The Pool House by Tasmina Perry

Author:Tasmina Perry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2017-07-05T13:13:02+00:00

This summer

Chapter 24

The pie sat steaming on the table, but Jem couldn’t lift her fork.

‘Not hungry?’

She shook her head and looked up at Michael.

‘It’s just so . . .’

She trailed off and looked out of the window. The diner was cute: all stripped pine and red and white checked tablecloths, which she suspected was genuine local decor rather than tourist-pleasing Americana. It sat at the end of Rivertown’s main street, giving them a view of the lit-up shopfronts as the sun dipped behind the hills. It was almost six already.

‘It just feels so wrong. I know Paul. Or I thought I did; we’ve certainly spent almost every weekend together and I just can’t believe it.’

‘Believe what? That a good-looking guy had an affair with a good-looking girl he was sharing a house with?’

She glanced back, annoyed at Michael’s glib tone, but of course he had a point. Put a bunch of people in a confined space and sexual tension was inevitable; an entire industry of reality TV had been built on that one human truth.

‘But Paul? He seems so straight, so ordinary.’

‘I hate to play the cynic here, but Paul Ellis is handsome and rich and women in that part of the world make a career out of marrying well, then marrying again, moving up a notch from wealthy to rich to billionaire as they go.’

Jem wanted to object, but there was no denying the logic. She had seen enough beautiful women on the arms of warty, squat men twice their age; couplings were as much an economic transaction as a love match.

‘We don’t know that it had anything to do with that,’ she said lamely. ‘Tina told me Alice was in love, remember.’

‘Maybe,’ replied Michael sceptically. ‘And maybe it was mutual. But the why doesn’t really matter, does it? The fact is that Alice and Paul were having an affair.’

But the why did matter to Jem. She wanted Paul and Alice’s relationship to have been a grand passion, a head-over-heels love affair that took them by surprise but couldn’t be denied. She wanted it to be some pulpy written-in-the-stars romance; otherwise it would ruin her own love affair – with the beach house. Because for all her misgivings, she had been happy there. It was a beautiful house and an amazing setting and the housemates had accepted her as one of them, at least for the duration of the summer. It had been sunshine and laughter and barbecues, but this revelation had thrown it all into shadow. Perhaps she didn’t know Paul; perhaps she didn’t know any of them.

‘So what now? Are you going to speak to him?’

‘Paul?’ Michael shook his head. ‘Absolutely not. We need to keep this quiet until we know more.’ He looked at her sternly. ‘Seriously, Jem. When you see him this weekend, don’t say anything about Alice.’

The waiter came over and asked if they wanted anything to drink. Jem didn’t like drinking in front of Michael, who had made a real effort to stop, but she couldn’t help ordering a large glass of wine.

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