he’s not having an affair, when all along he’s been sneaking around, living two truths? How could he let her sign the deal today, knowing that he’d lied to make it happen? The thought makes her feel nauseous.
‘So how about we do that all over again?’ he breathes into her ear as he stands behind her, guiding her towards the bed. She can feel him, but her desire of just a few moments ago has been replaced by a rage so incandescent, so ferocious, that she fears she might do something rash if the wrong instrument should fall into her hands. She clenches her fists in an effort to stop herself tearing him limb from limb.
‘I’m tired,’ she manages, through gritted teeth.
‘Well, the new you didn’t last very long,’ laughs Nathan, as he gently lowers her onto the bed. ‘I’m pretty wired, would you mind if I went to the bar?’
She’s sure she’s stopped breathing. Was he honestly seeking her permission to cheat? Because that was surely what he was about to do. She had no idea who the woman was, but it seemed as if she could be here, in Japan. She tried to put aside how warped that made Nathan. What had he gained from dragging her all the way over here apart from getting her to sign the contracts, which she could have done in London? Had he brought his wife and his mistress to satisfy his sick ego?
She shivers involuntarily as she recalls how she’d waxed lyrical to Nathan about everything she’d done wrong, how she wanted to change and give him what he deserved. He must have been laughing at her the whole time. What a fool she’s been.
As soon as Nathan’s out the door, Alice gets up and frantically goes to the minibar, breaking the miniature Bombay Sapphire cap in her impatience. She doesn’t even think twice about drinking it directly from the bottle. It burns her throat as she pours it into her mouth neat, grimacing at the taste.
She knows it won’t bring answers, but it makes things just a little bit easier to bear until she makes her next move.
Her phone is sitting on the bedside table, its new content making her feel as if it’s somehow complicit in Nathan’s chicanery. She picks it up, staring unmoving at the screensaver picture of Sophia and Olivia poking their tongues out. Negative thoughts crowd her headspace, each battling for supremacy. It feels as if her whole world is balancing on a precipice. She needs to talk to someone. She needs to talk to Beth.
Her thumb hovers over the number, stored under Your Best Friend in her contacts. Alice can’t help but smile at the memory of Beth changing it, unbeknownst to her, when she went to the ladies in the pub. The next morning, on her way to school, Your Best Friend had lit up the phone screen. Alice hadn’t been able to get out of the car for laughing. What she wouldn’t give to be laughing with Beth now. Couldn’t they just go back to how they were? Pretend it never happened?
Alice dials, before immediately stopping the call, choosing instead to log on to Facebook in the hope that Beth has posted a cryptic message that will somehow make everything all right again. All she needs to say is that she got it wrong, that of course it’s not the same Tom, how could it be? But there’s nothing other than an advert for the school fete this coming Saturday. Alice remembers she’d promised to man the face-painting stall, but that wouldn’t be happening now.
With a shaking hand, she types in Tom Evans and waits as it collates all the one thousand and forty-five Tom Evanses listed. She hopes and expects that since her phone call to Facebook to inform them of the error, there will now be one less. But his face is still there, staring out at her as if everything is how she believed it to be, and all she wants to do is reach into her phone and gouge his eyes out.
She clicks on his profile and a new photo fills the screen. It feels as if she’s been kicked in the chest – the air rushes out of her as she looks at it through a blurry haze. An attractive woman, whom she’s never seen before, has her arms wrapped protectively around a toddler. The pair, both with fur-lined hoods and red-tipped noses, pose against the backdrop of