One of the Girls(85)

‘How did I know who you’d been sleeping with?’

‘You.’ Her voice was deathly quiet. ‘You were the only person.’

Her statement hung there on the dark terrace, weighted and taut.

‘Oh God,’ Lexi whispered into her fingers.

‘You paid me off. Made me sign a contract that agreed to a higher rate of maintenance, as long as I’d never let my child know your identity. And I agreed.’

She accepted it all. She had no money, rent to pay, parents who couldn’t look her in the eye, and a baby growing in her belly.

When that first amount landed in her bank account, all she had thought was: He was right. Now I am a whore.





78

Lexi

Lexi knew Ana was an accomplished liar – after all, she’d been lying to Lexi ever since she’d turned up at her first yoga class – so could she trust what she was saying now?

Her gaze moved to Ed. A knot of tension pulsed in his jawline as he ground his teeth. But he’d been lying to her too, omitting Luca from his history.

Eleanor, Bella and Robyn were grouped close, a jury gathering information, waiting to pass judgement.

Into the silence, Ed began to laugh. ‘This is ridiculous!’ He turned to Lexi. ‘We slept together once, and now she’s trying to paint me as some monster and destroy my relationship with you! Sure, I was probably a twenty-one-year-old arsehole experimenting with talking dirty – I can barely remember, it was all so long ago – but what I do know is that it was consensual.’

Lexi thought of the way Ed was when they were alone: tender, considerate, loving. He looked at her with adoration, told her she was beautiful, brilliant, kind. Could he be the same person who’d once hissed, Dirty bitch and Filthy whore?

‘Lexi,’ he said, coming towards her. ‘You know me. You know this is all nonsense, don’t you? If Ana is such a great friend, as she claims to be – and if this, this story of hers is true, that I am a monster – then why didn’t she warn you about me? Why did she come out to Greece to celebrate your hen weekend and say nothing?’

It was a good question. An important one.

Lexi looked to Ana. ‘Yes, why?’





79

Ana

Ana had let Lexi down, she knew that.

‘I didn’t know how to deal with what happened to me. It was easier to kid myself that it was only a one-night stand. It was better if I believed that for the baby’s sake.’

Every time Ana felt a rising of emotion that suggested otherwise – the tightening in her chest if she was alone with a man, the flickering of fear if a door was locked behind her, the smell of vodka on someone’s breath – she told herself to toughen up.

‘When I saw Ed again all those years later, as a grown woman, I felt it in my body. I knew. I understood that what happened between us wasn’t right. I hadn’t misremembered anything. I had shut it out.’ She kept her gaze on Lexi. ‘The strength of that remembering, that feeling, was terrifying. I was standing outside his office, shaking. And then … then you came towards him. You looked so lovely, so happy, so pleased to see him. You beamed at Ed. Kissed him.’ Ana shook her head. ‘I was so confused. I thought: Ed can’t be this person, not the one I’m remembering, if he’s with someone like you.’

Lexi listened intently.

‘You were carrying a yoga tote with the name of a studio on. It was close to where I lived, so the next day, I went there. It wasn’t some big plan. I … I just wanted to see who you were. To understand why you were with Ed. Work out who he was, what had happened to me. I didn’t expect us to become friends.’ Ana had never had a group of close girlfriends. She had colleagues, she had her sister, she knew mothers from school, but she’d never had someone like Lexi in her life – and her friendship felt like a gift.

‘I should have walked away. I know that. But I liked spending time together. You know what I hoped? That you’d break up with Ed, and that when it ended, you and I could keep on being friends.’

‘I’m sure you would’ve loved that,’ Ed said thinly.

‘I shouldn’t have said yes to the hen weekend. I know that. But you were so excited about it, so insistent that I be here – and I wanted to be. Part of me still hoped that I was wrong about Ed. How could he be the same person who did what he did to me – yet be someone entirely different with you? But then, out here, I started hearing things. There were red flags in the way Eleanor spoke about Ed, plus I overheard a conversation between Bella and Robyn about a lap dancer who knew Ed – and I knew this wasn’t all in my mind. Ed is just extremely clever at hiding that side of himself.’

‘Your claims are growing absurd,’ Ed declared, with a careful note of pity in his voice. He turned towards his sister. ‘You know me better than anyone. You know I would never have done this awful thing Ana is claiming.’

Eleanor’s gaze travelled across her brother’s face.

Ana could see the similarities now in the structure of their noses, the squareness of their jawlines, the broadness of their shoulders.

Everyone stared expectantly.

Ed bobbed his head at Eleanor, gesturing for her to speak.

The quiet grew, gathering close, all of them waiting for Eleanor’s answer.