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‘And the baby?’ whispered Lettie, already knowing the answer.
Corey opened his eyes. ‘The baby was his. Grace was sure, and a test after he was born confirmed it.’
‘He. So the baby was a boy.’
‘Yeah.’ Corey gazed into the distance, his jaw set. ‘My son who never was. She stayed with the other man. They’re the happy family now and I’m living with my grandmother and finding it very hard to get close to anyone else. It was the lies that did it. I trusted Grace utterly and yet she’d been lying to me for months. It made me distrust myself because how could I read people properly if I’d misread my own wife so completely?’
Lettie wasn’t sure what to say. She could only imagine what such a betrayal of trust would do to your self-esteem and your view of the world.
‘It wasn’t your fault, Corey,’ she managed, knowing that her words were totally inadequate when it came to mending the hurt he’d suffered.
‘It felt like my failing. But I’d started to trust you…’
‘Until I came across the letter and your gran said the headland was mine.’
Corey nodded. ‘With Grace, the little things finally added up – why she sometimes worked late, why the passcode on her mobile had changed, why she wasn’t happier about our baby.’
When he stopped and swallowed hard, Lettie reached out and placed her hand on his arm.
‘This is so painful. You don’t have to tell me any of this.’
‘But I do because after you found the letter and deed I put two and two together, like I finally did with Grace, but this time I came up with—’
‘—a lot more than four?’
‘A hell of a lot more.’ The ghost of a smile flitted across his face. ‘It’s all a bit of a mess, isn’t it?’
‘You could say that.’
Corey sat down on the grass and Lettie sat beside him and nudged him with her shoulder, desperate to try and make him feel better.
‘Families, huh?’
‘Yours will be glad to have you back.’
‘They certainly will. Mum’s organised a shopping trip to Lidl for loo roll already, and Daisy will have me childminding before my feet have touched the floor. And I’ve got a few jobs to apply for, including one that involves farming foodstuffs.’
‘What about the different kind of life you wanted?’
‘Ah well, you know.’ Lettie shrugged. ‘Real life, and all that.’
She glanced at Corey, who was staring across the fields towards the sparkling sea. ‘You can trust me, you know. Not everyone wants to deceive you. You were horribly hurt and let down by one woman but not everyone is like that. What are you going to do? Never trust anyone again and end up lonely and alone, like Claude, one day?’
‘Much as I respect Claude, that wouldn’t be my first choice.’ He moved his gaze from the sea to her face. ‘But what about you? If you don’t branch out and make a different kind of life for yourself you might end up alone, like your great-aunt.’
‘Or worse, with a perfect man who buys me a steam mop for my birthday.’ When Corey wrinkled his nose quizzically, Lettie laughed. ‘It’s a family thing. Just ignore me.’
‘I would, only you’re so very hard to ignore.’
Lettie stopped breathing as Corey leaned closer. His dark eyes, full of pain and… something else, searched hers. And then he kissed her. It wasn’t a brief kiss on the cheek this time. His lips were warm on hers and his hands became tangled in her hair as the kiss went on and on. The tickle of grass on her skin and the bleating of sheep nearby disappeared. All she knew was heat and desire and belonging.
‘Sorry.’ Corey dropped his hands and moved back, pressing his lips together. ‘You’re about to leave Heaven’s Cove so this is lousy timing. I shouldn’t have done that, or I should have done it before.’
‘Yes, you should have. You absolutely, definitely should have.’
When Lettie closed the gap between them and pressed her lips against his, he put his arms around her and they fell back onto the grass, startling sheep nearby who trotted away.
Lettie had never much been one for kissing. It had often been a bit of a let-down with the men she’d dated – a brief, clumsy interlude with boyfriends who were keen to move on to more. But this felt different. Lettie felt different as Corey kissed her again and she kissed him back. It was slow and measured and right.
