by Orla Bailey
“Then you’re a fool. He wants me and he’s getting exactly what he wants. So am I. That fabulous hard body of his is just too delicious and he’s so sexually demanding. I’m quite worn out keeping his physical needs satisfied. He’s deliciously insatiable...”
Without realising, I’ve dropped the phone back into its cradle ending the call. I stare blindly ahead, totally numb. Once more Amanda has bored like a worm into my brain and I’ve let her. She’s lying. She has to be lying. I can’t even contemplate the alternative. I won’t.
Lenuta sticks her head through the kitchen door. “Good. Cat is gone.” Even she senses Amanda like a cankerous presence in the room as she comes in and stares at me sitting limply on the stool. “What she say now?”
I turn my head slowly to look up at her. Tears prick the back of my eyeballs and a tension headache builds in the centre of my forehead. Amanda is a seasoned liar. She wants to hurt me. I can’t believe a word she says. I won’t allow her to do this to me again. I won’t.
I count until I manage to bring my breathing under control as Lenuta fetches me a glass of water. I sip it slowly.
“What does she do?”
“Amanda has just taken great delight in informing me she’s in Singapore with Jack.” I sound like a robot.
She scowls. “You believe this?”
“No.” Do I? “I don’t know. I don’t want to believe it.” But she sounded so sure. So pleased with herself.
“We find out.” Lenuta opens a drawer and takes out a little notebook, commencing to flick through it. I watch her uncomprehendingly. I can’t get the thought out of my head that Amanda might be telling the truth for once in her life. She wants me to know they’re together as it will drive him and me apart.
Lenuta taps the page she has found. “Here. Hotel Mr Keogh is staying. He gives me number for emergency.”
I stare at her in growing disbelief. I understand why Jack would give his staff his hotel number. What I wonder is why he didn’t give it to me. I have his personal phone number anyway, I reason. But so do they. Jack phoned me last night. Was that so I didn’t try to phone him? My mind circles like a whirlpool. What is happening here?
Lenuta picks up the phone and dials carefully, glancing repeatedly at the lengthy international dialling code to ensure she presses the right digits. She listens for a moment before handing me the phone. “It rings.”
She pats me on the shoulder to animate me just as I hear a soft voice at the other end speaking in a foreign language. Malay or Chinese. It’s followed by beautifully accented English.
“Raffles Hotel. Good day. How may I help you?”
“Could I speak to Jack Keogh, please? He’s staying there.” I’m asked to wait.
I glance at Lenuta and she nods her encouragement. “Ask the horse’s mouth.”
I wait to speak to Jack but I’m dreading it. I’m hyper-alert as only a potentially cheated woman can be. If he lies to me I’ll know it instantly and it’ll devastate me. There will be no coming back from that. Yet if he confesses Amanda has told me the brutal truth, I’m simply going to die. If there’s no truth to her claims whatsoever, he’ll know I didn’t trust him. Whatever happens will be bad. There’s no good ending to this. I think about hanging up when I hear the tone that tells me I have been transferred through to his suite.
“Hello?” A sultry voice answers.
I gasp throwing a hand over my mouth. It’s Amanda. I hang up instantly.
“What is wrong?” Lenuta asks.
“Amanda answered the phone in Jack’s suite.” It’s all true. And that makes everything Jack has ever told me a lie.
Lenuta rants at length, something in her native tongue. I don’t understand a single word of it but I understand every last sentiment. She fetches pain-killers and plonks them down in front of me but no amount of medicine will ease the raw agony clawing its way from my insides, out.
I want to scream and cry but can’t even do that. I’m completely annihilated. Amanda is with Jack and everything he ever said to placate me about the times I saw them together was a bare-faced lie. He said they were once close. It would seem they still are. He’s still playing with my emotions. Even when he knows I love him.
“Jack doesn’t want me. He wants her.” He didn’t try to persuade me to come to Singapore. Of course not. He was taking her instead.
“Is not true. I don’t believe. You don’t believe. That man is in your bed.”
