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‘No, nothing like that.’
‘So what is it? You’re not moving away? You’ve only just bought that house.’
Nikki shut her eyes and put up her hand. Jess was talking at her, and it was making her feel panicky. ‘Shush. Slow down. I’ll explain. Just hear me out for a minute.’
‘OK. Sorry.’ Jess put her arms round her knees and tried to look obedient, like a disruptive pupil who’d been told off and was doing her best to restrain herself. On another day, Nikki would have found it amusing, but she wanted to get her confession over and done with.
‘The first thing you need to know is, if I don’t tell you this, someone else is going to. And I’d rather it came from me.’ Jess opened her mouth then shut it when Nikki darted her a warning look. ‘And I’ve never told you before because … well, I won’t need to explain why, once you know.’
Of course she’d never told her before. She would never have been so cruel. It wasn’t because she was a coward. It was to protect Jess, and her memory of Rik. And at least by being the one to tell her now, she could limit the damage. She took in a deep breath. She’d rehearsed this bit, over and over.
‘It’s about Rik.’
‘Rik?’ Jess looked startled.
‘We had a … bit of a fling. Just before he died. It was just a flirtation, really. Honestly nothing serious. But I can’t keep it secret any longer. And I want you to know that even though he was having a bit of a wobble, he absolutely adored you. And if it was anyone’s fault it was mine, because I … was in a bad place and I liked the attention and I knew he was … a bit insecure …’
This was agony. Telling the truth, but protecting Jess from the absolute truth, the intimate details that would crucify her.
Jess was sitting bolt upright, staring at her. Nikki couldn’t read the expression in her eyes. They were blank. She seemed hypnotised by what she’d been told. She ploughed on.
‘Somehow, somebody else knows about it. I don’t know who, or how, but they’re threatening me. Threatening to tell. And they might try and turn it into something it wasn’t. So that’s why I’m telling you. So you don’t read too much into it. So that you know how insignificant it was. You were the love of his life and I think he always lived in terror of losing you and he turned to me for reassurance and I was so bloody needy I thought he wanted something else and I ended up kissing him.’
There was still no response. Nikki realised she had been bracing herself for an explosion. But the only sign Jess had even heard what Nikki was saying was her chest rising and falling a little faster, and a slight flush on her cheeks.
‘Rik loved you very much,’ Nikki went on. ‘He was in total awe of you. And he was mortified by what we did. He made me swear never to tell anyone, and I didn’t. But somehow someone knows. Or has guessed.’ All the stress and the panic from the threats were building up inside her. She tried to stay calm, because getting hysterical was only going to make her look more guilty. ‘This was the only way I could think of to make sure they didn’t hurt you more than was necessary.’
Jess’s eyes were boring into her. Nikki couldn’t tell what was going through her mind. Or how she was processing what she’d been told. Which was the greater shock? Nikki’s betrayal? Or Rik’s?
‘Say something,’ Nikki whispered.
Finally, Jess blinked. Now, her eyes were swimming with tears.
‘I knew,’ she said.
Nikki frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
Jess gave her a twisted smile, her chin trembling as she shrugged. ‘I knew all along.’
Nikki fell back in her chair.
‘What?’
‘It was so bloody obvious. You couldn’t keep your eyes off each other when you were in the same room,’ she told her. ‘In the kitchen at Mariners. In the Neptune. You lit up like a Christmas tree whenever he was anywhere near you, and he wouldn’t let you out of his sight. I could feel the electricity between you.’ She put up a hand and jerked it, as if getting a shock from an electric fence. ‘And I could always tell when he’d been with you. He was so happy. His smile reached his eyes in a way they didn’t when he was with me.’
‘You knew?’ Nikki finally found her voice. She would never have guessed that Jess knew in a million years.
Jess turned and looked her straight in the eye. Her gaze was intense. Searching. What for? Nikki wondered, feeling uncomfortable under her scrutiny.
‘You must know I stole him from you, in the first place,’ Jess said eventually.
‘What?’
‘I knew you two had something right from the start. It was there, in the room, a connection between you. He was so dazzling, so seductive, so out of this world, I wanted him for myself. And I knew clicking my fingers wouldn’t be enough. It usually worked. It still does, sometimes.’ Jess gave a laugh. She did have a way of hypnotising men. It was her confidence. ‘But I could see he wasn’t enough of a bastard to turn his back on you.’
‘OK,’ said Nikki, not sure where this was going.
‘So I had to think of another way to snag him. I told him you and Woody were childhood sweethearts. I told him you were as good as engaged. And so I was able to steal him. Right from under your nose. And I’m sorry.’
