by Orla Bailey
She wants me far away from Jack as fast as possible, fearing any hold I still may wield over him. Her implication that I’m more deranged than ill is pretty rich coming from her.
“That won’t be necessary. I know how to handle the situation.”
I smile tentatively at Jack for remembering he knows me but he doesn’t return my affection. It stings.
“Really Jack, the girl should have… proper care. What must she be thinking coming here after everything that has happened?”
“You see. She knows,” I gasp. I can’t believe Amanda has revealed her cheating hand so easily.
“What? That you’ve been playing Jack for a fool? Of course, I know,” she spits. “He confides in me.” The glare of victory she makes behind Jack’s back at their shared confidence, makes me gasp.
My eyes fly back to Jack’s. It hurts my heart that he doesn’t deny it. Did he run to her as soon as he left the hotel? Did he pour out his troubled heart, held within her waiting arms? Did she take full advantage of his vulnerable state of confusion to ease him with physical relief until he forgot his pain? Forgot about me? Perhaps he’s staying with her now which is the reason Blackstock won’t tell me where he is. A broken sob escapes my throat.
“Amanda. There’s no need for that.”
“Of course there is. She was caught cheating and she doesn’t like the fact. She’s only realising the value of what’s she’s lost, now it’s gone. You deserve so much more than that, darling.” She folds her arms defensively. An accomplished liar.
I try to ignore her words for the falsehoods they are, although I’m haunted these might be the very same thoughts Jack has. It’s torture to hear aloud what he may be thinking. And it’s high time he heard the truth.
“I was set up. By her.” I push to my unsteady feet and point my finger directly at her over Jack’s shoulder as he straightens.
She laughs in my face. “Really, Jack? Am I expected to stand here, say nothing and listen to this ridiculous attempt at slander? If needs be, I can prove my whereabouts and we all know where she was, don’t we? I could sue her for defamation of my good character.”
Jack scowls at me. “That’s a pretty big accusation to make, Tabitha. Do you have any proof of what you’re saying?”
“You can’t seriously want to listen to any of this.” Amanda declares.
“I’m listening,” he growls, glaring at me. But he’s giving me the chance to defend myself.
“Amanda came to my office on Friday afternoon. She wanted me to go along with a plan to get you to Claridge’s for a surprise birthday dinner she says she was planning, with Advance. Libby saw her. Ask her.” I glare at Amanda. It’s not much, God knows, but it should be enough to make Jack wonder about the rest.
“Will you tell the little deceiver or shall I?” Amanda makes her demand.
“Tell me what?”
Jack remains silent but it’s me he’s scowling at.
Amanda jumps right back in. “Of course I came to your office. Jack persuaded me to. Against my better judgement, I might add. God knows you’ve taken it into your head to despise me ever since we met.”
My eyes jump between Amanda’s and Jack’s. He couldn’t have done that. It makes no sense. “Jack?”
“Amanda’s telling the truth. I asked her to go and speak with you,” he confirms.
“I think you owe me an apology, don’t you?” Amanda looks delighted.
“Why would you ask her to come and speak to me?” I’m beginning to realise the depths of her deception.
Amanda answers. “He knows you don’t exactly like me although what I’ve done to deserve that, I’ve no idea. I’ve gone out of my way to help Jack protect you from yourself.” Her tone oozes righteous indignation.
“Protect me? It’s you who’s had it in for me from the start.”
“Jack?” Amanda elevates her perfectly threaded brow in appeal.
“I sanctioned Amanda going to speak with you, to see if the two of you could find some common ground. She agreed to stop off when she was driving my car to the marina on Friday afternoon. She helped me to organise the day out I planned for us.”
“And this is the thanks I get for my trouble.” Amanda manages to sound the injured party.
“No. This is why you took such drastic measures to derail things. You knew.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, you silly little girl.”
“The closer Jack got to me, the further apart he pulled from you. You were losing your hold on him. It called for drastic action.”