“Not last night. Not tonight. He’s in hers.” Now the tears fall.
Lenuta snatches up a linen tea towel and wipes my eyes. “Men is stupid. There will be explanation. No doubt. That cat tells the lies.”
“She answered the phone, Lenuta. She’s there. And he didn’t tell me she was going with him.” I’m talking to Lenuta but it’s really me I’m trying to make understand. As far as I can see there’s only one explanation. It’s just as Amanda says. He wants her and he won’t let her go. “If Jack didn’t want her there she wouldn’t be in his suite answering his phone.”
The expression on Lenuta’s face shows me even she would be hard pressed to come up with an alternative explanation.
She yanks me off the stool, seething. “Go wash face. Go work. Tonight you speak to Mr Keogh. Find out truth.”
“I don’t think I could bear to hear Jack say it.”
“You are strong. You fight for your lover. You are real woman.” Lenuta beats her fist against her breast. Her statements are so baldly Eastern European I imagine her as some romantic heroine of the resistance riding into battle for her convictions.
But the solution is not that gloriously black and white. If Jack wants Amanda then he can’t have me. So why does he keep me hanging on? To amuse themselves with how persistent I can be? I can no longer prostrate myself in the hope he will shine his light in my direction every now and then. I deserve better than that. I’ve had too much unhappiness in my life already.
I shake my head.
Lenuta won’t listen to my silence. “You speak to Mr Keogh. He tell you truth.” She sounds so sure.
I, on the other hand, am nowhere near as certain. Perhaps Jack has been lying to me all along. Perhaps, as Amanda says, he has been playing with my emotions. Punishing me. Laughing at my pathetic attempts to be with him when he’s moved on. Dozens of isolated scenes flash before my eyes. The earring found on the floor of his car. The clandestine kisses I saw at Belvedere and the ball. The pink diamond I haven’t seen since Claridge’s hotel. Is it back where it belongs? On Amanda’s finger.
Perhaps he has been part of this bitter joke with Amanda all along. Did they cook up the idea together of allowing the paparazzi to photograph me with Ben Gunn in order to humiliate and condemn me? Was that the real reason he insisted I wear a scarlet gown to a Black and White Ball? Did he even help Amanda to have me drugged and humiliated so he could put me through all kinds of hell trying to persuade him it wasn’t true?
Is this why I have had such trouble convincing him Amanda is evil? Because he is part of the evil too. Have I been a complete and utter fool? I’m shaking uncontrollably.
Ready to throw up, I rush to the bathroom. If I think about it anymore my head will explode. Tonight, I tell myself, I will phone Jack and demand the truth once and for all. I deserve no less but I need to hear it from him.
I pull myself together. Lenuta has called Blackstock to let him know I’m ready for the journey to CaidCo. I won’t allow myself to wonder what this means for my company’s future. For once, my feelings come before everything else I must concern myself with.
“Is everything alright, Miss Caid?” Blackstock clearly senses something is up.
“Fine.”
“If you need anything, you know I’m at your disposal.”
Really? Or spying for Jack like I suspected? Controlling my agenda in Jack’s absence. Covering for him. “I’m fine.”
He’s sensitive enough to my mood not to say another word.
I realise I could ask him exactly who he d
rove to the airport after he left me at work yesterday but I decide it’s not fair to drag him into this. Whatever has happened isn’t Blackstock’s fault. He’s only doing what the Boss tells him. His duty. His job. His whole future happiness isn’t at stake.
Not that I could bear it if he lied to me too. What if Jack has asked him not to mention Amanda? More lies would be too much to endure. Besides, I can’t allow whatever is going on between Jack and me to sour what is developing between Blackstock and Libby. That wouldn’t be fair to them.
Which means I can’t share any of this misery with my best friend either. I have to wait and deal with Jack myself. I’m so hurt I’m numb. Whatever tonight brings to my door I will deal with it as I have always done.
Then I will crumble into a thousand little pieces.
