Page 124 of The Secret

“Mum and I were still here when she came back from coffee with you. She was with her friend, Payton,” her eyes widened, “whom I love by the way. She was so funny. Oh my God I want…”

I couldn’t give a single fuck about Payton right now, and Freddie’s pregnancy meant she tended to wander off topic more frequently than I currently had patience for.

“Jesus, get to the point!”

She tried to wither me with a look, but I was already fucking withered. “She was very upset, she hadn’t expected us to still be here, but I’d needed to pee again and then I was hungry so made some lunch, then Bell fell asleep and everything took longer than expected.”

I inhaled a deep, not very cleansing, breath, and concentrated on not snapping again, while waiting for her to focus.

“Babe…” Cooper interrupted her current detour from the only piece of information I was interested in. Kit.

“Sorry, she was really upset. Incredibly upset.”

Guilt punched me hard in the gut, the visual of her tears once again gnawing my brain. I shouldn’t have stormed out. I should have stayed to show her how much I loved her. I should have worked harder to prove we didn’t need space, we just needed each other.

“She told us about what happened. What you said to her.”

My head shot her way again, what I said to her?

“Wait, what d’you mean? What did I say?”

She tried to lean over the counter but couldn’t, instead pinning me with a dirty, snarly, squinty look instead. “Jesus, Murray, are you serious? You don’t remember?”

“I thought you were going to say she told you about Dasha.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh, we heard about that, too. And we can cover that later, but that’s not what she was upset about.”

“Freddie…” I hoped she took my tone as a warning. Cooper certainly did as he stepped forward to sit at the island with us, crossing his arms over his chest like I was some kind of imminent threat, and he was her security detail.

“She told you how she felt and you called her ridiculous and stormed out.”

I slumped back down. I’d been expecting some big revelation. “Oh.”

I had no rebuttal. I stood by what I’d said. She was being ridiculous.

“Murray, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong withme?!” I fumed.

“Yes, you.” She pointed at me like I didn’t know who she was referring to and needed a reminder. “This girl is perfect for you, she loves you and she’s trying to make a proper go of it, and you storm out and call her ridiculous. Now you’re sitting here, hungover and pathetic. So yes, what’s wrong with you?”

I didn’t want to hear any of this. I didn’t want to hear that Kit was perfect for me, I already knew that. Wewereperfect for each other, and I didn’t need my sister to rub it in my face that she now wasn’t here with me, where she should be.

“You know what, Francesca? For once in your life, mind your own fucking business. Always with the fucking meddling! If you and Wolf hadn’t meddled in the first place, then I wouldn’t be in this position, would I?”

Her lips pursed as hard as her glare. “No, you’d still be fucking your way through New York’s mind-numbingly dull, not to mention stupid, bitches, like the one who turned up in your office, instead of actually feeling something for the first time in your life.”

The nerve she hit was already exposed down to the root.

“Oh, fuck off!” I yelled, startling Barclay.

“No, you fuck off!” she yelled back.

An ear-bleedingly shrill whistle pierced the air.

“Okay, enough. Pack it in, both of you!” Cooper yelled the loudest, his fingers still hovering by his lips in case he needed to burst our eardrums a second time. We both stopped yelling, but we didn’t stop glowering at each other though.

He turned to Freddie, his voice much quieter. “Francesca, why don’t you go and have a nap? I’ll stay and keep an eye on Murray.”

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