Читать книгу Don't Go Breaking My Heart: Break Up to Make Up / Always the Best Man - Фиона Харпер - Страница 11

THE burglar felt down the side of the armchair. He was so close his breath warmed the air near her. He didn’t find what he was looking for and moved his arm to reach behind the side of the chair where she was hiding.

Adele did the only thing she could think of. He wasn’t wearing gloves and when his hand was only inches from her face she lunged forward and sank her teeth into the exposed skin of his wrist.

He let out a yelp of pain and jumped back, tripping over his own feet as he did so.

‘What the…?’

Adele had been preparing to scratch and bite and kick and do anything she could think of to get out of there safely. Her leg was draped across the arm of the chair, ready to spring over it and out of the door while he was off balance.

The hairs on the back of her neck rose. That voice…

‘Nick?’

There was a shuffling noise as he got to his feet.

‘Thanks for the warm welcome, sweetheart!’

‘What are you…? What do you think you…?’ The adrenaline surge quickly converted fear to anger. Given a choice of fight or flight, Adele was ready to get down and dirty. However, the heightened state of awareness seemed to be short-circuiting her ability to form a coherent sentence.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and tried again.

‘What the heck are you doing creeping round my house in the middle of the night?’

‘Our house.’

‘Stop nit-picking! You scared me half to death!’

‘I was looking for—’ Nick leaned over and turned on a table lamp ‘—this.’

He reached past her and picked up a leather wallet lying by her foot.

‘And this.’

A mobile phone was only a few inches away.

Adele stared at it. It wasn’t the one he’d used to have. For some strange reason the knowledge made her very sad.

‘I took them out of my jeans pocket earlier on. I discovered that it’s actually very hard to find somewhere to stay with none of my friends’ phone numbers and no money for a hotel.’

She was so dazed she didn’t know what to say. One minute she’d been wishing him here and, now her wish had been granted, she was ready to boot him out of the door again. All her anger suffocated in a cloud of bafflement.

‘How did you get in?’ she asked, still staring at the phone.

Nick reached into his back pocket, pulled out a set of keys and dangled them from the tip of his finger. Adele focused on them slowly.

He shrugged. ‘I thought you’d be in bed. I’d planned to slip in quietly, get my things and disappear again. You would never have known I’d been here.’

‘You have keys?’ Why were the most basic concepts so hard to grasp all of a sudden?

‘Yup.’

She tightened her forehead until her brows puckered. ‘So, if you still have keys, why didn’t you use them when you first turned up here?’

‘Dunno. I was trying to be polite, I suppose.’

Nick? Trying to be polite? Did not compute.

He’d dive-bombed into her life again in his size-eleven boots, tried to manoeuvre her into going to a party five hundred miles away and he was worried about letting himself into his own house? It was so absurd she couldn’t even start to get her head round it.

So she did the only thing she could; she collapsed into the chair, one leg hanging over the edge, and started to laugh. And then she found she couldn’t stop. Pretty soon, tears were running down her face.

Only Nick could do this. The man was impossible, intolerable and impossible some more.

For once, Nick didn’t have a cheeky grin plastered all over his face. He just kept staring at her and blinking. He looked so lost, and when he looked like that he was impossible to resist.

She let the rest of the mirth out on one long breath and shook her head. ‘You’ll never find anywhere to stay at this time of night. You might as well go and get your things and put them in the spare room. We’ll talk later.’

When Adele swept into the kitchen at six-thirty that morning she found Nick sitting at the table waiting for her. She stopped in her tracks and tilted her head to one side.

‘You’re up early.’ About three hours too early for his normal routine.

‘You said we were going to talk.’

She pushed up the stiff cuff of her blouse and looked at her watch. ‘I’m not missing work today, Nick. I have a life and I’m not putting it on hold for you.’

He grimaced. ‘Yeah, and don’t I know it.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

He rubbed the corner of one eye with his index finger. ‘Ignore me. I’m tired and grumpy. The rest of us mortals don’t spring out of bed before dawn without a hair out of place like you do.’

He might not be dressed, but he was looking much better than mortal with his pyjamas done up on the wrong button and his hair sticking up in five different directions.

Hold on. Since when did Nick wear pyjamas?

But then her thoughts veered dangerously to what he normally wore in bed and a blush crept up her neck and kept going until it was under her hairline. Pyjamas were definitely better for her blood pressure than the alternative.

