I fake-smiled back at her. “How so?”
“You could say I have some insider knowledge,” she said. “I’m friends with his wife.”
“Ex-wife,” I said. “You mean Rachel?”
“She’s still his wife,” Jaz said. “They are still married.”
“On paper.” I took a sip of coffee and it tasted like liquid vomit.
“She still loves him. And he still loves her.”
“I wouldn’t know. It’s only casual, we don’t talk about our exes.”
She slurped back coffee, eyes twinkling. “Word of advice, woman to woman. Whatever Rebecca told you about their split, she didn’t do the right thing. I know she thinks she helped out by playing the honest friend role, but she didn’t. They were getting better. Rachel was getting better. A few months and she’d have been through the worst of it, she and James would have made it through.”
My blood ran cold, instinct chilling me to the bone. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“She told you, right?” Jaz asked. “She told you how she split them up?”
“Rebecca split them up?”
Jaz feigned embarrassment, pretending to slap her own forehead. “Shit, I’m such a clutz. You probably don’t even know. Rebecca split James and Rachel up, told him about Rachel’s little indiscretion, only she was getting better. She’d stopped fucking around, it was her final blow out, her last little moment of weakness. Rachel loved James, she never wanted to hurt him.”
I couldn’t subdue the rage, it bubbled behind my retinas. I saw Stu in the hallway begging forgiveness like a spineless little worm. “Funny way of showing it.”
“People make mistakes,” she said. “Rachel made a few. She regrets them.”
“I guess she’ll have to take that up with James, then, won’t she?” I snapped, meeting her eye to eye.
“Oh, she will,” Jaz grinned. “And he’ll listen, when he’s ready. He’ll have his fun, and then he’ll realise how much he misses her. He does miss her you know, he was crazy about her, you should have seen them together. Gorgeous. He was besotted. Not hard to see why, of course, she’s beautiful.”
“I’m sure,” I said, tipping my coffee down the sink. “If you don’t mind I need to grab a shower. Shall I tell Rebecca you called?”
She put down her mug. “Don’t worry, I’ll let myself out, and don’t worry about Rebecca, I’ll catch her at work tomorrow. I came to see you, actually,” she grinned. “I thought it was about time we met. It’s been so enlightening, we’ll have to do it again sometime.”
Not on her fucking life. I stayed in the bathroom until I heard the door slam behind her.
***
“Jaz was here?” Bex snapped. “On her own?”
“Yep, bold as brass,” I said, pouring a wine. “She seems quite a character.”
“She’s a character, alright. She shouldn’t be in our fucking flat, I want that fucking key back off her.”
“She is the landlady, I guess.”
“Even so, she’s taking the fucking piss.” Rebecca kicked off her boots and sprawled on the sofa, wine in hand. “So, what did she have to say?”
“More important is what I said to her,” I said. “I thought it was you on the balcony. I told her, you, that James fucked my ass over his desk at work.”
“Fuck,” she said, eyes darkening. “And what did she say to that?”
“She said a lot.” I sat down opposite. “You didn’t tell me about Rachel, that you split them up.”
“I did not split them up, that’s fucking bullshit.”
“That’s not what Jaz said.”
“That bitch needs to stop with the shit-stirring.” Rebecca sighed, leaning forward. “Rachel was on her final warning, she’d already fucked James over with a whole host of fucking men. He’d been more than fair, I mean seriously, she had way more than enough chances. I told her I’d tell him the truth, if she kept on, but she didn’t listen. One night she was at Explicit, and she didn’t know I was in the next cubicle. I heard every fucking word she said.”
The hairs on my arms bristled. “What did she say?”
“She was planning another fling, talking it up with one of the regulars, Davey, one of their mutual friends. It wasn’t the first time they were getting it on, and it sure as shit wasn’t going to be the last. Jaz can say whatever the hell she wants about Rachel mending her ways, but the bitch was a slut. She tramped her way around the whole pissing club, and would have gone round for a second circuit if I hadn’t blown her cover.”