Free Faithful by Louise Bay Page B

see if there was anything I had forgotten. I didn’t want to have to return.
    “What are you doing?” Daniel stood up and came toward me.
    “I’ve got to go. I’ve embarrassed myself. I need to leave.”
    “What do you mean you’ve embarrassed yourself? Why would you feel that? Leah, look at me.” He reached out for my arm but I twisted my body away from his.
    Without looking at him, I repeated , “I need to go.”
    “I’m so sorry for being such an asshole, Leah. Look at m—”
    “Please, enough ,” I interrupted. I turned to the door just as I felt my heart rip in two. I forced myself onward and fled for the elevator.
    Thankfully the reception area was deserted and there was no one to witness my physical and emotional disarray. Exiting the elevator, I made toward the exit when I heard my name called.
    “Leah, Mr. Armitage has asked me to drive you to your destination. Would you please follow me?”
    Disoriented and with no energy left to argue, I followed the smartly dressed man outside. The fresh air hit my lungs and nausea hit me like a truck. Where was I going? I couldn’t face Charlie. I mumbled Anna’s address at the driver and collapsed into the back seat.
    The drive to Anna’s takes forty minutes at least, but I had no memory of the journey and suddenly we arrived. Did I sleep? Anna was in her doorway as we pulled up. Had I called her to tell her I was coming? My head was spinning and the nausea hadn’t lessened. Anna came over to the car and opened the door.
    “Hey, lucky for you I just opened a bottle of wine ,” she said gently as she poked her head into the car. “Come here.” And she took my arm and led me up the path to her flat.

Chapter Six
     
    I watched the man in his luminous overall frantically waving and managed to raise the corners of my mouth at his furious baton waving. Nudging Anna next to me I pointed at him and she smiled and went back to her gossip magazine.
    “Have you heard this about Tom Cruise? It’s crazy, look. Read this.”
    Anna had a weird fascination with Mr. Cruise and his various ex-wives. I think she seriously thought at some point in her life she was destined to be one of them. I smiled and started to read the article she pointed to despite my complete lack of interest. Anything to distract me from the roar of the engines and the impending take off.
    Anna had been quite simply fantastic. Last night, during intermittent sobbing and slurring of words caused by the consumption of copious amounts of sauvignon blanc, I gave Anna every last detail of the previous 24 hours. Her initial reaction was total shock and incredulity. I realized I was relieved at her response. She hadn’t known. Her reaction was my confirmation of that and I garnered some strength from the fact that not everyone in my life had betrayed me. She didn’t know about Charlie and Fran; she didn’t lie, cover anything up, or turn a blind eye. She was as stunned as I was.
    After the initial shock wore off she went into survivor mode. She was fantastically patient and sympathetic , but also incredibly practical. The following morning she called my work and persuaded them to let me take a week off and did the same with her boss. She then booked us a last-minute vacation and twelve hours later we were hurtling down the runway.
    In those twelve hours, Anna arranged to have movers at Charlie’s flat for when Anna and I arrived later that day, and while I locked myself in the bathroom trying to stem the flow of my tears, Anna and the movers carried me out of my old life piece by piece.
    By the time Charlie was home from work, I would most certainly be at the airport, if not in the air. It was what I needed to happen. I didn’t want to —couldn’t—deal with the inevitable confrontation of him: the tears, the shouting, his excuses, the blame I would see in his eyes that I would hang onto for an indeterminable period of time. Most of all I couldn’t bear the thought of him seeing how much he had