Faye changed the subject. ‘Jake could get into big troublewith his job if they found out the real reason he’d left work this morning.’
Marcus looked nonplussed. ‘I see.’ He studied his fingernails and glanced at the door, still waiting for his taxi..
‘Ah, but I don’t think you do.’ Faye shook her head. ‘You see, Jake had a more important issue to deal with this morning.’ Faye stared at Marcus. She should have been angry with him, but she just felt strangely relieved that all Jake had found that morning was a broken pane of glass, and not something much worse.
‘I don’t understand,’ Marcus finally spoke into the silence.
Neither did she; on the one hand, Jake acted like hecouldn’t stand the sight of Marcus,but that morning he had put his career on the line for him.
Marcus sat back in his chair. ‘Me?’ he slapped a hand on his chest. ‘You’re saying he just walked out of work for me?’ His surprise was evident.
Faye nodded. She wasn’t sure he fully understood the gravity of the situation. Jake could lose his chance to gain his qualification. Something he was putting his heart and soul into. They could both lose their positions. ‘After he got the phone call from Lydia, that’s all he had on his mind – finding you.’
Marcus got up from his chair and paced. ‘But I don’t understand. I never stay at his house. How did he know to come here first?’
‘He didn’t.’
‘Huh?’
‘He didn’t come here looking for you. He wanted to get his car first, so he could go and look for you.’
Marcus stopped pacing. ‘That was a stroke of luck, then.’ He was standing at the small window next to the front door. He lifted the thick net curtain to one side and peered out. Faye presumed he was looking for the taxi.
Marcus dropped the net curtain and turned to face Faye. ‘Didhe tell you where he was last night?’
Faye glared at him. Why was he so fixated on where Jake was last night? ‘He was just babysitting. He told you.’
Faye looked at the kitchen door; this conversation was beginning to get awkward. She didn’t relish the thought of telling Marcus about the previous night. But she had nothing to hide. ‘Jake was with me last night.’ That didn’t come out right. Faye hastily rephrased, ‘What I meant to say was …’
Marcus interrupted, ‘That it’s not what I think?’ He threw her a sly grin. ‘I knew there was something going on between you two.’
Faye rolled her eyes. ‘He slept on the couch.’
‘Shame.’ Marcus sighed.
‘Pardon?’
Marcus walked back to his seat and sat down. He clicked his tongue and shook his head at Faye. ‘Who would have thought, eh?’
‘What? Who would have thought – what?’
Marcus didn’t have to answer that for Faye to know what he was getting at.
She didn’t want to talk about Jake’s love life behind his back, especially when he was just in the next room, but she did want to put the record straight. ‘The fact is, he was seeing someone. There have been others too.’
Since she had known him, Jake had appeared to have no shortage of female admirers. She was in no way prying, but when he’d babysat, on occasion he’d left his mobile phone around, and when she’d come home she’d seen names flash up on his phone, and overheard him from time to time quietly speaking into his mobile.
Who was it last time? She tried to recall her name, ‘Melissa, Melanie …?’
‘Michaela.’
That was it! ‘Lucky guess,’ she said to Marcus.
‘Not really.’ Marcus lowered his eyes. ‘There are a lot of girls in the offices of Ross Corporation who used to work with Jake, and they often ask after him – you know how it is.’
Faye narrowed her eyes. ‘Actually, I don’t. Why don’t you enlighten me?’
‘He’s tried to cut himself off from as much of his old life as possible, but I know where he works, where he lives.’ Marcus shrugged. ‘It’s not like I dish out his phone number. I can’t do that because he won’t let me have it,’ he said simply. ‘But I can arrange chance meetings.’ He looked pleased with himself. ‘I suggest to them when and where they might accidentally bump into him, like the local grocery store around the corner from his house – and the rest is up to them.’
