Page 2 of All the Things We Never Knew

My throat made a dry, clicking sound as I swallowed. Four thousand pounds – it was more than I spent on myself in a year. Not because we couldn’t afford it, but because over the years I’d become accustomed to thrift – to looking on Vinted for clothes, tinting my roots myself at home, going to the local council leisure centre instead of to the swanky gym a few blocks away that did hot yoga and had an on-site massage therapist. There were more important things to spend our money on, I told myself.

And clearly my husband felt the same.

My mind flashed to our daughter – to Lulu. She’d be sixteen in summer. Perhaps Gray, in a moment of madness, had decided that a piece of fine jewellery was an appropriate way to mark the occasion?

But Lulu couldn’t go more than a month without mislaying her school blazer, her phone or her house keys. Her flakiness drove Gray mad sometimes. He’d never splurge on such an expensive gift for her, knowing that she was likely to lose them almost immediately – and certainly not without discussing it with me first.

And Lulu’s birthday was months away, anyway. It was February now: February the thirteenth. The day before Valentine’s Day.

No, the earrings were not for our daughter. Not for me, either. They were for someone else. Someone Gray wanted to surprise with a beautiful, expensive present that she would treasure for ever.

Someone special.

TWO

LAUREL

As I turned off the motorway, Taylor Swift’s ‘Everything Has Changed’ began playing on the car radio. I turned the volume up and my speed down, but I felt like I was flying. I felt like I’d felt on holiday as a child, the moment I stopped whining, ‘Are we there yet?’ and caught my first glimpse of the sea through the car window.

I felt impossibly happy, yet at the same time almost sick with excitement.

Taylor’s voice was muted by the satnav telling me to turn left in five hundred metres, and I forced myself to focus, think about where I was going, keep my eyes on the road.

Half an hour later, I turned on to a long gravel drive, and saw my destination up ahead, illuminated by the headlights of my beaten-up Toyota and shrouded by the misty drizzle that had been falling ever since I left London.

I followed the signs to the car park and slotted in next to a silver Mercedes coupé, parked at a contemptuous angle across two parking spaces.

‘You don’t need to be embarrassed,’ I told my car. ‘You’ve got as much right to be here as anyone else.’

Pulling my bag out of the boot, I wished it was easier to follow my own advice.

I crunched back around to the front of the building, where stone steps led up to a pillared portico. My foot turned over on the gravel and I tripped and almost fell, bursting in through the door into the warm, rose-scented lobby. I could feel my face flushing and I was sure my hair was frizzing from the rain.

If she noticed my discomfiture, the polished blonde behind the reception desk gave no sign of it.

‘Good evening, madam. Did you have a good journey?’

‘Yes. Yes, thank you. I’m meeting… We’ve got a room booked for the night.’

She glanced down at her computer screen. ‘Mrs Graham?’

‘I… My…’ Fuck it. There was no way I could explain or correct her without looking like even more of a twat than I already felt. ‘Yes. That’s right.’

‘Mr Graham arrived a few minutes ago.’ Her smile was as carefully neutral as if she applied it in front of a mirror each morning like lipstick. ‘If you’d like to leave your luggage here, my colleague will bring it up for you. Come this way.’

Again, it seemed futile to point out that I could manage my four-kilogram overnight bag perfectly well myself and save her colleague the journey.

‘The bar and dining room are just there to your left,’ she went on. ‘Breakfast is served between seven and ten tomorrow morning. If you’d like tea or coffee in your room, or anything from the bar, you can order using our app.’

‘Thank you.’ I followed her up a wide staircase, carpeted in royal blue, a heavy velvet rope serving as a handrail, then into a corridor lit by wall sconces. The scent of roses was everywhere – it must be some sort of room fragrance or cleaning product, I thought, rather than actual flowers. The corridor was completely silent, but from somewhere below I could hear the clink of glasses and a woman’s laughter.

‘Room twelve.’ She stopped outside a panelled door and tapped gently, then stood aside.

A moment later, he opened it and I stepped in, muttering more words of thanks which felt a lot more heartfelt now. Then the door closed and I was in his arms.

‘Hello, beautiful.’ He kissed me and held me close, his hands brushing the hair back from my face. ‘You made it. Was the drive okay? Are you very tired?’

‘I was,’ I admitted. ‘I had an early shift, so I’ve been up since five. But I’m not any more. Look at this – my God. It’s fabulous. Is it the honeymoon suite or something?’