Page 68 of The Plot Twist

‘Sorry,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

There was a long uncomfortable silence, which Will finally broke by saying, ‘I’m not sure I can talk about this right now.’ He was standing up from the bed and beginning to reorganise his bedroom, which mainly seemed to involve picking up Allie’s discarded articles of clothing, folding them rather too aggressively and piling them in such a way as to suggest Allie would do well to get into them pretty quickly before the sentiment in the room deteriorated further.

‘I’m really sorry, Will,’ she said as she pulled her ruffled mini skirt towards her and wondered how many more times she could regret her decision to wear it. Having no other choice, other than to go home in just her knickers, she pulled it on underneath the duvet, making a very undignified hip wiggle as she struggled to straighten it.

‘For what?’ Will finally looked at her and she could see the hurt and confusion on his face. ‘For using my dad? Or for not telling me?’ Allie was stunned. She had known that this wasn’t going to be an easy conversation to have and deep down she knew that there was a good chance that Will really wasn’t going to be able to get past this. But she had so successfully buried her head in the sand that she really hadn’t prepared herself for Will’s reaction.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she stammered aware of how insufficient this now sounded. ‘I didn’t mean… I like your dad, Will, and I really like you…’

‘Not just using us to write your book then?’ A new hardened tone had entered Will’s voice and it chilled Allie’s heart to hear it, knowing she had caused it to be there.

‘No!’ she exclaimed. She stood up, thankful that she had managed to get her skirt and her bra on and as she wrestled with her T-shirt she said, ‘I know how this looks, I really do. But I never meant it to get this far. I should have told you sooner, that I knew who your dad was and that we were working together. And I really should have told Martin that I was using his stories as more than just inspiration.’

‘But you didn’t?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ she said quietly. ‘And I am sorry.’

Will was staring at the floor. His look screamed dejection. Eventually he sighed and looked at what he was holding in his hand. He thrust it at Allie. ‘I think these are yours too.’

If there was a worse way of experiencing the morning-after effect Allie didn’t want to know about it. Because right now she was sure that nothing beat standing in yourmaybeboyfriend’s bedroom, who you really, really liked, knowing you had majorly fucked things up and that there was a good chance he might never talk to you again, and that you had a half written book which needed to go straight into the trash folder as soon as you got home, leaving you with nothing to show the next time Jake Matthews made his unwelcome present felt,andyou were now clutching yesterday’s sweaty socks that the aforementioned dejectedmaybeboyfriend had just handed you. Allie stood ungainly on one leg as she put her socks on.

‘Should I go?’ she eventually asked.

Will took a deep breath and just for a moment Allie thought he might be about to have a change of heart and that a reprieve could be on the cards. But then he said, ‘I think that might be for the best. I feel there’s a lot I need to think about.’

Allie nodded sadly. ‘OK.’ She walked towards his front door, bending to pick up her shoes and bag as she passed them. On the doorstep she turned. ‘I’ll talk to Martin, OK? I’ll explain everything and I’ll delete the manuscript.’ She bit her lip and looked up at him. ‘Will, I’m so sorry.’

He smiled weakly and said he knew she was, and then suddenly Allie was stood in her socks on the wrong side of Will’s front door, not wondering how she had got here, because she knew exactly how it had happened, and that it was all her own fault.

ChapterTwenty-One

Allie stared at her laptop through teary eyes and read back over the words she had written so far. The tears weren’t because it was bad, in fact, objectively, she could appreciate that it may well be the best thing she had ever written. It was warm and witty, she’d captured the original romance through a series of emotional flashbacks and the juxtaposition with the failing marriage of the present day was really quite moving to read. But neither were her tears the result of being moved by the emotional depth of the story; they were the hot, shameful tears of realisation that nothing could change the fact that it wasn’t her story to tell, and she hadn’t asked permission from Martin or Angie to tell it. And she hadn’t told Will, either that she knew his dad or more to the point, was writing the story of his parents marriage. She bit her lip, viciously wiped under each eye and minimised the tab. She knew she should delete it, she knew she had told Will that she would, but she just needed a little more time to come to terms with the fact she was about to consign the best writing of her career to the oblivion of her MacBook trash can.

‘Ugh,’ she groaned and stretched and pushed her laptop away. Allie had been staring at it for hours, ever since coming back from Will’s flat that morning. It hadn’t gone well, but he hadn’t actually ended things, he hadn’t told her that he never wanted to see her again, so perhaps it wasn’t completely stupid to hold out some hope that Will would take the time he needed to process the fact that while she had been economical with the truth, it didn’t need to be that big a deal. Except it was, it really was, and she knew it. She groaned again and tried to ignore the sensation of nausea rising inside her. Not only had she screwed things up with Will, the only guy in a stream of many, many guys, who she actually liked. Not just liked, but really really liked. But she also now had absolutely no manuscript to share with Snake Eyes Jake, no word from Tessa that she might be about to save her skin, and no Martin to help her out with her writing. How had she let it all go so horribly wrong when just last night it had been going so wonderfully well? Images flashed through her brain, memories of the way Will had pulled her through his front door before she’d even finished ringing the doorbell. His hands all over her, his breath hot on her neck. The way she had pushed him backwards towards his bedroom, confident and insistent on what she wanted, what sheneeded.She could still feel him on her body, the sensation of her hands running through his hair, and she put her head down on her desk in despair at the realization of how badly she had messed up, and that no matter how angry Will was with her, it wasn’t going to change the wayshefelt about him. She was still going to want him, still going to need him. Her phone beeped at her and she narrowed her eyes, wondering whether whoever was calling was about to heap misery on her predicament or assuage the pain. And the only person she knew who could do the latter would be Will, calling to tell her he had thought it all through and that he totally understood, he still fancied the pants off her and that he had talked things over with his parents and they were all totally chill about her using their story. She picked her phone up and read the name, ‘Maybe: Verity Montagu-Forbes.’

‘Verity?’ Allie asked in surprise as she picked the phone up. ‘Is that you?’ Verity still hadn’t used her new number to communicate with Allie since the whole Brinkman’s debacle. For the most part she used Richard’s phone, but once or twice she had used a completely different number, which led Allie to wonder whether Verity was using a string of burner phones and also whether she was taking this NDA a little too seriously.

‘Allie, hi!’ It sounded like Verity, and the call was indeed coming from a number that said it was ‘maybe’ her. But Allie hadn’t heard Verity talk in a tone louder than a whisper, even when she was using someone else’s phone, in weeks.

‘Are you sure it’s you?’ Allie asked suspiciously.

‘What? Yes of course it’s me. Are you OK?’

‘Am I OK? You’re the one who should be answering that question!’

‘Why?’

Allie grimaced. Obviously she was pleased that Verity seemed more like her usual self, but it was as if she had returned with a side order of amnesia, not recalling any part of the subterfuge she had engaged in over the last few weeks. Allie didn’t have the strength to explain this. ‘No reason, what’s up?’

‘Jake…’ Verity left the name hanging there, leaving Allie wondering if she had imagined every event of recent times.

‘Erm, OK. What about him?’

‘I think we’ve got him.’ Verity did a little squeal of nervous excitement which made Allie smile, it was so heartwarming to hear Verity’s proper voice again.

‘How?’ Allie demanded. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Tessa’s going to do it!’

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