The Art of Keeping Secrets

by Rachael Johns

  But no! Four times in one night would be greedy, especially when she’d yet to tell him her real reason for tracking him down. A reason so much bigger than simply wanting to catch up with an old lover. A voice in her head said she should wake him to talk, but there were certain rules and certain things you couldn’t do after sex. Breaking up with someone was one; telling the man who’d just given you the best orgasm of your life that he was the father of your seventeen-year-old son was definitely another. At least that’s what Neve wanted to believe as she gently extracted herself from a sleeping James and slid out of his bed.

  She’d find some paper and leave a note with her phone number saying she needed to tell him something and asking if they could meet again. Next time, she wouldn’t chicken out.

  As if she were a naked burglar, she crept across his bedroom towards the door—her clothes and purse were somewhere in the kitchen, discarded in the act.

  The bedside light flashed on as James’s sleep-soaked and satisfied voice called to her. ‘Gennie? Where are you going?’

  She closed her eyes, schooling her emotions before she turned around to face him. ‘Sorry, I was trying not to wake you.’

  He sat up, the sheet falling down to reveal a chest far too chiselled and sexy for a man of fifty who spent his working days (and nights) indoors. ‘You mean you were sneaking out like this was a one-night stand you wish never happened?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head adamantly. What they’d shared was so magical that even if she should wish it never happened, she couldn’t. Whatever happened next she would always treasure this night together. ‘Not at all. I …’

  But her voice drifted off as he climbed out of bed and crossed the room towards her. Looking at him buck naked, so confident, made her knees weak and her mouth dry.

  ‘Come back to bed. No more hanky-panky. I promise to keep my hands off you, at least until morning, but I’m not ready to say goodbye just yet.’

  ‘It is morning,’ she said, feeling her resolve wavering.

  He grinned as he reached out and pulled her to him, his body pressed against hers, his erection jutting into her tummy. ‘Till first light then.’

  Her chest squeezed as the urge to climb back into bed with him almost overwhelmed her but she had to be strong. How would she ever be able to let go again, to mend her heart, if she didn’t put some distance between them?

  ‘As tempting as your offer is, I need to get back to my hotel or my friends will start to worry.’

  ‘Call them.’ He had an answer for everything. His confidence had always been part of his appeal.

  But Neve shook her head and palmed her hands against his chest. ‘They’ll both be asleep. I don’t want to wake them.’

  He sighed. ‘I must be losing my power of persuasion. If I let you go now, will you promise to have dinner with me before you go? I know a fabulous restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen and I’m not working Thursday night.’

  Her stomach flipped. That was four days away. She should have told him tonight, but doing so in a restaurant seemed far safer than telling him now when he was trying to seduce her back into bed. ‘Deal,’ she said, stretching up to give him the most chaste kiss on the lips she could possibly manage.

  He chuckled and slapped her on the bum teasingly. ‘I shall look forward to it. Now, let’s get you dressed and into a cab.’

  James helped her locate her clothes, offered to make her a coffee—which she declined—got her number so he could call to arrange their date, and then escorted her downstairs to see her safely into a cab. He insisted on waiting with her and then opened the back door and leaned inside to kiss her goodnight. Him being so attentive and gentlemanly didn’t make her feel any less conflicted.

  ‘See you soon,’ he said, his voice full of promise and anticipation.

  She swallowed and nodded as he retreated and then shut the door.

  ‘Marriot Times Square, please,’ she told the driver as he edged away from the kerb.

  Neve whipped out her mobile phone to find a number of missed calls and messages from Emma and Flick. She’d forgotten to take the phone off silent after the theatre. She scrolled through the messages quickly. The first few were as she would have predicted: How’s it going? Have you told him yet?

  But at the last message her heart iced over: Emma in the hospital. Call me ASAP.

  ‘Shit!’ Neve went to her recent calls and pressed Flick’s number, her heart thudding as she waited for what seemed like forever for her friend to pick up.

