Rory had been wide-eyed with surprise. ‘Bloody hell, Mum, did you speed-skate round there?’

  She didn’t like to say that when you hadn’t bought yourself a single thing for two years, even a plain top and a pair of plain black trousers felt like a treat.

  Now, in a sea of bubbles soothing her body, his voice from the other room snapped her out of her contemplations. ‘Mum, room service is here.’

  Room service. She’d forgotten that it even existed, and she hadn’t thought that she’d ever experience it again, because she’d knew that even in the future, when she’d broken free of Larry, she would have to live very frugally and within her means. Not that she would mind that. Her freedom alone was priceless.

  ‘I’ll be right out,’ she shouted in reply.

  Slowly, reluctantly, she stretched up out of the bath, catching her reflection in the mirror opposite. It was the first time she’d seen her full-length naked body in longer than she could remember. She’d always been slim, but now she could see the outline of her ribs. Her breasts were small, but they hadn’t lost the war with gravity and were still in roughly the same place that they’d been when she was younger. All cerebral connections to her body had been switched off for decades. It had been a means to an end. It had allowed her to work. To earn money. To function day in and day out. She’d never contemplated whether a man would ever see her naked again. Never allowed herself to wonder how good it would feel to be held. To be kissed. She’d shut down every thought of a physical relationship because that way she didn’t miss what she didn’t have. But maybe… maybe one day that could change.

  Out in the living area of the suite, a door banged and snapped her out of her thoughts. For goodness’ sake, how ridiculous. One bubble bath and suddenly she was off down a path that had way too many roadblocks in place. Get a grip, Alice.

  She dried off, then pulled on her new underwear, before covering herself from neck to ankles with the most fluffy, luxurious robe she’d ever touched. She closed her eyes. Inhaled. Exhaled. Life was an absolute shit show, but right now, she was clean, she was warm, she was safe, and she was with her son. She didn’t need anything else.

  White hotel slippers on her feet, she padded through to the other room to see Rory taking the silver cloches off two plates of pasta at the dining table by the tall windows that overlooked the garden square in front of the hotel.

  She slipped into the chair opposite him, picked up the open bottle of wine and poured a glass, almost giddy with the anticipation of it. For over a year, there had been no wine. No alcohol. No takeaways. No treats. Because every time she spent ten pounds, that was ten pounds less that was going in her escape fund.

  ‘So, tell me… and I want to know everything. How’s work, how’s Julia? How’s your life? Are you happy?’

  ‘Yeah, everything’s fine.’

  She froze. He was lying. He did it so rarely, and he’d always been so bad at it, that it was impossible to miss.

  ‘And yet you’re lying to me,’ she said calmly, putting her napkin on her lap.

  He put his glass down, shook his head, a rueful smile. ‘You always could do all that mind-reading stuff. You’re like a human lie detector.’

  ‘Motherhood,’ she said simply. She wasn’t ready to eat now. Not until she knew the facts and the churning in her stomach had stopped.

  ‘You want the shit stuff or the really shit stuff?’

  She could, however, have a large sip of wine, before replying, ‘All the stuff.’

  ‘Okay. Yesterday, Roger Fieldow decided it was time for me to move on from Fieldow Finance. Of course, it’s all been wrapped up in a very civilised way, but the bottom line is two years’ salary and goodbye.’

  Alice felt the beginning of a little eruption of rage starting in her gut, and she attempted to push it back down.

  ‘There’s no way Julia will let that happen,’ she argued. ‘We had an agreement.’

  Their agreement. The discussion that had determined every single thing that would come after it. The night Alice had proposed breaking off all contact, Julia had agreed to protect the life she and Rory were building together: marriage, career, their future family. Alice had kept her side of the bargain.

  Now, she was about to find out if her daughter-in-law was keeping her promise.

  ‘Have you told Julia? Does she know? Is she going to speak to her father?’

  Rory’s body language immediately told her that he had. ‘The reason I was fired is because she’s divorcing me. We never really recovered from everything that happened with Dad and I guess she decided that our agreement was no longer worth it. I’m sorry, Mum.’

  Alice’s first reaction was to acknowledge the wave of fury bubbling inside her. So much for Julia Fieldow’s promises. How could she? But then she immediately redirected her ire. It wasn’t Julia’s fault. Yes, Alice wished that her daughter-in-law had kept to her side of the deal, and loved her son enough to weather the storm, but Julia hadn’t asked for any of this. No. Every bit of the blame for this was laid at the feet of the man who’d caused the storm in the first place. Even now, years after it had all blown up in their faces, and despite everything she’d done to prevent it, Larry’s selfish bastard actions were destroying Rory’s life and his happiness. She had despised that man for more than half of her life, but never more than now, in this moment.

  She took a sip of her wine, her taste buds so numbed by anger that it barely registered. ‘Don’t you dare apologise,’ she said.

  ‘I need to. I should have been there for you for the last year and I wasn’t.’

