“Where?”
“I just happened to be behind him as I walked home one evening and he met her outside the Ham Yard Hotel.”
Rachel tsks, hoping that Ali’s put two and two together and come up with five. “That doesn’t necessarily mean…”
“He kissed her,” says Ali quietly. “In a way that you don’t kiss your wife’s best friend.”
Hot bile bites at the back of Rachel’s throat as she pictures it, the image so alien that their faces melt as soon as their lips touch.
“Why haven’t you told me before now?” asks Rachel. “I thought we were friends.”
“We are,” says Ali. “But you and Paige are a lot closer and I had no idea how you would take it from me. I didn’t want it to ruin what we had, especially once I knew I was going to be part of the family.” She looks to Rachel for some semblance of understanding, but Rachel is too shaken to give it.
“It had to come from him,” says Ali, spitting the last word out. “But no matter what I did to make him do the right thing, he refused.”
Rachel looks at her, too stunned to speak.
“So I gave him an ultimatum that he had until the wedding to end it with her, or I’d tell you, because I couldn’t bear the thought of all six of us being together, for what should have been a happy occasion, knowing what was going on between them.”
“So that’s what all the furtiveness has been about?” asks Rachel, dumbfounded.
Ali nods. “I gave him one final warning at the airport on our way out,” she says.
“When you lost your passport?” asks Rachel, the pieces slowly falling into place.
“I hadn’t, but I thought it was the only chance I was going to get him on his own.”
Rachel remembers Jack striding back into the terminal with a face like thunder.
“I told him that if I felt, for just one second, there was still something going on, I’d tell you when we got back.”
“And?” asks Rachel, ashamed that she doesn’t know the answer herself.
“I’m so sorry…” starts Ali, as Rachel’s heart cracks.
“Please, no,” Rachel begs, as if doing so means Ali will change the narrative.
Ali grimaces, clearly wishing she weren’t the one delivering the devastating blow. “I’m so sorry, but they were together last night.”
Rachel crumples, falling into the wall for support. “They couldn’t have been,” she cries. “You’re wrong.”
“I wish I was,” says Ali. “After Will left for the hotel, it was just the three of us left. I was never going to leave the two of them on their own, but I was so tired and neither of them were going to give in. So I went to my room and waited for a while, hoping that when I went back up, they’d have gone to bed. They weren’t in the living room where I’d left them, and for a moment I thought that whatever they had was over. That they’d taken my threat seriously and put an end to it.”
The weight on Rachel’s chest starts to lift, just a little, as she allows the possibility that none of this is as it seems.
“But I could smell smoke,” Ali goes on. “And I followed it up to the roof terrace.”
“Roof terrace?” questions Rachel, desperate to find a flaw in her story.
“Yes, there’s a jacuzzi on top of the villa,” says Ali. “I only found the stairs by accident, not knowing where they led, but they were up there.”
Rachel wants to ask what they were doing, but Ali’s face says it all.
“I tried to go back to sleep, knowing that I had no choice but to tell you when we got home, but I couldn’t bear the thought of you finding them there, doing what they were doing.”
Something lodges in Rachel’s chest, making her feel as if she can’t breathe.
“So I got back up again to confront them, but they’d already gone.” Ali looks repulsed. “And all that was left to show for their indiscretion was Jack’s watch.”
Rachel shakes her head wryly. So that’s where she’d gotten it from.
“You were in our room yesterday,” says Rachel, keen to hear what Ali’s excuse for that is. “When we came back from shopping.”
Ali nods sheepishly. “I told him he was skating on thin ice.”
Rachel looks at her inquisitively.
“The previous evening when we were all sitting around the fire talking, he and Paige were texting each other.”
The blatant deceit winds Rachel. “While we were all together?” she says. “Right in front of me?”