Page 18 of The Jealous Girl

I flinched as the kettle clicked off. The frantic bubbling slowed, then stilled. Automatically, I reached for a mug from the drainer, dropped a teabag inside and poured the water. The routine was familiar. Normal.

Normal.

The word lodged in my brain.

Nothing about this morning had felt normal.

The castle.

The vet.

The envelope.

Be careful.

The water grew darker, but I didn’t move.

Was it an affair? The idea surfaced again, but something about it felt off.

It was too simple. Too weak. It didn’t fit.

Charlotte had worked so hard to get Ryan. Again. Why would she risk an affair when she finally had everything she’d wanted?

But then, what had been in the envelope?

And why meet there? Away from the stables. Away from everyone. Unless they didn’t want to be observed.

I replayed the encounter again. There’d been no warmth between them. No touch. Just distance. Caution. My stomach tightened as the realisation settled, cold and certain. They didn’t trust each other. I didn’t know why. But I knew that much. And I couldn’t let it go.

Maybe I should. But I couldn’t. Because she hadn’t.

Charlotte had never walked away.

Not from me. Not from Ryan. Not from anything she’d decided she wanted.

So why should I?

My breathing steadied, the edge of panic dulling into something sharper. Clearer. More focused.

I wasn’t going back out there. I wasn’t going to follow her again. That had been a mistake.

But that didn’t mean I had to give up.

Charlotte liked to be seen. That was the thing about her, she couldn’t survive without attention. It wasn’t enough just to live her life. She had to capture it too.

I reached for my phone. I didn’t need to chase her. I could follow her without leaving the flat.

I shuffled to the kitchen table and sank into a chair; my gaze fixed on the phone in my hand as I jabbed at the screen.

Instagram opened and I smiled slightly as I switched accounts. Charlotte would never allow me to follow her. Not from my account. But I didn’t need to. I already had a way into her world.

My time at the stables might not have been the experience I’d hoped for, but I’d done my best to be useful. I might have been clueless about horses and the practical side of running an equestrian business, but I knew enough to know any business needed a social media presence. Something they were lacking.

I’d set up their accounts myself. It was one of the few things they’d actually let me do. I’d created the accounts. Set the passwords. And no one had changed them.

A faint smile tugged at my lips. They couldn’t. It was all linked to my personal email address. My phone number. Anything they wanted to change would come through me.

Of course, I’d unfollowed the stables from my personal account when I’d left two years ago. I’d unfollowed Ryan too. I’d cut myself out as cleanly as I could. But that didn’t mean I’d stopped keeping track. I lingered in the background where no one noticed me.