“I’ve had enough,” Jack’s imposing tone stops the pair of us sniping at each other. He fixes both of us with a frozen stare. “I hoped the two of you could at least be civil.” He stares at me when he says that, clearly deciding it’s all my fault.
I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. He wants me to be friends with his lover? I would rather eat my way through that boardroom table than be friends with that vicious cow. “Why would you want me to be friends with her?”
“Because Amanda is a friend of mine. I hoped you might agree for my sake. We were…I thought…” A shutter falls down over his eyes.
“He was planning to ask you to marry him for real,” she snarls in a whisper and suddenly each penny drops into the slot.
The venom in her voice tells me she was never going to let that happen. Suddenly I understand the desperation of her measures. He made her party to his plans to marry me. A genuine proposal. Not one made for the sake of the media. Not for the purposes of damage limitation. But for love. I love you. I bloody well love you. His parting words to me at the hotel ring in my ears and my eyes fill up with tears.
“Jack?” I plead with him to please still love me. I take a step towards him. He backs up, hand out to stop me and turns away, unable to look at me. I sense his utter desolation, no doubt fuelled by Amanda’s acid tongue.
But why would he share such intimate plans with Amanda before he even asked me? Just how close are they? Did he expect me to continue to accept his relationship with her because he couldn’t let either one of us go?
“I did my level best to offer the hand of friendship, Jack, just as you wanted,” Amanda claims, pushing her advantage. “She essentially told me to drop dead. But I’ve told you this already. Though I never thought she’d go so far as to try to destroy my good name when she got caught out in her lie. And I’m sorry but I won’t let that happen. Not even for you, darling.”
I launch myself towards Amanda who reacts like she’s intimidated by my deranged behaviour and takes a half-step backwards, gasping, placing herself behind Jack. I’m the only one who can see the smirk of triumph lighting her face as he throws out an arm; a physical barrier to stop me getting to her.
“You set me up and you know it, you scheming bitch.” I throw my accusation at her, struggling to get past Jack’s arm. “This is all your doing. You want him for yourself but I got in your way.” I glare up at him. “And I’m not prepared to share either.” I pitch back his own edict.
“That’s not what I’ve heard.”
“You spiteful cow.”
“Tabitha. That’s enough!” Jack seems pretty angry with me but my blood is up. He bodily lifts me and sets me back down on the ground further from Amanda.
I challenge him. “How did you even know to turn up at Claridge’s just at that precise moment?” I demand.
“I heard your cell phone ringing under the bed where you dropped it.”
Of course. “That was part of her plan too. She told me she’d get someone to phone it and when you eventually answered, make out I’d had my bag snatched, and needed you to pick me up.”
His reply is tombstone cold. “No-one did anything of the sort.”
My voice drops to an uncertain whisper. “It was a ruse to get you to come to the hotel in time for your… surprise.”
“Surprise? Surprise doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Jack snarls at me. “And I didn’t get there in time, did I? Your lover d
efinitely got the jump on me.”
Shards of Arctic ice dart from his eyes straight through my heart.
Jack continues his crude insinuation. “I arrived just a little bit too late. What got me there at all was discovering the text he’d sent confirming your clandestine little tryst. Reminding you to bring suitable clothing as he was treating you to dinner. Afterwards. After the assignation you made some feeble excuse, about rescuing Libby, to honour.” He laughs without humour. “Honour? An unfortunate choice of word in the circumstances. Unless you can tell me the Libby story wasn’t a lie.”
I couldn’t. It was. Totally.
Jack shows no triumph in his correct assertion. “That text revealed where I would find you.” His voice is icy; his eyes glitter with their harsh light, no doubt remembering images of me locked naked and moaning in another man’s arms.
Even I know how that must have felt.
“None of it’s true. That man was a stranger. He drugged me. And she set the whole thing up. Can’t you believe it’s even possible?” I can’t stem the fat tears rolling down my cheeks knowing how far-fetched this whole drama sounds.