Adele looked down at her skirt and blouse and her high heels then smoothed an invisible hair into the twist at the back of her head.

He’d done it again. Sometimes, all Nick had to do was be in the same room as her and she was questioning herself. When she’d walked down the stairs this morning she’d felt confident, efficient, ready to face the world. Now she just felt…overdressed.

‘I’m just up and ready for the office, that’s all. Some of us can’t spend all our time locked in the garden shed until three in the morning and call it work, you know.’

Nick yawned and covered his hand with his mouth. ‘I’m too tired to have this argument again. Can we just take it as a given that I act like a three-year-old and you’re the grown-up? Then we can skip all the shouting.’

She wanted to say ‘No, I don’t want to skip it,’ but that would make her the three-year-old, so she bit her tongue and made her way to the coffee-maker. Much to her surprise, it was already on and hot, steaming coffee was waiting for her.

Nick got up from where he was sitting and handed her a mug.

‘The office doesn’t open until nine. We’ve got time to talk.’

Adele opened her mouth to speak.

‘Yes, I know you always like to be in before eight, but even then we’ve got time.’

She closed it again and nodded. However, once she and Nick were seated either side of the table again, the room fell into silence.

Finally, Adele could bear it no more.

‘Why didn’t you tell me your mum was ill?’

Nick’s jaw dropped. ‘How did you find out?’

‘Debbie left a message for you on the answer-phone. I suppose your mum’s not the only one who doesn’t know we’ve been living apart for almost a year.’

‘You know how close they all are. If any of them knew, they’d be sure to blab it to Mum and I didn’t want to give her the extra worry.’

‘You should have told me.’

Nick gave her a lopsided look. ‘I seem to remember hearing an awful lot of dial tone in our phone conversations.’

‘Not then. Now. Why didn’t you say anything yesterday?’

‘It seemed too much like emotional blackmail.’

She took a sip of her coffee. ‘I would call it being honest, actually.’

‘Are you telling me that you wouldn’t have felt duty bound to make the trip, even if it was the last thing on earth you wanted to do?’

She looked down and rubbed at a mark on the table with her fingertip. Nick was right. She would have gone to the party whether she wanted to or not if she’d known the truth. The thought didn’t sit comfortably with her. In her opinion, knowing all the facts meant she was in control. She wasn’t going to let him use keeping her in the dark as an excuse, even if, by some strange logic, it sounded kind of noble.

‘Well, I know now, don’t I?’

Nick’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘What are you going to do?’

She breathed in and sat up straight. ‘I propose we deal with this in an adult manner. I’ll go to Scotland with you. I love your mum and I wouldn’t want to upset her, but—’

Nick leapt up from where he was sitting and hauled her into his arms.

‘Thank you,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘I really mean it. This is going to mean so much to Mum. You don’t know how grateful I am.’

She would have told him how much she understood if he hadn’t been squeezing her so tight she thought her lungs would collapse. So much for dealing with this in an adult manner.

Her hands made contact with his shoulders and she was going to prise herself from the hug, but then the smell of him, the warm feeling from his arms around her started to work on her senses. It had been so long since she’d hugged anyone.

In fact, she didn’t think she’d had a proper cuddle since Nick had left. Mona didn’t do mushy stuff, as she put it. That left baby Bethany and her older brother, Josh. But even those hugs were bitter-sweet, reminding her of what could have been, but now never would be.

She told herself to let go, to ease herself out of his arms now his grip was loosening, but he smelled so good and felt so warm that she had to hang on for a couple more seconds. And then a few seconds more.

Slowly, she became aware that the hands that had been squeezing were now flat against her back. The fingers started to move, softly stroking, and a shiver skipped up her spine and kept travelling upwards until the tingle concentrated somewhere behind her ears.

Then she heard him inhale, as if he were breathing in her scent and couldn’t get enough of it, and it tipped her completely over the edge. Moisture welled in her eyes and collected in her lower lashes.

She yearned for the days of blissful ignorance when she’d thought they’d last for ever. She missed the knowledge in that, in at least one person’s eyes, she was special, good enough. It was such a pity that reality had eventually had to intrude on the fantasy.

He pulled back to look at her and she saw an answering ache in his eyes.

‘Adele,’ he whispered as he lowered his head.

