The Art of Keeping Secrets

by Rachael Johns

  ‘Hey.’ Mandy, the youngest employee at Donoghue’s Boutique Travel, looked up from her computer and waved as Emma let herself into the shop. Despite the rush, she’d managed to arrive half an hour before the doors opened to customers.

  ‘You’re here early.’ Emma returned a smile and then lowered her voice. ‘Is Darby here yet?’

  Mandy shook her head and, relieved to have a few moments’ reprieve before their supervisor arrived, Emma headed out to the tiny staff room to dump her bag and fire up the coffee machine.

  As she flicked the switch, the rear door opened and the owner of the travel agency strode in—a bright smile on his cute face and a cardboard carrier with four steaming takeaway cups inside. Tall, dark-haired, tanned, and always immaculately dressed in the latest fashion, Patrick Donoghue looked like he’d just stepped off the cover of GQ magazine.

  Although he owned five travel agencies across the metropolitan area, including the one Emma worked at in Subiaco, he spent most of his time at the Nedlands branch, but popped in at least twice a month to the other offices. Thank God she’d scraped into work early. He was the one who wrote her paycheque, so she needed to impress him even more than she did Darby.

  ‘Oh hi,’ she said, trying not to sound rattled by his unexpected appearance. His presence always flummoxed her.

  ‘Good morning, Emma.’ He smiled that delicious grin of his. ‘Darby’s had a family emergency, so I’ll be filling in for him here over the next couple of weeks.’

  ‘Is he okay?’

  ‘He’s fine, but his father suffered a stroke over the weekend and he and his wife have flown over to Queensland to spend some time with him. He’s taking some family leave.’

  ‘Oh, that’s awful,’ Emma said. ‘We should send them flowers or a card or something to let them know we’re thinking of them.’

  ‘Good idea. Can you organise that?’

  When Emma nodded, Patrick winked. ‘So, how’s my favourite employee today?’ He lifted one of the takeaway cups out of the carrier and handed it to her.

  She raised an eyebrow as her fingers closed around the warmth. ‘I bet you say that to all your employees.’ She dipped her nose to inhale the tantalizing aroma, her headache already fading at the prospect of a caffeine hit. This morning she’d had time for a shower or coffee; the shower had won.

  ‘You look like you need that.’ He nodded towards the cup as she removed the plastic lid and lifted it to her lips. ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘Is that your polite way of telling me I look terrible?’ she asked, before taking a gulp. It was hot and burned her mouth a little but pain was a mild inconvenience for an addict.

  ‘Never.’ He shook his head and his smile faded. ‘You always look fabulous, Emma.’

  She laughed nervously at his compliment, unsure how to take it. Ever since Max had knocked her confidence by sleeping with someone half her age and half her weight, she’d been unable to handle admiration from men, especially men as good-looking as Patrick Donoghue. Then there was his lovely Irish accent … Oh lord, and now she was staring at him, probably as red as a fire engine, doing a great impression of being mute.

  ‘Thanks.’ She forced the word out, remembering the advice she always gave the girls about compliments. Accept them graciously and with thanks. ‘Did you have a good weekend?’

  Patrick shrugged one shoulder lazily. ‘Wasn’t bad. I was at Joondalup and we were very busy. Had one of those customers that insists she gets a window seat because she didn’t want to ruin her hair.’

  Emma laughed—there was nothing travel agents liked better than sharing stories about silly or sometimes downright stupid customers. Her all-time favourite was a woman who insisted that she wanted to fly to Hippopotamus in America. Finally she’d worked out the woman meant Buffalo, but it had taken a while.

  ‘What about you? Get up to anything exciting?’

  Emma contemplated telling him about Caleb going to the ball—she even had photos she could show him on her phone—but thought better of it at the last moment. Patrick never discussed his private life. He was simply being polite. She’d save the photos for Jenny and Mandy when Patrick went out for lunch.

  ‘Lovely thanks,’ she said instead.

