The Girl Before

“If you’d been more honest with me about Emma,” I say, “we might have made it work before.”

He looks at me sharply. I can see him wondering if this is what motherhood has done to me; if it has already somehow changed me, made me more assertive.

“How could I talk to you about it, when I didn’t even understand it myself?” he says at last. “I’m an obsessive person. And she loved to provoke me. She found it exciting when she managed to make me lose control, even though I hated myself for it. In the end I did break off with her but it was hard, very hard.” He hesitates. “She gave me a letter once. She said she wanted to explain herself. Later she asked me not to read it. But by then I already had.”

“Did you keep it?”

“Yes. Do you want to see it?”

“No,” I decide. I look down at Toby’s sleeping face. “It’s the future we need to think about now.”

He seizes on that. “So you will consider it? You’ll think about giving this one up? I think I could be a father again, Jane. I think I’m ready for that. But let’s have the child we want to have. A child that’s been planned.”

And that, finally, is when I tell Edward the truth.

THEN: EMMA

I knew even before I met you, when the agent started talking about your rules. Some women, perhaps most women, want to be cherished and respected. They want a man who’s sweet and kind, who whispers words of gentleness and love. I’ve tried to be that woman, and to love that man, but I can’t.

As soon as I spilled the coffee on your plans, I was sure. Something I couldn’t even put into words had happened. You were stern and powerful but you forgave me. Simon could do the forgiveness but it was out of weakness, not strength. In that moment, I became yours.

I don’t want to be cherished. I want to be commanded. I want a monstrous man, a man other men hate and envy and who doesn’t give a shit. A man made of stone.

Once or twice I thought I’d found that man. And then I could never be the one to tear myself away. When those men used me and threw me aside I accepted it as nothing more than the proof they really were who they claimed to be.

One of those men was Saul. I found him disgusting at first. An arrogant, loathsome creep. I thought because he was married to Amanda his flirting didn’t mean anything. So I let myself flirt back and that was my mistake. He got me drunk. I knew what he was doing but I thought there was a point where he’d stop. He didn’t, and I suppose I didn’t either. It felt like it was all happening to someone else. I know this will sound strange, but it felt like I was Audrey Hepburn dancing with Fred Astaire. Not a drunk PA giving a senior manager a seedy blowjob at a corporate training day. And by the time I realized I didn’t like what he was doing or the way he was doing it, it was too late. The more I tried to stop him, the rougher he got.

I hated myself after that. I thought it was my fault for letting him get me into that situation. And I hated Simon for always seeing the best in me when actually I’m not the person he thinks I am. It was just so much easier to lie to everyone than to tell the truth.

So you see, in you I thought I’d finally found someone who was kind as well as strong, Simon as well as Saul. And when I realized you had secrets too, I was glad. I thought we could be honest with each other. That we could finally rid ourselves of all the clutter from our past. Not our possessions, but the stuff we carry around inside our heads. Because that’s what I’ve realized, living in One Folgate Street. You can make your surroundings as polished and empty as you like. But it doesn’t really matter if you’re still messed up inside. And that’s all anyone’s looking for really, isn’t it? Someone to take care of the mess inside our heads?

17. It is better to tell a lie and remain in control of a situation than to tell the truth with unpredictable results.

Agree ? ? ? ? ? Disagree

NOW: JANE

“He was planned,” I say.

Edward frowns. “Is that a joke?”

“Perhaps ten percent of a joke.” He starts to relax, but then I add, “That’s to say, he was planned by me. Just not by you.”

I tuck Toby tighter into the crook of my arm. “I knew the very first time I met you, actually, that time at your office. I knew you could be the father of my child. Good-looking, intelligent, creative, driven…You were certainly the best I was likely to find.”

“You lied to me?” he says incredulously.