The Guilt Trip(47)

His eyes narrow. “To who?”

“Jack,” says Rachel, unable to believe she needs to spell it out. “Or Paige.”

She’s relieved to see him look at her as if she’s crazy. “Of course not,” he says. “I can’t believe you even need to ask.”

“Not even at the time?” she adds. “You didn’t ever insinuate or allude to what had gone on?”

“No,” he says. “More’s the pity.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“If I had,” he says, “it might have saved us all the trouble.”

She goes to speak, but the weight of his words sits heavily on her shoulders.

“And nothing was mentioned last night,” she asks, her paranoia getting the better of her, “when Paige came up to bed?”

Noah shakes his head. “I was asleep by then.”

“Jack didn’t come up until some ungodly hour this morning, either. What if she’s told them?”

“Who?” asks Noah.

“Ali!” she exclaims.

“Well, if she’s told them she saw me trying to kiss you, then I’ll hold my hands up and blame it on water on the brain.” He laughs, but Rachel remains stony-faced at his attempt at a joke. Nothing about this is funny, she thinks.

“And what if she heard us?” she asks. “Heard us talking about…” She can’t bring herself to say it. “What are we going to do then?”

“She wouldn’t have heard anything,” says Noah. “She was too far away.”

His attempt to assuage Rachel’s darkest fear is silently appreciated, though she doesn’t like to admit that he was too drunk to be able to judge distances, or his behavior.

“And if Paige had any inkling of what went on, I can assure you, we’d both know about it by now.”

Rachel feels momentarily satisfied. He’s right—Paige had seemed completely normal just now.

“She might have told Jack, then,” she says, her mind in overdrive. “After Paige had gone to bed.” Though, even as she’s saying it, she knows that talking is the last thing they’d be doing if they’d unexpectedly found themselves on their own. The thought makes her feel sick.

“Well, have you seen him this morning?” asks Noah.

“He went out about twenty minutes ago,” she says, though she doesn’t admit that she’d pretended to be asleep when he left.

“Well, there you go then,” says Noah, smiling. “I think it’s safe to say we’re in the clear.”

“This isn’t a game,” she says, unable to believe his cavalier attitude.

“I’m not treating it as such,” says Noah, turning to look out across the ocean. “I’m sorry for trying to kiss you, but I don’t regret it.”

“You don’t regret it?” says Rachel in a shrill voice. “We’re both married, and in case it’s escaped your attention, our partners are here with us. They could have seen. They could have heard.”

Noah looks at her. “But they didn’t.”

Rachel tsks. “I would ask that you stay away from me today,” she says. “I don’t want Ali to see us together.”

Noah nods. “So, when are we going to talk about—?”

“Speaking of the devil,” says Rachel, cutting him off. “I’d better go and check on her, as we don’t want the bride oversleeping, do we?”

“We need to talk,” says Noah after her, but she pretends not to hear.

She can feel his eyes watching her as she disappears down the stairs that lead to Will and Ali’s room. He’s no doubt dismayed at how she can switch off her emotions so easily. She doesn’t want him to see that she can’t.

“Ali,” she calls as she knocks on the bedroom door. “Are you up?”

An image of Ali lying facedown on her bed, unconscious, suddenly floats into her mind. If she was no longer around, then Rachel wouldn’t have to suspect Jack of having an affair. But even more than that now, she wouldn’t have to fear that her innermost secret is about to be exposed.

She knocks again. “Ali?”

When there’s no sound or movement, Rachel quietly opens the door. “Wow!” she says out loud as she’s met with a wall of glass holding back the water of the pool. The sunlight is penetrating the surface, sending shafts of light underwater. It’s spectacular, though Rachel can’t help but feel grateful that she didn’t have this vantage point when Will and Ali were in the pool last night.

“Are you in here?” she asks, tiptoeing toward the bathroom.

She steps over a pair of trainers and, as she stops stock-still, staring at them, her heart crashes into a brick wall. She gasps, remembering Ali’s insistence that she’d join Jack for a run. She’d pitied her desperate attempt to be with him, so sure that it was nothing but an unrequited infatuation. But everything that has happened since points to it being so much more. Now she pities herself for being so naive. They were never going for a run, were they? Though, she’d have expected Ali to at least pretend they were.

Rachel falls onto the bed, trying desperately hard not to imagine what the pair of them might be doing. How could they do it to her? How could they do it to Will, who she feels even more sorry for? He thinks Ali’s the love of his life, yet she’s sneaking around with his own brother on their wedding day. Rachel doesn’t want to admit it, but whatever it is she’s doing to keep both brothers so enthralled, she must be doing it well.