Jack’s house isn’t the typical Ikea-bought black-furniture bachelor pad. If he has one positive attribute, it’s his good taste. Although the exposed brick work, sleek lines and distressed oak furniture of his home isn’t found in mine, I can appreciate its allure.
It’s not very often I attend an event as a guest instead of a host, but I was glad to leave the stress of cooking and cleaning and topping up glasses to someone else for a change. Jack was all smiles and charm as he seamlessly moved from one group of people to the next, handing out canapés and refreshing drinks, but the mask of calm slipped when he approached me, blue eyes flashing angrily. ‘There are far more than twenty people here, Ada.’
The perfect picture of innocence, I blinked and made a show of looking around the room. ‘There are?’
The only part I had in planning Kathryn’s birthday, besides manoeuvring it to Jack’s, was the guest list. I’d agreed to keep it small with only twenty attendees but squeezed in an extra ten on top of that at the last moment. The fact is, Elodie, the more people at his house, the busier he’d be and the more freedom I’d have to snoop.
‘Yes,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Can’t you count?’
‘Clearly not.’ I couldn’t help the slow curve of my lips as I recalled his remark at my garden party. ‘Remember, Jack, I didn’t even finish my A-levels.’
He looked like he wanted to crack me over the head with the bottle in his hand, right there and then. But he isn’t stupid. I took a sip of my champagne and watched him stalk away. When he was gone, I snuck into the kitchen and poured three bottles of tonic down the sink. As I’d hoped, a short while later, Jack told Charlie he was popping out to grab more mixer from the shop.
Heart thumping fast in my chest, I seized the opportunity and nipped upstairs. First, I used the bathroom in case anyone had followed me up, taking off my rings and placing them on the sink as I washed my hands. I left the tap on and closed the bathroom door behind me as I exited; if someone came looking for me, they’d hear the water running and assume I was in there.
Besides the bathroom door, there were four others. Where you could probably draw the first floor of Jack’s house from memory, I was struggling to recall ever having been up there. I pulled open the first door to my left, but it was just a cupboard full of spare towels and toiletries, so I swung right, passed the bathroom door and opened another: Jack’s study. It was much the same as the other rooms in his house, sleek, minimal and neat. I ran a finger over his desk and saw there wasn’t a speck of dust. Really, Elodie, his living space was serial-killer clean. I expected both of his desk drawers to be locked. They weren’t, but there was nothing incriminating inside either of them, just organised stationery and sketch books. Frustrated, I stood back, looking for more drawers to open, more paperwork to riffle through, but besides the exceptionally tidy desk, his framed qualifications above and the built-in bookshelves adjacent, there was nothing else.
His office was very impersonal. Even on Ethan’s desk there’s a framed photograph and me and him on our wedding day. The only things Jack declared worthy of frames were a technical sketch of the first building he designed alongside a photograph of it, his qualifications, and a photograph from his days playing for Crosshaven RFC. I didn’t have to scan the faces of rugby players for long before I narrowed in on him. Front and centre. Why was I not surprised? I was just about to turn away when I spotted another familiar face in the background. In it, he was mid-step, carrying a toolbox up on the slope above the field where the photograph was taken, and he was looking directly into the camera. Dark hair, thin face and black round-rimmed glasses: David Taylor.
It took a moment for the surge of triumph to break through the shock of my discovery and when it did, I reached out to snatch the photograph from the wall then stopped because Jack might catch me with it and destroy it. Thinking fast, I decided to take a picture on my phone instead, only to realise I’d left my handbag in the bathroom. Hurrying from the office, I burst into the bathroom.
And froze.
Jack was standing in front of the sink, slowly turning off the tap. We stared at one another, the back of my neck prickling with panic.
‘Got lost?’ he drawled.
Stalling, I smoothed down my dress. ‘I thought I heard someone down the hall,’ I said as coolly as possible. Then, to throw him off I added, ‘In the bedroom.’
He didn’t believe me, Elodie, not for a second. He closed the gap between us, and his rather spacious bathroom suddenly felt impossibly small. His eyes drifted over me, lingering on my bare legs. ‘If you wanted a closer look at my bedroom, all you had to do was ask.’