Our Little Secret (12 page)

I take a sip of the second whiskey. It’s smoother than the first.

‘You like this one more, right?’ he says.

How does he know? How can he read me, like I’m a book?

He tops up the first glass and clinks it against mine. Again, we’re staring at each other as we both take a sip.

I know this shouldn’t be happening, but now my dream last night and tonight start merging.
It wasn’t a mistake. He wants me. I can see it in his eyes
.

‘Come,’ I urge him, the whiskey-burn giving me a surge of confidence. ‘Come and dance with me.’

I grab his hand and, laughing, pull him towards the rug by the doors and the criss-crossed oblong of moonlight.

He puts down his drink on the cabinet, and then mine. He smiles and takes my hand in his and pulls me into his embrace. It feels so grown-up. So romantic. His hips sway against mine as I lean against him. I put the side of my head on his shoulder, thinking how much I’d love to dive into his smell.

I want to stop time. I feel so exquisitely alive as I move against him. I feel him touching my hair. And I know then that he wants to touch me. All of me. And I want him to. More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.

I pull back and stare up at him. Our faces are just inches apart.

I lean in, closing the gap. I already know how his lips will taste. I stop breathing and close my eyes. I feel my heart beat . . . one two . . . one two . . . as I wait for our kiss to start.

And then he’s gone.

He steps quickly back from me. He coughs, putting his fist over his mouth. He grabs his whiskey from the bureau where he put it down, and grips it tightly. He puts his hand in his pocket.

He doesn’t look at me.

And I understand, of course, that this wasn’t supposed to happen. He’s employed me as his nanny. But the fact is it has happened: this insane connection, this unbelievable chemistry. He can’t deny it now.

I want to tell him this, but the words stall on my lips as his eyes meet mine. His gaze is hooded and unreadable, like he’s retreated. Gone. I can see it straight away.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the wall. I’m blushing. All my former cool, my borrowed allure, I now see – the allure the stylist gave me – has gone.

‘I think it’s time to call it a night. Before one of us does something we’d regret,’ he says.

He means me. Not ‘us’. I’m the one in the wrong here. I feel a new flush of humiliation wash over me. My breath catches in my throat. I want the rug to swallow me up.

‘I suggest you go to your room now,’ he says, sternly. And I do. I do as he says, and I leave feeling like I’ve just made a complete fool of myself.

And Edward Parker does not call me back.

22

I feel like crying, but no tears come. I don’t lie on my bed, but sit on the chair by the dressing table, staring at the carpet. I guess the whiskey has hit, and I feel exhausted, drunk, humiliated and ashamed all rolled into one.

I feel deflated. Punctured like a balloon. I can barely move my limbs.

After a while, I get up and battle my way out of the dress, which clings to me like a rubber band. Furiously I fight my way free, scrunching it up and throwing it into the corner with a yelp.

I pull off the necklace roughly, annoyed that it gets caught in my hair. I yank off the big sparkly ring, and dump them both on the dressing table.

I can’t go in the bathroom. There are too many mirrors and I can’t face my shame. Instead I grab the fluffy robe on the door and pull it tight around me; then I sit on the floor by the bed, my knees pulled up, my forehead resting on them, and try and work out what the hell I’ve done wrong, but it’s hard because my head is spinning – all of the incalculable units of alcohol that I’ve consumed this evening finally taking their toll.

How could I have misread the signs so badly? Why have I screwed up this chance? Why do I screw everything up?

I lurch drunkenly to the cupboard and pull out my case with a dry sob. I guess I’ll have to start packing. There’s no way I’ll be employed after that little scene just now.

Oh God.

I picture Edward’s dark gaze. The way he sent me to bed. I thought . . .

What the hell does it matter what I thought? What I thought was wrong.

I yank out the horribly neon-pink case and fling it open. The photo of Scott falls out of the pocket in the top. I pick up the picture of my naked boyfriend, his stiff cock just out of the shot, but we both know it’s there and he has his hand around it, waiting for me to jump on.

But I never will again. I know that now. I stare at Scott, my eyes burning as I feel the depth of my betrayal for the first time. Not just because tonight I tried to kiss another man – really
wanted
to kiss another man – but because of all the things I said about Scott. How I admitted that he wasn’t good enough for me.

