Cara shuddered and a dark shadow came over her face. ‘No. My parents’ house is the last place on this earth that I would take my daughter.’
There was something in her expression that sent a chill through Rebecca. She wasn’t going to press her further on that. She nudged Jack. It wasn’t fair for him to let her be the bad guy.
Jack ran a hand through his hair. ‘Uh, what about friends? Don’t you have other friends you can stay with?’
Now it was Jack’s turn to be on the receiving end of her condescending look. ‘My only friends don’t have room for two extra bodies in their place, even if the landlord would let them get away with it. Do you have no idea what it’s like in the real world?’
Rebecca felt uncomfortable. She was well aware that they led a privileged life with their comfortable home and well-paid jobs. She’d worked for that, though. It hadn’t been handed to her on a plate. ‘Do you work?’
‘Yes. At the hospital.’
For some reason, that surprised her. ‘Don’t they have any accommodation there that you could—’
Cara stood. ‘Maybe this was a mistake. I didn’t know that you were… that the two of you were married. I didn’t even realise you were in a serious relationship.’
Jack held up a hand. ‘Stop. Look. Where will you go?’
Cara shrugged like a recalcitrant teenager. ‘I really don’t know.’
Rebecca took a deep breath. There was so much to take in, so much to discuss. No way could they let this woman go out in the cold and rain with nowhere to go. Especially with a young child. A young child who was Jack’s daughter.
Her head buzzed with the mess of it all. She couldn’t think about that right now. It was too much. Get the practicalities sorted out first. ‘You can stay here. But just for tonight. I’ll go and make up the spare room.’
Cara looked relieved. ‘Thank you.’
Jack stood up. ‘I’ll come and help you.’
It was only now that Rebecca realised what had been so strange about Jack’s expression. He didn’t look as shocked as she would have expected.
5
Cara
Slipping out of bed the next morning, Cara picked up one of the towels that Rebecca had left for them the night before along with brand new Molton Brown toiletries. What kind of a person had miniature toiletries ready to go at a moment’s notice?
Rebecca. Cara had seen a picture of her and Jack on an old friend’s Facebook page when she’d finally tracked him down. He didn’t have a Facebook page of his own but this photo had been taken at a BBQ or outside event. The way he’d had his arm around her made it obvious that she was his girlfriend. But wife? She hadn’t expected that.
Insomnia had its uses. As she did every morning, she grabbed her oversized make-up bag to sort herself out before Sophie woke up. Thankfully, there was a bathroom which Rebecca had told them they would have to themselves, so she could make herself look presentable before facing Jack and Rebecca for round two.
It was nine o’clock by the time they made it downstairs. The lounge door was open, but no one was sitting on that ridiculously huge sofa this morning. Cara, hands on Sophie’s shoulders, gently directed her up the hallway towards another door, where they found Rebecca in a large modern kitchen: drinking coffee from an oversized floral teacup, reading through a pile of glossy magazines, looking like a TV advert for a kitchen company.
Getting up from the stool at the island in the middle of the room, Rebecca smiled at Sophie; the face she showed Cara was far more guarded. ‘Good morning. Would you like some breakfast?’ She reached up into a cavernous cupboard above their heads and brought out four brightly coloured mini boxes of cereal, which she set in front of Sophie. ‘I have these from when a friend stayed here with her son. Would you like one?’
Sophie’s eyes widened and she nodded. ‘Yes, please.’
Cara didn’t want Rebecca fussing over Sophie. Where the hell was Jack? ‘You don’t need to wait on us. I can do it for her if you tell me where everything is.’
Rebecca’s smile was tight. ‘It’s no trouble.’ She reached into another vast cupboard containing a raft of perfectly matched and organised crockery. ‘Jack left already. I suggested that he stay home this morning but he has a very important round of golf with a potential client.’
Both her tone of voice and the way she banged the cupboard door closed suggested that she hadn’t been best pleased by that decision. Maybe all was not perfect in paradise?
Cara’s mobile buzzed in her pocket. She slid it out and looked at the screen. It was Lee. Their landlord.
Cara. Your rent is really late, mate. I don’t want to get all heavy. What’s the problem?
She slid it back in her pocket. She’d deal with him later.
Rebecca pulled out the cutlery drawer for a spoon. While she was hidden from view by the door of the huge double fridge, Sophie pulled Cara down to her height and whispered, ‘Can we stay here all day, Mummy?’
‘We’ll see,’ Cara whispered back. If all went as planned, they’d be staying there a lot longer than that.
6
Rebecca
All relationships – professional or private – work best when people know their role. Rebecca was the one who organised their home life and Jack was happy to fall in with it. At work, he was a ‘blue sky thinker’; he would come up with the ideas, and the efficient team he’d built around him would work out the logistics and the processes. Their home life often followed a similar pattern. More than once, she’d accused him of being an ostrich about the practicalities of the new kitchen plan or a holiday destination or a social event he’d thought up. It was all very well him telling her that she should stop planning life to the nth degree. But it was her meticulous attention to detail that enabled their life to work.
Still, when he’d informed her last night that he was still going to the golf course in the morning, she had seriously questioned his sanity. ‘Are you kidding me?’
He’d been on his side, looking at her, his eyes pleading. ‘I’ve been trying to land this client forever, Rebecca. You know I have. We’ve been courting their huge advertising budget since last summer, and they’ve finally agreed to meet with me. And we’re meeting at eight in the morning. There’s no way I can cancel now.’
‘And what am I supposed to do with Cara?’ She’d practically spat the name at him. She was trying not to judge before she knew her properly but she hadn’t liked what she’d seen so far.
‘Just give her some breakfast and tell her that I’ll call her later tomorrow. Obviously, we need time to sit down properly and talk about this.’
Rebecca had stared at him. ‘This? This what? The little girl? Sophie? Your daughter?’
Jack had squirmed next to her. ‘Look. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We don’t even know for sure that she is mine.’
Rebecca had laughed hollowly. ‘Seriously? You can’t see it? She looks exactly like you. I mean, get a DNA test, of course, but I think we both know what it’s going to say.’