Our Little Secret

by Jenna Ellis

  I still feel the rocking aftermath of my orgasms that came time and again.

  ‘Don’t look like that,’ she whispers when we arrive at the house and stand on the steps.

  ‘Like what?’ I ask her.

  She turns to me and strokes my face. ‘Don’t be scared. There’s nothing to be scared of. You explored your body, your sensuality, fully for the first time. It’s a wonderful thing. Some people go through life never finding out. Never exploring their sexual self. But you have been brave enough to begin that journey. It’s a wonderful thing, my darling. The sharing of the start of your journey.’

  I nod, feeling oddly close to tears. I’m so grateful to her for making it OK, and I hug her close.

  ‘Thank you,’ I whisper. ‘Thank you for everything.’

  ‘Let’s not talk about it, or analyse it. It was too special for that. It’s just ours.’

  71

  I sleep like a baby. When I wake up, I don’t even remember straight away. And then I do. And it’s like I’ve been shot.

  I sit bolt upright in bed.

  Marnie and me. We had sex. Forbidden, amazing, illicit, thrilling sex.

  Fuuuuck!

  If I thought I’d got myself into a scrape after having sex with Edward, it’s nothing to what I feel now.

  Edward. My Edward. What have I done? How could I betray him so soon?

  I get dressed quickly and get downstairs as fast as I can. I can’t bear to be alone with my thoughts. I’m shaking so much, I just need to see people and be normal. Because if I see people, speak to people, then hopefully I will regain my balance, because I feel like I’m teetering on the top of a very tall building.

  I’m unprepared for the scene that greets me. I’d totally forgotten about the party, but the rest of the world hasn’t. The whole ground floor is swarming with people, and I see catering vans on the drive through the open door. A huge dining table is being set up in the gallery.

  Marnie is in full operations mode, barking orders to everyone. When she sees me, she immediately dumps a load of heavy tablecloths in my arms.

  ‘It’s all hands on deck, today, Miss Henshaw,’ she says. She doesn’t mention yesterday, but she doesn’t look at me, either. How has she got the energy for a party? The woman is superhuman.

  The hours whizz by, and I help Marnie dress the table and watch her make decisions about the food, and some of the time I completely forget about yesterday. And then, suddenly, I remember and I feel hot and dizzy. Is she thinking about it, too? It’s impossible to tell. She doesn’t look at me directly once all day.

  I’m feeling jumpy, too, as I’m expecting Edward to walk in at any second.

  Edward.

  Oh God. Edward.

  I keep thinking about the yacht, but the whole experience has been warped and changed after what happened with Marnie yesterday. I know it’s crazy, but I feel like I’ve been unfaithful to him and that he’ll know the minute he sees me.

  But then, at the same time, I know that what Marnie and I shared has nothing to do with Edward. It was just about her and me. I feel about Marnie and me like I feel about me and him.

  God, it’s all so confusing, but I know that until I see him and find out how he’s feeling, I won’t be able to think straight.

  Around four o’clock Marnie announces that the house is ready. ‘I’m going to change,’ she says. ‘Oh, where has Ed got to?’

  I go to my room and take a long shower.

  When there’s a knock on my door, I’m so skittish I almost kill myself slipping out of the shower. I’m convinced it’ll be Marnie, but it’s Edward.

  He’s standing by my door, looking absolutely stunningly perfect in a dress suit. His white shirt has gold studs up the front, but he’s not wearing a tie. He looks like he’s just stepped out of a James Bond movie.

  ‘Hi,’ I squeak, trying to tame the pile of towelling on my head.

  His face lights up and, all of a sudden, my insides melt.

  ‘Marnie sent this for you to wear,’ he tells me, revealing that he has a hanger hooked on his forefinger. ‘I’m in the doghouse because I’m late.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I tell him, taking the carrier case from him, my towel slipping off my hair. I feel like a total mess, but his hand brushes mine and then he stares at me and it’s those eyes – those amazing eyes of his. My pulse starts to race.