  ‘Well then, I’d better go give these to the others,’ he said, indicating the remaining polystyrene cups.

  Emma nodded and then took another long sip. Patrick was a good businessman—he had won Travel Agent of the Year several times and was often asked to speak at travel conferences around the world—but he was also a great boss. He often bought takeaway coffees or other treats for his staff when he dropped into the office and he never complained if his people needed time off for sick kids or school assemblies. Not that she took time if she could possibly help it—she couldn’t afford the loss of income—but not all workplaces were as flexible and she knew she was lucky. It would be nice to have him around for a few weeks.

  She retrieved the Tim Tams from her handbag and then carried them and her coffee out into the office area just as Patrick was opening the door for Jenny and turning the sign on the window from CLOSED to OPEN.

  ‘Sorry I’m late.’ Jenny, a woman who had been in the travel industry for about a hundred years and loved it so much she never planned to retire, rushed into the office. ‘You wouldn’t believe it. I got stopped at every bloody red light and then by a booze bus. Seriously! I mean who would be drink driving at this time on a Monday morning?’

  Emma, Mandy and Patrick laughed.

  ‘Probably more people than you’d think,’ Patrick said as the first phone began to ring.

  ‘Good morning, Donoghue Boutique Travel, Mandy speaking. How may I help you today?’

  Emma and Jenny headed to their desks and Patrick sat himself down in Darby’s desk. Not long after that first phone call, the first two customers walked through the door. They were future honeymooners, children of Jenny’s friends, so she took them, which allowed Emma to go through her email. She used to whiz through her morning enquiries, but lately everything seemed to be taking longer than usual and she found it difficult to concentrate on more than one thing. Maybe once women got past forty the old adage that females could do more than one thing at once was simply no longer true.

  She glanced sideways at Mandy who was on her third—or was it fourth?—phone call of the day, chatting away on her headset while typing furiously away at the keyboard and reading a message that had just landed on her mobile. The sight made Emma’s head spin. Not wanting Patrick to think she was slacking off, she took a deep breath and began reading an enquiry from a retired couple who wanted quotes for a cruise that took in as many places around the globe as possible.

  ‘Cost is not a concern, we want the best,’ read the email.

  Lucky for some, Emma thought, as she opened a file from her favoured cruise company to check out their latest packages. Oh well, the more her clients spent, the better for her.

  For a few moments, she lost herself in images of a luxury cruise liner and postcard-perfect photos of exotic locations. She imagined herself sitting on that perfectly white sand, drinking a cocktail out of a real coconut and watching the clear blue waves lap against the shore. She could almost smell the sea breeze and hear the ocean. She could definitely taste the cocktail. Her mind drifted back to Friday night and the laughter she’d had with Flick and Neve as they’d planned their fantasy trip. If only …

  ‘Are you all right, Emma?’

  She looked up from the pictures on her screen to see Patrick leaning against her desk, looking all debonair in his dark designer suit. Donoghues was a chain of higher-end travel agencies, assisting people who wanted a more personal service than offered at the local Flight Shop, and all his employees were expected to look the part and dress for success. Patrick led by example.

  ‘What? Sorry?’ Her headache rearing its ugly head again, she pressed a couple of fingers against the side of her forehead and looked up, way up—the man was practically a giant—at him.

  H
e frowned. ‘I asked if you were free to take a client,’ he nodded towards a young woman now sitting down at Mandy’s desk, ‘and you didn’t seem to hear me.’

  Oh lord. ‘I’m so sorry, Patrick,’ she gushed. ‘I have a bit of a headache this morning.’ His catching her in a daydream had ruined any good the caffeine had done. Her whole head throbbed once again. ‘I’ll take the next walk-in, definitely.’

  ‘Can I get you a painkiller?’ he asked, his frown transforming into an expression of concern.

  What time did she take the last ones? Was it when she got up or when she was leaving the house? Damn, why can’t I remember?

  ‘No, thanks.’ She smiled, thankful he wasn’t the type of boss to get angry easily. ‘The caffeine is doing the trick I think.’

