The Secret Sister by Karen Clarke

Author:Karen Clarke [Clarke, K A and Brittany, A J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-12-10T17:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Ella

Why hadn’t Colleen told me Jake was coming? was my first thought. I could have booked a double room. She’d been at pains to mention her happy marriage, so why not tell me then?

Because she’d been drinking, I reminded myself. It must have slipped her mind.

After a long pause, I said, ‘She didn’t say you were here.’

‘I thought not.’ He gestured inside. ‘Shall we go and sit down?’

My heart raced as I followed him through the foyer and sat on a bottle-green Chesterfield sofa in reception.

Glancing around, he beckoned a passing waitress. ‘Could we please have a pot of tea?’ he said, bestowing the girl with a charming smile.

She nodded and flushed scarlet before hurrying away.

‘I hope you don’t mind,’ he said to me, sitting so close I could smell his aftershave – something expensive and rather overpowering. Close up, his skin had an unhealthy pallor, and the whites of his eyes were bloodshot, and I remembered he was a surgeon and probably worked long hours. ‘I’ve been so worried about Colleen.’ He rubbed his brow. ‘I haven’t eaten or drunk a thing all day.’

‘That’s fine,’ I said, shifting away a fraction. Things felt surreal without Greg and Maisie to anchor me, as though I was dreaming. ‘I still don’t understand why she didn’t mention you were coming.’

His jaw tightened. ‘I’ll come straight to the point,’ he said. ‘We had an argument before she went away.’ He tipped his gaze to the ceiling, and it took me a moment to realise he was holding back tears.

‘To America?’

‘America?’ His gaze dropped back to mine. ‘She didn’t go to America,’ he said, with a mirthless laugh. ‘I’m afraid my wife’s something of a fantasist.’ He shook his head, as if he couldn’t bear the truth of his own words. ‘When she can’t face reality, she makes things up,’ he continued. ‘Things she’d like to be true. It’s her way of coping.’

I was surprised he’d come out with it so baldly to a complete stranger, but somehow, I wasn’t surprised by his words. He’d confirmed what I’d begun to suspect already: that Colleen hadn’t been honest with me. It hurt, but she must have been unhappy to have invented things to impress me. Perhaps it was linked to her childhood, to Mum abandoning her. ‘You knew she was meeting me here?’

‘No.’ Jake lowered his eyes, smoothing his hands over his knees. They were nice hands, broad with long fingers. Surgeon’s hands. His trousers were dark and expensively cut, and his crisp white shirt box-fresh, but his tie was clumsily knotted and there was a patch of dried blood on his chin where he’d cut himself shaving.

‘I knew something was going on with her,’ he said, his expression collapsing into sadness. ‘I was worried, because she’s not good at handling stress, but she wouldn’t talk about it. I thought it was to do with meeting her father.’

‘Reagan.’

‘She told you?’

I nodded, stomach tipping as I recalled the text I’d sent him.

‘Anyway, I followed her here, but we argued again,’ said Jake.

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