Netta flushed. ‘Yep.’
‘Go on.’ Mo could feel his hackles rising already. Any story involving Mitch Carlton was never going to be good. The guy probably couldn’t even spell the word ‘integrity’.
‘The interview went well, and a couple of days later, the agency called to tell me I had the job if I wanted it. I’d be looking after their two young children full time, I’d have a room at their house, and I’d travel with them when they went away on family holidays. It sounded like a dream come true, Mo. It all seemed so glamourous.’
‘So, you took the job, I’m guessing?’
‘Yeah, I did. I couldn’t sign the contract fast enough.’
‘And then?’
‘It started off small. He’d compliment me on what I was wearing, or tell me I looked pretty with my hair a certain way. I was so naïve. I thought he was just being kind, at first. He was so handsome, and he was older and powerful. And he was known for being such a prick to everyone, but he was so nice to me. I’m so ashamed now, but at the time, it was intoxicating. I developed a full-on crush on him. I actually thought I was in love with him.’ Her hands twisted in her lap. ‘It sounds so stupid, I know.’
‘It doesn’t sound stupid,’ he said, his heart squeezing at Netta’s obvious discomfort; her pink cheeks, the cringe clouding her face. ‘You were young, you’d just lost your mum. You were vulnerable.’
She smiled gratefully at him, her eyes shining. Mo was struck in that moment, like a lightning rod in a storm, by just how beautiful Netta was. How soft and open a face could be when someone was being real—it wasn’t something he got to see very often.
Her voice was quieter when she spoke again. ‘Liza was away quite a lot, filming on location or whatever, and Mitch started telling me things about their marriage. About how they weren’t really happy. That it was all just for show.’
Mo’s gut clenched. He knew exactly where this was going.
‘He started making little moves, here and there,’ Netta continued. ‘Innocent enough at first, I guess. He’d touch my hand or brush my hair away from my face. Stuff like that. Then one day, he gave me a necklace, and when I asked him what it was for, he said it was so I could have something to remember him by when he was at work.’
She paused for a sip of tea, the slight tremor in her hand as she lowered the cup a telltale sign of how difficult it was for her to tell Mo the story.
‘Liza had always been a little frosty with me so it was easy to believe the things he was telling me about their marriage,’ Netta continued. ‘He started to divulge more and more—stuff I shouldn’t have known. Thinking back now, it was so inappropriate to be sharing such personal information with a staff member, but at the time, I thought it meant that he trusted me, and maybe that he liked me, if you know what I mean. I felt so sorry for him … ugh.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘No.’ Netta looked as though a rancid taste had leapt into her mouth. ‘I’m hearing myself say all this stuff out loud and realising how unbelievablystupidI was to fall for it all. He barely even had to try.’
‘Don’t pin this on yourself, Netta,’ Mo said. ‘From what I’ve heard so far, it’s all on him.’
Netta took a deep breath. ‘It gets worse.’
Mo tightened his grip on the handle of his mug, wishing it was Mitch Carlton’s neck. ‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’
‘I’ve come this far.’ Netta shrugged. ‘So, one night he came home upset. He’d been drinking, and he was crying and carrying on in the kitchen. I asked him what was going on, and he told me that Liza was having an affair and that they were getting a divorce. He seemed devastated, Mo. Genuinely. And of course, bleeding heart that I am, my instinct was to comfort him. He asked if he could have a hug and I gave him one.’ She paused to shake her head admonishingly. ‘And then before I knew it, he kissed me. And, Mo, I kissed him back. Because I wanted to, and because I thought the light was green. I thought if Liza was doing the dirty on him and they were breaking up, then I wasn’t technically doing anything wrong—if you take the whole boss–employee factor out of the equation.’
‘And even then, it would’ve beenhimbeing inappropriate, not you,’ Mo said.
‘Yeah. Well, things quickly became even less appropriate, if you get what I mean.’
Mo pressed his lips together and nodded, doing his best not to picture her with that complete waste of oxygen.
‘It went on for a while. Liza was away, working on location, and when she came home, she worked it out pretty quickly. I am not wired for subterfuge, it seems.’ Netta smiled self-consciously. ‘She had a photographer follow me one day and he got photos of Mitch with his hand on my bum, whispering in my ear. The photo went nuts. It was everywhere. I was the “home-wrecking nanny”. My job was gone, of course, and then Mitch did a tell-all interview about it and said I’d pre-meditated the whole thing. That I’d lied to him. That it wasmewho’d toldhimthat Liza was having an affair and that he’d been so shattered that he’d let me seduce him when he was a broken man. He blamed it all on me.’
Mo shook his head, baffled by the way some men thought they could treat women. He hadn’t been an angel himself, obviously, but he’d always,alwaysbeen honest.
‘I couldn’t go anywhere without a photographer trailing me,’ Netta added. ‘Or someone screaming at me that I was a slut.’
‘I hate that word,’ said Mo.
‘Me too. But it wasn’t the worst thing I got called, believe me. You know how loved Liza is—people seemed personally offended that I’d hurt her. And because I’d signed an NDA when I accepted the job, I couldn’t defend myself without breaking the agreement. I could barely afford a coffee in those days, let alone legal fees. It was so awful, Mo.’
‘That greasy fuck,’ said Mo. ‘Was Liza even having an affair?’
‘No! I think that was one of the worst bits about it. He’d orchestrated the whole thing. He manipulated me and I fell for it all like an idiot. Hook, line and sinker.’