  ‘No, that isn’t true. Rory, you need to remember what I told you a year ago. It was only knowing that you were detached from your father’s name, protected from the fallout, seeing that your life wasn’t getting dragged through the press every day, that made it possible for me to go on.’

  ‘I know but…’ His words drifted off into an exasperated sigh. They both knew that right now, regrets were a waste of time.

  Her chest began to hurt as she tried to regulate her breathing, tried to process his news, tried to see a way forward.

  ‘What’s going to happen to your house, your job, when will the divorce be actioned?’

  Over the next half-hour, she listened as he outlined it all, right up until the point that the first thing he’d chosen to do when all was gone was to come find her. That one gesture told her that she’d raised a good man.

  They’d picked at their food, but now she pushed the plate away. She’d polished off her wine, and refilled the glass, but Rory had stuck to water, in case, he said, that he needed to drive again later.

  ‘So, what are you going to do with your life then, son?’

  ‘I don’t know. All I know is that my time here is done, Mum. Maybe Julia is right. Maybe it would be better to go somewhere that nobody knows me. Somewhere I can start all over again.’

  The wine swirled in her stomach as the devastation of that hit her. All that she’d done, staying away from him for the last year, had been for nothing, because now, she was going to lose him again.

  Before she could object, talk it through, try to change his mind, his phone began to ring.

  He stretched over to retrieve it from the desk beside them. As he picked it up, she saw him check the screen, then he read out the digits on the display.

  ‘That’s the hospital,’ she told him, recognising the number they’d told her to call if she wanted to get in touch.

  He answered immediately, and she saw him hit the red speaker button, then hold it out so she could hear too.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, Rory?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Rory, it’s Richard Campbell. Sorry to disturb you this late. Is your mum with you?’

  She leaned forward so he would be able to hear her. ‘Yes, I’m here, Richard.’

  ‘Hello, Alice. As I said, sorry to phone you this late, but I thought you would want to know. The ward has just called me. There’s been a change in Larry’s condition…’

  24

  RORY

  It was excruciating trying to stick to the speed limit on the way back to the hospital, but the alternative held no appeal. The last thing Rory needed was to be pulled over for speeding and someone catching it on their phone, especially with his mum in the car. That was what was so frustrating about Julia’s decision to divorce him and the reasons she’d given him. The reality was that the press hadn’t hounded them, because his mum’s plan had largely worked. They’d become a footnote to the story, but not the story itself.

  However, that said, people’s memories were long, and stigma stuck around. Julia hadn’t been delusional when she’d said she still felt that eyes looked at her with judgement when she walked into a restaurant. Or that she had to be careful of everything she said or did, because, God forbid, something could be taken out of context and spun into a story. He’d hoped their break would give her a chance to recalibrate, find a way to build a bulletproof vest so that she repelled the shots and learned not to give a damn what people thought. Turned out she had. But ‘people’ were him. She no longer gave a damn what he thought. She didn’t care that he’d loved her, married her, promised to be with her until the end of time. And the truth was, there was no point in fighting it. He’d spent his whole life watching a woman trying to survive an existence that she hadn’t signed up for. He wasn’t going to do that to someone else.

  When they reached the hospital car park, he slowed as he searched for a space. ‘There’s one right there,’ his mum pointed out, and Rory turned to get to it before a white Mercedes further down the lane. As the Mercedes drove past, the driver gave him the finger and mouthed, ‘Wanker’. He was just winning fans all over the place today, but this wasn’t the moment to waste time being overly polite.

  Richard’s phone call had made that perfectly clear. ‘The ward has just called me. There’s been a change in Larry’s condition,’ he’d said, and Rory had held his breath, waiting to hear if his father was alive or dead. ‘Larry has come round, he’s managing to speak and he’s asking for you.’

  Rory couldn’t bring himself to wish someone dead, even his father, but there was a sinking feeling of dread that this chapter wasn’t over. Rory wouldn’t have blamed his mother if she had decided not to come here, and if he were being perfectly honest, he could live a lifetime without another encounter with his dad. However, Alice was unwavering. She wanted to come. She needed to know exactly how Larry was doing and there was no way Rory was letting her deal with this alone. Not any more.

  Richard Campbell met them at the staff entrance that Rory had tried to sneak in to earlier, so this time there were no objections from security.

  Rory let his mum go first, walking while listening to Richard’s update. ‘He woke up about an hour ago. I’ve already been up to see him and we’ve run preliminary tests, which are all looking remarkably good considering what he’s been through. We’re monitoring him and we still need to keep a close eye on him – we’re not out of the woods yet – but if he continues to gain strength and shows no significant deficits, then there’s no reason to think he won’t make a full recovery.’

  ‘That’s great, Richard. Such a relief,’ he heard his mum say, but even from behind her, he could see by the tightness of her jaw that her smile was fake and he knew she was having to summon all her strength to say the right things. She went on, ‘And all being well, if he continues to recover, when would he be able to come home?’

  Rory was pretty sure Richard Campbell thought she was asking that because she was eager to see her husband well again. Again, Rory knew better. She was trying to work out how much time she had before she had to deal with that bastard again. His heart broke for her. She didn’t deserve this.

