Page 13 of The Work Husband

Like falling out of love, I thought glumly. You don’t see it happening until it has.

‘Why did she want to see you, then?’ I asked, hating the question but equally hating not knowing the answer. ‘I mean, come on, Sam. I’m not controlling – you know that. But when you go off and see your ex for the first time in years, with no notice, and then don’t come home, and then tell me she wanted to talk to you about something even though she could have phoned you, or waited a couple of weeks and seen you without you having to traipse halfway across the country⁠—’

‘I know.’ He scooped up my abandoned cheese and smeared it onto a slice of bread. ‘I know how it looks. I’m sorry, Georgia. I’m sorry about last night. I know you were worried. It wasn’t fair. I should’ve left earlier and come home… but I couldn’t.’

I looked at him steadily, waiting for him to carry on, picking the biggest grape off the bunch and eating it in two bites to stop myself from asking more questions.

He shrugged. ‘That’s it, I guess. That’s all I’ve got. I’m sorry.’

‘Seriously?’ I’d finished the grape and, all at once, it felt like all the anxiety I’d been feeling – for Sam’s safety when I hadn’t heard from him and about what it might mean for our relationship when I did – had crystallised into anger. ‘That’s all you’ve got? You disappear for twenty-four hours because a woman you were in love with who you haven’t seen in years suddenly needs to see you, like, right now for some mysterious reason, and all you can say to me is “I’m sorry”? Don’t you think you owe me an explanation?’

Sam hacked at the cheddar. It wasn’t bog-standard cheddar but some other similar cheese with blueish veins running through it, which the woman in the farm shop had promised me was at the perfect point of ripeness. For the price, it should have been ripened under a full moon and tended by vestal virgins, I’d thought, wincing as I handed over my credit card.

He looked absolutely miserable.

‘Yeah, I probably do owe you an explanation,’ he said. ‘But I can’t give you one. I’m sorry, but I can’t.’

‘You – what?’ I’d picked up another grape, but instead of eating it, I found myself squeezing it so hard between my thumb and forefinger that the skin burst open, sending cool, sticky juice trickling down into my palm. ‘You won’t tell me what happened or why you were even there?’

‘Georgia, nothing happened. I can promise you that, one hundred per cent. Nothing happened between me and Ava, and nothing’s going to.’

I looked at him. His face still had that guarded, closed-off look, but there was something else there too. He looked… worried? Sad?

‘I believe you,’ I told him, although I wasn’t actually sure that I did. ‘But why, then? Why did she want to see you? Why did you go rushing up there and stay for so long you missed your train? What’s going on? I’m allowed to be worried, Sam.’

‘Of course you are.’ He reached for my hand, turned it over, removed the squashed grape and wiped my skin with a napkin, as if I was a child. ‘But I can’t tell you.’

‘But that’s ridiculous. That’s, like, totally unfair. “Sorry, Georgia, I spent the night with my ex, and I’m not going to tell you what happened, and you’re just going to have to suck it up.” That’s basically what you’re saying.’

Sam shook his head – then he nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s basically what I’m saying.’

‘And you expect me to just put up with it?’

‘I don’t expect anything.’ He sounded weary, like he was stuck in a negotiation in which there could be no compromise and no winner either – which I supposed was exactly what was happening. ‘I’m just explaining that I can’t tell you anything more, and I’m asking you to trust me. That’s all.’

I opened my mouth and closed it again, filled with impotent anger. The choice he’d presented me with was impossible: I could dutifully put up with whatever was going on – with not knowing what was going on – or I could cause a massive scene, possibly even end our relationship. And over what? Potentially nothing.

Then another thought occurred to me. ‘So when Ava moves to London in, what? Two weeks?’

He nodded.

‘You’re going to carry on seeing her then, and I still won’t be able to know why or what you’re doing?’ Putting the thought into words made me feel sick.

‘Maybe,’ he said. Then he sighed and added, ‘Probably.’

‘Sam, that’s— surely you can see how that looks, from my point of view?’

‘Of course I can.’ He poured more red wine into our glasses. A splash landed on the table, and he carefully blotted it up with a corner of the napkin that held my exploded grape. ‘Georgia, I love you. I don’t want to hurt you, and I know this is hurting you. I hate that. But there’s nothing I can do.’

‘This doesn’t feel much like love.’ I took a gulp of wine, but it didn’t help my dry mouth. It tasted tannic and sour. ‘It feels like you’re choosing Ava – whatever’s going on between you and her – over me.’

‘That’s not what I’m doing,’ he protested.

‘Then what are you doing?’

He looked at me in silence. If winning the argument meant asking him a question he couldn’t answer, then I’d won. But it didn’t feel like a victory.

‘I think I’ll go to bed,’ I said finally.