Page 74 of Love Me Till Wednesday

‘You’ve gone out?’ He sounded shocked.

‘Yeah. I needed some stuff from the shop.’

‘Why didn’t you send Pete?’

‘Because he’s not my servant. And he’s spending the weekend at Andy’s.’

‘Today’s not the best day for you to go shopping. You better get back home.’

‘I get there’s been some social media noise about your parentage,’ she whispered as she grabbed a bottle of milk from the fridge and headed for the checkout. ‘But I don’t see why that makes everyone so interested in me.’

Then she caught sight of the headline on one of the tabloids on the newsstand by the tills.

MY NIXON NIGHTMARE

It was accompanied by a small photo of Nick and Adrienne looking loved up at a red carpet do. There was nothing unusual in that, but what was concerning was a larger image of Lisa and Nick taken at the Mr Friday Night Show recording. Someone had caught the brief moment when they were holding hands. The subheading read

Exclusive! Star cheats on pregnant fiancée with old flame.

Marvellous. She was being billed as some sort of femme fatale. No wonder people were staring.

‘I see what you mean now,’ she said to Jim as she stood in the queue for the self-checkouts. ‘Have you read it? How bad is it?’

‘Pretty bad. Looks like Adrienne’s sold her story. You’ve been screwing around with Dad for years, according to her.’

‘Bloody liar.’

‘Is it a lie? The online version has a photo of you leaving his hotel at one this morning.’ Jim sounded less than impressed.

‘Yes, it is a lie,’ she said. She wasn’t going into details with half the supermarket in earshot.

The man behind her tapped her shoulder and pointed to a free checkout. ‘Sorry,’ she said to him. ‘Jim, I can’t talk now. I’ll phone you back when I’m at home.’

Lisa got a text from Jules as she walked back into the house.

Come over for a chat if you need a shoulder to cry on. Martin’s away with the boys at the footie X

She so needed to talk this through with someone she could trust, but first she needed to read Adrienne’s version of events.

She replied to Jules:

Thank you! Just got to sort something. I’ll be over in 10 x

Time to face the music. Lisa googled the headline and found the article.

She skim-read it initially and then went back to the beginning to read it properly, trying to let it all sink in.

Adrienne claimed to be deeply in love with Nick. She talked about how awful she’d felt when he’d confessed that Lisa was his soulmate, but she’d stuck with him because she wanted to make his life better and knew they were meant for each other. They both wanted a family so she’d been delighted when the pregnancy test had turned positive a few days ago, just weeks before their wedding. Then she described the horror of finding out only a few hours later that Lisa and Nick were having an affair and they had a secret love child.

The images that accompanied the article had been carefully chosen to back up Adrienne’s version of events.

What a mess. No wonder people had been glaring at her. Lisa would hate Lisa if she read that article without knowing the real story.

What did Nick think about it all? She was surprised he hadn’t been in touch already. She texted him.

What a mess! Xx

He phoned back straightaway. ‘What’s up?’ He sounded half asleep.

---