* * *
As I enter my office, the first thing that confronts me is the bouquet of flowers he sent yesterday. I feel them like a punch to the gut. For all the joy they gave me then, they deliver an equal amount of anguish now. I can’t bear to look at them. Even if I haven’t heard Jack’s explanation yet, I know Amanda is in Singapore with him, in his suite, and I know he has made no attempt to inform me of the fact. He is deliberately keeping me in the dark. I cannot see any good reason for that, no matter how much I search for one.
I remove the vase to the general office as Libby raises a querying eyebrow.
“Why should I be the only one to enjoy them?” I tell her breezily.
“Er, because they were given to you?” she suggests.
“Even so.” I leave them on the coffee table and walk away.
She follows me back to my office. “Is everything okay?”
“Fine.”
I can see she’s not convinced either.
“Missing him badly?”
It’s a popular misconception that requires little explanation so I go along with it. “That obvious, am I?”
“It’s natural. But you’ll have the whole weekend together. Just two more days to get through.”
I’d forgotten all about the weekend. Surely once we’ve spoken he won’t expect to spend the weekend with me. I’ll be busy moving back to my own apartment in Notting Hill. It will be a relief to both of us, finally. No more games. No more secrets. No more soul-destroying lies.
“Two days is a long time.” Plenty can happen between now and then.
“It’ll go quickly, honey. I bet he’s missing you as much as you’re missing him.”
Her words are nearly my undoing. I practically gag trying to hold back a sob. “Coffee. I need coffee.” I choke out the words. “Want a cup?” I bustle off leaving her staring after me.
Libby isn’t stupid. She knows as well as Blackstock that I’m upset. As long as they keep on thinking it’s because I miss him, it’ll be better for all of us. No humiliating explanations. No awkward silences.
But somewhere deep inside, I’m holding tight to the faintest of possibilities there’s a reasonable explanation for all of this. One beyond my comprehension. One that doesn’t ruin all hope of a loving relationship with Jack. If I didn’t want that, I wouldn’t even bother to speak to him. I’d have done with the man once and for all, realising I’d wasted the best part of my life longing for someone who isn’t worthy of me. Can I have been that green?
Libby comes into the kitchen behind me. “I hate to rub salt into your lonesome heart, Tabitha, but this just came for you.”
I take a deep breath and turn around. She’s holding an enormous bouquet of full blown pink peonies wrapped in pale green linen.
“Oh God.” It’s all I can say. The breath leaves my body along with my heart.
“I know.” She thinks I’m stunned by the impact of their beauty. “That man really has good taste. In flowers as well as women.”
I retch at her inadvertent words but get away with it. Her focus remains solidly on the floral arrangement. She sniffs the delicate perfume which I can smell from here and cradles them in her arms like a precious child.
I look into Libby’s eyes. “Why is he sending them?”
She laughs. “Isn’t that obvious?”
Not if she knew what I know. The fact he’s sending flowers knowing Amanda is there with him, makes me think something quite different to what I presume Libby is thinking. It’s not love. It’s not that he’s missing me. Either he’s playing another sick mind-game for their amusement or he’s feeling guilty at his own dishonesty.
“Vase?” Libby enquires.
I nod. “You must take them home, Libby.” She’ll love them more than I do. For me they’re a thorn in my flesh.
“But they’re yours,” she protests.
“I’m sharing them with you.” My voice brooks no argument.
“If you’re sure?” She doesn’t need too much persuading and I’m glad of it. It could get difficult.
“I want you to enjoy them.”
She sighs. “They’re so romantic.”
Sorrow turns to anger but I refrain from clicking my teeth disparagingly at her foolish notions when Zoe appears in the doorway.
“More flowers? Lucky girl. What have you done to deserve these?” She comes over and starts helping Libby to trim the stems and place them in a vase. “They smell gorgeous. Last time I got flowers my boyfriend had been up to no good with my best friend.” She sniffs the blooms and holds one out to me. I turn my head away. Their scent torments me.