I let out a tortured laugh at the irony of it all. All this time I thought I was so much better than Scott, but he’s not the one running around half-naked making a fool of himself. You can bet on that. He’s only ever been loyal and loving.

And I’m just a stupid girl looking for trouble.

I turn the photo over, then I pick up the teddy bear that Ryan gave me and hug it close.

23

I don’t know what wakes me, but I’m suddenly alert, although the house around me is silent. It must be a few hours since Edward sent me to bed, but it feels much longer. I’d fallen into a deep, low-down miserable sleep.

I groan, lurching up, trying not to vomit. I have a stinking, hideous hangover, the size of Texas. I lurch into the bathroom and run my hand under the tap, then shovel water into my mouth. I look up at myself and see my face in the mirror, my eye make-up streaked down my cheeks like a horror clown. I try and rub it off, but only make it worse.

Then I hear it. The sound of a woman’s laugh. It’s very short and then stops, immediately muffled. I can’t tell if it came from outside, or inside the house.

I go over to the window and stare out, but the garden is dark. Don’t they say that the hour before dawn is the darkest? I’d never believed it, but now it really is pitch-black out there, the moon having gone. It can’t be long until the sun comes up.

Is Marnie Parker back? Or is there someone else in the house? I thought I was here alone with Edward, but maybe Gundred and Laura are here. Or maybe I just imagined it. I think I must still be pissed.

I go back to the sink and spit some more water out and, feeling lousy, retreat to bed. I lie in the dark, wondering what Edward is doing. Whether he’s still downstairs drinking Scotch. Or whether he’s gone to bed. And, if he has, is he with Marnie? Has she returned from LA? Could that be Marnie’s laugh I heard?

Maybe he’s telling her all about our evening together. Maybe that’s why she’s laughing, because he’s describing how the stupid English nanny made a pass at him.

Or maybe I just imagined the whole thing. There was no woman laughing. It was just in my head.

I pull the pillow over my head and roll onto my side. I have to get some sleep and work out what I’m going to do.

Then I jolt upright. There’s something outside. Right outside my room. I’m sure of it. Has someone just knocked? I listen, head half-raised from the pillow, my ears straining for a sound.

Could it be Edward? Has he come to apologize? Has he changed his mind? I scramble off the bed. I tiptoe-run to the door and quickly open it.

But there is no one there. I walk out into the corridor. Everything is still.

Then I see a shadow pass across the nudey bronze man at the end, as if a door has been opened further along the corridor, around the corner.

I creep soundlessly along the carpet, pulling my robe tighter around me. I’m not sure why I’m investigating. I’m in no fit state to introduce myself to Marnie Parker, if she’s here, but I just want to know where the light is coming from.

I press myself against the wall, like I’m in a spy movie, and surreptitiously peek around the corridor to my left. There’s a room at the very end and the door is slightly ajar, a thin sliver of light crossing the carpet.

I tell myself I’m being ridiculous, but even so, I check my reflection in the glass window opposite and make an attempt to smudge away my make-up again. I don’t have time to go back to my room and tart myself up, just in case I do bump into Edward.

I stare back towards my door. I should go back. I should. I should just go back to bed. There’s nothing to be gained from investigating. What if someone catches me snooping around? I’ve already got myself into enough of a scrape tonight.

But then again, what if it is some kind of sign from Edward? What if he’s given me the choice to clear the air?

I creep along the corridor, my heart racing. I look behind me, checking I’m alone. I feel absurdly frightened and yet adrenalized with excitement.

As I get nearer to the room at the end, I can smell cigarette smoke. I stop and sniff the air to make sure, but it’s definitely a cigarette. Why haven’t the smoke alarms gone off? It can’t be Edward, I realize. He is most definitely not a smoker. So who would be smoking this late at night?

The door is open just a tiny fraction and I tiptoe silently towards it. I can hear sounds now. Sounds from inside the room. I can hear two voices. A couple. A couple having sex.

My pulse races. I have accidentally stumbled on something that is none of my business. I have to run away before I get caught. But I don’t. Because my brain is working overtime.

