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He didn’t even have her number.
She stumbled back home; Adam was in bed when she got in, and she lay beside him, desperately wanting the reassurance of his familiar body but knowing she couldn’t.
He rolled over in bed, a heavy arm flopping over her waist. “Working late?” he mumbled.
She knew she must smell of him. Musky, of sex and spermicide and thoughtless thrusting in the dark.
“Adam, I slept with someone,” she replied. And that was it.
* * *
No one considers the events that lead up to an affair. The factors that contribute to the moment of infidelity. You sleep with someone, that’s it. You’re the bad guy. Black and white. With the exception of Pippa, all of their shared friends sided with Adam. For the second time in her life, Romilly found herself feeling completely alone.
Slowly, she stacks the coffees and teas onto a tray and carries them back to the incident room. She’d pulled herself back from there—again—gone through with the divorce, allowing Adam to have anything he wanted. But he’d drifted further away. “Take it all,” he’d said, like nothing related to her made a dent.
She feels her phone ringing in her pocket and pauses in the corridor, hands full, not being able to answer. It stops, a pause, then the beep as the message is recorded. Drinks are taken with appreciation, one left for Adam, and she looks across to where he’s talking on the phone in his office, door open. She puts her own phone to her ear and listens: it’s Phil. His voice stilted, annoyed, rhetorical questions she can’t answer. “Where are you? When are you coming home?” And the one said with the most venom, spat down the line before her boyfriend hung up: “Are you with him?”
She carries the coffee into Adam’s office. He looks up when she comes in, smiles and wordlessly gestures for her to sit down. She places the mug in front of him but stays standing as he wraps up his call.
“Thank you,” he says with a tired grin, cupping his hands around the coffee. “And thank you for coming in.”
“I have to go—” she starts. She holds out her phone, as if the small block of electronics can explain the complexities of needing to go home to your current boyfriend you suddenly can’t stand, while wanting the man in front of you so much your body aches.
“Of course.”
His face clouds, the shutters lowering once more as he shifts his gaze to his computer screen.
“Adam?”
He doesn’t look up from his desk.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Thanks, Romilly.”
“Call me if you need anything.”
A quick flick of eye contact, an artificial smile. “I’m fine.”
She feels the flash of dismissal and takes two steps out of the office.
“Milly?”
She turns back.
“Did Pippa mention anyone following her? Like she was being stalked?”
Romilly feels disappointment, but what did she expect? He isn’t going to pour his heart out to her. Not here, not now. Not ever. “No, she didn’t. But I could call—”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll call Jamie. Good night, Romilly.”
She nods, her face reddening. Feeling Adam’s rejection as strongly as she had then, all those years ago.
CHAPTER
40
JAMIE DOESN’T WANT to be here. So, so much. He wants to be at home, on his sofa, watching some god-awful Netflix-produced rom-com. The ones that Pippa loved, that he had always complained about. He would watch nothing but those for the rest of his life if only it brought her back.
