Wedding Night: A Novel

32

LOTTIE

I think I’m going to have a heart attack. Or a panic attack. Or some other kind of attack. The blood is zooming from my head to my feet and back to my head as though it doesn’t know what to do with itself. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I can’t … anything.

It’s Richard. Here.

Not zillions of miles away, leading a completely new life in which he’s forgotten I exist. But here, on Ikonos. Walking toward me over the beach. I blink at him rapidly, my eyelids almost in spasm; I’m unable to speak. It makes no sense. He’s in San Francisco. He’s supposed to be in San Francisco.

Now he’s making his way steadily through the audience. I’m shaking all over as he draws near. The last time I saw him was in that restaurant, telling him I didn’t accept his nonexistent proposal. That seems like a million years ago. How did he even know where I was?

I glance sharply at Fliss, but she looks as flabbergasted as I do.

And now he’s in front of the stage and he’s looking up at me with those dark eyes that I love, and I think I’m going to lose it. I was just about holding it together, but now he goes and turns up—

“Lottie,” he says, and his voice is as deep and comforting as ever. “I know you’re … m—” He seems to have difficulty saying the word. “Married. I know you’re married. And I wish you every happiness with that.” He pauses, breathing heavily. Around him, all the chatter has died away. The audience is watching us, riveted. “Congratulations.” His eyes flick to Ben, then away again, as though Ben is some loathsome creature he can’t bear to look at.

“Thanks,” I manage at last.

“So I won’t keep you. But I thought you should know something. You didn’t start the fire.”

“What?” I peer at him, unable to process his words.

“You didn’t start the fire,” he repeats. “It was another girl.”

“But what— How—” I swallow hard. “How did you even—”

“Fliss told me that you thought you’d started the fire. I knew you’d be devastated and I couldn’t believe it was true. So I went to find out the truth.”

“You went to the guest house?” I say disbelievingly.

“I talked to your friend Arthur.” Richard nods. “I made him get out the original police reports. He let me spread them over his table and read through all of them. And it was quite clear. The fire didn’t start in your room. It was above the kitchen.”

For a moment, my thoughts are so jumbled I can’t reply. No one’s even whispering. The only sound is that of the bunting flapping in the sea breeze.

“You went to the guest house?” I repeat at last, falteringly. “You did all that? For me?”

“Of course,” says Richard, as though it’s obvious.

“Even though I’m married to someone else?”

“Of course,” says Richard again.

“Why?”

Richard shoots me a disbelieving look as though to say, Do you really have to ask?

“Because I love you,” he says matter-of-factly. “Sorry,” he adds to Ben.