  ‘I missed you,’ he whispers. ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Fine,’ I tell him. But I haven’t been fine. I’ve been something entirely other than fine. I’ve been somewhere so far away on the outer reaches of my comfort zone that seeing him now, hearing that he has missed me, pulls me back as if I’ve been on a bungee jump.

  All the craziness of yesterday – the shoot, everything that happened with Marnie – suddenly feels like a distant dream. Like it happened to someone else. It’s such a relief that I am still the me that I was with Edward on the yacht. It feels like I’ve just landed in a safety blanket. In his gaze, I’m safe.

  I smile stupidly at him.

  And suddenly I don’t care about Marnie, or the party, or the risk I’m taking. I just pull him roughly into my room and, dropping the carrier, press myself up against him. Then, holding his face, I kiss him deeply. Claiming him once again, just for me. It’s so wonderful I feel giddy.

  He is a man. My man. And I need him right now.

  ‘There’s no time,’ he murmurs through his kisses, but he’s already pulling off my robe and I’m untucking his dress shirt.

  He pushes me back against the door, wrapping my legs around his waist. We press our heads together and laugh with relief and delight. He kisses me deeply and hungrily.

  Then he’s undressing, his trousers falling away and, in a second, he’s fucking me hard against the door, his hands clasping my buttocks. I claw at his hair as he thrusts, filling me with pleasure.

  And it feels like he’s claimed me again, and everything that was so scary and new that happened with Marnie last night is at last erased. From this moment I can put it behind me and lock it away. I will never mention it. Never think about it ever again.

  Afterwards, he lowers me to the floor and gently laughs as he kisses me, but as he pulls away from me, I can tell he’s stressed about the time. He goes into my bathroom and I watch as he washes his face and fixes his hair and quickly re-dresses.

  I stand naked in the doorway, watching him. He catches my reflection in the mirror.

  ‘Tomorrow I’ll take you to the Hamptons and we’ll be together. I promise. Just us. I’ll come and get you early,’ he says. ‘OK.’

  He draws me to him I press my head against his shoulder, feeling the tender heartbreak that in a moment our embrace will be over. I breathe him in. That smell I love.

  72

  Edward hardly looks at me later as I come down and mingle with the guests who’ve arrived on the terrace. It’s a warm evening and the lawns are dappled in the soft evening light. It’s like a perfect party of the most perfect people you’ve ever seen. I feel like I’ve stepped onto a film set.

  I like the dress Marnie has given me. It’s a demure cocktail dress with yellow roses on it. I feel very 1960s retro in it, and I’ve tied up my hair to match. I feel as if there’s a neon sign above my head, though. Can’t everyone tell that Edward and I are lovers? Isn’t it so obvious? It feels so obvious to me.

  Gundred and Laura are serving canapés, and I feel awkward. I feel out of place. I’m staff, I should be helping, too. I’m not sure what my role is, or what I’m supposed to do. I’m being treated like a guest, but I don’t feel like one of these sophisticated people, who all seem to know each other. I wander through them, hearing snatches of conversation. ‘He’s got Nicole for the shoot. She wasn’t his first choice, but I think it’s a great casting.’ ‘Did he get the Picasso? I knew he would.’ ‘And then Anthony insisted, and we got the whole of the frescos reinstated, but planning in Venice is a nightmare.’

  I hear Mamie’s familiar laughter on the other side
of the terrace and I look up and catch her eye. She looks stunning in a strapless black sheath of a dress. Her blonde hair is greased back, which only accentuates her incredible bone structure even more. She’s wearing some stunning sapphire-and-diamond dangly earrings that almost graze her shoulders.

  She looks me over and I can tell that she approves of what I’m wearing. She flicks her eyes at me, and I assume she has some kind of errand for me inside. I follow her, going into the house through the French doors where Edward and I danced that night.

  ‘You look divine,’ she says. She reaches out and strokes my cheek. ‘Positively edible.’

  I flush at her reference. Her reference to us.

  ‘Thank you for the dress. I love it,’ I manage, pretending to ignore her remark.

  ‘Keep it,’ she says.

  She doesn’t look around, but simply stares at me, then, taking me quite by surprise, she leans down and kisses me.

