‘You tried to badmouth me to Jamie, you disrespect my sister and I know you don’t like me being around your kids.’
‘I didn’t disrespect your sister, I didn’t know about her. I just wanted a quiet holiday with my family and I feel like Jamie just introduced you, forced us all together and assumed everyone would get on.’ I couldn’t say any more. I had to stay on the right side of her – she knew too much.
‘Am I so hard to like?’ She put her head to one side, and I wondered if she was toying with me.
I didn’t answer.
‘Look, Clare, we were thrown together, you’re right. I didn’t choose to spend my holiday – my honeymoon – with you either, but if I want to be with Jamie I have to… It’s our honeymoon.’ She stopped talking. ‘I saw you wince at that. Does it hurt, Clare?’
I shook my head. ‘Please don’t try and deflect from what you did. You took those earrings, I saw you. And you might think you’ve got away with it, but the truth will out. You’re nothing but a thief, and I will prove it… As for what happened at the pool – I just thought it was a little over the top.’
‘I didn’t realise there was etiquette involved in drowning,’ she said, repeating what Dan had said to me earlier. My stomach twisted. Good old Dan, as loyal as ever, he’d obviously made this remark to her. ‘This viciousness of yours is just because you’re in a stale marriage with a bored man you won’t let go,’ she sighed.
‘He can go any time he likes,’ I said, feigning disinterest. She’d really hit a nerve and as much as I tried to ignore what she’d said, it hurt.
‘Oh no he can’t, because you won’t let him. Doesn’t matter if he finds someone else who he really loves, you’re there with your kids and your handcuffs dragging him back. Women like you make me sick,’ she spat.
‘You’ve got it all wrong, you’ve heard half a story from Jamie via Joy and you think you know my life, my marriage.’
But Ella wasn’t interested in my life, she’d rather talk about hers.
‘I bet you wish you were on your honeymoon like me, don’t you, Clare?’
‘No, I don’t want your life thank you.’
‘Wow. Jealous much?’
‘Not at all. I might be in a stale marriage, but your life is non-existent. It’s whatever you put on Instagram. It isn’t real, Ella.’
‘Online or offline, it’s better than yours with your flirty husband and flabby thighs.’
Her true colours were really coming to the fore now. Once again she’d worked it so that no one else was around to witness her vitriol, her venom – but I wasn’t going to take it.
‘You aren’t what you pretend to be. The pious little Insta queen who fights the good fight and empowers women body-shaming her sister-in-law. Nice – it shows just who you really are, a lying little thief.’
‘Oh, Clare, how many times do I have to tell you,’ she sighed, like she was so bored of it all. ‘I have my own diamonds, hun, I don’t need anyone else’s.’
‘Doesn’t mean you didn’t take them.’
‘But why would I when I’ve got my own, way bigger than those weeny things?’
‘I’ve seen your Instagram – I bet those Arab princes pay you for your “talents”， in diamonds?’
‘Yeah, and wouldn’t you like a little taste of that ice, Clare? Something dangerous on a yacht, a sizzle of spice in the Middle East? You’re so bored, you’d sell your kids for ten minutes of my life. So you can stop with the sanctimonious shit.’
I couldn’t believe the rubbish she was talking; did she really think I’d rather live her empty life than mine, with my lovely kids, my rewarding job?
‘I’m not judging how you make a living, but I wonder what Jamie would think?’
‘Jamie? He doesn’t judge what happened before we met, because it did all happen before we met, just to make that clear. And BTW – I don’t judge him either.’ She was staring at me now. ‘In fact, we have no secrets,’ she said, without taking her eyes from mine. ‘Yeah, babe – we are super honest.’
My heart thumped to the floor.
‘My husband knows everything. I’ve had a tough life, and sometimes I’ve had to make a living and he… well, to be honest, Clare, Jamie actually likes me to tell him all about it, if you know what I mean.’ She smiled knowingly. ‘Of course you do. It excites him – and you know all about that, don’t you?’