“Zoe! These aren’t for anything like that,” Libby admonishes. “Not at all.” She throws me a look of pity which is exactly what I don’t need right now.
“Sorry. Just saying.”
“The only thing I need to smell right now is coffee.” I prepare another cup for Zoe. “Milk? Sugar?”
“Neither, thanks. I prefer my fluids neat.” Zoe plucks out a card sealed in an envelope. She holds it up to me. “Do you want me to read it out to you while your hands are full?”
She may be uncertain of protocols but it strikes me as very bizarre she would think that an appropriate suggestion. I pluck it from her hand.
“No thanks. I’ll read it over coffee.” I take my mug and the card back to my office shutting the door behind me.
The momentary silence I leave behind, suggests the two women are staring at one another in curiosity at my strangely sullen mood. I take a few bracing gulps of coffee before facing the words on the card but my hand shakes as I open the tiny envelope.
Just when you thought your day couldn’t get any better…
Seriously, if you don’t know I love you by now, you’re crazy. And I’m crazy without you. No flower on earth is as beautiful to me as you are.
Jack x
His words are beautiful too. But they only hurt my heart. How can I trust them when I know what I know? Zoe’s comment in the kitchen adds to the confusion of my thoughts. Jack must have prepared the hand-written cards before he left. He leaves nothing to chance. He’s a strategist. So if Amanda is with him he planned that too. And, whatever he pretended about taking me with him, the reality is, he planned to leave me behind.
I wonder if the coming weekend is his showdown. He said it would be a surprise. The one where he and Amanda finally reveal all their trickery and laugh together at my tears?
I search for a better solution. Things are not always as they appear to be. I say it again and again, hating myself for not trusting him without question. He’s right. What sort of love can I possibly claim for Jack if I can’t bring myself to trust him whatever things seem like? He said so himself. Do I trust him or don’t I?
We must talk before I make up my mind. That is the reasonable thing to do but it’s so hard. I’m learning that nothing about love and feelings relies on reason. I head to the bathroom to freshen myself up.
Doing what I’ve always done in my darkest hours, I throw myself into work. Determined to make certain that if Jack decides to pull the plug on CaidCo permanently, I will show him he is doing it for reasons other than that my bid was not the best.
The staff s
ees me in a new light today. That of tyrant. That of slave-driver. I push them to exhaustion to make this bid creative, fresh, dynamic and perfect. But I reward them with drinks and canapés brought in at the end of a long day.
Zoe follows me like a puppy. Every time I turn she’s at my elbow but I just don’t have the energy to deal with her as well as everything else.
I throw her my old ipod. “Get me some music, will you? Upbeat stuff. You decide.”
“Need something to cheer you up? Nothing wrong is there?”
I can’t help feeling she looks more expectant than concerned but shrug it off as the very untrusting nature I’ve obviously kept well hidden all these years. The girl is simply keen and friendly. I fight back the urge to tell her it’s really none of her business as it’s not in my nature to be quite that cruel. I just wish she’d give me a little more space.
“I’m going on a journey.” One way or another. It’s all the explanation she’s getting.
“Oh? Anywhere nice?”
Nice? I shrug. “Meant to be a surprise.” I dread to think I may already have predicted it. I walk away before she hurls any more questions.
Blackstock arrives promptly at six and waits for me outside.
“I really must make this phone call, Libby,” I tell her. “Can you stall Mr Blackstock for twenty minutes?”
“My pleasure.” She jumps up and exits. As she’s freshly made up, I assume she’s been anticipating his arrival and hoping for a few minutes alone. I can’t bring myself to condemn love outright.
For one of us, things are going right, it seems. I spy on them from the window. The way they smile at each other and touch is sweet and tender. When Blackstock grabs Libby and pulls her against him, I laugh with her. His kiss is gentle and reverent and I step back to give them privacy.
I miss Jack so much. I still hope I’m going to hear something to reassure me when I speak to him later, but I have no idea what that could be. It will take some pretty fast explaining, as far as I can tell.
