At the mention of PR in connection with Kit, Lily’s blood chilled, all the good stuff draining away and leaving nothing but a hard, cold lump in her stomach. A tremor ran through her and her memory took her right back to the night he’d stumbled in in the early hours after that work night out and had confessed to having just slept with someone who’d worked in the PR department of the hotel where he was working.
A cold sweat broke out all over her skin and her throat tightened and for a moment she went dizzy at the sickening thought that Kit still saw the woman he had a one-night stand with.
And then she gave herself a shake and got a grip. She was overreacting. Being absurd. Irrational. Seeing a coincidence where it was highly unlikely that there was one because thousands of people worked in PR, and probably more than half of them were women.
Besides, if Kit had recommended her and they’d only been back together for a couple of months, then the chances were that Paula Burrows had only started working with Kit recently.
And finally, Kit would have told her if he actually now worked with the woman he’d cheated on her with, wouldn’t he? Of course he would, because he’d promised her honesty and openness and had said he’d never give her any reason not to be able to trust him.
She believed him so she had nothing to worry about. Nothing to fear. She should give him the benefit of the doubt, attribute her bizarre reaction to John’s news to her pathetic insecurities and leave it.
*
Lily left it for the ten minutes it took to wrap things up with her new client and walk to the lift and then the three she spent zooming down twenty-five storeys to the ground floor. She left it for the two minutes she needed to cross the lobby and walk out of the door, and the next two it took to cross the road and enter the garden square.
She left it, in fact, until she was sitting on a bench in the early spring sunshine, digging around in her handbag for her phone and inwardly cursing herself for being so pitifully weak and insecure that she had to check out Paula Burrows for sure.
But what else could she do? she thought, finally locating her phone and hauling it out. For the last five of the seventeen minutes since the suspicion had taken root in her brain she’d been itching to do something about it because she’d realised somewhere between the fifteenth and fourteenth floors that in this case ignorance wasn’t bliss. In this case ignorance was a bitch and she’d far rather be in possession of the facts, whatever they turned out to be.
After a couple of taps on the tiny screen of her smartphone Lily typed in ‘Paula Burrows’ along with ‘PR’ and the name of Kit’s company.
And up she popped.
With her heart in her throat, Lily braced herself and scrolled through the woman’s CV, bypassing the professional qualifications and industry awards until she got to the employment section.
The woman who might or might not have slept with her husband had had an impressive career so far. She’d been working for Kit’s PR company for two years. Prior to that she’d worked at another top ten agency. And prior to that she’d worked in the PR department at the Brinkley Hotel Group. As had Kit. At the same time.
Which didn’t automatically mean that they’d slept together, Lily told herself, frantically trying to cling onto logic as she fought not to hyperventilate, because presumably this Paula Burrows, or Barnes as she’d been then, hadn’t been the only woman in the company’s PR department.
But nor did it mean they hadn’t, she thought, beginning to lose the battle with her breathing and logic. And if by horrible coincidence Kit did now work with the woman he’d had a one-night stand with and hadn’t told her, what did it mean? What was going on?
She didn’t know. A mere half an hour ago she’d been so certain about everything to do with her and Kit and their fabulous burgeoning relationship, but now with her head pounding with questions and doubts and her grip on her self-control rapidly disintegrating she suddenly didn’t know anything any more.
All she did know was that she couldn’t go back to the office and face Zoe’s inevitable questions and relentless cheerfulness. Not while her thoughts were such a mess and the emotions she was struggling to keep in check were threatening to spill over.
So with a couple of taps and a quick swipe she found Zoe’s number and hit the dial button.
‘Hey,’ came Zoe’s cheerful voice down the line.
‘Hi,’ said Lily, her own voice sounding thick and croaky as if she hadn’t used it in years.
‘How did it go?’
‘Good. We got it.’
‘Great. Well done you. I’ll put the champagne on ice.’
Lily lifted a hand to her pounding temple and closed her eyes because the last thing s
he felt like doing right now was celebrating. ‘I think I might head home.’
There was a pause. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine. Just a bit of a headache, that’s all.’
‘Sure? You sound rough.’
‘I feel it. But I’m sure I’ll be fine in a bit.’ Which was a lie because she couldn’t imagine feeling fine any time soon.