by Jenna Ellis
‘An agency? No, that’s not right. It’s owned by the Parkers. Edward and Marnie Parker.’
The policeman refuses to do any more research for me, and he’s keen for us to move on. Nobody has heard of the Parkers. The policeman checks with the guard at the gatehouse. The house has been empty for a year.
Am I going insane?
89
I stare out of the window, hardly seeing the blur, just seeing my own reflection as the cabbie takes me back to Manhattan, occasionally tutting to make sure I’ve registered his displeasure.
I look different. Even to me. I look serious and jaded, tainted by an overwhelming experience that I simply can’t get my head round.
They planned it all. You fulfilled our fantasy. I fully get it now. Their note makes complete sense. Without all the emotion of yesterday, I can finally understand. Our spontaneous threesome really was meticulously planned all along, and I was too naive even to suspect it. The Parkers are extraordinary people, all right. Extraordinarily rich people, who will do anything they can to get what they want. Even if it means faking having kids, or faking a whole life together, to ensnare someone they can both have fun seducing. Did they compare notes about me? Did they know everything all along, when they were telling me to keep secrets?
Of course they did.
Is anything they told me about themselves true? Was any of it real?
I will do anything to keep him happy, Marnie’s voice bangs around my head. Anything at all.
The audaciousness of her plan is breathtaking. They picked me and played me, knowing all along that it would end the way it did. They made it seem so plausible. They made it seem like it was my choice all along, but I was just doing exactly what they wanted.
They had already begun the process of moving out of Thousand Acres when I was with them at the condo. Maybe they hadn’t really moved into it at all. That’s why there were red rooms. Empty red rooms. Rooms they hadn’t moved into – which they never had any intention of moving into.
And now the Parkers don’t want me to find them, but I’m not going to let them do that to me.
I resolve to find out the whole truth. I’ll go to Marnie’s studio and challenge her. I’ll tell her that she mustn’t be scared. That I’ll never say anything, so long as she lets me stay.
I can’t leave now. I can’t. I have to see them one more time.
And then I remember.
Marnie’s studio.
I picture me in it with her, and suddenly my throat goes dry. Because I remember the photoshoot, and the toys and the handcuffs and all the pictures she has of me.
What if I try and track her down and those pictures are the ‘serious repercussions’ she mentioned in her letter? She has all the incriminating evidence that she needs to make sure I’d never be employed again.
90
I go back to the hotel, but I can’t stay in my room. I’m too jangled. Instead, I wander around SoHo, staring in shop windows and not seeing anything.
Eventually my feet get sore, and I find a table under an awning in a cupcake cafe on the sidewalk. The smell is delicious, but I’m too churned up to eat anything. Instead, I watch the queue of kids being swallowed inside, to gawp and gaze at the glass counters full of pastel frosting. I would have brought the Parker twins here, I think – if they’d ever existed.
I shake my head. I still can’t believe it.
I’m vaguely aware of a phone ringing, but it takes a grandma on the next table to point out that it’s coming from my bag.
I thank her and, embarrassed, take out my phone. I’m sure it’ll be Harry. At some point in the evening last night I gave him my phone number, I remember. He’ll be wanting that kiss-and-tell and, for the first time, I’m tempted to give it to him. Blow up the Parkers’ world. Tell the truth about the kind of people they are.
When the phone rings again, though, I bottle it. I don’t want to speak to Harry. I’m too confused. Too stunned. I’m not brave enough to confess what happened. I’m not ready to soil it, stamp on it and make it public. I know instinctively that it would crush whatever I have left of myself.
Besides, I’m frightened. Frightened of what Marnie might do with those photos. If she and Edward were prepared to go to the lengths they did for their own pleasure, then what might they be capable of if I incurred their wrath?
‘Are you gonna answer that?’ the waitress asks, pointedly.
I glower at her and pick up the phone and press the Answer button, steeling myself.
‘Miss Henshaw?’
It’s a woman’s voice. Not Harry. She sounds vaguely familiar.
‘This is Laura.’
I sit upright. ‘Laura?’ It doesn’t sound like mousy Laura, with her chainmail braces. How has she got my number? From the Parkers?
‘Could we meet?’ she asks.
91
I wait for her outside the Guggenheim Museum on the edge of Central Park. I’m exhausted and weepy as I sit in the sunshine. I stare around, waiting to see Laura and her terrible haircut emerge through the crowds of Japanese students.
I wonder why she called me, and why she wanted to meet me. I’m nervous about what she wants to tell me and, more specifically, what she knows. What small nugget of truth she’s picked up, whilst she’s been vacuuming around the Parkers’ locked doors. I think of how she refused to tell me anything about the house or the kids. Why has she changed her mind now?
