“I’ll ask again,” she says firmly.
“She…” he starts.
Rachel waits, with her hands on her hips, refusing to make this any easier for him.
“When she first started working for me, she made an advance…” He leaves it there, as if waiting to gauge Rachel’s reaction.
She can’t help but laugh. “And let me guess … you were powerless to resist?” It’s a question she expects to be answered.
“I … I tried, but you know what she’s like.”
“Poor you,” says Rachel, without a modicum of sympathy.
“Anyway, I kept refusing her and one night, when I’d had too much to drink—I think you and I had had a fight…”
Rachel scoffs. She knew it was somehow going to be her fault.
“And that night, I kissed her,” says Jack.
Rachel raises her eyebrows expectantly, wanting him to go on, but not wanting to hear it.
“And ever since then, she’s been pushing for more. Blackmailing me by threatening to tell you if I don’t give her what she wants.”
Rachel shakes her head, trying to make sense of what he’s saying. “So, have you given it to her or not?”
“No!” he exclaims, his voice so loud that it reverberates around them. “Of course not. You know I’d never do that.”
Rachel looks up at the cavernous ceiling, waiting for the patience she so desperately needs to be bestowed upon her.
“So you’re saying that all you’ve done is kiss her?” she asks incredulously. “Once?”
“Exactly!” he says. “And ever since, she’s been making out that there’s something going on, when I swear to you, there isn’t.”
Rachel can’t believe what she’s hearing. “But that doesn’t even make sense,” she says. “Why would she do that?”
“Because she’s stark raving mad,” he says, throwing his hands in the air. “You know what she’s like. You’ve seen how she behaves. This is what I’ve had to deal with.”
If he thinks she’s about to feel sorry for him, he’s got another think coming. “So, you’re saying she’s deluded? That everything she’s just said is garbage?”
“Yes!” says Jack. “Yes, she’s got it in her head that something’s going on, but you know what she’s like, Rach. She’s mad.”
She wonders if he thinks repeating himself will make her believe him more. It doesn’t. It just makes him sound as if he’s clutching at straws.
“So this is why you didn’t want Will to marry her?” says Rachel.
Jack nods.
“So, what about Rick?” she asks.
He looks at her with a perplexed expression.
“The man you said she’d had an affair with,” says Rachel, having to jog his memory yet again. “Does he even exist?”
Jack shakes his head. “No, I just needed to give you a reason for why I hated her so much, but without having to admit that I’d been stupid enough to kiss her.”
“You said I’d be destroyed,” says Rachel. “I heard you.”
“Yes, because that’s the kind of thing I have to say, to keep her from losing her mind and going on the rampage. I really don’t know what she’s capable of, and right now it’s a balancing act, at least until we get through this and are back at home. I don’t want Will to know that I kissed her, even though it was before they even met.”
It’s a long shot, but Rachel wonders if there’s any way he could be telling the truth. Every single seed of doubt that has been sown into her mind has been planted by Ali. From having to retrace her steps to find her passport, to her being in their room, to inviting herself on Jack’s run, to finding his watch in her drawer. It’s all been one-way, with Jack having played no part in any of it.
And she does know what Ali’s like; she’s a liar and a fantasist who will stop at nothing to get what she wants, even if it means taking down the people she supposedly loves in the process. Look what she did to her own mother. God knows what led to the horrific events of that night, but Rachel can bet her bottom dollar that it was Ali’s selfishness that has resulted in Maria being bound to a wheelchair for the rest of her life.
Nothing is as it seems in Ali’s world, so why would Rachel think she and Jack could escape the storm that seems to prevail wherever she is?
“You have to believe me,” Jack pleads, as if reading her mind. “You know what she’s like. You’ve seen it with your own eyes. She can’t stop herself. The woman is a pathological liar.”