Page 43 of The Clockmaker's Cottage
Rob.
He must have FaceTimed and somehow she’d accepted the call.
He was shirtless and wearing a baseball cap while standing on what was very clearly a golf course in Portugal.
‘Did you go on the honeymoon?’
‘Pippa!’ he bellowed, his voice tinny through the speaker. ‘Finally! I’ve been shouting for you for about five minutes.YouFaceTimedme, you realise?’
She stared at the screen, wondering if she’d actually hit her head falling out the window and this was some kind of mild nightmare.
Rob apparently clocked Theo standing next to her as he demanded, ‘And who isthat?’
‘This is Doctor Theo Blake,’ Pippa said automatically. ‘He’s?—’
‘Clock Boy,’ Rob interrupted. ‘Of course it is.’
‘Rob,’ she sighed, ‘why are you shouting at me from another country?’
‘Because you left me at the altar!’ he shot back. ‘And now I’m standing on a golf course in Portugal on what was meant to be our honeymoon, trying to work out how my life went so wrong!’
He swung the camera around briefly, showing palm trees. ‘We should be here together right now,’ he continued. ‘Instead, I see you soaking wet and laughing with another man like you haven’t got a care in the world!’
‘We were running out of the rain.’
‘Of course you were,’ Rob said bitterly. ‘Very romantic.’
Theo lifted a hand in an awkward half-wave. ‘Hello.’
‘Don’t,’ Rob snapped. ‘Just… don’t. You could have been honest if there was someone else.’
Pippa rubbed her forehead. ‘Rob, we’re not having an affair.’
‘Then why are you with him?’
‘Because we’re both at a clock convention,’ she said. ‘I’m networking! Life didn’t stop when I ran away.’
‘You ran away fromme,’ Rob corrected her. ‘I gave you everything! A ring! A future! A subscription to the Waitrose Wine Cellar!’
Theo’s eyebrows shot up.
‘And all the while,’ Rob continued, apparently just warming up, ‘you were sneaking around with Clock Boy like some sort of…’
‘Don’t,’ Pippa warned.
‘…horological hussy!’
Theo choked. ‘Did he just…’
‘I did not sneak around,’ Pippa snapped. ‘And stop calling him that!’
‘We had a plan, Pip,’ Rob said, his voice cracking slightly now. ‘A house. Holidays. Kids. A life. You don’t just walk away from that.’
She swallowed. ‘Rob, you never really saw me. You thought debating was arguing. You rolled your eyes when I got excited about clock mechanisms. You made me feel like I was too much, when really I was already shrinking to fit your idea of what I should be.’
Theo shifted beside her, close enough to be quietly supportive without intruding.
Rob stared at her through the screen. ‘So this isn’t about him?’