She meant to duck away from the kiss, but somehow she couldn’t. She was trapped by a magnetic force that kept her clinging to him. Maybe it was a trick of memory, or maybe it was because she’d been unknowingly waiting for this moment for the last nine months, but this kiss was even better than the ones she tried not to remember, more electrically charged, more tender, more sweet, more…everything.

It was only as her fingers wandered to the top button of his skew-whiff pyjamas that she came to her senses. What was she doing? Was she mad?

She mustn’t forget that when she’d faced the worst crisis of her life, he’d abandoned her. She hadn’t been able to depend on him. No matter how much they cared for each other or how good the chemistry was, it didn’t mean they could survive a future together without tearing each other into tiny shreds.

She left the button in its proper place and scrabbled away from him.

He reached for her and she shook her head. ‘This changes nothing.’

In fact, it had. It made the path she had to take even clearer. If she were to keep her heart safe from this man, she was going to have to take drastic measures. She slipped into business-mode, all starch and crisp efficiency. It was the only way to get through this.

‘As I said, I propose we deal with this in an adult manner, no matter how daft it is that you’ve been keeping your mum in the dark.’

Nick’s smile wavered altogether. ‘I was trying to save her extra stress at a time when she already had enough on her plate. Breast cancer is pretty serious, you know. I wouldn’t call what I did juvenile.’

Inwardly Adele squirmed, but she didn’t twitch a millimetre on the outside. Not even an eyelash. She made very sure of that.

‘I know cancer is serious. I’m not stupid. I’m just saying you went about this in entirely the wrong way. You just bounded in like you always do and played the situation from moment to moment, rather than considering what the long-term consequences would be. You have to tell her the truth about us.’

‘What is the truth, Adele? One minute you’re pushing me away, the next you’re…What happened just now, for instance?’

She shuffled backwards until her bottom bumped against the counter. ‘That was you getting over-enthusiastic, as usual.’

The wary look in his eyes said he wasn’t buying it completely. So what? Neither was she, but that didn’t mean she was going to cave in and admit it.

‘You make me sound like a Labrador.’

Adele swallowed. She hadn’t meant to insult him, only keep him at arm’s length the best way she knew how—with words. Sharp, nasty, barbed-wire words.

And the truth was, at his best, he was like a Labrador—loyal, loving and with boundless energy, but that didn’t make him any less destructive, and she had more at stake than a pair of soggy slippers or a chewed newspaper.

‘And you seemed fairly enthusiastic yourself,’ he added.

He was right. How pathetic had she been? She’d spent almost a year carefully building up her defences against him and he’d turned them to marshmallow in just over twenty-four hours.

She had to do something to safeguard herself, to make sure the barbed wire was nailed firmly in place.

‘You want an answer from me about where this relationship is going?’

He threw his hands up, asking a question. ‘I was hoping that we’d have a chance to work that one out on the drive to Invergarrig.’

‘You don’t have to wait for the weekend; I can tell you now.’

Nick just stared at her.

‘I’ll go to the party with you, Nick, but there are some conditions.’

‘Conditions,’ he echoed.

‘Yes. It’s time you stopped stampeding over other people’s lives. It’s time to take responsibility for your actions.’

His mouth thinned into a line, but while he wasn’t answering back or flashing his dimples she needed to forge on.

‘I will do you this favour if you agree to a divorce. When we get home from Scotland, I’m going to see a solicitor.’

He couldn’t have looked more stunned if she’d actually reached out and slapped him round the face. Her stomach lurched as she heard her own words echo in her ears.

There. She’d said it out loud; she couldn’t undo it now.

‘It’s time to move on. I’ve got a life of my own to lead. I can’t spend the rest of it clearing up after you.’

Nick looked her straight in the eye and this time she did squirm. He seemed greyer, with all the boundless energy sucked out of him.

‘Fine. At least I know where I stand now.’

The sticky edge of the envelope refused to behave itself. Even when Nick had finished trying to smooth it down it was still bumpy and slightly off to one side. He propped it up against the coffee-maker—Adele’s first stop after a busy day at the office.

His bag was waiting for him in the hall, standing guard almost. He picked it up, hauled it outside and closed the door gently behind him. Then he stared at the glossy black paint on the front door for a good ten seconds.

