Jack (Secret Revenge #1) Page 19

  As the years passed, I became more and more estranged from my family. We had moved to New York so that Robbie and Owen could have a better crack at the whip in a city that demanded a large amount of lawyers. My parents visited after our first child was born, but chose to make phone calls and send gifts for the next two.

  We never went to visit my family, and only called on occasions such as birthdays and Christmases. My life had become exactly what I wanted it to be, but I had never accounted for isolation being so intense.

  Millie and Owen lived in the same building as us, but Millie had excelled at becoming a wife and mother, and made links with other women in a similar situation. I would go along to various events with her and the other women, but I couldn’t mask my disdain at how superficial it all was.

  Eventually they stopped inviting me. Not long after the birth of our second child, Robbie and Owen went into partnership with a legal firm in London. Financially it was a wonderful move, it meant that our kids would never have to worry about their education and they would be left with a nest egg after we had gone. For me it meant that I became very dependent on my children for company, which wasn’t necessarily healthy.

  Chapter 5

  My father called one night when Robbie was in London. Something about that phone call made me open to him, not in full, but slightly. He encouraged me to take a course of some sort, whether it was online or at the weekends. He also implied that maybe I could hire somebody to look after the children and I could look at going into education full time, make something of myself and meet like-minded people.

  “You have the financial capacity to do it, Katie. Why not give it a shot? You’re still so young”.

  Youth was on my side. I was married, a mother of two, but I was only 25. Rejuvenated by the phone call, I spent the next few days making lists and drawing up plans to make a proposition with Robbie when he came home.

  “If I wanted to have a nanny raise our children, I wouldn’t have considered having them in the first place. Children need to be raised by their mother, not a stranger. Besides, what would you do in college? You didn’t do very well on your SAT’s”, Robbie said, smirking.

  He had utter control over the situation, and over my life. I smiled at him, not wanting to argue, and resolved myself to a life a solitude.

  We had our third child when I was 27. A little girl. Just like my own parents, I had two boys and a girl. I loved my boys, I loved all my children, but when Lola was born I knew I wouldn’t let her make the mistakes that I had made. I wouldn’t let her have her life defined by men, defined by her looks, defined by her gender.

  I started to write lists of all the things I could remember my parents teaching me, and began to teach them to my children. I would buy the books I read, the films I watched, and the board games I played. I became completely invested in raising my children the way I had been raised, and when it came to talking about relationships I explained them clearly and coherently, while feeling like a fraud. I wanted my children to do what I couldn’t; to live your life how you want to, and not feel constrained by what is expected of you.

  By the time Lola started school, Robbie and I, though still married and still living in the same house, were becoming more and more estranged. The distance between us suited us both.

  “I can’t emotionally connect with you”, he told me one night, “I’m too concerned with expanding my business and making it successful that I can’t invest in you”.

  Robbie had become quite the business man, and not long after the London venture he began to lose his humanity. Thankfully my family never visited. I couldn’t bear to have them see Robbie in this light, not when they were already so disillusioned by my decisions.

  My yearning for more became even more insatiable. My want for passion, for heat, for human connection. With the children in school, I found there was a more time available to focus on myself.

  One afternoon over a coffee with Millie I told her that I would love to have a job. Smiling she said, “You know, I might just be able to help you with that”.

  That very morning our mutual friend, Essie, had told Millie of a position that had opened in the office she worked at. Essie worked for a company that imported wine from Europe into the States. Wine. It couldn’t have been more than a sign if it tried.

  I started at the office on a Wednesday morning. A bizarre morning to start a new job, but the position had come up quite unexpectedly and it was a role the General Manager was eager to fill as fast as possible with very little fuss.

  “A simple data entry role”, my friend Essie told me on the phone, “you’ll be great at it and it will get you out of the house”. Being out of the house was almost insulting, implying that my house, my home with my husband and children, was a bad place to be. Certainly, I couldn’t argue, my house was a source of negativity, but there was a lot of love in the house, if only between my children and I.

  The job Essie called me about started at 9.30 and finished at 4.00, which left enough time in my day to get my children ready from school and meet them after it. It was the perfect schedule in terms of finding my way in the professional world my husband so desperately wanted me to avoid, whilst maintaining my mothering responsibilities.

  Robbie had outright forbidden me to start this job, telling me that the children were his priority and he wanted them to feel secure in their lives. I told him that the position I was going for would not impact upon their lives in any way, and if it ever did I would leave it in favour of being their perfect mother. The morning I was due to start the job, Robbie was flying to London for the week.

  “I’m incredibly disappointed in you, Katie. This is not what a marriage should be”, he scolded.