  ‘It’s impossible to say for sure, but if there are no further complications, there’s no reason to keep him in any longer than a few days.’

  His mum’s shoulders immediately tightened, as if every nerve in her body had just snapped to attention. Rory had exactly the same reaction. A few days. It was way too soon.

  They reached the lift, and Richard stopped, pressed the button, then glanced around to make sure that he couldn’t be overheard.

  ‘Alice, Rory, there’s something else I have to mention to you, and I’m sorry, because I know you’ve been through so much.’

  Rory felt his teeth clench. Holy shit, what now? Hadn’t his mum dealt with enough in the last two days? They’d clearly pissed someone off up in some cosmic realm of the frigging universe.

  Richard took a pause, then a breath before he went on.

  Rory felt his jaw clench with dread. Crap, this must be really bad. Richard was giving off extreme discomfort vibes, and he was a doctor who’d seen dead bodies.

  ‘The police have requested to speak to Larry when he’s well enough to do so.’

  ‘The police?’ Rory asked. ‘But I thought it was an accident? Or is it about something else?’ On the inside, he was groaning. What the hell had his dad done now? Hadn’t he fucked up enough?

  ‘Something else, I’m afraid. The initial results of his toxicology came back and there was alcohol in his bloodstream.’

  ‘Oh no,’ his mum whispered, brow furrowed. ‘He’d been drinking when I went out to work on Thursday night. It must have still been in his system. I’m not defending him though. He should have known better.’

  Richard was shaking his head. ‘It wasn’t from the night before, Alice. He was more than three times the legal limit.’

  His mum gasped. ‘So he’d been drinking that morning? When he was driving?’

  ‘It seems so. Look, I’m probably breaking all kinds of rules here, but as a friend, I just don’t want you to be blindsided, because there’s something else. The test results indicate that there was cocaine in his system too.’

  Rory turned, faced the wall, rested his forehead against the pale blue surface, only barely managing to resist the urge to bang his head until he slipped into unconsciousness. Fucking cocaine again. His father’s drug of choice and the one he’d been caught with when the scandal broke. And this time, he’d done it while he was out driving a taxi, picking people up, taking them to their jobs, or the shops, or to see their families. The booze too. The guy was walking, talking, breathing scum.

  Another thought struck him. His mum had told him how frugally they’d been living. She’d been on the breadline and that bastard had been splashing his wages on cocaine and booze. Forget what he thought earlier about not wishing someone dead – that was what that prick deserved.

  His mum, however, retained the same poise and dignity that she’d shown all her life.

  ‘Richard, I appreciate your candour. And, as a friend, I’m going to be completely honest with you too. I’m disgusted by my husband’s behaviour. Not just in this instance, but on far too many occasions before now. I’m truly sorry that you and your staff have had to give their time and their expertise to care for someone who behaves in this way.’

  The lift doors opened, and Rory pulled his head off the wall. The three of them got into the lift, as Richard continued the conversation. ‘You don’t need to apologise. This is our job and we’re not here to make judgements on people’s actions, just to pick up the pieces afterwards. Like I said, I just didn’t want any of this to come as a shock.’

  ‘You’re a good man, Richard. Thank you,’ Rory said, meaning every word. He wondered if twenty-nine was too old to revisit the dad lottery, put his ball back in and pick out one like this man here instead. Not for him, but his mother deserved someone like this: decent, intelligent, caring, with a moral compass that didn’t point south.

  When they got out of the lift, Richard led the way to the ICU, holding the door open for them to enter first. Rory’s gaze immediately went to the bed that the ill, sunken-cheeked man had been in earlier, but he was gone. In his place was his father, propped up a few inches with pillows, the mask removed from his face and his eyes open and swivelling towards the sound of their footsteps. He saw them and the corners of his mouth turned up, but Rory couldn’t be sure if it was a smile or a grimace.

  ‘You can go on over,’ Richard encouraged them.

  Rory met his mum’s gaze and he knew what she was thinking – exactly the same as him. There were few places he wanted to go less than the bedside of that man over there. Still, he could see she was intent on doing this, so he put an arm around her shoulder for moral support and walked with her. His dad didn’t take his eyes off them until they were standing by his side.

  Rory took the lead, determined not to put his mum in the flames of the fire. ‘Hello, Dad.’

  His father’s first words to him in years came out in a contemptuous sneer. ‘Well, well, the prodigal son. I must be dying, right enough.’

  Rory had a brief contemplation as to whether or not there was any etiquette around when it was permissible to punch a recovering patient in the face.

  Instead, he managed to hold a neutral tone as he replied, ‘Sadly, not this time, Dad. Looks like you got lucky.’

  His dad groaned as he tried to move his shoulders, his face flinching with the pain of it. ‘Aye, son, I feel very fucking lucky.’

  ‘Close your mouth, Larry, and don’t you dare swear in this ward,’ his mother said quietly, but in a tone that left no room for doubt that she was furious.