As in, what rubbish has she been filling my head with? The insinuation being that I’m gullible. He got that right. ‘Start talking,’ I seethe. ‘And it damn well better be the truth, Jack.’
Kneading his temples, he sighs heavily. ‘Can we at least go and sit down?’ he asks, looking pleadingly back at me. ‘I’ll go and make us a drink and?—’
‘I don’t want a fuckingdrink!’ I yell, jolting him. ‘I need you to tell me the truth!’
‘I will. Iwantto.’ He moves quickly towards me.
‘Don’t touch me,’ I warn him, stepping back. ‘You told me Natalia went missing from the ship. That her body had been swept out to sea. Lina’sadamantthat’s not what happened.’
‘Because she’s confused.’ Jack sighs again in frustration.
‘So you’ve said,’ I respond angrily.
‘Jesus,’ he mutters, swiping a hand over his face. ‘She’s divisive, Kara. Jealous.’
‘Ofwhat?’ I demand.
He eyes the ceiling. ‘Of me having a relationship with her daughter where she couldn’t. My relationship with Evie. I don’t know.’
I study him. He looks desperate. But isn’t he bound to be now the naïve little worm has turned? ‘You’ve messed that up, though, haven’t you? Evie has doubts about your story,’ I remind him.
He looks as if I’ve just slapped him.
‘I think you’ve been lying to me.’ I accuse him outright. ‘You said Natalia was the one having affairs, that she had manic episodes and ended up sleeping with complete strangers.’ I know she had an affair. That was obvious from the photos I’d seen, but for her to have been that promiscuous? I can’t help but doubt it. ‘Was that the truth? Any of it?’
He squeezes the bridge of his nose. ‘It was the truth,’ he says, his voice tight.
‘And you?’ I gauge him carefully. ‘Didyou cheat on her? Do not lie to me, Jack,’ I add, hoping he’ll get that his things will be outside the door in one second flat if he does.
‘I’ve no intention of lying to you.’ He holds my gaze for a moment, then glances down. ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,’ he says, his eyes coming guiltily back to mine. ‘I did cheat on her, once.’
I stare at him, staggered.
‘I don’t know why I didn’t tell you.’ He glances away again. ‘I suppose because I didn’t want you to think I was the kind of man who would cheat in a relationship. It was the one and only time,’ he adds quickly.
Still I say nothing. I don’t have any words. I feel numb.
‘It was more the company I needed, I think.’ He shrugs awkwardly and swallows hard.
My emotions collide, the love I felt for him, my disillusionment and incredible hurt doing battle inside me. I study him in disbelief. ‘Who with?’ I choke the words out.
He blows out a breath. ‘A client I was doing some work for.’
My heart drops like a stone. This from the man whose reputation as trustworthy is one of the reasons people hire him? He clearly isn’t, is he? YetIhad trusted him – with my vulnerability. And Ihadbeen vulnerable. He knew I was.
‘I turned up to do some work on her house and found her upset,’ he goes on uncomfortably. ‘Her mother had just passed away and her husband wasn’t being very sympathetic.’
‘So she decided to cheat on him?’ I ask, incredulous.
‘I was there. She was in tears,’ he says with another hopeless shrug. ‘We got talking and…’
‘…had sex?’ I finish facetiously.
‘No, not then,’ he answers quietly. ‘A week or so later. We just talked at first.’ He pauses. ‘It wasn’t supposed to happen. I realised it couldn’t go anywhere, that people were going to get hurt. We both did, so we agreed not to see each other any more.’
‘You were bothmarried.’ I point out this seemingly insignificant detail. ‘Of course people were going to get hurt.’
‘I know,’ he says, his voice thick with emotion. ‘And I know it’s no excuse, but my relationship with Natalia was impossible. I tried to fix things. Naïvely, I thought I could. That somehow, if I was there for her, she might eventually realise she had people around her who loved and needed her. It didn’t fix anything. She was broken. I didn’t realise how badly.’
