Page 38 of The Work Husband

‘What’ve you been up to?’ I asked as we sat down and started to eat. ‘Anything exciting?’

‘Not much,’ he said around a mouthful of dal and rice. ‘The usual.’

What’s the usual? The usual was what we did on weekends when we were together. Not knowing what he would’ve done while I was away felt unsettling and alien, almost as if he was a stranger and not my boyfriend of four years.

‘You did some washing,’ I said encouragingly.

‘Sure did. And went for a run, and played a bit of Crusader Kings, and did some work on the footage we shot last week. The guys watched the football in the pub last night, but I wasn’t feeling it, so I stayed home.’

‘Did you miss me?’ I fished.

‘Nah, barely noticed you were gone.’ Sam grinned at me. ‘Time flies when you’re playing Crusader Kings.’

I laughed. I knew he wasn’t serious – but at the same time, I didn’t. We’d texted last night, but the exchange had been brief. I’d been tired and a bit drunk, and Sam had said he was already in bed.

At least that was what he’d said. I had no reason to doubt him – or did I? All at once, leaving him alone for the weekend felt like it had been a high-risk strategy, not just a routine trip away for work with a side-order of making him worry – just a tiny bit – about who I was with and what I was doing.

‘So how was the swanky hotel?’ Sam asked. ‘Did you have fun?’

‘It was amazing,’ I told him. ‘Seriously posh. The food was incredible. And the place – well, maybe you’ll get to see it sometime.’

‘Once we win the lottery,’ Sam joked.

I put down my fork. My phone was next to me on the kitchen counter. The Instagram story Jamie had posted was right there at the top of my feed, waiting. He’d added the final image to it that morning, his fingers flicking expertly over the screen.

‘Done and dusted,’ he’d said. ‘Our clients will be bashing Hadleigh Hall’s doors down when they see this.’

‘Good job,’ I replied, my mind already on the long train journey home.

‘Of course, you know who else might like to see it,’ Jamie said, with a flicker of a smile.

‘You mean Jasper?’

He tutted. ‘Do keep up, Georgia. I mean Sam. If this doesn’t put the frighteners on him, nothing will.’

‘Wait, what? What have you posted?’

Smiling, he handed me his phone – not that he needed to because the content would be right there on mine too, because of course I followed the work account even though Jamie did most of the posts on it.

It was all there. Jamie and me posing by the door of the hotel, flanked by the yew peacocks, his arm around my waist. Me standing next to Jamie while he slotted his key into the door of his bedroom, the Do Not Disturb sign I hadn’t noticed at the time looped over the handle. Jamie and me cheers-ing with glasses of champagne, all dressed up for dinner. And, of course, Jamie and me in the spa, clearly as good as naked beneath our fluffy towels.

‘You can’t post these,’ I objected in horror.

‘Too late – I already did,’ he’d said. ‘If I were you, I’d use them.’

Now, I was faced with a choice. Did I show Sam or keep quiet? If I didn’t show him, there was nothing stopping him finding the post on his own – it was right there, out in the public domain. If I did, it would look more innocent rather than less.

And besides, if the niggling worry in my mind that he might not have spent the weekend blamelessly alone was founded on anything but irrational jealousy and paranoia, I’d give Sam reason to have worries of his own.

‘Here, let me show you.’ My decision abruptly made, I handed Sam my phone.

His face as the story played on the screen was expressionless. He watched it right the way through, taking a couple of mouthfuls of food during the boring bits.

Not that there were any boring bits.

‘Looks incredible,’ he said when it had finished. ‘Glad you guys had fun.’

And that was the full extent of his reaction. He didn’t sound glad, though. He sounded cold, almost indifferent. Or like he didn’t feel indifferent but was pretending he did. Which was it? I couldn’t tell, and I obviously couldn’t ask.