‘Not soon enough,’ he said, glancing adoringly at Carmen. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to wait that long.’
‘But don’t you have to give notice?’
‘All done. Actually, we started planning ages ago. We just decided not to make it public until the last minute. We didn’t want people telling us we were crazy because it was so soon. You know how people can interfere.’
‘Yes.’ Kate sighed. ‘I do.’
He cleared his throat, suddenly awkward. ‘Will’s going to be best man,’ he said, warily.
Kate nodded silently, dredging up what she hoped was a reassuringly placid smile.
‘Unless there’s any reason he shouldn’t be.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Look, I don’t know what happened between you two…’ He left the words hanging in the air.
‘No, you don’t,’ Kate said flatly.
‘…but Will was pretty gutted when you went off like that,’ Lorcan continued, almost accusingly.
‘Really?’ Kate said coldly.
‘Okay, none of my business,’ Lorcan said, seeing her set face.
‘Did it escape your notice that Tina was there when I “went off like that”?’ she said sharply, annoyed that she had been goaded into defending herself. ‘Or did Will forget to mention that little detail?’
‘Tina?’ To Kate’s astonishment, Lorcan had the nerve to guffaw at this. ‘Don’t tell me that’s why you hared off?’
‘Well, it’s a good enough reason, don’t you think? His girlfriend was moving in. What was I supposed to do? Hang around and help with her stuff?’
‘But that wasn’t Will’s idea,’ Lorcan said. ‘He was as surprised as you were when she turned up. He thought she was safely on the other side of the world, tormenting Cambodian orphans. He didn’t want her there at all.’
I don’t want her here. Get rid of her. Will’s words had reverberated around in her head for the past three months. Could he have been talking about Tina? And what could Tina coming back have to do with her mother and Rachel?
‘Apparently it was some hare-brained matchmaking scheme of Rachel’s, believe it or not,’ Lorcan said, as if in answer to her unspoken question. ‘I guess she must have believed all that guff in the papers about Will wanting Tina back. For some reason, she took it upon herself to try to reunite them.’
‘Racheldid?’
‘I know – most unlike her! Anyway, she got it hopelessly wrong. Will sent Tina packing straight away. I don’t think she even got out of the car.’ Lorcan laughed. ‘It just did a U-turn in the drive.’
‘God, poor Tina!’
‘Serves her right for believing her own publicity.’ He snorted. ‘I mean, she’d made up those stories in the papers and then somehow persuaded herself they were true.’
Or Rachel had persuaded her,Kate thought. ‘You created this situation, you sort it out,’ she had heard Will bawl into the phone. He had been telling Rachel to get rid of Tina, not her. It didn’t alter the fact that he had been faking it with her, but at least he hadn’tbeen talking about her in the awful, dismissive way that had haunted her ever since.
‘Poor Rachel got it from both sides.’ Lorcan chuckled. ‘Tina and Will were both furious with her for interfering. Will really put the wind up her – not easy with Rachel, as you know. Thankfully, I think the whole episode has cured her of matchmaking. There never was a stupider Cupid.’
She wondered how long Will would have let it go on before he dumped her, if things hadn’t come to a head. Maybe he felt he had painted himself into a corner and was trapped into keeping up the pretence, at least for a while. Maybe, like Tina, he had even started to believe his own bullshit.
‘So, if it’s because of Tina that you left—’ Lorcan was saying hopefully.
‘It wasn’t just that.’ Kate smiled sadly. ‘But there are no hard feelings. I don’t want anyone avoiding Will on my account. Or beating him up.’
‘Okay.’ Lorcan was clearly not satisfied, but was willing to drop it.
Kate had noticed her mother darting apprehensive glances at her while she was talking to Lorcan. Rachel’s eyes flicked warily in Kate’s direction, too, as though she was a wild animal that might attack at any moment. ‘Is Will coming to us for Christmas?’ she asked Lorcan.