Does she know about what happened between me and the Parkers? Does she know what the Parkers really employ their staff for? Oh my God – has she been duped by them, too? Has she had a threesome with them?
I doubt it, but I’m really hoping that, if she’s asked to meet me, she’ll be able to shed some light on why Thousand Acres is suddenly empty. And where Edward and Marnie Parker have gone.
‘Sophie,’ someone says in my ear, making me jump.
I look up and see a woman standing next to me, and I stare at her in shock. Laura is no longer Laura, as I knew her at Thousand Acres. Her hair is blonde and her figure has miraculously changed, but it’s still her. She’s wearing a green wrapover dress with sexy high heels. And she’s carrying a bag. A toffee-coloured designer handbag . . .
A distant memory chimes. I stare at her again. And then I realize who she is. She’s the woman who spilt coffee over me at FunPlex. The woman who gave me the copy of The Lady . . .
She cocks her head and smiles sympathetically, acknowledging my shock.
‘It’s a long story,’ she says. ‘Shall we?’
I stumble to my feet and walk with her. I see the limo on the pavement a little way up. The Parkers’ limo. Oh my God. Has she brought Edward?
Because, in spite of everything – everything he’s done – a part of me still yearns to see him. A part of me still wants not to have been discarded by him, but still to have him as mine. Hopes that, even if this all might have begun as a game to him, he really did fall for me. And when he held me like he did, looked at me like he did, that it was as real for him as it was for me.
Laura nods to Trewin, who stands next to the passenger door, like she’s in charge.
And then I realize . . . she is in charge.
He smiles at me for the first time.
‘Laura, I don’t understand,’ I gasp, as we’re sealed into the back, on the familiar fawn seat.
‘I know that the Parkers think you have left already, but I’m glad you haven’t,’ she tells me. She has an English accent. I stare at her, dumbfounded. She knows? She knows what happened?
‘You’re English?’ I blurt. My mind is going crazy.
‘I’m mainly based in London, yes. My agency is.’
‘Your nanny agency?’
Because the Parkers don’t have kids, I want to blurt, but I don’t, because she shakes her head. She knows that already.
‘No. It’s a different kind of agency. You could call it bespoke.’
‘But I don’t understand?’
‘You sent your CV and a photo to a na
nny agency in London, and we pay them a very healthy retainer to look through their books for the right sort of girl for us. And we found you,’ she says with a smile. ‘Then it was a question of tracking you down.’
‘But the advert in The Lady?’
‘It was step one of a long strategy we had planned. I was only really there, that day in FunPlex, to see you. But when I left you the magazine, and you fell for it straight away, it made our lives very easy.’
So the Parkers paid her to find me. To find someone innocent they could corrupt, and to play out their ultimate fantasy. I stare at her, dumbfounded. They didn’t just meet me and seduce me. There was a plan in place long before I ever set foot on a plane.
‘You have to know that the Parkers chose you very carefully. There were fifty or more candidates, Sophie, but there was no doubt in their mind that it had to be you. Only you. They absolutely guaranteed that they wouldn’t hurt you, and I hope that’s the case?’
I nod slowly, but I can’t speak. I stare out of the window at the queue of tourists near the museum, trying to absorb all of this. So they chose me, together. I’m kind of stunned and flattered at the same time.
I thought they loved me, a little bit, but it wasn’t that. It was something else. They chose me for their fantasy.
I sit back and try and take it all in. I almost want to laugh at the audaciousness of it all.
‘Why . . . I mean, the Parkers . . . I don’t understand?’
Laura smiles at me and I can see she does, if I don’t. ‘I know you’re confused, but Edward and Marnie are very special people. I vetted them myself, and spent a long time discovering what they wanted to happen. I know that they love each other very much.’
I think back to them in the kitchen, the first time I saw them together. The way they touched each other unconsciously. The way they loved each other. And I know Laura is telling the truth. They do love each other. And that’s what hurt. Because I thought they loved me, too.
‘They have highly sophisticated tastes – as you have discovered. Personally, I think that perhaps a childless marriage allows a couple to be that way.’
Again Laura smiles at me, her eyebrow rising.
I can’t believe I’m in this car, having this conversation with her, but suddenly something slots into place and I feel calmer. A lot calmer.
She’s right. They do love each other. I see that so clearly now. That bit wasn’t a lie at all. And if planning an elaborate fantasy is what they have to do, to keep each other happy, then who am I to judge? If that’s what it takes to mend the heartache of a childless marriage, then so be it. But why did it have to be me?