“Now for the water works,” Amanda sneers. “She’s insane, Jack. Surely you must see that. How could anyone be expected to believe such utter rubbish?”
“Shut up,” I sniff. Amanda has completely out-manoeuvred me. The only hope I have left is gaining enough time to gather the evidence needed to prove her lies. But if I hope to do that, I have to stop wallowing in self-pity. I must be everything Jack has tried to teach me to be. I choke back the engulfing misery and face him. There’s nothing else for it. “We still have a deal. One you probably no longer wish to honour. So, I agree to a re-negotiation of its terms.”
“Deal? What deal? Jack?” Amanda is immediately on the alert. “Don’t let her manipulate you. You know the damage she’s caused already.”
Jack’s eyes pin me with such force, I feel like a troll is dragging a stalactite up my spine. Yet beneath the anger and the hurt pride, on both sides, I detect a fleeting look of admiration for what might only be described as a worthy adversary in this hideously fluctuating game. I brace myself. If I’m going to up the stakes, I’d better be prepared to play it against a grand master.
His silent agreement to engage, captures me with its deadly intent.
“Leave us, Amanda.” When Jack speaks in that tone, everyone obeys. Even her. And she really doesn’t want to. His Irish inflection does nothing to mask the steel behind the words.
She looks completely shaken. I can almost hear the cogs in her devious little brain spinning wildly. This is definitely something she hasn’t bargained for. Jack clearly hasn’t told her about our private deal and I’m happy about that much, at least. It suggests she’s not as close to him as she likes to think she is and it reinforces my growing understanding that the original deal we agreed, was little about professional development and more about the personal connection Jack wanted between myself and him.
That deal might be the only ace up my sleeve right now because Jack Keogh would never break a deal, whatever it represented.
“Is this wise?” she asks him and I smell her desperation. “There’s no knowing what the silly child might attempt in her state.”
“I’d appreciate it if you could give us some time alone, Amanda.” He takes her by the elbow and escorts her decisively yet considerately to the door.
When you’re out, you’re out, I note with a nervous flutter in my belly. A fact which may equally apply to me soon enough. Amanda’s very unwilling to leave us together at this critical stage but he’s not giving her any choice. As a victory, it’s small but it renews hope that all is not lost.
“I’ll instruct Dorothy to hold my calls.”
At the door Amanda turns. Her eyes flicker viciously towards mine. “Let me retrieve those files,” she says to Jack motioning to the papers on the boardroom table, as he steps outside to talk to his PA and she re-enters the room. “I’ll work on them in my office while the two of you have some alone time.” The fact she sounds so reasonable sets alarm bells ringing in my brain. She’s one cool fraud.
With Jack gone, Amanda gathers up the spread of paperwork. “Not wearing that pretty pink diamond now, I see,” she hisses beneath her breath as she turns.
“Are you?” We glower at each other venomously.
“Only a question of time. Do your worst, little girl.” She fixes an artificial smile to her face and trips out the door grazing a supposedly sympathetic hand across Jack’s broken heart as they hover together for an instant, crossing paths in the doorway. He closes the door firmly behind her while I grind my teeth in irritation.
“Sit.” He positions a chair for me, seemingly the mannered gentleman, then ruthlessly plants himself in front of it, legs apart, arms folded.
“Outline your proposal.”
No preliminaries. No niceties. Business all the way. He isn’t going to make this easy.
The last time I invaded his boardroom uninvited he enjoyed my naivety. He displays no such pleasure today but remains as steadfastly in control. He’s angry and hurt. A man deceived. One who doesn’t trust a single word I say. What I do in the next few minutes will either enable me to put things right between us or destroy all hope forever.
It’s not the time or place to go into the specifics of what occurred in that hotel room. Nor to tell him that I love him. He’ll think I’m saying it only to manipulate the outcome. But I need to buy time.
“I know you don’t trust me right now, Jack, and at the moment I can’t say or do much to change that.”
