Can You Keep a Secret?

“You can’t go!” I say in panic. But Dad’s already opening his wallet and putting a twenty-pound note on the table while Mum stands up and puts on her jacket.

  “Just listen to him,” she whispers, bending down to give me a kiss.

  “ ’Bye, Emma,” says Dad, and squeezes my hand. And within the space of about thirty seconds, they’re gone.

  I cannot believe they have done this to me.

  “So,” says Jack as the door pings shut.

  With a set jaw, I shift my chair around so I can’t see him.

  “Emma, please.”

  I shift my chair around again with even more determination, until I’m facing the wall.

  The only thing is, now I can’t reach my cappuccino.

  “Here.” I look around to see Jack has moved his chair right up next to mine, and he’s holding out my cup to me.

  “Leave me alone!” I say angrily, leaping to my feet. “We have nothing to talk about. Nothing.”

  I grab my bag and stalk out of the coffee shop, into the busy street. A moment later, I feel a hand on my shoulder.

  “We could at least discuss what happened.”

  “Discuss what?” I wheel around. “How you used me? How you betrayed me?”

  “OK, Emma. I appreciate I embarrassed you. But … is it really such a big deal?”

  “Such a big deal?” I cry in disbelief, nearly knocking over a lady with a shopping trolley. “You came into my life. You fed me this huge, amazing romance. You made me fall in lo—” I halt myself. “You said you were gripped by me. You made me … care for you … and I believed every single word.” My voice has a treacherous wobble. “I believed you, Jack. But all the way along, you had an ulterior motive. You were just using me for your stupid research. All the time, you were just … using me.”

  Jack looks horrified. “No,” he says. “No, wait. You have this wrong.” He grabs my arm. “That’s not the way it was. I didn’t set out to use you.”

  How does he have the nerve to say that?

  “Of course you did!” I say, wrenching my arm out of his grasp, jabbing the button at a pedestrian crossing. “Of course you did! Don’t deny it was me you were talking about in that interview! Don’t deny you had me in mind! Every detail was me! Every bloody detail!”

  “OK.” Jack is clasping his head. “OK. Listen. I don’t deny I had you in mind. I don’t deny you filtered into … But that doesn’t mean …” He looks up. “I have you on my mind most of the time. That’s the truth. I have you on my mind.”

  The pedestrian crossing suddenly starts bleeping, telling us to cross. This is my cue to storm off and him to come running after me—but neither of us moves. I want to storm off, but somehow my body isn’t doing it. Somehow my body wants to hear more.

  “Emma, when Pete and I started the Panther Corporation, you know how we worked?” Jack’s dark eyes are burning into mine. “You know how we made our decisions?”

  I shrug with a tell-me-if-you-like look.

  “Gut instinct. Would we buy this? Would we like this? Would we go for this? That’s what we asked each other. Every day, over and over.” He hesitates. “During the past few weeks, I’ve been immersed in this new women’s line. And all I’ve found myself asking myself is … would Emma like it? Would Emma drink it? Would Emma buy it?” Jack closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them. “Yes, you got into my thoughts. Yes, you fed into my work. Emma, my life and my business have always gotten confused. That’s the way I’ve always been. But that doesn’t mean my life isn’t real.” He hesitates. “It doesn’t mean that what we had … we have … is any less real.”

  He takes a deep breath and shoves his hands in his pockets.

  “Emma, I didn’t lie to you. I didn’t feed you anything. I was gripped by you the minute I met you on that plane. The minute you looked up at me and said the thing about doing the Heimlich maneuver … I was hooked. Not because of business … because of you. Because of who you are. Every single detail. From the way you pick out your favorite horoscope every morning, to the way you wrote the letter from Ernest P. Leopold, to your exercise plan on the wall. All of it.”

  His gaze is fixed on mine, and I feel myself wavering.

  Just for an instant.

  “That’s all very well,” I say, my voice shaking. “But you embarrassed me. You humiliated me!” I turn on my heel and start striding across the road again.