  ‘If it doesn’t get better, don’t be a martyr, go home and get some rest.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ To prove her point, Emma turned back to her computer and began a reply to the cruise couple. She couldn’t start taking time off for headaches; she needed to save her sick days for when the kids were unwell or if she really got ill.

  ‘Look after yourself, Emma.’ Patrick reached out and rested his hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. Her body stilled—so long since she’d felt a man’s touch, it had no idea what to do with it.

  He’s only being friendly.

  But something inside Emma tingled and her imagination switched tracks from thinking about a holiday, to thinking about what it would feel like to have Patrick touch her just a little bit more.

  Oh dear. It appeared she was completely losing her head.

  He turned to walk away and she forced her eyes not to follow him. The last thing she needed was to start having inappropriate fantasies about her boss. Life was already complicated enough.

  Chapter Six

  Genevieve

  ‘You’re not going to make me look like a clown, are you?’

  Neve, lost in a world of her own, smiled down at Sandrine Priest, the author whose make-up she was currently doing for professional photos; it took a few seconds for the comment to register but by the time she’d opened her mouth to reply, the woman was speaking again.

  ‘I want to look good, but natural. You probably can’t tell,’ she said, lifting her fingers to brush against her cheeks, ‘but I don’t wear much make-up from day to day. No point really, is there? Not when I work from home. Hardly worthwhile dressing up for the pool boy, now is it?’

  Neve smiled. ‘Well, that depends what the pool boy looks like.’

  The woman chuckled. ‘And I’ve always been told I have glowing skin anyway.’

  ‘You definitely won’t look like a clown,’ Neve promised, not making a comment on her pasty, pale skin, which looked as if she didn’t get enough meat or sunlight. Sandrine wouldn’t recognise herself when Neve had finished—instead she’d be singing her praises and begging her to spill her beauty secrets.

  ‘To be frank,’ Sandrine continued, talking as if she’d had lessons in how to speak the Queen’s English but had never quite conquered the art, ‘clowns have always given me the heebie-jeebies, don’t you agree? Freaky-looking things and yet.’

  Neve continued to smile and make what she hoped were the right noises as the Booker-nominated author blathered on about clowns, which somehow led to her theories on Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and how all made-up characters are a cruel deception on the part of parents and big business.

  ‘And don’t get me started on the tooth fairy!’

  Neve made a mental note never to read one of Sandrine’s books—if she wrote anything like she spoke, she’d probably die of boredom. Thankfully, her client appeared content to carry the conversation herself, with Neve murmuring the occasional agreement and every now and then interrupting to ask her to purse her lips or close her eyes. Under the mind-numbing tones of Sandrine’s soliloquy, Neve found her mind drifting again to the one thing she’d been thinking about since Will’s announcement in the early hours of Saturday morning.

  James.

  Her insides tightened and then twisted at the thought of him. She now lived with a permanent knot in her stomach. Eighteen years had passed since she’d left him but when she closed her eyes, she could still see him as if it had been yesterday, still smell his unique male scent and still recall exactly what it felt like to have his lips on hers. This was nothing new. She’d always thought about him—it infuriated her that she couldn’t get him out of her head after so long, when he no doubt never gave a passing thought to her. That Deborah Conway song ‘Only The Beginning’ reminded her of James—that bit about this being the love of a lifetime, even if it lasts a week. They’d been together longer than a week but James had definitely been the love of her lifetime; he’d ruined her for anyone else.

  Now that Will had broken his silence on his desire to meet his dad, James invaded her headspace more than ever. Will kept asking questions she either didn’t know the answer to or didn’t want to tell him.

  Do you think Dad still lives in Melbourne? Will I have to go there to meet him?

  I wonder if he ever got married. Do you think I could have brothers or sisters? It’d be fun to be a big brother, don’t you reckon?

