Trust Me - Sheryl Browne Page 0,76

notion was absurd – she must truly be going mad. He would hardly have told her about it if it was him. Then who? She couldn’t believe anyone would do something so terrifyingly wicked.

Jake met her gaze as she studied him, her mind ticking frantically in tandem with her heartbeat. He would be desperate to hold onto all that he’d worked so hard for here. Was it possible that there really was a whole other side to him she’d been too blind to see before? Some part of him that had been so badly damaged by the trauma of his mother’s death and the role his father had played in it that he couldn’t bear the thought that in the end he had turned out to be a chip off the old block?

‘You’re wrong about me, Emily,’ he said quietly after a second, his look intense, his ocean-coloured eyes growing a shade darker.

It was as if he was reading her mind. Emily looked away while he searched for a suitable vein. She was going mad. Her thoughts were firing scattergun through her mind – because of the drugs? Someone was trying to poison her. He was trying to help her, not kill her. He’d never been anything but caring and gentle and kind. This was the man who’d cried openly, tears of wonderment, when he’d first cradled his newborn baby daughter in his arms. What was the matter with her?

She squeezed her eyes closed as he inserted the needle. He wasn’t going to hurt her. She knew he wasn’t. But still she couldn’t look.

‘All done,’ he said, pressing a gauze gently to her arm.

Emily looked up at him, a tight lump rising in her throat that she couldn’t seem to swallow.

Jake gave her a small, reassuring smile and turned to fill an empty vial with the sample he’d taken. ‘In answer to your question, I have no idea who would do such a thing,’ he said. ‘Excluding anyone at home,’ he glanced pointedly back at her, as if he really had heard the ridiculous ramblings of her mind, ‘my thinking is that it has to be someone here.’

Sally?

‘It would have to be someone you see on a regular basis,’ he continued.

Sally. Emily’s blood ran cold. She didn’t see anyone else on a regular basis. Certainly not anyone she regularly drank or ate with.

‘In answer to your other question …’ He turned back to her.

Emily looked at him, confused. Had she asked another question?

‘The one that’s eating away at you,’ Jake clarified. ‘I’m not cheating on you, Emily. I love you. Sadly, I can’t seem to make you believe it, but I do.’

He held her gaze, such palpable sadness now in his eyes, it tore another hole in her heart. She had no idea what to say. She wanted to believe him, to bring a stop to all of this and just hold him, be held by him; she longed for that, but … the email. The intimacy between him and Sally. She hadn’t imagined it. Wasn’t imagining it, however addled her mind was. It was a fact that he hadn’t told her about his relationship with Sally. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t believe it had just slipped his mind. She hadn’t imagined his involvement with someone else years ago either. No matter how innocent he’d claimed it was, the fact was, he had been seeing another woman.

‘Can we talk?’ he asked her, his expression hopeful. ‘Calmly, rather than arguing?’

They had to. They couldn’t go on like this. For the sake of Millie and Ben – for their own sakes – they needed to try to communicate amicably, whatever the future might hold. That thought causing her heart to wrench afresh, Emily closed her eyes and answered him with a small nod. She was about to ask him if he could come home early when there was a knock on the door and Nicky peered in.

‘Sorry to bother you,’ she said, her eyes gliding curiously between them. ‘It’s just that I need the keys to Tom’s filing cabinet. I have some notes to type up for him and I need to cross-check an address.’

‘Yes, of course. Sorry.’ Realising the keys were still in her bag, which actually they shouldn’t be, Emily got to her feet.

Jake smiled ruefully as she passed him. ‘I have to pop out to take a sample to the hospital,’ he said, nodding towards the vial of blood he’d just taken from Emily. ‘We still