  “I didn’t mean to say so much,” says Jack, following me. “I didn’t mean to say anything! Believe me, Emma, I regret it as much as you do. The minute we stopped, I asked them to cut out that part. They promised me they would. I was …” He shakes his head. “I don’t know, goaded. I got carried away …”

  “You got carried away?” I feel a renewed surge of outrage. “Jack, you exposed every single detail about me!”

  “I know, and I’m sorry.”

  “You told the world about my underwear … and my sex life … and my Barbie bedcover, and you didn’t tell them it was ironic.”

  “Emma, I’m so sorry—”

  “You told them how much I weigh!” My voice rises to a shriek. “And you got it wrong!”

  “Emma, really, I’m sorry—”

  “Sorry isn’t good enough!” I wheel around to face him. “You ruined my life!”

  “I ruined your life?” He gives me a strange look. “Is your life ruined? Is it such a disaster for people to know the truth about you?”

  “I … I …” For a moment I flounder. “You don’t know what it was like for me!” I say, on firmer ground. “Everyone was laughing at me. Everyone was teasing me, in the whole office. Artemis was teasing me—”

  “I’ll fire her at once.” Jack makes a sweeping gesture with his arm.

  I’m so shocked, I burst into laughter, then immediately quell it. “And Nick was teasing me—”

  “I’ll fire him, too.” Jack thinks for a moment. “How about this: anyone who teased you, I’ll fire.”

  This time I can’t help giggling out loud. “You won’t have a company left.”

  “So be it. That’ll teach me. That’ll teach me to be so thoughtless.”

  For a moment we face each other in the sunshine.

  “Would you like to buy some lucky heather?” A woman in a pink sweatshirt suddenly thrusts a foil-wrapped sprig in my face, and I shake my head irritably.

  “Emma, I want to make this up to you,” Jack says as the woman moves away. “Could we have lunch? A drink? A … a smoothie?”

  I can feel part of me starting to unbend; I can feel part of me starting to believe him.

  “I don’t know,” I say, rubbing my nose.

  “Things were going so well, before I had to go and fuck it up.”

  “Were they?” I say.

  “Weren’t they?” Jack hesitates. “I kind of thought they were.”

  My mind is buzzing. There are things I need to say. There are things I need to get into the open. A thought suddenly crystallizes. “Jack … what were you doing in Scotland? When we first met.”

  At once, Jack’s face closes up and he looks away. “Emma … I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

  “Why not?” I say, trying to sound light.

  “It’s … complicated.”

  “OK, then.” I think for a moment. “Where did you go rushing off to that night with Sven? When you had to cut our date short.”

  “Emma—”

  “How about the night you had all those calls? What were those about?”

  This time he doesn’t even bother answering.

  “I see.” I push my hair back, trying to stay calm. “Jack, did it ever occur to you that in all our time together, you’ve hardly told me anything about yourself?”

  “I … guess I’m a private person,” says Jack. “Is it such a big deal?”

  “It’s … quite a big deal to me. I shared everything with you. Like you said. All my thoughts, all my worries—everything. And you’ve shared nothing with me.”

  “That’s not true.” He
steps forward.

  “Practically nothing, then. I mean, you didn’t even tell me you were going to be on television!”

  “It was just a dumb interview, for Chrissakes! Emma, you’re overreacting.”

  “I told you all my secrets,” I say stubbornly. “You didn’t tell me any of yours.”

  Jack sighs. “With all due respect, Emma, I think it’s a little different—”

  “What?” I’m totally shocked. “Why … why would it be any different?”

  “You have to understand. I have things in my life that are very sensitive … complicated … very important.…”

  “And I don’t? You think my secrets are less important than yours? You think I’m less hurt by your blurting them out on television?” I’m smarting with anger, with disappointment. “I suppose that’s because you’re so huge and important and I’m … What am I again, Jack?” I can feel my eyes filling with tears. “A ‘nothing-special girl’? An ‘ordinary, nothing-special girl’?”

  Jack winces, and I can see I’ve hit home. He closes his eyes, and for a long time I think he isn’t going to speak.

