The Forbidden

  Yes! Please borrow me! Get me away!

  “Sure,” Jack says softly, but I’m walking back into the building before I get his go ahead. And I can feel his fiery stare on me the whole damn way, raising my temperature higher and higher.

  “Is it me, or is it really warm today?” I ask Richard’s back, pulling at the sides of my heavy visibility jacket.

  “It’s you.” He laughs and points to a wall splitting two rooms. “This here is a supporting wall.”

  “Right,” I confirm. “And the wall on the next floor is, too, so we need a pretty hefty steel in there. The calculations are on the drawing. I suspect we’ll need to get it specially made.”

  “I’ll speak to the fabricators.” Richard reaches into his pocket and pulls out his card. “You’ll be needing this.”

  “Perfect.”

  “And this.” Another card appears, held between the fingers of Jack’s big hand.

  “Thank you.” I take it without looking at him and slip them both into my trouser pocket.

  “It’s gonna look amazing,” Richard remarks. Any other time, I would feel a sense of pride, but right now I’m riddled with too much apprehension to feel anything else.

  “Colin’s filled you in on the roof situation?” I ask.

  Richard laughs. “Yes. You’re one brave woman. If that roof arrives with a chip or crack, this whole project will be knocked off schedule.”

  “I have a question.” Jack steps forward, and I can’t stop my eyes from meeting his. The gray I remember is clouded and dull, not sparkling and glittery. He’s definitely suffering here, and I get no pleasure from it. I’m suffering, too.

  “What?” I ask tentatively, my head spinning with all of the questions that are probably on his mind, none of them work related.

  He lifts a heavy arm and points at my torso. “Can I have my coat back?”

  Richard starts laughing, and I tense from top to toe, looking down my front. “It’s yours?” Quickly shrugging the coat off, I hand it to Jack on an awkward smile.

  He takes it slowly, and then his arm starts to lift toward me. I find myself discreetly pulling back, my stare following his outreached hand as it moves toward my head. What is he doing?

  “And this,” he says quietly, taking the hard hat from my head.

  I let my tense muscles relax as he pulls back. “Thanks for letting me borrow them.”

  “I didn’t.” He swings his coat on, stilling when he’s shoved one arm through the sleeve, his face lowering to the collar a little. He almost scowls, and I know that it’s because he just got a waft of my girly perfume lingering on the threads. “Richard did,” he finishes, looking at Richard like he hates him.

  I have a feeling that coat will be going on a super-hot wash to get rid of my lingering scent the moment Jack gets home. Maybe even in the bin. Arranging the collar, he flexes his neck, and I see it again. Marks, but this time I’m a lot closer, and I can see there are four perfect lines. Scratches?

  “What have you done?” I ask before I can stop myself, my hand lifting to his throat to touch gently below one of the raw red marks.

  Jack freezes, his wide eyes burning into my concerned ones. It’s silent for a few tense seconds; not even Richard says a word. “It’s nothing.” Jack moves away from my touch and back over to the drawings. “Do we have the bifold door spec on here, too?” he asks.

  I look at Richard, my arm dropping to my side. His narrowed eyes turn to me, and he shakes his head, his lips in an angry, straight line. “Bottom right corner,” he answers for me.

  “They’ve changed. The drawing I have states five meters wide.”

  “Colin wanted more light,” I say quietly, my head spinning. What’s happened?

  “Get them re-quoted,” Jack orders shortly, and Richard nods. “I have somewhere I need to be.”

  Without so much as a second glance, Jack storms out, leaving me and Richard standing in awkward silence. I know it’s not my place to ask, and I know I really shouldn’t, but—

  “Don’t ask,” Richard grunts, marching off after Jack. I remain where I am for a few moments, stunned and quiet, and once I’ve finally found the will to move, I do so on heavy feet, collecting my bag and files and making my way out to the front.

  Jack’s car is still in the driveway, him sitting in the driver’s seat, the door open with Richard leaning in. Although it’s quiet, I can see strong words being exchanged, and Richard puts his hand on Jack’s shoulder. It’s a reassuring gesture, one that gets my curiosity raging more, no matter how hard I try to beat it back.

  I stand there, quietly observing while they talk, Jack’s head getting lower by the second. Until his eyes shoot up and catch me watching him. His stoic expression and his hard stare make it impossible for me to move. I hold his eyes, as he holds mine, electricity sizzling between our distant bodies like they’re touching. I see it all again, every second from that night, in clear, vivid detail. I start to breathe slowly, seeing Jack’s chest rising and falling, too.

  It’s only when Richard moves back that we both snap out of our trances, and Jack grabs the door, yanking it shut. He practically wheel-spins off the gravel, leaving me with a racing mind and Richard shaking his head in despair as he marches back toward the building.

  “Everything okay?” I ask as he passes me, unable to hold back my misplaced concern.

  “Personal problems,” Richard grunts, disappearing through the door.

