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

awkward hilltop encounter flew back into her mind. ‘She knows nothing about Alex, so don’t even think about listening to anything she’s got to say. She’s only met him a few times.’

‘Actually, it was something James said to her.’

Tara frowned. ‘James MacLennan?’

‘Yes.’ Holly looked pained. ‘Apparently he . . . Look, this is really hard to say . . . but apparently he told her that Alex is using you, that he’s cheating—’

‘Stop.’ Her voice was flinty but Tara felt like the breath had been knocked out of her.

‘She’s had been worrying all weekend about whether or not to tell you.’

Just Annie? Or all of them? Was that what the conversation yesterday on the hill had really been about – bringing up the suggestion that Alex might cheat on her under the guise of Liv’s bad luck with men and Annie’s great wisdom about them?

‘Obviously she has no idea about the . . .’ Holly continued, gesturing in Tara’s direction and clearly meaning the engagement, the baby, everything.

‘I said stop!’ Tara slammed her foot on the brake so suddenly they both slumped forward from the force. They were ten metres from the driveway. ‘Stop talking! I don’t want to hear it.’

Holly stared at her. ‘. . . You don’t think it’s important to know if your boyfriend’s cheating on you?’ Her voice was quiet, trying to be calming, even as she knew that every word she uttered was a bomb to Tara’s happiness.

‘I know he’s not.’ Tara could feel the chill from her own glare.

There was a pause as Holly faltered, before she staggered on. ‘. . . Annie said James was adamant about it, that he saw something on his computer . . . Why would she lie?’

‘I’m sure she wouldn’t, not intentionally, but she’s been with the guy for all of a week! Does she have any clue that James hates Alex? That he’s riddled with jealousy over the fact that their professor favours Alex and not him, that he’d say anything to try and tear him down? He probably thinks breaking us up would distract Alex just enough to give him some kind of edge! I think there are a few people who would like to see us break up.’

There was no disguising the pointedness of her words and Holly looked at her for a long moment with sad, questioning eyes that only made Tara angrier. ‘So then, you don’t think there’s any truth in it at all? You’ve never had any suspicions—’

‘None! I trust Alex completely.’

‘And you believed him when he said he was bonding with your father this weekend?’

Tara stared at her, open-mouthed and furious as she finally realized why Holly had come back repeatedly to the topic of conversation. ‘It would be a pretty fucking stupid cover story, let’s face it! One phone call to my parents and I’d have the truth.’

‘I guess that’s true,’ Holly conceded.

‘Of course it’s true,’ Tara snapped.

‘Twig, I just don’t want to see you get hurt, that’s all. Alex is a good-looking guy and he knows it. He knows he could have anyone.’

‘Really? Anyone?’ Tara sneered.

Holly’s eyes widened. ‘Oh God, not me! Fuck no! I just mean he’s no innocent. He’s charming, but he’s not . . . fluffy. He’s got a ruthless streak. I’ve seen it in him sometimes when he talks. He’s so uncompromising.’

‘And you? Are you compromising? Have you been supportive and flexible over the changes I’ve got coming? Or have you been cutting me out because my plans no longer align with yours?’ Tara glowered at her with an anger Holly had never seen before. She was always so good at keeping her emotions under control, hiding parts of herself from the public gaze with a dance between shadows and light. She was a pleaser, forever the good girl, the mother hen, a product of her upbringing in which she tried to temper her outrageous good fortune with self-effacement and steadfast placidity. ‘What other people think they know is of no interest to me. Annie knows as much about Alex as I know about James, so you know what, Hols? Next time Annie brings it up, tell her from me, to tell James to go fuck himself!’

Holly’s mouth dropped open at her language. Tara had never spoken to her like that before.

Tara looked away, but she could feel herself shake, the adrenaline tearing through her body. She moved the car clumsily back into gear and rolled them forwards the last few metres. Taking the bag of groceries from Holly’s lap, she got out of the car. ‘And don’t even think of insulting me with that bloody test either!’ Holly’s gaze followed Tara’s to the bag between her ankles. She looked shocked and then shame-faced.

‘Twig, I’m sorry—’

But Tara didn’t hear it over the slam of the car door. She had already turned her back.

Chapter Eight

London sparkled like a cut diamond, glass towers reflecting the sun as she turned off the motorway and headed in on the arterial roads, slowing to a crawl alongside black cabs and delivery vans, trundling past smoked Victorian terraces, dark with soot and exhaust fumes. She didn’t notice as the narrow red-bricked houses were replaced by wider, taller Georgian stucco villas, as the red buses became more numerous and she never moved beyond second gear. Her mind was on the tense end to Sophie’s birthday weekend.

Nothing had been said outright, but it was clear from the watchful looks thrown her way as she had angrily set down the bag of groceries, and the weighty silence that had accompanied Holly’s arrival several moments later, that this ‘talk’ had been planned. Hols had just been the messenger. They had evidently all discussed it between themselves and come to their conclusions: Alex was deceiving her and she was a pitiful fool if she refused to see it.

Unable to meet their eyes but refusing to let them see her cry, she had left within the quarter hour, citing a family emergency that no one believed and she didn’t even try to make sound convincing. Sophie had made a feeble attempt to try to make her stay but Tara wouldn’t