  ‘I can’t stop thinking about you,’ she breathes, kissing me again more fully.

  Despite everything that has happened, and all my resolve about Edward, I feel a deep sexual tug inside me, along with a rising sense of panic. I might try and forget what happened between us, but she’s not going to let me.

  I pull away, terrified that she’s being so brazen. What if someone saw us? What if Edward saw us?

  I thought last night was a one-off thing, but then I look at her and I remember who she is. An adrenaline junkie. I see the risk she’s just taken blaze triumphantly in her eyes. She can see I’m shaking.

  All at once I remember her taste in my mouth. I remember being naked in her arms, her sex against mine . . .

  She raises her eyebrows at me, like there’s been a dare and she’s won.

  I can’t breathe as she strides out of the room, away from me.

  73

  I just about manage to regain my composure, but I can’t concentrate at dinner. All I can think of is Edward earlier, and of Marnie kissing me just now. Just when I’d put it all behind me. Just when I thought it was simply Edward and me again, Marnie kissed me. and I didn’t repel her. How could I, when she knows me like she does?

  My mind struggles to cope with what it means. How can I be involved with them both? How can this be happening? Under their roof? I’m in way over my head. I don’t look at either of them. It’s too confusing. Too scary. I feel tied to both of them, as if by elastic, pulling me in different directions, as if the power of the secrets I hold will rip me in two.

  In the gallery at dinner I’m sitting opposite the nude painting of Marnie, and just seeing her like that reminds me of her on the bed in the gallery. Has she positioned me here on purpose, so that she can taunt me with her nudity?

  Edward is opposite me, below the painting. His look is dark and unreadable as he catches my eye, but he is the perfect host. He introduces me to a German guy and his wife, who are sitting on either side of me, as ‘our English friend’.

  ‘You’re from Manchester,’ the woman, Hilda, says. ‘What a great city.’

  I like her. She’s got rosy cheeks and drinks like a fish. She has flawless English and is a Professor of Art History. It sounds like she has a very high-profile academic career somewhere very important. She mentions several art books that she’s written, but their significance is lost on me. As she talks on about her achievements, I feel more and more uncomfortable. I have nothing to offer. Nothing to share. I feel like an ill-educated fool. Edward comes to my rescue.

  ‘Miss Henshaw is a part-time model,’ he tells Hilda, in a low whisper.

  For one hideous second I think he must know about the shoot yesterday. Has Marnie told him about what happened? Can she have shown him the shots? But then his eyes bore into mine.

  ‘She quite inspired me back into life drawing.’

  ‘Anyone who gets Edward back at the easel gets my vote,’ Hilda says. ‘He was the prodigy at the Sorbonne when we were there, a million years ago,’ she laughs.

  I smile at her and at Edward. I’m touched that he’s made me sound like his muse. I feel a pang of jealousy that Hilda knows his history. Were they lovers once, I wonder?

  I glance over at Marnie, who is blissfully unaware of this conversation taking place. She’s holding court at the end of the table, but she too is talking about a world I know nothing about. I listen, as if I’m observing myself from the corner of the room, as she tells anecdote after anecdote about her own and Edward’s life together, and he chips in, charming his guests.

  At one point she comes down the table, insisting that all the men move around for the next course. She talks quietly to Edward and then he laughs.

  I stare at them, watching how connected they are. I see Marnie lean up and kiss him. He closes his eyes and kisses her back.

  ‘Oh, you two, you’re always the same,’ one of the guests next to them teases. ‘Get a room!’

  Some others around the table laugh. ‘They are insatiable, those two,’ a woman opposite me crows. ‘I don’t know how she does it. How you can keep a man loving you that much.’

  Marnie trills with laughter, her hand on Edward’s chest. ‘You’re just a jealous old divorcee, Anna. Get over it.’

  The woman, Anna, laughs. ‘And you’re always sickeningly happy and in love.’

  I can’t stand it any longer. As soon as I can, I make my excuses and go to bed, announcing that I have a headache. I don’t give Marnie or Edward the chance to persuade me to stay, as they are with their guests. Neither of them can leave the table, and I don’t look at them as I leave the room.