Who is behind that door? It can’t be anyone other than Edward. Edward and Marnie. In which case, this can’t be an accident. Edward must have wanted me to see this. To know that he’s with his wife. If I needed proof, here it is. He wants her. Not me.

Still, I step towards the door. Closer and closer.

Do I
want
to see? Can I bear to see him with another woman? With his wife? But I can’t seem to find the strength to turn away. I’m just too curious.

In the room I can hear the couple now making out with a totally careless abandon. They are really going for it, judging from the oohs and aahs she’s making. She clearly has no qualms about the door being open. The woman makes an orgasmic sigh and I feel myself throbbing in response. It’s the horniest sound, and I’m instinctively responding in a way I can’t stop.

I press up against the door, putting my eye against the slit. I need to see them for myself.

But the room is empty.

There’s a perfectly made-up large bed with a gold brocade cover, a cigarette burning in the ashtray on the bedside table. On the wall opposite the bed there’s an enormous television screen, and on it a tastefully lit porn movie is playing.

I stare at the screen. It’s a close-up shot. I can’t see the woman’s face, just a bit of her dark hair. She’s naked apart from a suspender belt, and she’s arched back over a low ottoman, like some 1920s diva, her ample breasts pointing towards the ceiling. Her nipples are puckered and hard. She gasps in desire as the man, side-on to the camera, slides his large, plump cock against her glistening slit. She’s neatly waxed with a ruffle of dark pubic hair. He is glorious, his manicured thumb flexed against his straining curved cock, which trembles as the smooth head disappears and reappears.

He is kneeling and I see his taut buttocks flex. He groans and my insides flip over. I can’t move. I’m leaden with desire. She pulls her stockinged feet up and lifts up her pelvis, so that her arse is bared to the guy. Tantalizingly slowly, he slides the tip of his cock down and dips it into her perfectly puckered pink arsehole.

‘Like that,’ he mumbles, his voice heavy with passion.

A voice I recognize. That isn’t . . . that can’t be . . . oh my God. Is it Edward?

Now the camera pulls back and I realize that this is a proper movie, not a home movie. There’s a cameraman operating the camera. Still the camera pulls back and I see more of the woman, but her face is turned away from the camera. Is it Marnie? Or someone else? Has Edward filmed himself having sex with someone else?

I stare. Unable to breathe. My legs are trembling uncontrollably.

It’s Edward. I’m sure it is. Younger, but my God, he’s gorgeous.

I watch his face, his eyes closed, his hands coming to the side of his head, his stomach rippling and flat as his long shaft slides into woman’s arse.

Then I hear a sound along the corridor. I gulp. Terrified I’m going to get caught, I take flight, running along the corridor, my robe flying out behind me, like a ghost.

A voice. A woman’s voice I don’t recognize. A door opening and closing. Has she seen me?

Jesus!

24

I feel bone-tired the next morning. I’ve dozed on and off since the discovery of the porn room, but it took me ages to stop shaking. I still can’t make any sense of it or what it means. Was it Edward in that movie? It can’t have been. And if it was, then who was he with? And who was watching it? Who did the half-smoked cigarette belong to?

I feel deeply jangled that I perved in on something I wasn’t meant to see. Even more jangled that I nearly got caught.

In the cold light of day my humiliating pass at Edward when we got home last night comes flooding back in vivid bursts, my shame doubling and trebling, the more I think about it.

I study the map Gundred gave me and see that the room is a red room. Even so, when I get dressed, I go down the corridor to check it out. Laura is cleaning the windows at the end.

‘Whose room is this?’ I ask her.

She turns, surprised by my tone. I cough, embarrassed that I’ve been so abrupt.

‘No one’s,’ she says with a shrug. ‘Why?’

‘I . . .’ I begin, but run out of words. What can I tell her? That I stumbled on a porn movie in the middle of the night? I’ve already been warned off the red rooms. They are out of bounds and none of my concern. If the Parkers want to play porn in the middle of the night, then that’s their business. They didn’t leave the door wide open. They – whoever they are – thought they were alone. It was totally wrong of me to spy.

I still feel deeply unsettled and scared of what I’ll find downstairs, but soon I can’t put it off any longer. If I see Edward, I’m going to be contrite and apologetic and try and clear the air, if at all possible.