The bed is unmade, the sheets tangled, and their pillows still show the indentations of their heads. She lets out a relieved sigh. What the hell was she thinking? How had she allowed a fleeting image, one that she can’t even be sure she saw, to infiltrate her mind and bring about insecurities she never even knew she had? And, even if what she thought she saw had been real, it didn’t have to mean anything, because Jack wasn’t even there.
She laughs at herself as she falls onto the bed, unable to believe that she’d put two and two together and come up with five.
“Hi honey,” says Jack, as he comes out of the en suite wearing nothing but a white towel wrapped around his waist. Rachel forces herself not to let her mind wander back down that road.
“You okay?” he asks, though he doesn’t even wait for an answer before saying, “How did the shopping go?”
Rachel pulls herself up. “Fine,” she says tightly, though she doesn’t know why. “Absolutely fine. How have things been here?”
He rubs his brown hair with a towel. “I haven’t left this room,” he says, without answering the question.
“So, you haven’t seen Ali?” she asks, rephrasing the question so that there’s absolutely no room for error. “She hasn’t been irritating you?”
“No,” he says, going back into the bathroom.
“I was thinking…” she starts, without knowing where she’s going.
“That sounds dangerous,” says Jack, laughing.
“Why don’t we try and track Rick down?”
“Rick?” he calls out, as if it’s the first time he’s ever heard the name.
Rachel gives him a moment to see if he catches on. He doesn’t.
“Who’s Rick?” he asks, poking his head around the doorframe.
How can he not know? “The guy who you think Ali had an affair with,” says Rachel, trying hard to hide her exasperation and growing sense of unease.
“Oh him,” he exclaims theatrically. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
“Well, maybe you should challenge her on it then.”
He makes a funny noise. “And what difference is that going to make? It is what it is. She can’t undo it and pretend it never happened.”
“No, but perhaps she’ll deny it.”
“Oh, she’ll definitely do that!” He laughs bitterly.
“But she might be telling the truth,” says Rachel. “It might have just been wishful thinking on Rick’s part. A bit of office banter between the lads.”
“I don’t think so,” says Jack. “I know Rick well and he’s a pretty sound guy. He’d have no reason to lie about something like that.”
“You know him well, yet you don’t know how to contact him?” asks Rachel, unable to help herself.
Jack comes toward her and picks up her hands, which have been hanging limply by her side. “I shouldn’t have told you,” he says, looking at her intently. “It wasn’t fair to land this on you so close to the wedding. But you pushed me.”
“No, I didn’t,” says Rachel. “Paige did.”
“Well, whoever it was, I shouldn’t have aired my grievances. But hey, it’s out there and now you understand why I don’t want to be within three feet of the woman.”
Except you just were, Rachel wants to shout. Right here in this room.
She goes to the door and stares out across the mezzanine that overlooks the living room below. Opposite, toward the stairs, is Paige and Noah’s room, but as much as she looks, desperate for there to be another door, to give Ali a reason to be up here, there’s nothing.
Maybe it had been a trick of the light. Perhaps the sun had bounced off the polished concrete walls in such a way that it had created the illusion of someone rushing from one side of the mezzanine to the other. Perhaps Ali is still in her room … or out on a walk … not even wearing orange.
“I’d better go and help the others,” she calls out, sticking her head around their bedroom door.
It’s then that she sees it; the tiniest dot sparkling in the sun, on the floor, right outside the bathroom. She goes to it and picks it up, examining the perfectly cut diamond. It’s only on closer inspection that she sees a tiny hole in the top, as if, until recently, it was a sewn-on embellishment.
She doesn’t own anything quite so blingy, so pops it in her pocket and heads back to the kitchen, the whole time telling herself, convincing herself, that she couldn’t have seen what she thought she’d seen. It was a moment in time—it could have been anything.