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

himself of the facts, determined to impress his future father-in-law.

She thumbed to the next report, below it, to see her family name spread loud and proud across a headline. And the next. And the next . . . She smiled. Her father might have commissioned a summary report on him, but clearly Alex had decided to do some research of his own too. No wonder they got on so well.

There was a print-out of an FT article, complete with a picture of her father. It showed him in a boardroom somewhere, gripping the hand of another grey-haired man, both looking suitably pleased about some deal. Beneath that was a Forbes profile on her father; it was a year or so old and she remembered it well, coming out shortly after the announcement that the Tremain family was signing up to the Giving Pledge – the new initiative by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates, it had immediately become the world’s most exclusive club in which billionaires pledge to donate the majority, if not all, of their fortunes during their lifetimes or upon their deaths. But that wasn’t why she remembered this journalistic piece. Her father never gave interviews, but the reporters had found some sources prepared to talk, and someone had even supplied a photograph of her and Miles as teenagers. It was the fact that the photograph had been printed without copyright permission that meant her father had been able to threaten to sue unless they made a sizeable donation to his foundation and printed a written apology in the next issue.

Parts of the text had been underlined in blue ink – the nuggets Alex wanted to bring out in conversation and use as part of his charm offensive. She remembered him coming in the other night, saying he’d been trying to find ways to impress her father and if there was one thing he – as a PhD student – could do, it was research. She read the notes with a wry eye; it was always strange to read about her family in the third person, observed by strangers who wrote in a tone that suggested they knew them.

She read it through once, then again, leaning in more closely. Something had caught her attention on the first skim-read, a detail that snagged in her mind . . .

The phone rang suddenly, vibrating loudly against the table and jolting her from her concentration.

She went over to it. Four per cent battery? Still not enough to unplug it. ‘Hello?’ she asked, crouching down on her heels; the cable wasn’t long enough for her to stand.

‘Piglet?’ a voice shouted down the line.

‘Dad! Hi.’

There was a lot of background noise, the line indistinct, and she wondered whether he was in the chopper. ‘Where are you?’ he called. ‘Not still in the sticks, I hope?’

‘No, I’ve just got back. I’m at Alex’s flat.’

‘Good! Because we’re on our way back now. Get over to the house and keep your mother calm till we get there.’

Calm? Tara felt her heart catch. She hardly dared ask the question. ‘Dad . . . do you mean Alex has talked to you?’

‘Absolutely he has!’ he laughed. ‘You’ve found a good one there, Piglet! But I don’t want to talk about it here. Get back home double-time. We’ve got some celebrating to do!’

Tara put the phone down, her hands over her mouth as her excitement suddenly ricocheted. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered to herself, giving a squeal. ‘He’s only gone and done it!’

‘Darling!’

Her mother looked surprised as Tara walked in, not least because for once, she had dressed up. She had put on the Ganni dress she’d been waiting months for an opportunity to wear. It was slim-fitting aubergine silk with a waistband that wasn’t going to be an option for long.

Her mother was sitting on the sofa, a gin and tonic on the table beside her and a magazine on her lap. ‘I didn’t know you were coming over.’

Tara walked to the bar cabinet and poured herself a tonic water, adding a slice of cucumber for visual interest. ‘I know. Twice in one weekend, the world’s going mad,’ she quipped.

Her mother cast an up-down gaze over her. ‘Are you going on after here?’

‘No. I don’t think so,’ Tara smiled. ‘Why? Are you going out?’

‘I hardly think so,’ her mother tutted. ‘I’ve barely seen your father all weekend. He’s been playing golf today, with your Alex.’

Tara’s smiled widened. Her Alex. ‘Yes, I heard. They should be back any second apparently. Dad called.’

‘He called you?’

‘Mm-hmm.’

‘And asked you to come over here?’

‘Yes.’

Her mother blinked, no fool. She sat a little straighter. ‘Why would he do that?’

Tara felt her stomach fizz with happiness and excitement. She didn’t know how he and Alex wanted to tell the happy news, but she would have to wait till they got here. ‘Why not? Can’t we enjoy an impromptu Sunday night supper all together before you go off?’ Tara looked around the space. ‘Is Miles in?’

Her mother sank back a little into the cushions. ‘No. Gstaad, remember? Left yesterday morning. He’s back Tuesday night.’

‘Oh yes. I forgot.’ It was probably just as well. She would need to talk Miles around first and carefully engineer the next meeting between her brother and boyfriend. She took a sip of the drink, needing to cool down. She had run her bath too hot and, adding on the hurry to get over here before the others, she was now flustered.

‘Weren’t you off on a jolly somewhere too this weekend?’

‘Yes, Shropshire. For Sophie’s twenty-first. I just got back this afternoon.’

‘Now, Sophie . . .?’ Her mother looked blank.

‘Vet, slight buck teeth.’ Tara knew to reduce her friends down to their compound parts for her mother’s ease of attention. It wasn’t her usual style to be so blunt, but she was still smarting at the way they’d treated her; they’d clearly said far worse about her behind her back and though Sophie hadn’t said anything derogatory outright, she hadn’t stepped in either.

‘Oh yes, Sophie! Lovely girl. Is she really twenty-one already?’

‘I know.’

‘She looks so much