and she bet that’d be a brand new experience for Mr Alex Dangerfield as well.

‘I deserted you? That’s rich!’ She closed the rest of the distance between them, looked him right in the eye. ‘Who was it exactly who sat on their own in a hotel room for almost a week after her new husband had vanished into thin air? Not you, that’s for sure!’

‘You’re being ridiculous. I didn’t vanish, as you call it. You knew where I was going and why. I phoned while I was away. And I distinctly remember apologizing and promising I’d be back. What more could I have said?’

The fact that he sounded all calm and reasonable had her consider throwing that punch. Unfortunately, just as her fury reached boiling point, it evaporated, condensing into moisture that stung the backs of her eyes.

It was all the things he hadn’t said that had been the problem. For a few wonderful months, she’d been the sole recipient of all Alex’s love, devotion and attention. And, with a man as intense as Alex, that was a heady cocktail. She’d felt lit up by him. When he looked at her, it was as if she was in the beam of a scorching bright searchlight but, instead of withering under its bleaching stare, she’d come alive, sparkled all the brighter. It was where she’d thought she was supposed to be. She hadn’t cared if anyone else had paid her attention or not. All she had wanted to do was live her life in the warmth of Alex’s spotlight.

Maybe she’d been out of her mind, drunk on that feeling, but all she knew now was that when that phone call had come, his light had swung away and focused somewhere else, and she’d been left shivering in the shadows, feeling lost and hungover.

In those short, hurried phone calls, often on car journeys between appointments, he’d given her information, but never reassurance. And then a trip that had only been supposed to last a day or two had dragged on and on.

‘You never did properly explain what kept you back in England for so long.’

He opened his mouth to answer her, but she cut him off.

‘I know that Becky was injured in a car crash. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have gone, but I don’t understand why it had to be you standing at her bedside. She divorced you. Where were her family? Couldn’t they have visited her and fluffed up her pillows?’

‘I would have explained if you’d given me a chance, but it’s kind of hard to have a meaningful conversation with a dial tone!’ He looked really angry. Jennie started to get scared, but then he breathed air out through his nose and looked at her more intently. ‘She was my wife once, too, Jennie. And there are things you don’t know. About my first marriage… About what I discovered when I got to the hospital…’