  * * *

  As I roll into suburban hell early on Wednesday evening, I spot my dad on the front lawn trimming his shrubs. The garage door is open and his old Jaguar is in the drive, sparkling like new despite being twenty years old. As I pull up at the bottom of the driveway, he looks up and frowns. “Don’t plonk it there!” he calls, waving his shears over his head. “Makes the cul-de-sac look untidy!”

  I roll my eyes and throw my arms into the air. “Then where shall I park?”

  He huffs and puffs and stomps over to his Jaguar. “Behind Jerry.”

  “Jerry the fucking Jag,” I mutter, ramming my car into first and speeding up the driveway. Dad’s face is a picture of horror as I screech to a stop inches away from the bumper of his prized possession. I jump out, just as Mum comes dashing out of the front door, an apron wrapped neatly around her waist, protecting her flouncy skirt. She has a mixing bowl and wooden spoon in her grasp. “Hi, Mum!”

  “Annie, darling!” she sings, delighted to see me.

  I shut the car door and pass my father, who’s still staring down at the bumper of his Jag, like he’s worried my filthy Golf might stick its tongue out and smear the sparkling paintwork. “How are you?” I ask, kissing her cheek gently as I pass her on the doorstep.

  “Wonderful!” She follows me into the kitchen and the smell I thought I’d be glad to see the back of when I lived here invades my nose. I stop and inhale it all in. “Roast chicken,” I breathe.

  “You know your father loves his roast dinners, darling.” She places her bowl on the countertop and brushes her hands down her apron. “It’s an all-day affair preparing the bird and mixing the batter for his Yorkshire pudding.” She rolls her eyes like it’s an inconvenience. I don’t know why. She thrives on faffing around him.

  “I’m starving,” I say, flicking the kettle on. This is what I need. One of my mum’s home-cooked dinners. Comfort food.

  “Good!” she says. I’ve made her day. Now she has two people to faff over. “And I did a crumble!”

  My mouth waters. Mum’s crumble is the nuts. “I can’t wait!”

  She looks at me, slight suspicion in her eyes. “You look stressed.”

  I lift my files for her to see. “Work,” I lie. I don’t get stressed out with work. I love work. I get stressed out by handsome married men who neglect to mention that they’re married. “Mind if I load up my laptop at the dining table?”

  She smiles, losing her suspicious look in a second. She’s so easy to fool, wrapped up in her perfect little ideal world, baking and faffing over
Dad. She’d pass out if she knew what her daughter has been up to. Adultery. The ultimate sin.

  “I’ll clear it for you.” She’s off into the dining room quickly. “Though you’ll have to stay at one end so I can set the table for dinner.”

  “Thanks, Mum. Want any help?” I ask, pulling down some teacups from the cupboard and finding the teapot before I let my mind spiral into the realms of my sins again.

  “You make the tea, darling. And remember your father likes half a teaspoon of sugar.”

  “God help me if I put just one granule in too much,” I say to myself, measuring out a perfect half teaspoon and tossing it into the cup.

  “Pardon?”

  “Nothing!” I sing, wondering how I lived with them this past year. Then I wonder for the first time if Mum truly enjoys her life waiting on my father hand and foot. That’s her sole purpose, especially since he sold his firm and retired. Faffing. She had no aspirations, no career ambitions, except being a stay-at-home mum and housewife. Now that I’m all grown up, she passes the days away faffing. Faffing around the house, faffing in the garden, faffing over my father, and faffing over me when I’m home. I look like my mother, the dark hair, the pale green eyes, but the similarities end there. She faffs. She’s wholesome. I, however, am not. I fuck married men.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself!” Dad barks as he wanders into the kitchen armed with his garden shears.

  I jerk at his voice. Did he hear my thoughts? Oh God, he knows. He knows what I’ve done! Beads of sweat—guilty sweat—start to form on my forehead. They’ll disown me.

  “Your car is an absolute disgrace,” he goes on. My hands hit the side of the worktop, holding me up. Shit, I’m being paranoid.

  “You can wash it if you like,” I breathe, gathering myself and finishing off the tea, handing him his mug. He eyes the tea with caution, and I know it’s because my mother hasn’t made it. “Half a sugar,” I confirm before he asks.

  He places his shears on the side, making Mum shriek in horror. “Stanley, dear good lord!” She darts over and swipes them up. “Now I’ll have to clean the worktop again!”

  Dad rolls his eyes and turns on his heels. “Well, it’s been at least an hour since you last disinfected it, June. I’ll be in the garage.”

  “Yes, dear,” Mum chimes, not showing a shred of annoyance at my dad’s grumpiness. I don’t know how she does it. Since he’s retired, he’s a real grouch.

  “I’ll be in the dining room,” I say, leaving Mum scrubbing the worktop. I park myself at the dark wooden circa-1990s table and load my laptop, falling into thought as it fires up. A bad move, but those marks on Jack’s neck are a constant in my mind, now accompanying Jack’s face and his wife’s.

