‘That’s something we have in common.’
Her hands gripped the railing, tightening around it.
‘Where in New Zealand are you from?’
‘Not far from Raglan. It’s on the North Island.’
He nodded. ‘Is that where you were planning to return to?’
She shook her head a little. ‘After my mum died, I moved to Auckland. That’s where I live now. Where I lived.’ She frowned, remembering her old life with a shock. It almost felt like something that had happened to someone else. She thought of Christopher, recalled his text message, felt a hint of guilt for not returning it, but then anger that he’d thought he had any right to contact her.
‘Where you met your ex-fiancé?’
Had he been reading her mind?
‘Yes.’
‘How did you meet him?’
She bit into her lip. ‘I was a receptionist at a school, and he was a contractor brought in to run some professional development training for teaching staff. We got talking in the break room one day and…the rest is history.’
‘Love at first sight?’ he asked, and try as she might, she couldn’t detect even a hint of mockery in his question.
She shook her head. ‘I thought he was handsome, but I still wasn’t over losing my mum. It had been a couple of years by then, but I took it hard. I was struggling. I wasn’t ready to be involved with anyone.’
‘So how did you get together?’
‘He took it slow. He told me he understood. Bit by bit, he got me to open up. To trust him.’ Her voice shook with anger. ‘Andthen, to love him. Or to believe I loved him. Looking back, I don’t know if it’s possible to love someone who’s using you like that.’
His finger brushed her shoulder lightly. She turned to face him, and something shifted deep in her soul. Christopher seemed like a thousand lifetimes ago.
‘He hurt you.’
‘He changed me,’ she admitted, tilting her chin a little. ‘At the time it hurt, but I’m stronger because of what I went through. I would never trust so easily again. Maybe I’ll never trust anyone again,’ she amended. ‘But if I do, it would take a lot.’
‘Not everyone is capable of that kind of deceit. In fact, most people aren’t.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said with a lift of one shoulder. ‘I don’t know if it’s worth taking the risk. There were no markers with him. Everything seemed so normal. I had no reason to believe he was already married. What kind of psychopath proposes to another woman when he’s married and expecting a baby, and then another, with his wife?’
‘A psychopath, like you said,’ Octavio agreed. ‘You’re better off without him.’
‘I know that.’ She nodded. ‘I’m just glad I found out before we went through with some kind of sham marriage ceremony or something. I have no idea how far it would have gone if I hadn’t learned the truth.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘I was out at lunch. Christopher just happened to be at the same restaurant, with his wife, their children and his parents. It was mortifying.’
‘You hadn’t met his parents?’
‘No. He told me they were dead.’ Her voice trembled a little. ‘I literally ran right into him when I was paying the bill. His wife was beside him, holding their children’s hands. Our eyes met and I just knew by the look of mortification in his face, thelook of worry and fear that I might out him, that I’d been the Other Woman. He couldn’t act like he didn’t know me—I’d said his name by then and asked what he was doing there. I hadn’t realised until it was too late what was going on, so he had to come up with an elaborate lie about how we knew one another, and the penny finally dropped.’
‘When was this?’
‘About two months before I flew to Castilona.’
‘That’s not long ago.’
She shook her head. ‘I came as quickly as I could pack up my life and get a passport sorted.’