  “I didn’t mean to use those words,” he says. “The minute I said them, I wished I could take them back. I was … I was trying to evoke something very different from that … a kind of image.” He looks up. “Emma, you have to know I didn’t mean—”

  “I’m going to ask you again!” I say, resolute. “What were you doing in Scotland?”

  There’s silence. As I meet Jack’s eyes, I know he’s not going to tell me.

  “Fine,” I say, trying to keep control of my voice. “That’s fine. I’m obviously not as important as you. I’m just some amusing girl who provides you with entertainment on flights and gives you ideas for your business.”

  “Emma—”

  “The thing is, Jack, a real relationship is two-way. A real relationship is based on equality. And trust. So why don’t you just go and be with someone on your level, who you can share your precious secrets with? Because you obviously can’t share them with me.”

  I turn sharply before he can say anything else, and stalk away in tears.

  How I get through the afternoon, I don’t know. I sit at my desk, my face numb, while Artemis and Nick persist with their oh-so-funny running commentary. Artemis starts by asking me if I can recommend a good set of bathroom scales. Then Nick starts dropping Dickens references into every sentence.

  “… He’s a real Scrooge. Sorry, Emma, by ‘Scrooge’ I mean ‘miser.’ ”

  “You’re so hilarious,” I say without raising my head. “Really, you should have your own show.”

  Caroline, meanwhile, is obviously feeling sorry for me, so she comes over to my desk and makes conversation about my parents. Which, to be honest, is even less welcome.

  By the time I arrive home that evening, I have a throbbing headache and feel like crawling into a hole. I open the door of the flat to find Lissy and Jemima in a full-scale argument about animal rights.

  “The mink like being made into coats—” Jemima is saying as I push open the door to the living room. She breaks off and looks up. “Emma! Are you all right?”

  “No.” I slump down onto the sofa and wrap myself up in the green chenille throw that Lissy’s mum gave her for Christmas. “I had a huge row with Jack.”

  “With Jack?”

  “You saw him?”

  “He came to … well, to apologize, I guess.”

  Lissy and Jemima exchange looks.

  “What happened?” says Lissy, hugging her knees. “What did he say?”

  “He said … he didn’t ever mean to use me. He said I got in his thoughts. He said he’d fire everyone in the company who teased me.”

  “Really?” says Lissy. “Gosh. That’s quite romant—” She coughs, and pulls an apologetic face. “Sorry.”

  “He said he was really sorry for what happened, and he didn’t mean to say all that stuff on the TV, and that our romance was … Anyway. He said a lot of things. But then he said …” I feel fresh indignation rising. “He said his secrets were more important than mine.”

  Simultaneous gasps of outrage.

  “No!” says Lissy.

  “Bastard!” says Jemima. “What secrets?”

  “I asked him about Scotland. And rushing off from the date.” I meet Lissy’s eyes. “And … all those things he would never talk to me about.”

  “And what did he say?” says Lissy.

  “He wouldn’t tell me. He said it was too ‘sensitive and complicated.’ ”

  “Sensitive and complicated?” Jemima looks galvanized. “Jack has a sensitive and complicated secret? You never mentioned this before! Emma, this is totally perfect! You find out what it is … and then you expose it!”

  God, she’s right. I could do it. I could get back at Jack. I could make him hurt like I’ve been hurt. “But I have no idea what it is,” I say.

  “You can find out!” says Jemima. “That’s easy enough. The point is, you know he’s hiding something.”

  “There’s definitely some strange stuff going on,” says Lissy thoughtfully. “He has all these phone calls he won’t talk about, he rushes off mysteriously from your date—”

  “He rushed off mysteriously?” says Jemima avidly. “Where? Did he say anything? Did you overhear anything?”

  “No!” I say, flushing slightly. “Of course not! I don’t … I would never eavesdrop on people!”

  Jemima gives me a close look.

  “Don’t give me that! Yes, you did! You did hear something. Come on, Emma. What was it?”

  My mind flashes back to that evening. Sitting on the bench, sipping the pink cocktail. The breeze is blowing on my face; Jack and Sven are talking in low voices.…

  “It was nothing much,” I say reluctantly. “I just heard him say something about … having to transfer something … and Plan B … and something being urgent.”