  It feels like I’ve made a statement to them both, but as soon as the glass panel slides back, I feel ejected and shut out in the cold. I glance back at the warm ambience of the table and long to return. But it’s too late.

  Up alone in my room, I open the window and listen to the music and laughter downstairs. I keep wishing I had the nerve to go back downstairs and join in the fun. I know I’ve rather backed myself into a corner with my jealousy, but it’s so difficult to see Edward and Marnie together like that, knowing what I do about them both. Knowing that what they’re presenting to the world isn’t the truth.

  I am the truth.

  The party goes on until the small hours and, eventually, the first of the cars starts crunching on the gravel drive, taking its occupants back to their amazing lives and their exceptional homes elsewhere.

  When the house is finally quiet, I lie, tense in the dark, waiting for the knock on my door. I’m convinced Edward will come to me, but he doesn’t.

  74

  He finally knocks on my door just before seven the next morning. He’s just had a shower, but he looks sleepy. But then again, that’s probably because he is. I doubt he’s had much sleep. He was with Marnie. His wife, whom he clearly loves. Did he have sex with her last night? I bet he did. Did he enjoy it? Did either of them think about me?

  ‘You OK?’ he asks. ‘I missed you last night.’

  I’m wrung out, chewed up with jealousy, but I’m also so relieved to see him. That he’s remembered his promise.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he asks me, his eyes boring into mine. ‘Come on. Let’s get out of here. I need some fresh air and to clear my head.’

  Up until he said those words I wasn’t going to go. I was going to make an excuse about how difficult I’m finding all of this, and that I can’t cope with him and Marnie and what might happen.

  But the words stall on my lips. His eyes plead with mine.

  And God, I want it, too. I want to get out of here and clear my head. The thought of being on the yacht with him, just on our own, fills my mind and it’s all I want.

  Downstairs, the caterers are already clearing up and there are a couple of vans outside and some men packing up tables and chairs. It feels illicit, like we’re sneaking out.

  Edward tells me his car is near the garage. We walk in silence together through the back door and round the corner, and suddenly my heart lurches.

  Marnie is leaning up against Edward’s
blue Aston Martin. She’s wearing a red miniskirt and has a stripy beach bag over her arm. Her eyes are hidden by huge shades.

  ‘There you are,’ she says, with a big grin. She doesn’t mention that I’m with Edward. ‘We thought you’d forgotten.’

  We? What ‘we’? And forgotten about what?

  It takes a millisecond for me to realize. She’s coming, too. She knows all about the trip. She clearly doesn’t think Edward and I are in the process of sneaking off together. Quite the reverse. She’s in on the whole thing.

  ‘Isn’t this fun! Ed is so clever, thinking of going to the Hamptons. I hate clearing up after a party,’ she smiles, opening the passenger door and getting in.

  Edward doesn’t look at me, or say anything. He lifts up the driver’s seat to make way for me to squeeze into the joke of a back seat. I baulk, wanting to back out, but he senses this, because he stares hard at me, and I know I have no choice. Marnie has found out about our plan, and now I have to live with the consequence. And so does he.

  I squeeze into the small space as he clicks his seat down, sealing me in. There’s nowhere to put my legs. I feel wretched. Like a lapdog.

  ‘You still not going to let me drive?’ Marnie teases Edward, pulling down the sun visor and smoothing her lipstick. She looks at me over the top of her glasses in the mirror and winks.

  ‘No,’ he says.

  So he still doesn’t know, then. That she stole his car for a joyride.

  ‘Miss Henshaw, I swear my husband is a tyrant,’ Marnie says. ‘He knows I love cars, buys my favourite car, and then won’t let me drive it. What is a girl to do?’

  I feel myself blushing. She’s reinforcing my promise – and her lie – in front of Edward. What is this sick power-trip she’s on?

  I catch Edward’s eyes in the rear-view mirror, but he has sunglasses on and I can’t tell what he’s thinking.

  The car starts and he drives cautiously up the driveway. I feel like a child. I’m hemmed in and awkward.