I drop my eyes. Some part of me feels a flash of joy at his last sentence, but it’s muted. I think I’m in shock.
‘Don’t give up on him so quickly. He’s come so far because of you,’ Jake says, as if he’s trying to sell me the idea of staying in a relationship with Dom. As if he needs to.
I look up at him suddenly and his eyes slide away. Not immediately, but he can’t hold my gaze! I watch him take another sip before he raises his eyes to me. I stare at him. He looks back without flinching this time, but that moment he couldn’t hold my gaze has given him away.
‘There’s more, isn’t there?’ I ask.
He sighs. It’s actually a sound of relief. As if a burden is about to be lifted from his shoulders.
He nods, stands, and walks over to his desk. He unlocks the last drawer and takes a photo album out. He turns the pages to somewhere in the middle and walks back to me carrying the open album. He stands over me and holds the book out to me.
I take it from him. It’s one of those fancy albums with tracing paper between the pages holding the photos. I take the end of the tracing paper page and turn it, and pretty much just stare at the picture. It’s a photo taken outside some kind of temple. The sun is shining brightly. I’m wearing a pink tie-dyed T-shirt and a long flowery skirt. It looks like it’s been taken in a foreign land. India, perhaps. Asia, definitely.
But I’ve never been to Asia.
All these impressions hit me in seconds. I raise my eyes upwards and Jake is looking down at me, his eyes full of pity.
‘That’s her?’ I ask in a shocked whisper.
‘That’s Vivien.’
‘Oh my God!’ I cry. The girl in the photo looks exactly like me. The similarity is uncanny. Except for her hair color, I am her twin.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jake says softly.
Suddenly everything makes sense. Everything! It explains why the whole family had behaved so strangely when Dom introduced me. I’d thought it was because Dom was dating a tax inspector, but now I know. Ah! That would nicely explain away the uneasy, quickly hidden expression on his mother’s face whenever she thought I wasn’t looking.
A thought seeds itself into my head.
‘Did you already know what I looked like when we met?’
‘Yes, Shane had warned us all.’
I nod slowly, taking the information in. ‘Did Shane know Vivien?’
He frowns. ‘Of course. Dom was going to marry her.’
‘I see.’ Some part of my rational brain makes the observation that only Shane in this family is truly impenetrable. His classically handsome face had betrayed nothing when he had met me for the first time at the party. Nothing but an open friendliness and an irresistible charm.
‘Right,’ I say slowly. My whole life is falling apart around me. ‘So, Dom went out with me because I reminded him of his dead fiancée.’
‘I’m sure the fact that you look like her has something to do with it, but you’re totally different in every way.’
I look at him with disbelieving eyes.
‘Everything about you is different. She was selfish, tempestuous, controlling and impulsive, and you are careful, kind, considerate and deep.’
Oh my God. The way he describes me makes me sound so boring. I cover my eyes with the palms of my hands. What a fucking mess!
Jake comes over and goes down on his haunches in front of me. Startled, I uncover my eyes. Jake at close quarters is an intimidating experience. It’s like being too close to a live wire. Part of me wants to move away.
As if he knows that I am uncomfortable, he fixes me with his mesmerizing eyes and moves in for the kill. ‘Remember, when I said Vivien was no good for him, I truly meant it. You are the perfect match. You balance him and bring out the best in him. You make him happy.’
‘But he wants her. She is his true soul mate. I’m just a poor imitation.’ It hurts like hell to voice the thought. I feel the tears start welling up in my eyes.
‘Ella, listen to me. He was eighteen. She was his first love. Do you remember what you were like when you were eighteen? If he had married her, it would have been a disaster, and they would have ended up hating each other and getting divorced. But because she died, she has become his dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen. A great, lost love. But he has suffered enough. She’s gone, and you’re here.’
‘I’m nothing to him.’