  “Marriage?” I questioned. He walked out, knowing there was no answer to give.

  Giddy at the prospect of creating my own life, making my own money, and having adult conversation for six hours of the day, I rambled into the office thirty minutes early after dropping the children to school. There were already some people at their desks. I scanned the room to look for Essie, but I couldn’t see her.

  “Are you okay, honey?” a woman asked.

  I followed the voice, but couldn’t figure out which of the women had spoken.

  She stood up, “Sorry honey that was me! Are you ok?” she asked again.

  “Oh, yes. I’m due to start here today, I’m just looking for Essie?” I explained.

  “Ah, Katie” she said, coming towards me, “you’re nice and early!”

  She came straight up to me, gave me a kiss on the cheek, “Welcome Katie, I’m Florrie”.

  I smiled, feeling a little overwhelmed by how nice she was, and perturbed by the chemistry I was feeling between us.

  “I’m the General Manager here”, she told me.

  Snapping into professional mode I stood up straight and said, “How wonderful to meet you and thank you so much for giving me this opportunity!”

  I must have sounded very eager because Florrie started to giggle, “You’re welcome Katie, but it’s not as exciting as you seem. Let’s go and grab you a coffee and get to know one another”.

  Chapter 6

  Florrie was beautiful. There was no other word for it. She was stunning. She had long, thick, silver hair that she wore in a loose plait. She wore black jeans and a black top with red Jimmy Choo stilettos and a red cape.

  Her eyes were a dazzling shade of green, nothing like I’ve ever seen before. She was wearing a red lipstick that was the exact shade of her cape and shoes. She was pristine and smelled like Chanel No.5. I was in awe.

  There was a slight twang to her accent, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was. European perhaps?

  “This is our coffee room, Katie. It’s here where we recant all our tales of woe and fix one another’s problems”, she laughed.

  Eager to make conversation and not sound as flustered as I felt I asked, “have you worked here long, Florrie?”

  “Too long”, she laughed, “far too long!
Well, you see, my husband owns the company and despite my better judgement, I started working for him a year after we married, and have never left”, she smiled.

  I smiled at her, somewhat jealous that she had a husband who wanted her to succeed independent of their marriage.

  “What about you”, she asked, “what’s your story?”

  I blushed, not because she was asking me anything I couldn’t answer, but that my answer would sound exactly as it was.

  Ridiculous. “Well, I met my husband when I was quite young and married. We have three young children and he believes I should be at home raising them, and not here working for you”, I blurted.

  Florrie laughed, “Oh honey, you’ll do great here”.

  The niggling craving I had for more in my life tripled in intensity when Florrie came into it. She stirred up sensations that I had suppressed for far too long, and nothing I could do could dampen them. I was instantly infatuated with her, and harbored an insatiable need to be around her at all times.

  Thankfully, she seemed to want to be around me a lot, too. Within my first week of working for her, Florrie and I had gone for lunch together twice. Long lunches. We would discuss everything, quite candidly, and as each moment passed the chemistry between us grew much stronger.

  Florrie instilled a sense of self-worth in me that I had lost many years ago. When we came to realize that her husband was one of Robbie’s most important clients, she helped me use it to my advantage.

  Within six weeks of working for her, Florrie had enabled me to convince Robbie to get a nanny in. This meant that I could have evenings free after work, and many of those evenings were spent in Florrie’s company, allowing her to wine and dine me, becoming intoxicated by the passion between us.

  One afternoon I stepped into the pantry of the coffee room in work to look for some Nespresso capsules that Florrie kept hidden from everyone else. She had shown me where they were under the rule that I must make her a cup every time I made myself one. The rest of the office had full use of all the capsules apart from the limited edition Vanilla-Cardamom one that we had fallen in love with while perusing through the flavors in the Nespresso store near my house one evening after work.

  It was nothing more than a private joke which we shared, but I loved having this connection with her. Unbeknownst to the two women who walked into the coffee room, I could hear every word they said. I sank, listening to them, my heart breaking into tiny little pieces.

  “I guarantee you, they are dykes!” one told the other.

  “I don’t know, I think she might just be teachers’ pet. Do you think Florrie swings that way?” the other replied.

  “Yes, don’t be so naïve, Florrie and her husband are nothing more than pals. There’s no passion between them at all. I actually heard that they don’t even live in the same house any more”, she gossiped.

  “Florrie and Katie are definitely a thing. Two, massive, lesbians. It’s so obvious you should see…” they were leaving the room, so I didn’t get to hear the end of her sentence.

  I didn’t need to. The mere mention of the word “dyke” had unleashed emotions in me that I had first felt at 15 when Millie shouted it down the school corridor.

