The Beach Hut by Veronica Henry Read Free Book Online Page A

through the pages. He didn’t need to count them to know they were all there. He raised his eyes up to hers, the eyes she had once drowned in. The ones she had dreamt of so many times during her life.
    And he laughed.
    She gazed at him coldly. He wasn’t going to diminish her gesture.
    ‘You have no idea what you did to me, have you?’ she demanded. ‘I was so completely in love with you. I never loved anyone again. And I don’t suppose you ever gave me another thought.’
    ‘Of course I did,’ he said, and his vehemence surprised her. ‘You have no idea how I felt, do you?’
    ‘No,’ she replied. ‘How could I? You never told me.’
    He reached out a clawed hand and pulled his glass towards him, staring down into it ruminatively.
    ‘You had a lucky escape, you know.’ He swirled the liquid round, and Jane heard the ice clink. ‘I never made anyone happy. I’ve never been able to. Not least myself. ’ He drank deep. ‘I’m a silly, weak, foolish, selfish old man. What the youth of today would call a waste of space.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Jane. ‘I know.’
    And suddenly, she did know. He was right. He would never have made her happy. Not in a million years. She would just have been a stepping stone to his next liaison, the next woman who fed his rotten, narcissistic ego.
    ‘It’s your best book,’ she told him. ‘I’ve read them all.’
    ‘You’re right,’ he admitted. ‘I didn’t want to write again, after losing that. I did, of course. Only way I knew to earn a crust.’
    Crust? He was a multi-millionaire, she knew that. The nation had an appetite for the rather trite action thrillers he had taken to. The sort of books she had thought he would write in the first place. They were superficial. Dishonest. They sold by the shed-load, piled up in supermarkets and airport bookstores, candy that rotted your brain.
    ‘Were you . . . happy?’ he asked her.
    ‘No.’ Her answer was direct. He took a breath in, and then began to cough. The fit was interminable. It racked his body, pain flitting across his face with each spasm, as if he was being knifed. By the end he slumped back in his chair, exhausted.
    ‘Can I get you something?’ Jane asked gently, but he shook his head.
    He was incredibly still. For a moment she wondered if he was dead. But she could see the rise and fall of his chest, and he seemed to be sleeping sweetly . She didn’t want to disturb him. Besides, she had nothing left to say. It had all been said.
    She found the girl behind the reception desk and tried to pay for her half of the bill, but the girl was firm. Mr Shaw wouldn’t hear of it, she was sure. Jane wasn’t going to spend any time arguing. She wasn’t going to feel guilty about him buying her a gin and tonic. He owed her a great deal more than that. He owed her her whole life.
    She walked back out into the streets of Soho. The light was strangely bright after the tenebrous atmosphere in the club. It was inappropriate. It didn’t suit her sombre mood at all. She hailed a cab and jumped inside, grateful to be shielded from the sunlight. She was glad when she finally reached Paddington, the familiar hubbub of the station where you could be somebody and yet nobody, just another person on their way to somewhere else.
    She sat down in the train carriage and shut her eyes while the rest of the passengers came on board and jostled for seats, shoving their packages and laptop bags onto the insufficient luggage racks. Around her she could hear people calling home, reporting back as to when their train would get in, what time they would be home for dinner. There was no one for her to call. There’d be no one waiting for her at the station, no one to lean over and give her a kiss while she told them what she had been up to. No one who’d been out to buy ingredients for supper. She’d be going back to a taxi and an empty fridge. She should have bought something from M&S at the station. A little bubble of resentment rose up inside