Can You Keep a Secret?(106)
Author: Sophie Kinsella

‘You first met Jack Harper on a plane. Can you confirm where this was flying from and to?’ He gives me a smile. ‘Just speak naturally, like you would to a mate on the phone.’

‘Stop it!’ I yell. ‘Just leave! Leave!’

‘Emma, grow up,’ says Jemima impatiently. ‘Mick’s going to find out what this secret is whether you help him or not, so you might as well be—’ She stops abruptly as the door handle rattles, then turns.

The room seems to swim around me.

Please don’t say — please—

As the door slowly opens, I can’t breathe. I can’t move.

I have never felt so frightened in my entire life.

‘Emma?’ says Jack, coming in, holding two glasses of water in one hand. ‘Are you feeling OK? I got you both still and sparkling, because I wasn’t quite …’

He tails off, his eyes running confusedly over Jemima and Mick. With a flicker of bewilderment, he takes in Mick’s card, still in my hand. Then his gaze falls on the turning tape recorder and something slides out of his face.

‘I think I’ll just make myself scarce,’ murmurs Mick, raising his eyebrows at Jemima. He slips the tape recording into his pocket, picks up his rucksack and sidles out of the room. Nobody speaks for a few moments. All I can hear is the throbbing in my head.

‘Who was that?’ says Jack at last. ‘A journalist?’

All the light has gone from his eyes. He looks as though someone just stamped on his garden.

‘I … Jack …’ I say huskily. ‘It’s not … it’s not …’

‘Why …’ He rubs his brow, as though trying to make sense of the situation. ‘Why were you talking to a journalist?’

‘Why do you think she was talking to a journalist?’ chimes in Jemima proudly.

‘What?’ Jack’s gaze swivels to her with dislike.

‘You think you’re such a bigshot millionaire! You think you can use little people. You think you can give away someone’s private secrets and completely humiliate them and get away with it. Well, you can’t!’

She takes a few steps towards him, folding her arms and lifting her chin with satisfaction. ‘Emma’s been waiting for a chance to get her revenge on you, and now she’s found it! That was a journalist, if you want to know. And he’s on your case. And when you find your little Scottish secret plastered all over the papers, then maybe you’ll know what it feel like to be betrayed! And maybe you’ll be sorry. Tell him, Emma! Tell him!’

But I’m paralysed.

The minute she said the word Scottish I saw Jack’s face change. It kind of snapped. He almost seemed winded with shock. He looked straight at me and I could see the growing disbelief in his eyes.

‘You might think you know Emma, but you don’t,’ Jemima is continuing delightedly, like a cat tearing apart its prey. ‘You underestimated her, Jack Harper. You underestimated what she’s capable of.’

Shut up! I’m screaming internally. It’s not true! Jack, I would never, I would never …

But nothing in my body will move. I can’t even swallow. I’m pinioned, staring helplessly at him with a face I know is covered with guilt.

Jack opens his mouth, then closes it again. Then he turns on his heel, pushes the door open and walks out.

For a moment there’s silence in the tiny room.

‘Well!’ says Jemima, smacking her hands triumphantly, ‘That showed him!’

It’s as though she breaks the spell. Suddenly I can move again. I can draw breath.

‘You …’ I’m almost shaking too much to speak. ‘You stupid … stupid … thoughtless … bitch!’

The door bursts open and Lissy appears, wide-eyed.

‘What the hell happened here?’ she demands. ‘I just saw Jack storming out. He looked absolutely like thunder!’

‘She brought a journalist here!’ I say in anguish, gesturing at Jemima. ‘A bloody tabloid journalist. And Jack found us all closeted here, and he thinks … God know what he thinks …’

‘You stupid cow!’ Lissy slaps Jemima across the face. ‘What were you thinking.’

‘Ow! I was helping Emma get vengeance on her enemy.’

‘He’s not my enemy, you stupid …’ I’m on the verge of tears. ‘Lissy … what am I going to do? What?’

‘Go,’ she says, and looks at me with anxious eyes. ‘You can still catch him. Go.’

I pelt out of the door and through the courtyard, my chest rising and falling rapidly, my lungs burning. When I reach the road I look frantically left and right. Then I spot him, down the road.

‘Jack, wait.’

He’s striding along with his mobile phone to his ear, and at my voice he turns round with a taut face.

‘So that’s why you were so interested in Scotland.’

‘No!’ I say, aghast. ‘No! Listen, Jack, they don’t know. They don’t know anything, I promise. I didn’t tell them about—’ I stop myself. ‘All Jemima knows is that you were there. Nothing more. She was bluffing. I haven’t said anything.’

Jack doesn’t answer. He gives me a long look, then starts striding again.