  “You work too much,” my mother says, wandering over to the sideboard and dusting off a minuscule speck of dust from the shiny surface.

  “That’s how people become successful, Mum.”

  “And what about the other things in life?”

  “Like?”

  “Like a husband and children. When are you going to make me a grandmother?”

  Grandchildren? I laugh to myself. More people for her to faff over. “Give me a chance, Mother.”

  “Well, you’re knocking on thirty.” She nods at the drawings splayed out on the table before me, while I look at her incredulously. “Does that really make you happy, Annie?”

  I swallow and return to my laptop. “Yes. Very happy.”

  I hear her sigh, leaving me to get on with my work quietly. “Maybe when the right man comes along you’ll think of something other than work.”

  I close my eyes, wilting in the chair. I’m already thinking of something other than work. Except he isn’t the right man.

  * * *

  After a pleasant dinner with my parents, I pack up my things and kiss them both good-bye, promising I’ll pop over this weekend. I’m scrolling through my e-mails as I make my way to my car, checking for any that are going to keep me up late. One jumps out at me from the French company that is manufacturing my super-duper glass roof, and I frown as I open it, hoping the production is still on track as they promised.

  “Oh shit,” I breathe, scanning through the e-mail. “No, no. no!”

  I pull my car door open and throw my bags onto the passenger seat, then fall into the driver’s.

  “How can you miscalculate the weight?” I ask my phone, diving into my work bag for my calculator and drawings.

  I urgently punch at the keys, hoping beyond all hope that they’ve made a mistake in saying they’ve made a mistake. If the roof is two-hundred kilos heavier than they’ve stipulated, it’s going to throw all the engineers’ calculations askew.

  “Fuck!” I slam my head against the headrest when the figure on my calculator matches the revised calculations in the e-mail. “You bloody idiots!”

  I start my car and reverse down the drive quickly, kissing good-bye to my planned early night.

  * * *

  When I pull up at the project site, it’s dusk and the driveway is now ram-packed with skips, scaffolding, and materials, the two entrances blocked off with security railings. I park down the road and grab my things, my mind searching for a remedy to the spanner in my works. I can think of none, and the thought that I may have to kiss my glass roof good-bye makes me want to cry.

  Of course, I ignore the warning signs all over the metal railings telling me not to enter the site, and pull back one of the panels, squeezing through the gap. I let myself in, hurrying straight to the back of the building where the extension will be built from the back external wall. Flicking a light on, I get my drawings out and find the calculations I need while pulling up the e-mail with the new, actual weight of my roof. It takes approximately ten seconds for me to conclude that my roof doesn’t stand a chance of being held up by the proposed steelwork without another load-bearing wall to support it. And there is no other damn load-bearing wall nearby that I can tap into. My heart sinks, and I reach up to my forehead to rub away the instant headache.

  Thud!

  I jump and swing around, my hand moving from my head to my chest. What was that? My eyes scan the space, wary. “Hello?”

  Thud!

  And my heart kicks up ten gears.

  Thud!

  I reach for my mobile, moving warily toward the sound coming from outside.

  Thud!

  The noise continues, consistent and even, and I pull to a stop, wondering what in heaven’s name I’m doing moving toward it. I should call the police, but just as I start to back up, ready to leave, I hear a light curse. The voice gets me moving back toward the sound, and I round the corner to find the door to the garden open. I lose my breath when I see what the source of the noise is, and I reach for the frame of the door for support.

  Thud!

  Jack slams the shovel into the ground and wedges his booted foot on the top, working it down before heaving the spade up and tossing the dirt aside. My body goes lax and my phone slips from my hand, hitting the floor at my feet. He swings around quickly and I’m nearly knocked to my arse by the sight of him in dirty old jeans, his chest bare and sweating, and his muscled torso glimmering in the dusky light. His hair is damp, his face smeared with mud. Oh, lord have mercy.

  “Annie?” Jack moves forward, squinting, as if he’s not sure he’s seeing right.

  I gulp and look away from the enthralling sight of his naked torso and perfectly dirtied face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize anyone was here.”

  “I’m just…” His words fade, and I look up at him. “Digging a trial pit.”

  “Don’t you have employees to do that?” I ask, thinking I’m sure none of them would look as good as Jack does digging a hole.

  He glances down at the pile of dirt he’s built up, wedging his shovel in the ground next to him. “I like getting my hands dirty every now and then,” he tells me quietly.

  “At eight o’clock in the evening?”

  He looks up at me as I bend to collect my pho
ne. “What are you doing here?”

  The scratches on his throat catch my eye again, though they’re fainter than they were yesterday morning. “A problem with the roof.”

  His gorgeous face furrows in confusion. “What problem?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing.” I dismiss his question and back up, knowing I need to leave. It’s tricky enough being in his company as it is, my willpower and conscience constantly being tested to the limit, but here now, when he’s half-naked, sweaty, and his muscles are pulsating, it’s beyond perilous. “I just needed to check some measurements.”