  Will’s enthusiasm twisted her heart and with each question she grew more and more nauseous, so that she’d barely eaten since Friday night’s cake. In a matter of days, her life had been totally turned upside down with a number of different scenarios rolling through her head. What if James didn’t want to be found? Refused to meet Will and broke her baby’s heart? What if he did want to be part of Will’s life?

  She didn’t know which prospect scared her more.

  ‘Careful!’ Sandrine’s shriek startled Neve and she yanked back the dark brown eyeliner in her hand.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ She had somehow drawn a dark line down Sandrine’s cheek.

  Sandrine peered up at Neve, her eyes narrowed. ‘I thought you said you knew what you were doing?’

  ‘I do.’ Neve swallowed as she put down the eyeliner, grabbed a cotton bud and dipped it in a bottle of make-up remover. ‘That won’t happen again.’

  Her fingers shook as she erased the line from Sandrine’s face. Not only was the James-Will dilemma costing her sleep and her appetite, now it was affecting her work. She couldn’t afford to let that happen—she had a reputation to uphold, not to mention bills to pay. Teenage boys with hollow legs weren’t cheap to feed and Will often brought his mates round to raid her pantry.

  As she finished Sandrine’s face—gorgeous despite the mishap—Neve realised she couldn’t handle this thing on her own. She needed to talk it out with someone who wasn’t so intimately involved as she was. Someone who could look at her problem with a clear head and tell her what she should do.

  ‘There,’ she said, putting the illuminiser brush back on the top of her enormous make-up case. ‘All finished.’ Before Sandrine could utter a word, Neve whipped a mirror out of her bag and held it up in front of the author’s face. ‘Ta dah!’

  Sandrine sucked in her cheeks and made her lips into a fish mouth as she slowly turned her head from side to side and examined her reflection. Neve glanced down at her watch, wondering if Flick could get into the city in time to meet her and Emma during Emma’s lunch break.

  Finally, Sandrine spoke. ‘I’ll admit I was sceptical but you’ve earned your exorbitant fee. I could almost be mistaken for Audrey Hepburn.’

  Neve endeavoured to keep a straight face. She might one of the best in the business, but she wasn’t a miracle worker and this woman was light years from Audrey. ‘Yes, I can see the resemblance.’

  Sandrine’s lips transformed into a smile Neve wouldn’t have thought possible when she’d met her an hour or so ago. ‘Thank you,’ she said, pushing herself to a stand. ‘I only hope the photographer who recommended you is as good as you are.’

  ‘I guarantee Pierre is a genius. You’ll love your new shots,’ Neve promised and then packed up her toolkit in record time.

  ‘Goo
d luck this afternoon,’ she said. ‘I’ll ask Pierre to send me a photo from the shoot. I always love to see the finished product.’

  Sandrine nodded and then walked across to a bookshelf and plucked a hardback from a row of identical copies. She returned and thrust it at Neve.

  ‘It’s pre-signed,’ Sandrine explained as Neve looked down at the tome and saw it was the Booker-nominated work of supposed literary genius. Why did these books always have the most atrocious covers? Frankly, Neve preferred a good, easy beach read. Something with a bit of spice in it.

  ‘Oh, thanks.’ She tried to inject enthusiasm into her voice, while picturing the tome as a rather funky doorstop. ‘I can’t wait to read it.’

  ‘Be sure to let me know what you think,’ Sandrine said as she led Neve to the door.

  ‘I promise I will,’ Neve lied.

  The moment the front door shut behind her, Neve whipped her mobile out of her jacket pocket and typed out a message.

  Need to talk. Can you guys meet for lunch at that Italian café near the travel agency? x N

  She sent the message to Flick and Emma and then continued on to her car. As she loaded her equipment into the boot, her phone beeped twice in quick succession. Her heart sank as she read their replies.

  Sorry, can’t do today, swamped at work. What about tomorrow? Hugs, E

  What’s up? Nothing too serious I hope—I’m wedding dress shopping with Seb and Zoe. Yes, it IS as traumatic as it sounds. How about tomorrow? Flick.