  I made our coffees, went back to the office, sat down at my desk and tried to hard not to cry. My insecurities were completely taking over.

  I sent Florrie an email, “Hi, don’t want to mention this out loud in the office, but, I’ve got quite a bad period. Would you mind if I went home to rest? Just don’t feel great”.

  Florrie stood up and looked at me, “Good grief honey, you look terrible! Go home right away!” she exclaimed.

  I caught a quick glance at the two women who had been gossiping. Having seen the coffees and the obvious state I was in, they had put two and two together and realized I had overheard their conversation. They dropped their heads rather than make eye contact with me.

  I left the office and burst into tears. My illusions shattered. I couldn’t deny my feelings for Florrie, but I couldn’t bear being labelled by those women, particularly when I had no concrete evidence that Florrie felt for me how I felt for her. All I had was hope that she did, and a few subtle hints along the way, but nothing more.

  I got to my house and let the nanny go home. I told her she didn’t need to come for the rest of the week, because I would not be going to work.

  She smiled, but hesitated to leave, “Don’t worry, you’ll get paid for the week”, I told her sharply.

  She picked up her coat and left without saying goodbye. I sat on the sofa and looked over at the photos on my mantelpiece. One from my wedding day, a photo of each of our children, photos of our parents, and a photo of Florrie and I at a gallery opening that was printed in a city circulation.

  “You two look so comfortable together”, the photographer told us.

  Laughing I explained, “We’re not a couple”.

  He seemed perplexed, particularly because Florrie was holding my hand and rubbing my arm. My mind went into overdrive; does she have feelings for me or is it all in my head?

  My phone beeped, a message from Florrie, “All ok? X” it read.

  “Yes, but I think I might take the week off. Period and flu all in one. X” I replied.

  “No problem, I’ll come around later with some soup! X” she responded. I couldn’t see her.

  “Not tonight, just not feeling well enough to entertain x”. I had never turned down a visit from Florrie.

  I began counting the days that I knew Florrie. I could remember every moment so vividly, because I had placed so much weigh on them. I lived for my conversations with her, my walks with her, my meals with her. I had long since acknowledged that my farcical marriage was willing its way to the end and thought I hadn’t told Florrie, I had been planning my life, my children’s lives, around her.

  Chapter 7

  I longed to escape the mundanity of my comfortable home, rekindle my wanderlust and see the world. Florrie had told me stories about all the lands she had visited, she hotel beds she had slept in, the hills she had climbed and the seas she dipped her toes into.

  I wanted follow in her footsteps and experience what the world had to offer and show my children that there is more to life than the bubble the existed in now. The conversation the two gossip scoundrels had in the coffee room in Florrie’s office had destroyed my dreams.

  I was too scared to follow up on them, too scared to be labelled a dyke and too scared of rejection. I know that Florrie liked me, but I didn’t know if she liked me how I liked her.

  My eldest son, Milo, ran in to the kitchen screaming, “Lola fell down the stairs, Lola fell down the stairs”. I ran out to the hallway to investigate and found Lola sitting on the bottom step, her shoulder very obviously damaged from the fall. Shock had taken over her tiny body; she was pale and silent. Not wanting to bring three small children to a hospital, I took my phone out and panicked. Who could I call?

  Of course the only name in my head was Florrie. Shock, worry and panic clouded my thinking and I couldn’t see past Florrie’s name. The sound of her voice floored me. There was something about her accent that caused gastronomic explosions inside me, filling up my senses with a powerful want.

  “Florrie, Lola has fallen and damaged her arm. Would it be at all possible for you to come to my house and take care of the boys? I didn’t know who else to call”.

  Obliging as always, Florrie said she would be there in minutes. Only when the doorbell rang did the animals cross my mind. I ran to the door, crying, and explained to Florrie that I couldn’t let her in, that the animals were in the house, and I wouldn’t be able to find them. She had always been open about the fact that she hated animals, and anytime she came to my home I would scoop the pets up and banish to them to a bedroom. She grabbed my hand and pulled me into her body, holding me tightly. Though her embrace was comforting, it was tinged on the edges with the essence of something more. Florrie and I had been lingering towards “something more” for quite s
ome time.

  Soothing me, Florrie told me not to worry, that she had no intentions of interacting with the animals, and if they did happen upon her she would be more than happy to show them on their way. We walked towards the living room where Lola sat, holding her little arm, letting giant tears stream down her delicate face.

  Florrie was holding my hand, tightly, until she saw Lola. Gasping she let go and ran towards my daughter, worried for her welfare.

  “Go, go, go, quickly. Don’t waste another moment, that child needs to see someone”, Florrie shouted, ushering us out of the living room towards the front door.