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CHAPTER TEN
‘YOUCANSIT in the car while I nip into the off-licence,’ her father wheedled. ‘Save me parking across the road.’
‘You usually go on your own... I’m kind of busy here,’ Suzy argued, barely lifting her head from the academic website she was studying.
Roger Madderton frowned down at his daughter. ‘I’ll be blunt, then. I’m tired of you moping about the place like a wet weekend. Two weeks of that is enough. You need to get out of the flat, even come down and help behind the bar—’
‘Flora’s managing fine,’ Suzy reminded her parent stiffly, because it had been something of a shock to discover on her return that her place had been filled more than adequately by the older woman, who was also cooking up a storm of popular meals to sell to their weekend customers. That had stung when Suzy had only contrived to serve up pizzas and paninis, her catering skills being rather more basic.
And then there had been the mortification of all the tales about Percy Brenton that had come her way whenever she was seen. The locals seemed to think it was their bounden duty to tell her anything that related to her ex. Percy had been charged and arrested. As soon as he had got out on bail, he had put his house on the market and he had not been seen since. There was a rumour that his assault on Suzy had not been his first offence and that he had a bitter ex-wife now living in York. It didn’t seem to occur to anyone that Suzy couldn’t have cared less and that she was merely grateful not to have to see the man again.
‘Come on,’ her father urged, and with great reluctance Suzy rose from her seat at the desk in the lounge of the flat and followed him downstairs to his car.
She wasn’t moping, she thought resentfully. She had done her best to be cheerful and helpful since she came home. But most of her attention had been reserved for the different educational courses available to anyone planning to work with children. The variety of options had made it hard to choose because she wasn’t sure how high to set her sights or whether or not to settle on a short course or a lengthier one. In short, she had done everything possible to avoid moping and stay busy and if she was miserable she had done her best to hide the fact.
A broken heart was a broken heart, and she couldn’t eat or sleep without thinking about Ruy and feeling a great gush of pain and hollowness engulf her until she felt as if she were drowning.
In truth she had left her heart behind in Spain and she remained furious in her bitterness with Ruy. He hadn’t wanted her enough to fight for her! He hadn’t wanted her enough to defend himself! It was even more galling that she had shut him down before he was forced to define exactly what he had meant by asking her to stay in Spain with him. After all, if you didn’t have a relationship to begin with how did one move on from that point, particularly with the complication of a fake engagement in play? Yes, Suzy would very much have enjoyed hearing Ruy explain what he was asking her to consider. Not, of course, that she could have overlooked what she had discovered about him, but she was only human, she would still have liked to know.
Her father was unusually quiet on his way to the off-licence and when he emerged she was surprised that he was only carrying a little crate of beer.
‘That was a small order,’ she remarked as he reversed the car and drove off again.
On the drive home, she said, ‘Have I really been that hard to live with?’
Roger Madderton groaned. ‘You’re inconsolable. How am I expected to feel as your dad? I want to fix it for you.’
‘You can’t fix it. He wasn’t the guy I thought he was,’ Suzy sighed, patting his knee soothingly. ‘I’ll get over this. Don’t worry about me.’
‘I can help you fix it,’ her father asserted, disconcerting her. ‘You’re very stubborn. He’s very stubborn as well but he’s also a few years older and a little less short-sighted than you can be.’
‘Why are you talking about Ruy like this?’ Suzy twisted in her seat as her father turned off the road down a familiar lane. ‘Why are we driving down here?’
Her father stopped at the electric gates that secured Ruy’s house in the woods. The gates whirred open and Suzy stared in disbelief at her parent while he marvelled out loud at the camera-recognition technology that had given them automatic entry.
‘Dad!’she gasped in frustration. ‘What are we doing here?’
‘You had a row with him, and you didn’t talk it out. This is your last chance to get it sorted,’ her father told her squarely.
At the realisation that Ruy was back in England, Suzy froze in consternation. ‘I’m not going in there!’
‘If he’s made the effort to fly over here, you can make the effort to at least listen to what he has to say. You don’t have to forgive him for whatever he’s done,’ her father pointed out levelly.
‘I can’t believe you’re doing this to me!’ Suzy protested, shooting him a shaken glance.
‘I hope you don’t still feel that way in ten minutes—’
‘Ten minutes?’
‘I’ll wait here for ten minutes. If you aren’t back out again by then I’ll go home.’ Her father switched off the engine with a flourish.
‘Did Ruy somehow force you into doing this for him?’
‘No, he was planning to come to the pub, but I didn’t want to find myself in the middle of your drama and it’s not very private there. This is the better option,’ Roger Madderton opined and leant across her to swing open the passenger door in invitation.
Suzy snatched in a sustaining breath and leapt out. ‘I’ll be out in less than ten minutes!’
‘Famous last words, my love,’ her father said equably as she slammed the door shut again.