‘I see,’ I nod.
There’s a small pause, and I let it sink in. They chose me. I start to see it all in a different light. It’s premeditated, calculated . . . yes. But bad? No, not bad, I decide. Flattering, actually.
I suddenly see Marnie so clearly, stroking my face. And how she held my hand in this very limo when we came back from the photoshoot and that incredible evening together. She was taking care of me.
And Edward, too, when he came to me after we’d been sailing, like he was lost and couldn’t help himself. That wasn’t faked. That was real. He was just as desperate for me as I was for him.
‘I hope you’ve had a good time, Sophie,’ Laura says, interrupting my thoughts. ‘It looked to me like you were enjoying yourself. They wanted it to be just as much of a fantasy for you, too. They planned it so carefully.’
I blush, looking away. She’s right. I did enjoy it. Every minute of it. Right from the start. And it was a fantasy for me. The plane, the limo, their home, their friendship – the wonderful, incredible times we shared. And although it’s all over, I know deep down that I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. That, if I had the choice, I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.
In the moment that follows, a steady realization comes over me: that in the light of everything Laura has said, I can’t hate them, or continue being angry with them. They didn’t set out to hurt anyone. Certainly not me. So maybe the fault was mine. For falling too deep. For them both. In what was just meant to be a game.
But they saved me, too. Because I remember how crushed I felt at home back in Manchester, that day Laura came all the way to ‘check me out’ in FunPlex. How stifled I was by my dead-end future. How bored I was, and scared. Scared that nothing brilliant or extraordinary would ever happen to me. And then this happened. The Parkers happened. And I got to have an adventure. An amazing, thrilling, life-changing adventure. I can’t hate them for that. Because it was everything I wished for, and more.
They trusted me. They still trust me. And they’ve spoilt me, too. They’ve opened my eyes and, yes, let me be complicit in an amazing sexual experience. One that I know now really will stay ours. Just ours. Have I really come out of it so wronged?
‘Sophie, are you OK?’ Laura asks.
‘Yes,’ I tell her, turning back to her. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’
She checks my eyes to see if I’m telling the truth, then turns to face me more. ‘The thing is, I wouldn’t have normally blown our cover like this, but we feel—’
‘We?’
‘Oh, right, yes. I think you thought she was Mrs Gundred, but she’s Sarah, my partner at the agency.’
I stare at her. Mrs Gundred was in on this, too? She had an acting role all along as well?
I close my eyes and shake my head a little. Laura lets out a comforting kind of laugh and puts her hand over mine.
‘Yes, I do appreciate it’s a lot to take on board,’ she says.
‘It’s OK,’ I tell her. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, we both feel that you’ve been an exceptional candidate. One of the best we’ve ever had. And I think you’ve enjoyed your experience. Am I right?’
I nod slowly. She looks relieved.
‘We just wondered, before you go home for good, whether you’d consider another assignment?’
‘Another assignment?’
‘Yes. Not immediately. You deserve a break, obviously. In fact, I wondered if you might want to come to Venice with me for a while.’
‘Venice?’
‘Yes, I have some business there, and I could explain the next . . . adventure.’
I stare at her, trying to wrap my head around what she’s saying. The choice she’s offering me.
The choice not to go home. Not to go back. But forward. Forward into a bright, unknown future. A future that could be as amazing as the recent past has been.
Because I see now, sitting here, that my episode with the Parkers is over. Our perfect fantasy has run its course. All my angst and fury at them have been totally misguided. They have treated me in the only way they could. They had to cut me off. I see that now. They had to let it be the perfect night, to make it special. For both of them – and for me, too.
I am so grateful now that I didn’t tell Harry anything. That our shared experience is still intact. That it will always be safe. A sacred memory for all of us. I know that now.
‘What sort of adventure?’ I ask Laura.
‘Well, it would involve travel again. And a hefty fee.’ She smiles at me and cocks her head. ‘And, of course, it would involve a certain amount of discretion. But then you’re more than capable of handling that.’
Edward’s voice chimes in my memory, along with Marnie’s. It’s just ours. Our little secret.
‘So, Sophie?’ Laura says, smiling at me. ‘What do you say?’
Our
Little
Secret
Jenna Ellis is a freelance photographer who has lived and worked all over the world. She is currently based in Harrogate, England, where she teaches life drawing. Our Little Secret is her first novel.
First published 2015 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2015 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Associated companies throughout the world
&nb
sp; www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-4472-6679-2
Copyright © Jenna Ellis 2015
Cover Images © Shutterstock
The right of Jenna Ellis to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Pan Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third party websites referred to in or on this book.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.