  ‘Thank God,’ Flick said by way of a greeting. ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘With James, you know that. I’m in a cab now.’ She ignored the stab of self-disgust. ‘What’s happened to Emma?’

  ‘She fell in the bathroom, split her forehead and needed stitches, but now the doctor is thinking she might’ve had some kind of seizure. They’ve moved her to a ward so they can do some tests first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Oh. My. God. Did you see her convulsing?’

  ‘No. I told you, they don’t know if she had a seizure for sure. I was grabbing a drink at the bar.’

  ‘Right.’ Neve nodded even though Flick couldn’t see. ‘Driver, can you take me to—’ She paused, realising she didn’t know what hospital they were in. ‘Flick, where’s the hospital? I’m on my way.’

  ‘No, don’t worry about it. Emma is settled for the night and I’m heading back to the hotel now myself to get some rest. We’ll take her a change of clothes and stuff in the morning. I’ll see you back there.’

  ‘Okay. Bye.’ Neve disconnected and closed her eyes as her head flopped back against the seat. If she’d felt guilty before, now she felt even worse. While she’d been having sex she shouldn’t have been having in the first place, it sounded like Emma and Flick had been going through hell. They’d come to New York simply to support her and she hadn’t kept her half of the bargain whatsoever.

  A beep announced another message on her phone. She glanced down to read it: Thanks for tonight. Can’t wait to see you again. J.

  Oh lord, she thought, if there was one thing she was talented at, it was complicating life.

  *

  Neve arrived back at the hotel first and paced the room as she waited for Flick to return. It might have been three o’clock in the morning but any fatigue had evaporated with the news that her friend wasn’t well.

  Poor Emma. Nothing ever seemed to go well for her. First there’d been Max’s infidelity; then, because he was a lawyer and ‘knew people’, he’d somehow engineered it so that Emma had to buy him out of their mortgage. As this was something she couldn’t afford on her part-time wage, she’d had to start working more hours and without Max doing half the parenting, she’d had more responsibility and more taxi-ing to do in that department as well. Single-parenting one child was hard enough, but three … Neve shuddered at the thought. No wonder Emma always looked as if she’d run a marathon on no sleep. And now this. One more thing on her already stress-filled plate. A possible medical condition discovered during what was supposed to be a holiday to help her relax. Neve hoped the doctors were simply being cautious.

  She stopped pacing a moment and then stared out the window down over Times Square. As she was wondering if anyone ever really got any sleep in this place, she heard the key card beep and she turned as the door opened. Flick entered, looking as drained as Neve felt but without the afterglow of intimacy that she feared might currently be surrounding her.

  ‘How is she?’

  Flick shrugged, sighed and then collapsed onto her bed, kicking off her shoes as she did so. ‘I don’t know any more than I told you on the phone, but I’m worried. Something hasn’t been quite right about Emma for a while. She thought she was going through menopause but I don’t think that’s it.’

  ‘Me either.’ Neve sat on the other bed.

  ‘You’ve noticed something too?’

  She nodded and listed the little things that possibly added up to something big. ‘Emma seems to have a he
adache all the time. I’ve also noticed her limbs jerk every now and then, and she’s almost tripped a couple of times when we’ve been out together. Oh, and I know infidelity is a sore spot for her, but I felt her reaction to my confession about James and Will was a tad over the top. She’s been moody lately and that’s unlike Emma. Or is that just me being paranoid?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Flick hugged a pillow to her chest. ‘Maybe she did overreact a little. After all, you had the affair almost twenty years ago. We all did stupid things we regret in our youth.’

  Neve now wondered if Flick considered marrying Seb one of those stupid things, but didn’t think it was the right time to ask.

  ‘So what could be wrong with her?’ she said instead. ‘I wonder if she had an epileptic fit. Pity neither of us were here when it happened. Maybe we’d be able to shed some light.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Flick was quiet a moment, then sat up straight on the bed. ‘Oh my God, how was your night, anyway? What did James say about Will?’