The keys were warm when he pulled them from his back pocket. The letterbox felt icy in comparison, still cold from the overnight frost. He pushed against the stiff flap and dropped the bunch of keys inside. When he heard them jangle against the mat, he turned and walked away.

The air seemed curiously still when Adele opened the front door and dropped her briefcase in its usual spot. She tried to work out what was missing as she wrestled herself free of her coat and hung it away in the cupboard.

Nick must be in his workshop, rummaging for his famous recipe for fake blood. She’d make them a nice dinner and they’d discuss the situation calmly and rationally. They just didn’t work well together as a couple, that was all. There was no reason why the separation couldn’t be amicable. They could still be friends.

The envelope was the first thing she saw as she walked into the kitchen. She frowned. Nick’s handwriting in bright green felt-tip.

She picked it up and opened it, using her index finger as a paper knife, and pulled out a couple of thin sheets torn from a ring-bound notepad.

Adele, I’m staying at Craig’s for a couple of nights—thought it was best we both had a bit of space. Mum would like us to be up in Invergarrig on Friday night for a family dinner. Let me know if that’s not convenient and we’ll travel up on Saturday instead. I’ll give you a call in a couple of days when we’ve both had a chance to cool down.

N

Cool down? She was perfectly cool!

She folded the sheets in half, even smoothing down the frilly edges where they had been torn from the notepad, and placed them back inside the envelope. Then she didn’t know what to do with it, so she propped it up against the coffee-maker again and walked out of the kitchen.

She made her way upstairs and absent-mindedly turned on the bath taps.

Who the hell was Craig, anyway?

She got undressed and left her clothes in an uncharacteristic heap on the floor and tried to let the hot water wash away her disappointment. It was the coward’s way out—leaving a note like that. She should know.

She leaned forward and twisted the hot tap until the water splashing into the bath was just short of scalding.

At least she’d had a proper reason for not being able to face Nick last May. Leaving a note might have been gutless, but it had been all she could manage at the time.

Why was he so surprised at her request for a divorce? They hadn’t been living together—hadn’t even spoken—for months. What did he think was going to happen?

Since the bath was threatening to overflow, she reached forward and turned off the taps. Then she sank back into the blissfully hot water and tried to loosen her shoulder muscles.

She scrubbed her face and tried not to notice the way every sound echoed round the bathroom. Echoed round the house, even. It had taken her months to get used to living alone.

She’d only ever envisaged their Victorian terraced house as a nest for her and Nick, somewhere they could be impossibly happy and gradually fill with children. When he’d disappeared, taking the possibility of all that with him, she hadn’t been able to stand being there any more. Too many daydreams burst like balloons.

All she’d wanted was a home that seemed warm and inviting, a place you could walk into and feel the love. She and Nick had spent a couple of years doing it up, but now it didn’t seem to matter if they’d got just the right door knobs for the kitchen cabinets. A home was more than furniture and fixtures. Of all people, she should know that.

Her own family home had been a suburban palace, fitting for the business king who owned it. Pity it hadn’t been designed with children in mind. ‘Don’t touch’ and ‘Look what you’ve done!’ had seemed to echo round the high-ceilinged rooms. Her mother had been forty-one when she’d had her—a complete shock by all accounts. Adele suspected her mother had never quite got over it.

She’d certainly never let the existence of a daughter slow her down. She’d hired a nanny and continued to travel the world with her husband. To Adele she’d always seemed a little far-off and glamorous—a bit like the queen.

Adele rested her head on the bath and stared at the ceiling.

She’d had such great plans for this house—for her life—and, in one swift move, Nick had turned everything upside down.

When he’d left she’d tried to give it a new identity. A few new prints on the walls, different pot plants in the living room.

Of course, she’d cleared up all his things and stuck them in a box in the wardrobe almost immediately she’d returned from her stay at Mona’s, but the lingering stamp of Nick on the house had been harder to erase.

Eventually she’d managed to stop expecting to find his jacket slung over the back of the sofa, or to have to close the back door he’d left open after racing down to his workshop to try out his latest brainwave.

He’d only been back a couple of days and now she had to start all over again. And it wasn’t as if his stuff was scattered round the house this time. No, this time it was all in her head, and she wasn’t sure she had the energy to spring clean it right at the moment, not when she had to spend the weekend with him. Better save it for Monday.

