I pulled open a cupboard door and found some crackers.

“Have you seen this?” she asked, holding up the Sunday Mercury. “Aren’t you doing a story on him?”

Shit. She’d written another piece on Nathan. That would get him into even bigger trouble with the chairman.

I glanced over, trying to be disinterested. “What is it?” No doubt it was an article about Audrey, maybe even a photograph taken of them by the car in Norfolk. It took every gram of self-restraint I had not to tell her that there was no way that Audrey and Nathan were having an affair. Nathan wouldn’t do that to Mark despite what Mark had done to him. He wouldn’t sleep with me if he was with Audrey. And he wouldn’t cheat on me. Nathan wasn’t a cheater.

“Audrey Alpern has been spurned,” my mother announced. I squinted as I took in the headline. “Used and Thrown Away?” The picture was of Nathan’s front door and Audrey Alpern had her arm raised as if she were hammering on it.

I sighed. “What’s your theory?” I asked. “She forgot her key?”

“He’s clearly gotten bored and she’s gone crazy. That’s the thing about these successful men, they think they can treat women like their playthings. They think they play by different rules than the rest of us, and you know what, Madison, the sad thing is very often they do.”

“And that’s what your sources tell you?”

She glanced up at me. “Well, no. I don’t have anything but the photograph this time but why else would she be desperately banging on his door on a Saturday night? I mean, he’s obviously not answering his phone to her.”

“This Saturday?” I asked. That didn’t make sense. Audrey was in Norfolk on Saturday and I knew Nathan was too. Whoever my mother’s source was, they were full of shit, but I knew that already.

“Did I say Saturday, I meant Friday. One of the neighbors called a source of mine. Audrey was hysterical apparently but Nathan didn’t come to the door.”

“Maybe she’d had a bad day at work.”

My mother laughed. “Of course she did.”

The rage began to boil in me and I abandoned my crackers and headed back upstairs. If I spent any longer in the same room as my mother, we’d end up in a row.

I couldn’t sit still, and began pacing in front of my bedroom window. It wasn’t the lack of snacks that made me restless.

Nathan had confessed to me what had happened at university with Mark when he’d not even told his parents or his brothers. He’d trusted me. Yet I was still lying about my mother’s identity.

I needed to go to Nathan and tell him my whole truth. I stopped pacing, headed to my wardrobe, and pulled out my running kit. We were just across the Heath from each other. I knew he had to work this afternoon—it was why we left before breakfast. But if I was passing on my run, he wouldn’t mind if I stopped by, would he?

I pulled on my electric blue, Lycra running trousers, along with my favorite vintage Blondie t-shirt, and grabbed my phone. No time like the present. If I thought about it too much, I’d chicken out. And he might need a friend to talk to if my mother’s column had riled the chairman up again. When the last article hit, he’d told Nathan he was running out of chances. Was this the final straw? If there was anything I could do, I wanted to be there for him.

My parents’ house backed onto the Heath, and within minutes I was headed in the direction of Highgate. I wanted to get there fast, before I had time to change my mind. At the same time, I didn’t really want to arrive in a sweaty mess. And I’d forgotten how uphill the route was.

The road was busier than it should be for this time of day, but it wasn’t raining—that was all the encouragement people needed sometimes. I darted past other pedestrians and runners, through shortcuts between the trees, focused on where I was headed. My legs burned but I was spurred on by the thought that I’d soon be there. I had to tell Nathan who my mother was—that she was the one who was writing about him and Audrey in the Mercury.

He was a decent man and I hoped he’d forgive me. Surely he’d understand my reasons for keeping it from him. But I couldn’t lie any longer, not when he’d shared so honestly. Regardless of our intentions, our relationship wasn’t purely professional any longer. If it ever had been. And I needed to share this with him.

The longer I left it, the more likely it was that he’d find out from someone else, and I didn’t want that to happen. And I was sure there was an explanation for why Audrey was distraught on his doorstep on Friday. And why they had been spending so much time together recently. I thought back—there was the night at Annabel’s, the afternoon at Costa, then Friday night. Wasn’t it meant to be Mark that Nathan was close to? Why were they spending so much time alone?

Tags: Louise Bay Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net