  “Transfer what?” says Lissy suspiciously. “Funds?”

  “I dunno. And … they said something about flying back up to Glasgow.”

  Jemima is clutching her head in agitation. “Emma, I do not believe this. You’ve had this information all this time? This has to be something juicy. It has to be. If only we knew more …” She exhales in frustration. “You didn’t have a Dictaphone or anything with you?”

  “Of course I didn’t!” I say with a little laugh. “It was a date! Do you normally take a Dictaphone on a …” I trail off, incredulous at her expression. “Jemima. You don’t.”

  “Not always!” she says, shrugging. “Just if I think it might come in … Anyway. That’s irrelevant. The point is, you have information, Emma. You have power. You find out what this is all about—and then you expose him! That’ll show Jack Harper who’s boss! That’ll get your revenge!”

  For a moment I feel sheer, powerful exhilaration. That would pay Jack back. That would show him. Then he’d be sorry! Then he’d see I’m not just some nothing nobody girl. Then he’d see.

  “So … so how would I do it?”

  “First we try to work out as much as we can ourselves,” says Jemima. “Then I’ve got access to various … people who can help get more information.” She gives me a wink. “Discreetly.”

  “Private detectives?” says Lissy in disbelief. “Are you for real?”

  “And then we expose him! Mummy’s got contacts at all the papers.”

  My heart is thumping. Am I really talking about doing this?

  “A very good place to start is rubbish bins,” adds Jemima knowledgeably. “You can find all sorts of things just by looking through somebody’s trash.”

  And suddenly it’s like sanity comes flying in through the window. “Rubbish bins?” I say in horror. “I’m not looking in any rubbish bins! In fact, I’m not doing this, full stop! It’s a crazy idea.”

  “You can’t get all precious now, Emma!” says Jemima tartly, flicking back her hair. “How else are you going to find out what his secret is?”

  “Maybe I do
n’t want to find out what his secret is,” I retort, feeling a sudden sting of pride. “Maybe I’m not interested.”

  I hunch my shoulders and wrap the chenille throw around me even more tightly.

  So Jack’s got some huge secret he can’t trust me with. Well, fine. Let him keep it. I’m not going to demean myself by grubbing after it. I’m not going to start poking around rubbish bins. I don’t care what it is. I don’t care about him.

  “I want to forget about it,” I say morosely. “I want to move on.”

  “No, you don’t!” retorts Jemima. “Don’t be stupid, Emma! This is your big chance for revenge! We are so going to get him.” I have never seen Jemima look so animated in my life. She reaches for her bag and gets out a lilac Smythson notebook, together with a Tiffany pen. “Right, so, what do we know? Glasgow … Plan B … transfer.…”

  “The Panther Corporation doesn’t have offices in Scotland, does it?” says Lissy thoughtfully.

  I turn my head in disbelief. She’s scribbling on a pad of legal paper, with exactly the same preoccupied look she gets when she’s solving one of her geeky puzzles. I can see the words “Glasgow,” “transfer,” and “Plan B,” and a place where she’s jumbled up all the letters in “Scotland” and tried to make a new word out of them.

  “Lissy, what are you doing?”

  “I’m just … fiddling around,” she says, and blushes. “I might go and look some stuff up on the Internet, just out of interest.”

  “Look—just stop it, both of you!” I say. “If Jack doesn’t want to tell me what his secret is, then I don’t want to know.”

  Suddenly I feel completely drained by the day. And bruised. I’m not interested in Jack’s mysterious secret life. I don’t want to think about it anymore. I want to have a long, hot bath and go to bed and just forget I ever met him.

  Twenty-three

  Except, of course, I can’t.

  Jack’s face keeps appearing in my head when I don’t want it to. The way he looked at me in the sunlight, his face all crinkled up.

  I lie in bed, going over it again and again. Feeling the same smart of hurt, the same disappointment.

  I told him everything about myself. Everything. And he won’t even tell me one—