She wouldn’t tell Mona, though. Mona would get the wrong idea and think she didn’t mean what she said about the divorce.

Nick stayed true to his word—he didn’t phone for a few days. That didn’t stop Adele jumping out of her skin every time she heard it ring. In the end, she decided to let the answer-phone save her from any more breathless hellos. It was getting embarrassing.

Then, on Wednesday night, at eight forty-three, she heard his voice on the speaker and froze.

‘Adele? It’s me. I…um…we need to decide what time we want to leave on Friday morning.’ There was a long pause. ‘I’ll call again later and see if I can catch you in.’ Five seconds passed—Adele knew because she counted them in elephants—and then he hung up.

She carefully slid her laptop off her thighs and onto the sofa and walked over to the phone. The caller ID revealed a number she didn’t recognise. The accommodating Craig’s, she guessed.

She pressed the dial button and waited while it rang.

‘Hello?’

The voice was young, blonde and was still halfway through a giggle. Adele stiffened.

‘Could I speak with Nick, please?’

‘Sure. He’s just in the other room.’ There were muffled noises as the girl covered the mouthpiece with her hand. She didn’t do a very good job of it, because Adele still heard everything she said.

‘Nicky?’ she yelled. ‘It’s for you…I think it’s your mum.’

Nicky? Adele shuddered. And she wasn’t even going to think about the other comment.

She could hear him laughing as he made his way to the phone and held her breath as he picked it up.

‘I’m wearing my clean underwear just in case I get run over by a bus, Mum, I promise.’

‘Bully for you.’

‘Adele!’

‘Craig sounds a lot blonder and squeakier than I thought he would.’

‘Huh? Oh, no. That’s Kai. She’s his girlfriend—this week. How did you know she was blonde?’

Adele rolled her eyes. ‘Lucky guess.’

‘I take it you heard my message.’

‘Yes.’

‘So, are we going up Friday or Saturday?’

She bit her lip. An extra day with Nick was going to be difficult, but it might be the last time she got to see her in-laws. A family dinner sounded wonderful.

‘I can do Friday.’

She heard him exhale. ‘That’s great. We’re going to have to leave early, though.’

‘How early?’

‘Dunno. Haven’t settled on a time yet.’

Typical. He hadn’t thought about this at all.

‘Well, what time is the dinner?’

‘Hang on a second—Mum rang me with all the details. I just need to find them.’

The phone at his end clattered onto a hard surface and she heard a rustling noise. It must have driven Maggie mad not to send him a little card with all the details in it, just in case he forgot. Honestly, she’d put little notes in his packed-lunch box if she could.

‘OK,’ he said, sounding slightly breathless. ‘It starts at eight.’

‘Let’s aim to get there for six at the latest. It should give us a bit of time to stretch our legs and freshen up. How long will it take us?’

‘Debbie says it takes her nine hours, but she’s about an hour closer, so I’d suggest we leave at eight.’

‘Let’s make it seven. We’ve got the M25 to deal with.’

Nick groaned.

‘What time are you picking me up, then?’ Adele asked.

Silence for a few seconds.

‘You’ve got the car, Adele. I didn’t sneak one back into the country in my hand luggage, you know.’

Adele closed her eyes and dropped onto the sofa. ‘So, not only am I going to be stuck in a car with you for eleven hours, I’m going to have to do the driving as well?’

‘We can share. I’ll let you do the first leg.’

‘Gee, thanks.’ She opened her eyes and gave the ceiling a long, hard look. ‘You’d better tell me Craig’s address. I want you standing on the doorstep at seven o’clock sharp or I’m driving away without you.’

Now who was sounding like his mother?

‘Whatever you say.’

Adele just knew he was doing a little cocky smirk at the phone. Her lips curled into a smile anyway.

Impossible. The man was impossible.

If it weren’t the crack of dawn, Adele would’ve been leaning on the horn with all her weight. It was bad enough she’d ended up as chauffeur, without being made to wait around in her car in sub-zero temperatures. The heater was a bit dodgy and would only produce something approaching warmth once her foot was near the floor.

The clock on the dashboard ticked. Seven minutes past seven. He had until ten past and then she was aborting the mission.

She shook her head. Aborting the mission. What kind of phrase was that? She was starting to sound more and more like Mona with each passing day. Anyone would think this was some kind of military operation.

