impossible to concentrate on pulling together an interview with the Minister of Agriculture. On the other side of the room, she could see Luke sitting at his desk. He looked pale, drawn, stressed. Had Hannah found out? Thea sort of hoped she had and sort of hoped she hadn’t. She watched him frown at his screen, sit back in his chair, then get up and head toward the gents.
She knew she shouldn’t do it, but something seized her.
9 2
Glancing round to make sure no one was looking, she tapped out of her email account and then tapped in [email protected] . Years of working with him meant she knew his password – Matilda – and Thea was always reading his emails to check who he was fooling around with, although annoyingly Luke tended to double-delete everything as soon as he read it, so she rarely got much joy there.
She was in his email account. She searched for some angry missive from Hannah, but there was nothing. A load of guff from PRs wanting to meet him. Something from Gerry entitled, Let’s have a beer . And then one from PoppyPrice . Nothing in the subject field.
Heart staccato, Thea opened it.
Darling Luke
I’m emailing u becoz ur not returning my calls or texts and I’m desprat. I’m sorry u had such a shock about the baby but we need 2 talk. I’m going to keep it whatever and I understand if u don’t want 2 b involved but we just need to talk some more. I love u, I love u so much and I thought u loved me 2. Please, please, please get in touch.
Again, I love u with all my heart
Your, Poppy xxxxx00000
The Tube pulled in to West Hampstead. Stepping out through the doors, Thea recalled the murderous, white-hot rage that had enveloped her as she read it. And she remembered how she, Thea Mackharven, who prided herself on her cool and collected approach to life had clicked on the forward button, then rapidly tapped Ha into the address field. [email protected] flashed up. An icy calm descended on Thea as she clicked on send. ‘Ding! Your email has been sent.’
Rapidly, she logged out of Luke’s account. Seconds later he returned to his desk.
Thea wasn’t sure now what she’d intended by sending the email. She wondered about this, as she turned right out of the station. There were other, simpler ways of taking revenge, like organizing a secret online account to deliver monthly packets of Viagra to his home address. That was what Thea did when she heard Luke had left Hannah and was living with the illiterate Poppy Price. But it was poor compensation for the havoc she’d wreaked.
When she discovered Luke was going to marry Poppy, Thea had gone to Chris Stevens and asked if she could spend a couple of months in the New York office, filling in for the producer David Bright, who had just announced his wife was pregnant with twins and wanted them all to come back to Britain for the birth.
‘Really?’ Chris had said incredulously. ‘But you’re doing great work here, Thea.’
‘I need to be challenged,’ she’d said.
Chris’s eyebrows wiggled in an uncomfortably knowing way. ‘Well, for you I’m sure we can arrange anything. Because one thing’s sure, we don’t want to lose you.’
Within a fortnight Thea had packed up her life and was on a plane to New York. The Brights decided not to return to the US and Thea acquitted herself so well that she was a shoe-in to take the job permanently. Beyond the odd word with Luke in a work context, she had not spoken to him again. To her pain, he had not spoken to her.
Now she was tapping up the tiled pathway that led to Dean Cutler’s redbrick terraced house and within minutes she was going to see him again.
She took a purple Skittle out of the bag, crunched on it fast, took a deep breath and rang Dean’s doorbell.
9
A skinny man in jeans and a lumberjack shirt opened the door.
‘Oh-ho,’ he said, ‘you must be Thea! We meet at last. Great to put a face to a voice.’
‘Dean.’ She smiled her most winning smile and held out
She knew she shouldn’t do it, but something seized her.
9 2
Glancing round to make sure no one was looking, she tapped out of her email account and then tapped in [email protected] . Years of working with him meant she knew his password – Matilda – and Thea was always reading his emails to check who he was fooling around with, although annoyingly Luke tended to double-delete everything as soon as he read it, so she rarely got much joy there.
She was in his email account. She searched for some angry missive from Hannah, but there was nothing. A load of guff from PRs wanting to meet him. Something from Gerry entitled, Let’s have a beer . And then one from PoppyPrice . Nothing in the subject field.
Heart staccato, Thea opened it.
Darling Luke
I’m emailing u becoz ur not returning my calls or texts and I’m desprat. I’m sorry u had such a shock about the baby but we need 2 talk. I’m going to keep it whatever and I understand if u don’t want 2 b involved but we just need to talk some more. I love u, I love u so much and I thought u loved me 2. Please, please, please get in touch.
Again, I love u with all my heart
Your, Poppy xxxxx00000
The Tube pulled in to West Hampstead. Stepping out through the doors, Thea recalled the murderous, white-hot rage that had enveloped her as she read it. And she remembered how she, Thea Mackharven, who prided herself on her cool and collected approach to life had clicked on the forward button, then rapidly tapped Ha into the address field. [email protected] flashed up. An icy calm descended on Thea as she clicked on send. ‘Ding! Your email has been sent.’
Rapidly, she logged out of Luke’s account. Seconds later he returned to his desk.
Thea wasn’t sure now what she’d intended by sending the email. She wondered about this, as she turned right out of the station. There were other, simpler ways of taking revenge, like organizing a secret online account to deliver monthly packets of Viagra to his home address. That was what Thea did when she heard Luke had left Hannah and was living with the illiterate Poppy Price. But it was poor compensation for the havoc she’d wreaked.
When she discovered Luke was going to marry Poppy, Thea had gone to Chris Stevens and asked if she could spend a couple of months in the New York office, filling in for the producer David Bright, who had just announced his wife was pregnant with twins and wanted them all to come back to Britain for the birth.
‘Really?’ Chris had said incredulously. ‘But you’re doing great work here, Thea.’
‘I need to be challenged,’ she’d said.
Chris’s eyebrows wiggled in an uncomfortably knowing way. ‘Well, for you I’m sure we can arrange anything. Because one thing’s sure, we don’t want to lose you.’
Within a fortnight Thea had packed up her life and was on a plane to New York. The Brights decided not to return to the US and Thea acquitted herself so well that she was a shoe-in to take the job permanently. Beyond the odd word with Luke in a work context, she had not spoken to him again. To her pain, he had not spoken to her.
Now she was tapping up the tiled pathway that led to Dean Cutler’s redbrick terraced house and within minutes she was going to see him again.
She took a purple Skittle out of the bag, crunched on it fast, took a deep breath and rang Dean’s doorbell.
9
A skinny man in jeans and a lumberjack shirt opened the door.
‘Oh-ho,’ he said, ‘you must be Thea! We meet at last. Great to put a face to a voice.’
‘Dean.’ She smiled her most winning smile and held out
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