  Neve’s throat constricted, her breathing suddenly difficult. For a second she considered lying, but all the secrets and lies in her life were becoming exhausting, and this was Flick, one of her best friends. ‘I haven’t told him yet,’ she confessed.

  Flick’s brow furrowed as she stared at Neve a few long moments. ‘But … you were with him until 3 am?’

  She nodded slowly.

  Neve saw the realisation dawn in Flick’s eyes as her mouth burst open, letting out a little shriek. ‘You didn’t!’

  She rushed to explain. ‘He’s not married anymore. He’s divorced.’

  Her heart stilled as she waited for Flick to say something else, but when her mouth remained the perfect O, Neve said, ‘I know. I’m a horrible, selfish person, not to mention a terrible mother.’ Her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘But I couldn’t help myself. Seeing James again was like nothing I can explain. It felt like I’d finally found a part of me I’d lost years ago. And he was so excited to see me. I think I knew the moment he hugged me that where James is concerned I’m a lost cause. We went to this bar … ordered drinks … but they’d barely arrived before we were in a cab crawling all over each other.’

  She shuddered now at the things they’d done with the driver less than a metre in front of them, but it had been like nothing else mattered except her and him.

  ‘Wow,’ Flick breathed. ‘How long has he been divorced?’

  Neve shrugged. ‘A while.’ But right now her concerns lay with Emma. ‘Anyway, now I can add bad friend to my list of faults, because if I’d told James straight away, I’d have been back at the hotel when Emma fell. I could have supported you both at the hospital, but—’

  ‘You don’t know that. Even if you had told James, he’d have had questions. You may have been out even later answering them.’

  Neve attempted a smile—it was nice of Flick to try and make her feel better. ‘You’re a good friend. I don’t deserve you.’

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up too much,’ Flick said. ‘Do you know what I was doing when Emma fell?’

  ‘Getting a drink at the bar.’

  Flick shook her head and glanced down at the bed. ‘I was with Jeremy.’

  The look on her friend’s face told Neve that when she said with Jeremy she didn’t just mean chatting to him over a late-night drink. And Neve’s own actions mirrored Flick’s shock of a few moments earlier. ‘Oh my God, did you—’ she lowered her voice ‘—sleep with him?’

  ‘No. Almost, but I stopped myself just in time.’

  ‘I wish I had.’ If wishes were fishes we’d all swim in riches. Neve’s mum had said that a lot when she was a child; she’d never quite understood what it meant. But she knew now that wishing the past hadn’t happened was futile.

  ‘Was it that bad?’ Flick asked.

  Bad? That almost made Neve laugh. ‘No. It was…’ There were no words colossal enough to explain the breathtaking, mind-blowing wonderfulness that was making love with James.

  ‘We’re a right pair, aren’t we?’ Flick said, half laughing, half crying.

  Neve nodded, slumping back against the pillows, but rolling over so she could still look at Flick. ‘Are you going to tell me what happened with Jeremy?’

  She groaned and covered her face with her hands. ‘I don’t know really. I was so excited to see him again. We were such good friends in high school, and he’d grown into a very good-looking man.’

  ‘I’ll give you that,’ Neve said. Not as good-looking as James, but then again, she couldn’t think of many men who were.

  ‘I’ve never even looked at another man in my life until last night, but everything I’ve built over the last twenty years has just crumbled all around me. I’m not sure if I thought sleeping with Jeremy might make me feel better because it would hurt Seb, or because I hoped it would make me realise that there could be life after Seb. That if we do separate, my life won’t be over and I may one day find another person I want to get close to.’

  Neve stayed quiet, waiting for Flick to continue, but when she didn’t, she asked, ‘And how did almost going there make you feel?’

