Keep My Secrets by Elena Wilkes (management books to read .txt) 📕

me a chance when all this is over.’ His eyes burned into her. ‘You have to say you’ll be there for me when I walk out of that court. Don’t throw away what we had – and definitely not now. I’m walking out of that dock and straight back to you if you’ll have me.’ He went to reach for her hand.

‘Oi!’ said the voice of an officer over by the desk. ‘No touching!’

‘We’re going to be together, the three of us: you and me and that baby, Frankie. Nothing is going to keep me away.’

The steam on the bathroom walls had turned to running tears of condensation. She listened to the crackle of the foam as it disappeared around her.

Who was there for her now?

No one.

Who could she confide in?

No one.

It was all impossible; life on her own with a child felt impossible. Her head and heart wrestled with a mess of intertwined emotions that she just couldn’t untangle.

She’d loved Martin with all her heart.

She hated Martin to the core of her soul.

Martin.

Charlotte.

She had bound herself to him in a way that couldn’t be broken. She was having his child.

But you can’t love a man who’s done these things to you, her head said.

I can’t, I can’t. I don’t, she said back.

He’s a liar and he betrayed you, the voice was insistent now. He deserves to be punished.

But punished for what? What happened that night?

She tried to bring back the white rage she had felt, but couldn’t. She tried to conjure up the sound of the water, the girl’s voice; there’d been the splash of birds, hadn’t there? But it was as though the tape-loop ended: stuck in a freeze frame. Her mind stumbled and floundered.

Lifting her hands from the water, she pressed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets until she saw stars. God, how she wished she could erase all this horror. How she wished there was a reset button and she could make all of it disappear – Wouldn’t that be something? The sheer joy of rubbing it all out. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. A pure and perfect fantasy where there was no Charlotte, there’d been no party, no boat, no past, just present. Her heart lifted: just two clean slates waiting for the future to be written. Their tiny family could become—

The lights went off.

She shot up, her heels squealing against the enamel as the sudden crack of the door opening behind her had her wheeling round in a tide of water. She groped for the towel, but her fingers only closed on thin air. She was aware of the light from the landing sending a shaft through the darkness. In the doorway was a figure: a black silhouette. Her breath dragged into her lungs in a gasp of shocked air.

‘Who’s there?’

But the darkness was silent. The silhouette swayed slightly.

Gathering herself, she scrambled to the other end of the bath, her shoulder blades pressing painfully into the taps as she drew her knees up to her chin.

‘Who is it? Jack? Peter? What do you want?’

‘You’re so beautiful,’ the blackness whispered. ‘I love seeing you naked.’

She watched, horrified, as the shape came towards her. Her hands and feet scrambled for purchase on the slippery enamel, her breath catching tight in her lungs, her mouth paralysed with shock as a cold draught moved swiftly, the dark figure looming closer as it bent and dipped, forcing her to turn her face away in terror. She screwed up her eyes as a tiny warmth of breath whispered across her cheek and the pressure of fingers touched the top of her spine.

Her foot slipped. She heard a sound, a strangled cry coming from deep inside her as the water slammed into her ears and eyes. Her lungs screaming pointlessly. Hands flailing, she fought and floundered, grasping on the solid sides of the bath and hauling herself up, coughing and heaving and instantly blinded as the light came on.

Spluttering, she shook the water from her eyes as the sound of running feet and someone shouting rammed its way into her muddled brain.

‘Frankie! Frankie! What is it?’

Vanessa’s frenzied yells hurtled up the stairs. She crashed through the door and stood panting in the doorway, eyes blazing with panic, before rushing over to grab her, hauling her out of the bath and grabbing for a towel. Frankie’s teeth chattered wildly inside her head. She couldn’t stop shaking.

‘My god, what’s wrong? What happened? Are you okay?’ She rubbed the towel vigorously up and down Frankie’s shoulders, patting and holding her close and stroking her hair back.

‘There-there was someone here.’

‘What?’

‘There was. There was someone here in the room.’

‘Who? What are you talking about?’

‘I don’t know. It went d-dark. The lights went out.’ Even as she said it, she could hear how mad it sounded.

‘No one came out of the bathroom, my darling, I would’ve seen them.’ Vanessa cupped her cheeks in her hands. Her palms were hot. Her eyes searched her face. ‘And there was no power cut, and the light’s on – See?’

‘What’s going on? Is she okay?’

Peter appeared in the doorway, peering anxiously at the two of them. ‘Has she hurt herself?’

‘No, no I don’t think so.’ Vanessa smiled round at him. ‘She slipped, I think. No bones broken. She’s okay… aren’t you?’

She nodded dumbly but felt like she might burst into tears.

‘I think there’s a lot going on for all of us at the moment.’ Vanessa smoothed Frankie’s wet hair back from her forehead. ‘We’re all exhausted. Things happen when you’re exhausted, but we’ll be fine.’

Vanessa’s gentle touch made the tears well and she gave a little sob. ‘I don’t know what happened, I’m so sorry… I must’ve fallen asleep. I think I was dreaming or something… I saw a shape…’

‘I thought something had happened to the baby.’ Peter shook his head in shock.

‘The baby’s fine, I’m fine – I think.’ Her teeth were chattering. ‘I’m so sorry about the carpet.’

‘Oh don’t worry about