Trust Me - Sheryl Browne Page 0,24

Jake sympathised.

‘Yeah.’ Millie sighed again, heavily. ‘I should have prepared better, I suppose,’ she admitted – and Emily felt even more guilty. She should have gone through her application with her, and made time to coach her. If only she hadn’t been so preoccupied with convincing herself Jake was cheating on her.

‘Did you make enquiries at MacDonald and Gibbs?’ Jake asked. ‘They’re moving premises, looking at expanding, apparently.’

‘Are they?’ Millie sounded hopeful.

‘So I heard from Phil MacDonald. I tell you what, why don’t you come in with me? We’ll draft an email together, and I’ll give Phil a ring and let him know to expect it. What do you think?’

Millie took a second to answer. ‘That you’re pretty cool,’ she said, careful not to sound overly gushing.

‘As dads go,’ Jake added, amused.

‘As dads go.’ Amazingly, Millie laughed.

‘Grab your stuff,’ Jake said. ‘I’ll wait in the car.’

Hearing Millie charge up the stairs, Emily hesitated and then stepped into the hall. As Jake walked out without even calling goodbye, her heart sank without trace. There’d definitely been no kiss this time. Her marriage seemed to be crumbling and she had no idea how to repair it.

Natasha. She had to stop her. She would make her stop. A fresh wave of anger welled up inside her, closely followed by a now overwhelming guilt. The woman might have sustained a life-changing injury. They didn’t yet know. Whatever she’d done, Emily wouldn’t wish that on her.

She clutched a hand to her head, wishing she could make the incessant throbbing go away. She couldn’t let her emotions get the better of her. She had to tackle this calmly, rationally. In light of the psychological damage his own father had wreaked, she couldn’t believe that Jake would do anything that would rock Millie and Ben’s world, but if it turned out to be true, then they would be caught up in it.

She wouldn’t throw any more accusations at him; not yet. That would only make the situation worse. First she would establish how Natasha was, and then she would go and see her. It seemed to Emily that in sending the email to Jake’s work address, Natasha had hoped she would see it. No doubt she’d imagined that Emily would confront Jake, raging at him about the evidence of his infidelity, thus lighting the fuse that would blow her marriage apart. She’d very nearly done just that. She still didn’t know what the truth was, whether her marriage was in deep trouble. If push came to shove, though, she could fight dirty too.

Eight

They’d managed to get through Sunday relatively normally. Emily hadn’t brought up the subject of Natasha again. It was Jake who eventually mentioned her, saying that he’d spoken to a colleague at the hospital and that she’d made a full recovery and had been discharged. He’d conveyed the information unemotionally, telling her pointedly that he would be checking up on her as she was a patient, leaving Emily feeling yet more guilty, if that were possible. But was she the one who should be feeling guilty?

He’d kept his phone with him constantly, she’d noticed. Or had he always done that? The nature of his work dictated that he needed to be contactable, but she hadn’t noticed him keeping it quite so close before now. But then she’d never had cause to look before. She’d caught him several times guardedly watching her, perhaps because she’d been carefully watching him, trying to read his body language and his expression, which was largely pensive.

She’d been about to dash off to the supermarket, after realising that, once again, she’d forgotten to get something out of the freezer, but he’d suggested they all eat out. She’d proposed that he treat Millie and Ben to a pub meal instead, telling him she was nursing a nagging toothache, which had been her planned excuse to leave work early today. She hadn’t actually felt like eating anyway. The constant waves of nausea, which she’d now stopped mentioning to Jake, left her with no appetite.

Seeing it was time for her to leave for her fictitious appointment, she switched off her PC and grabbed her bag. ‘Don’t forget to blank your screen if you walk away from the desk,’ she reminded Nicky as she fetched her jacket. ‘And make sure to—’

‘Lock all client information away in the filing cabinet and close my computer down properly when I leave,’ Nicky chipped in. ‘Don’t worry, you can rely on me.’ Smiling proudly, she pointed to the Post-it