“That’s what happens when you’re unfaithful, Tabitha.”
“Listen, for God’s sake!” I haul up a lungful of air and close my eyes. Oh, way to go. Shouting at him will definitely get him on board. “Sorry.” I glance up contritely at his frozen features. “Please, let me speak, Jack.”
“I’m listening.”
I realise this state of affairs could be fleeting so I have to give him something worth listening to.
“I did not betray your trust.” I stare into those blue Arctic eyes without wavering. “I swear it on Harry’s soul. You can hook me up to a polygraph and I won’t waver.” That, and my love for him, is my unconditional truth.
“You lied to me.”
“I can explain those lies, if you give me a chance. On my part they were innocent.”
“I saw you.” The compressed lips and deepening frown suggest he’s still seeing me. Naked and wanton, writhing on the sheets wrapped in the arms of another man. He averts his gaze as if I’m too painful a reminder. “You were in bed with that bastard. His hands were all over you.”
I perch on the edge of the seat, bracing myself with my hands. “Look at me, Jack. You know me. Really know me.”
“I know what you’re like when you’re drunk,” he counters savagely.
I cringe. “I make mistakes. Who doesn’t? But that wasn’t one of them.” Beyond trusting Amanda.
“That’s what hurts most of all.”
“God, you still think I wanted that guy!” I jump to my feet. And to hell with not shouting. “If you’re determined to believe the worst of me, what’s the point?”
“You tell me. I didn’t come to you.”
“Yes you did.” I quieten down to a whisper. “Last night at Belvedere. You came.”
He glances over. Looks away. Stares again, nostrils flaring, but his eyes travel involuntarily down and up, remembering me. Jack still wants me. But I know he will let me go unless I can prove my word is true.
“Tell me Jack, is there just one tiny possibility that I’m telling you the truth? That what you saw in that hotel room wasn’t me betraying you with another man. That there’s some other explanation?”
The harsh, narrow-eyed look he gives me could cut marble. “Are you telling me I can’t believe my own eyes?” His anger burns with the intensity of a laser and cuts me to the quick.
I will every molecule of my being to radiate op
enness and honesty. “I’m telling you, you were deceived. Not. By. Me. Deceived like I was. What occurred wasn’t what it appeared to be.”
He grabs a fistful of his hair and tugs it. “Christ, Tabitha, are you really going to throw me that pathetic formulaic excuse? It wasn’t what it looked like, honey. To me?”
I hold my nerve. “Might there be a single other possible explanation that could explain what you saw wasn’t me cheating on you? However implausible.”
Jack paces and turns. Paces. Turns…
“Well?” I prompt impatiently. “Can’t a thing appear one way but turn out to be something else entirely?”
I consider my own recent misconception when I imagined Jack mocking me by wearing the eternal knot cufflinks. I finger the similarly etched pendant around my neck; the gift he gave me on the river. Jack must surely have some event to draw upon he’s misinterpreted in his past.
The wait before he responds is interminable. But Jack’s sense of reason conquers his emotions as I knew it would.
“There’s always a slight possibility things are not as they appear,” he concedes. “It’s why we have a legal system.” Jack sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.
I help him. “Innocent until proven guilty. Beyond a reasonable doubt. Will you at least give me the opportunity to establish my innocence?”
“You have proof?” He sounds sceptical.
“Not yet.” I hold his stare without faltering. “The question is will you let me try or condemn me outright without my day in court?”
“Nothing can go back to the way it was before… this happened.”
“I wouldn’t ask that much.” Even if it breaks my heart because that’s exactly what I want. Nothing less. Things to go back to the way they were on the river. Before I left him with a lie on my lips and changed the course of our journey. “I understand I’d be on parole.”
“Quit with the criminal justice analogies.”
“You started it.”
We both stop and take a deep breath. His tight shoulders unstiffen a little. “You said you wanted to renegotiate our deal. Let’s stick to that for now.”
