The Secret Path by Karen Swan (summer beach reads TXT) 📕

been drunk last night when they’d been enjoying their cosy night in together on the sofa. She had looked languid and settled. She’d looked happy.

‘Oh, poor Dev!’ Sophie cried in his defence. ‘No, you can’t talk about him like that. He’s . . . got his own charm. He’s sort of bookish-looking and sensitive.’

‘I think he’s lovely,’ Annie agreed.

‘Lovely,’ Holly repeated. ‘Yeah, because that’s what we’re all looking for. Killer in bed and . . . lovely.’

‘I think you make a great couple,’ Tara ventured.

Holly looked back at her with angry eyes. ‘But we’re not a couple. I keep telling you, it’s just a sex thing when there’s no better option.’

‘And there’s nothing wrong with that,’ Liv sighed. ‘Sometimes it’s better the devil you know than . . . no devil at all.’ She gave another dirty laugh. ‘We can’t all be players like Annie here.’

Annie gave a small sigh of coquettish contentment – slightly built, with a sweetheart-shaped face and long, straight light brown hair, she had a pretty girl-next-door look that men couldn’t resist. ‘What can I say? You’ve either got it or you don’t.’ She squealed as Charlie and Liv kicked resentfully at her feet.

‘Yeah? Well maybe you don’t,’ Charlie said provocatively. ‘Sounds to me like you’ve found a guy not that into you. He’s got you dangling like a puppet on a string, girl.’

‘Gay?’ Liv suggested.

‘So not.’ Annie arched an eyebrow and gave them a knowing look. ‘James was just playing hard to get.’

‘Wait – James? Who’s this? I thought you were seeing George?’ Tara asked. ‘What have I missed?’

‘Keep up, Ta!’ Sophie admonished.

‘George is dead to her now,’ Liv said in a dramatic voice. ‘This week – for one week only—’

‘Hey!’ Annie protested.

‘—It’s all about James. A mature man.’

‘Mature student, there’s a difference. He’s only twenty-four, for Christ’s sake.’ Annie pouted prettily.

‘So what’s happened, then?’ Charlie asked, looking peeved that Annie had got her man after all. ‘Last I heard, he kept blowing you off for work.’

Annie leaned herself up on her elbows, eyeing them all like the cat who’d got the cream. ‘I went up to his office on Thursday and we had a carpet picnic.’

‘A what?’ Charlie frowned.

‘Smoked salmon, strawberries, prosecco. It was lush.’

Charlie looked on with a wry look. ‘And did James take well to eating his lunch on his nylon carpeted floor? He doesn’t seem the type.’

Liv spluttered with laughter; Holly too. But Tara felt sad that she had missed out on her friend’s latest love-life twist; she’d been too busy with her own to take notice, increasingly abandoning drinks with the girls for cosy nights in with Alex. She watched her friends laughing and teasing one another and felt another sharp pang at what she was leaving behind – girlish stuff and nonsense, doomed love affairs, dramatic heartbreaks, hilarious nights in. She was barely twenty and that was already behind her.

‘Actually, he loved it,’ Annie insisted, with a sly look. ‘It was Alex who looked shocked.’

Annie looked across at her and Tara startled as she absorbed the intimation. ‘My Alex?’

‘Yes, your Alex,’ she laughed. ‘Didn’t he tell you? They do work together!’

The penny dropped. ‘Oh my God, you mean James is James MacLennan? But he’s such a dick!’

The words burst out before she could stop them; months of hearing Alex’s complaints about James’s rivalry, power politics, smear campaigns and dirty tricks had left her with a low opinion of a man she’d never met. But why hadn’t Alex mentioned that James was seeing Annie? He knew they were good friends. Did he assume she already knew? Or did he just not care who his colleague was dating?

True, Alex wasn’t an undergraduate and never had been; he’d not been inculcated into student culture in the same way, and his unconventional upbringing and life experiences rendered him older than his twenty-three years. He was passionate about his work and he displayed no interest in gossip of any sort – be it about celebrities or friends. It was one of the things she liked best about him. His discretion, too. And yet . . . it felt like such a glaring omission not to have brought this up. Annie was her friend, James his colleague and rival. Did he think she was going to suggest double dates with them?

Annie’s smile faded at the bald insult. ‘Well, Alex would say that. He’s pissed off because he didn’t get published and James did.’ She gave a shrug. ‘Your guy seriously needs to take a chill pill. James says he is way too intense. He says you’d think he was plotting world domination, the way he gets. Can’t you have a word with him or something?’

Tara blinked, feeling a rush of indignation gathering in her. She’d been with Alex for four months; Annie had been with James a week! Who did she think she was to start lecturing her about her boyfriend’s ambition? But, as ever – the lessons she’d learned in childhood about public restraint were too strongly inculcated to override – Tara said nothing.

No one spoke for a few moments, no one came to her or Alex’s defence, and the tension thickened as the silence lengthened. Sly looks passed between her friends and, yet again, Tara had the feeling of words not being spoken, of secrets being kept. Were they jealous of what she had with Alex? Was that it? Or was she being paranoid? Was she touchy because of the stiffness between her and Holly? Not to mention the enduring silence coming from Alex himself; still no text, no missed call. It was almost five o’clock. What the hell was he doing? Had ‘the right moment’ eluded him again? Had her father cried off at the last moment? Or had something else happened? Had he been hit by a bus on the way over? Had Professor Hamlyn called him in? What?

She felt a rush of despair. Why was everything proving so hard? It felt like the world was against her when all she wanted was to get on with living happily ever after. Instead, she was tired, emotional and