Adele jabbed the radio on with a gloved finger.

Maybe she was on to something.

Maybe if she treated this like a campaign she might emerge, if not triumphant, at least with her heart and her dignity intact. She couldn’t let Nick worm his way past her defences this time. If she failed, and had to pick up the pieces afterwards, there wouldn’t be enough bits left over to glue back together to make a whole Adele. She’d never be the same.

The only problem was she knew nothing about warfare. Only a few jumbled phrases from World War Two movies and things her rather stern grandfather had used to say.

Know your enemy.

Well, that was easy enough. She knew Nick inside out. Didn’t help much, though. The more she thought about him the more she seemed to turn to mush. And this soldier wasn’t going to do mush, thank you very much.

Always keep the element of surprise.

Adele smiled and stroked the steering wheel, a smile widening across her cheeks. Nick was going to go mad when he saw the car. She smothered a giggle with her hand and the fluff of the angora glove tickled her lips.

It was about time Nick had a taste of his own medicine. She rubbed her hands together. So, this was what it felt like to be bad. The scary thing was, it felt kind of good.

The second hand of the clock juddered towards the twelve. It was nine minutes past seven…and forty seconds…and forty-five seconds. Adele turned the key in the ignition.

True to form, Nick burst from the front door of the flat with a holdall and a small backpack. He hadn’t spotted her yet. A stocky guy with red hair handed Nick what looked like a sports bag. Nick clapped him on the back and smiled.

Then the smile dropped off Adele’s face. Something blonde and skinny ran from inside, flung its arms round Nick’s neck and plastered a big kiss on his cheek. Adele growled then suddenly stopped, surprised at herself.

A few seconds later her soon-to-be-ex-husband was down the garden path and looking up and down the street. Adele wound down her window and waved. Nick waved back—and then did a double-take.

She grimaced. He was striding this way and he didn’t look very happy.

‘Adele! What have you done with the car?’

‘Shhh! It’s seven o’clock in the morning.’

‘I know what blooming time it is. I want to know what you’ve done with my car!’

‘Our car—and I sold it.’

‘You…you…’ He looked heavenwards then pressed his lips together and shook his head. She flinched as he opened the boot and threw his bags inside. One of them jangled, which was a bit odd, but she didn’t stop to think about it. She had more pressing matters holding her attention.

Nick got in the passenger seat, slammed the door closed and turned to face her.

‘Well?’

‘We didn’t need that boxy old thing any more. It’s not practical for the city.’

Nick seemed to be mouthing the words boxy old thing.

She swallowed. Perhaps she’d gone a bit too far.

Selling their Jeep had been the only bit of revenge she’d had. She’d wanted to shred his shirts to ribbons with a razor blade, but she just hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it. They’d still smelled of him.

‘I needed something smaller, more efficient—a little runabout.’

He poked at a button on the dashboard. Nothing happened.

‘A little rust bucket, more like,’ he muttered. ‘If this is all you got for the money you should have got from my Jeep, then you were well and truly done.’

She gave him a sideways glance. ‘I’m not stupid. I didn’t spend all of the money on this. I’m perfectly capable of buying a car without your input, you know.’

He snorted. ‘Adele, capable is your middle name. Why would I ever think you needed me for anything?’

‘Now you’re just being ridiculous.’

Nick turned away to do up his seat belt.

Adele followed suit. ‘I suppose you’d like me to be a bit more like blondie over there, falling all over you and worshipping at your feet? Does she always wander round in just a vest top and a pair of knickers? She must be very resilient to the cold.’

Nick’s lips stayed firmly clamped together as he smiled. ‘She’s from Sweden. She’s used to it.’

Adele crunched the gear stick into place and checked the rear-view mirror, scowling.

‘Of course, sometimes she forgets to wear the vest,’ he added.

She yanked at the handbrake.

Nick chuckled. ‘I’m kidding, Adele. Lighten up. We’ve got a long journey ahead. I thought we could stop in the Midlands around lunchtime. Let’s make nice, polite conversation until then.’

‘You do the talking. I’m driving.’

‘OK. Now, what shall we talk about? I know. Going back to our earlier conversation, there was at least one thing you needed me for. Begged me for on occasion, if I recall rightly.’

Adele hunched over the steering wheel and said nothing. At this rate, Nick would be lucky if he was still alive by lunchtime.