  ‘At first it was really good. I haven’t kissed anyone with such intensity since … Well, you know, I’m not sure I ever have. It was like we were teenagers and I could have kissed him for hours, but when he started to take things to the next logical step, my body froze and my heart went cold. I wondered what on earth I was doing in the arms of another man, about to take my clothes off and cross a line I never thought I would. When he slid his hand under my top and cupped my breast, instead of feeling pleasure, I freaked. I yanked myself away from him and all but ran off. The poor man. I thought it would be liberating to have another man’s touch, but all I could think of was Seb, and how despite all his years of internal struggle, he’s never once cheated on me.’

  ‘Perhaps not technically,’ Neve said. ‘He may not have cheated on you with another person, but he kept his real self a secret. He could hardly blame you for doing something a little crazy in response. But maybe trying to go the whole way with someone was a little too soon, even if Jeremy wasn’t quite a stranger. You need time to mourn the loss of your marriage and the husband you thought you knew before you go looking for something new.’

  Flick smiled at her. ‘When did you get so wise?’

  She snorted; being wise was easier when it involved someone else’s issues. Before Neve could remind her friend just how unwise and foolish she’d been, Flick’s mobile rang. She sat up and leant over the edge of the bed to grab it from her bag. ‘It’s Seb. I sent him a message to call me when I was at the hospital.’

  Unsure whether Flick was happy or anxious about this call, Neve simply nodded.

  ‘Hi.’ Flick answered the call as she slid out of bed, then headed into the bathroom and shut the door.

  If Neve didn’t know about the transgender thing, then a call from Seb would be the most normal thing in the world. Of course Flick would want his comfort and support after such a hellish night, but the way she’d spoken yesterday it sounded as if she and Seb were barely talking right now. As muted conversation drifted through the wall, Neve switched off her bedside lamp, climbed under the covers and tried to get comfortable. It was almost four in the morning and bone-weary didn’t begin to describe how she felt, but her brain refused to switch off. Worry about Emma and confusion about Flick and Seb, combined with thoughts of James and how much worse her confession would be now that she’d slept with him again, swirled together to make some kind of emotional whirlpool.

  By the time she finally fell asleep, the first signs of light were beginning to creep in through the curtains and Flick still hadn’t emerged from the bathroom.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Felicity

  She hadn’t cried when she’d fled from Jeremy’s room and she hadn’t cried in the hospital, but when Flick heard Seb on the other end of the phone line, she had to bite back the tears.

  ‘It’s so good to hear your voice,’ she whispered as
she closed the bathroom door behind her. She’d been wanting to talk to him for hours. For over twenty years he’d been the first person she turned to when anything went wrong and it was hard to break the habit of a lifetime.

  ‘You too.’ He puffed out a breath. ‘What time is it there?’

  She glanced at her watch. ‘Almost 4 am. Thanks for calling me back.’

  ‘No worries. Sorry I didn’t answer earlier; I was in a meeting.’ With no mention of their recent issues, Seb got straight to the point. ‘I got your voicemail. What happened? Is Emma okay? Are you okay?’

  She leaned back and rested her head against the tiled wall, her eyelids drooping as she went through the events of the evening, leaving out a few key points for obvious reasons.

  ‘God,’ he said when she’d finished. ‘Sounds like you’re having an exciting holiday but not the kind of excitement you were hoping for.’

  What would he think if she told him about her other excitement that night? Flick continued, ‘I’ve been worried about Emma for a while. It’s why I paid for her to come to New York with us—’

  ‘You paid for her plane ticket?’

  ‘That’s beside the point right now. Please, I don’t want to fight. Anyway, I looked up reasons for persistent headaches in the cab on the way back to the hotel and there aren’t many positive explanations.’

  ‘Oh Flick,’ Seb groaned. ‘How many times have I told you not to consult Dr Google?’

  ‘I know … but you didn’t answer the phone. I had to do something. You should read what—’

  ‘Flick, stop! You said they weren’t sure what exactly had caused her fall and that the tests were just a precaution.’

  ‘Yes, but the doctors must be concerned to run all the tests they’re doing.’