Page 77 of You Belong With Me

‘It’s an interview with your ex-boyfriend, Jack Marshall. He’s given his side of what happened at his wedding last year.’

What? Edie was stunned.

‘If I read you his quotes, do you want to make a comment?’

‘He’s not my ex,’ Edie said, before comprehending she was simultaneously half-pissed, in shock, and on the record with a journalist – and ending the call.

A text arrived from Declan.

Tommo! Your friends are ACE. As is your sister. I can’t thank you enough for how well you’ve looked after me since I moved up here. A brilliant night, thanks. xx

It was no longer a brilliant night.

40

The bony fingers of her demons prodded her into consciousness at exactly five a.m. Edie lay staring up at her tasselled lampshade.Your ex-boyfriend has given his side. Edie felt sureI digitally breadcrumbed a woman into imagining we had a secret connection, the only side Jack had, wouldn’t be the side he’d provided.

Every so often, Edie listlessly picked up her phone and checked again.

She and Elliot had frantically WhatsApped their mutual alarm the previous night; he’d heard when she did, as Lillian had been approached about it. They agreed to speak today when they knew what they were dealing with. She doubted either of them had had much rest.

The story appeared around seven a.m., and it wasn’t a sidebar; it merited the site proper, with a large photo of Jack and an inset one of Edie, holding a cocktail, head on one side, smiling winningly into the lens.

She clicked and scrolled. The quantity of words and pictures felt huge. Itwashuge. This was a novella, a macabre pulp romance with Edie as involuntary protagonist. Her own facegrinned back up at her in a variety of snapshots torn from half-forgotten evenings out of recent years. Party dresses, bright lipstick, flicky eyeliner, and face pulling.

‘I Fell For Edie And It Destroyed My Wedding Day … And My Life’

EXCLUSIVE: Elliot Owen’s girlfriend’s ex warns him: ‘You don’t know who you’re dealing with’

Jack Marshall was in a blazer, manspreading on a Chesterfield sofa, giving a dynamic look to the camera. His hands were clasped between his legs. It was as if you were mid-meeting with him, and he’d decided to order a couple of single malts, drop the company spiel, and give the offer to you straight.

The pictures included one of Jack in wedding attire with Charlotte’s face obscured, and a couple of Edie and Elliot at Fraser’s party, including the one of them kissing, then the one of the fight with Elliot in the street, Edie flipping the V-sign at the amateur looky-loo paparazzo.

Wait, there she was with Declan?! The caption said:Thompson pictured with a colleague last month. There is no suggestion they are involved.Nice legal fireproofing, except your entire editorial direction suggests otherwise.

Oh, and they’d dug up an image she’d never seen before, obviously supplied by Jack, where she and he were at either end of a sofa at an office party, their faces accusingly circled. As luck would have it, Edie was chatting to another male colleague in it: a picture editor’s dream.

It was like true crime. Edie identified as the murderer of a marriage.

When actor Elliot Owen was snapped cuddling up to copywriter Edie Thompson last month, all eyes were on the loved-up duo. How had a 36-year-old from Nottingham, a total unknown, landed one of the most eligible bachelors in the world, the British heartthrob now a rising star in Hollywood?

After all, the 32-year-old wasn’t single at the time. When he and Thompson met, Owen was with model-actress Heather Lily. She publicly pleaded in vain for Owen to return to her side. When it became clear his interests were engaged elsewhere, she made her sense of betrayal clear.

Yet some onlookers were less surprised that Thompson’s job ghost-writing theBlood & Goldstar’s autobiography turned into such an unexpected romantic coup.

Jack Marshall, 38, an advertising executive from Herne Hill, knows to his cost that Edie Thompson’s charms can be distracting.

‘When I saw the photos of her and the actor entwined together, I thought, here we go again,’ Jack says, speaking to us about his own involvement with Thompson for the first time. ‘Edie makes men feel protective. But Edie doesn’t need protecting – it’s the other way around.’

Jack lost his new wife, his job, and his good name when he and Thompson were caught – by his bride – passionately kissing in the hotel grounds on his wedding day in Yorkshire last summer. Thompson was then a colleague of both the bride and groom at London-based advertising agency Ad Hoc.

WEDDING DAY CLINCH

‘I’m not proud of what occurred and take my share of the blame,’ Jack says, admitting that he finds reliving the episode very painful. ‘I had been with my then girlfriend, now ex-wife, for two years when I joined Ad Hoc. Edie made it pretty clear she was interested in me from day one. She always knew I was in a committed relationship. We bantered and would message and so on. She was obviously a fragile person, quite lonely even. My heart went out to her. I feared she was becoming attached and I stupidly thought I was looking after her by being her friend. With hindsight, I can see I was encouraging something that I shouldn’t have.’

The couple were both close enough with Thompson to invite her to their £35k bash in June last year at the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate, where the bride’s family lived.

Marshall has to take a deep breath before describing the chaos that ensued.

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