The Guilt Trip(83)

“Could I have a word?” she says to Ali, who is still actively trying to put as much space between them as she can.

Ali looks at her apprehensively.

“Please,” begs Rachel.

Ali gives an almost imperceptible nod and leans up to kiss Will. “I’m just popping outside for a minute,” she says.

He stops dancing and seems to sober up in an instant. “Is everything all right?”

Ali nods and smiles, but he still looks to Rachel as if needing extra assurance.

“Yes, I just need to borrow her for a couple of minutes,” says Rachel.

“Okay,” he says, turning around to link arms with his friends who are all kicking their legs in time with the music.

Rachel leads the way out of the restaurant, turning right so as not to end up joining Jack and Paige on the terrace. She finds herself at the back of the kitchen and anxiously fiddles with her wedding ring for the few seconds it takes for Ali to join her.

“I’m not going to stand here and get abused” is the first thing she says as she comes around the corner.

Rachel holds her hands up, as if in surrender. “I know, and I’m not intending to. I just want to ask you a few questions.”

Ali looks around warily, as if checking her escape route if she needs one.

“Have you ever slept with Jack?” asks Rachel.

“No!” says Ali, as if appalled by the mere suggestion.

“But you think he’s sleeping with Paige?”

“I know he’s sleeping with Paige.”

Rachel swallows the taste that’s souring her tongue. “How…?” she starts, before clearing her throat. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because I’ve seen them together, more than once,” says Ali, looking at her feet. “The first time was when I was working with him.”

Rachel clamps a hand to her mouth. “It’s been going on for that long?”

Ali nods. “I don’t know how long exactly, but I first saw them over eighteen months ago.”

“Where?”

“I just happened to be behind him as I walked home one evening and he met her outside the Ham Yard Hotel.”

Rachel tsks, hoping that Ali’s put two and two together and come up with five. “That doesn’t necessarily mean…”

“He kissed her,” says Ali quietly. “In a way that you don’t kiss your wife’s best friend.”

Hot bile bites at the back of Rachel’s throat as she pictures it, the image so alien that their faces melt as soon as their lips touch.

“Why haven’t you told me before now?” asks Rachel. “I thought we were friends.”

“We are,” says Ali. “But you and Paige are a lot closer and I had no idea how you would take it from me. I didn’t want it to ruin what we had, especially once I knew I was going to be part of the family.” She looks to Rachel for some semblance of understanding, but Rachel is too shaken to give it.

“It had to come from him,” says Ali, spitting the last word out. “But no matter what I did to make him do the right thing, he refused.”

Rachel looks at her, too stunned to speak.

“So I gave him an ultimatum that he had until the wedding to end it with her, or I’d tell you, because I couldn’t bear the thought of all six of us being together, for what should have been a happy occasion, knowing what was going on between them.”

“So that’s what all the furtiveness has been about?” asks Rachel, dumbfounded.

Ali nods. “I gave him one final warning at the airport on our way out,” she says.

“When you lost your passport?” asks Rachel, the pieces slowly falling into place.

“I hadn’t, but I thought it was the only chance I was going to get him on his own.”

Rachel remembers Jack striding back into the terminal with a face like thunder.

“I told him that if I felt, for just one second, there was still something going on, I’d tell you when we got back.”

“And?” asks Rachel, ashamed that she doesn’t know the answer herself.

“I’m so sorry…” starts Ali, as Rachel’s heart cracks.

“Please, no,” Rachel begs, as if doing so means Ali will change the narrative.

Ali grimaces, clearly wishing she weren’t the one delivering the devastating blow. “I’m so sorry, but they were together last night.”

Rachel crumples, falling into the wall for support. “They couldn’t have been,” she cries. “You’re wrong.”

“I wish I was,” says Ali. “After Will left for the hotel, it was just the three of us left. I was never going to leave the two of them on their own, but I was so tired and neither of them were going to give in. So I went to my room and waited for a while, hoping that when I went back up, they’d have gone to bed. They weren’t in the living room where I’d left them, and for a moment I thought that whatever they had was over. That they’d taken my threat seriously and put an end to it.”

The weight on Rachel’s chest starts to lift, just a little, as she allows the possibility that none of this is as it seems.

“But I could smell smoke,” Ali goes on. “And I followed it up to the roof terrace.”