Free This Secret We're Keeping by Rebecca Done Page B

bought a holiday home down the road. They’re doing it up.’
    Anna smiled then like she had some positivity to impart, and began attempting to steer Jess’s thoughts firmly away from Will by enthusing about Zak. ‘For what it’s worth, I think Zak is perfect for you, Jess. I know he has his faults, but who doesn’t? He’s devoted to you, and he likes all the same things you do. He’s committed. What more could you want?’
    Admittedly Anna had always been fond of Zak – but Jess couldn’t help wondering if this gushing endorsement would have been
quite
so urgently delivered had Matthew not made his recent reappearance. ‘Why are you telling me this now?’ she asked her, though she suspected she knew what the answer would be.
    ‘I thought you might need reminding. Ahead of – oh, I don’t know – Saturday night.’
    Jess looked down at her hands. ‘Seriously. It’s not a date, Anna, it’s business.’
    Anna narrowed her eyes like she was trying really hard to pick out a path through Jess’s impenetrable bullshit, before suddenly brightening. ‘Ooh, speaking of dates. Tell me all about Burnham Manor,’ she said excitedly, presumably to flag Zak’s appreciation of fine food as another of his many plus points. ‘I’m jealous.’
    ‘It was … nice,’ Jess conceded. ‘We had a nice time. Very posh, but … it gave me lots of ideas.’
    ‘Got any soppy photos for me?’
    ‘They don’t like it when you whip your phone out in places like that. They think you’re doing food porn.’
    ‘It’s so perfect for an anniversary,’ Anna murmured dreamily.
    Jess nodded. ‘They wrote “Happy Anniversary” on our dessert plates in coulis.’
    Anna made a melting face. ‘Romantic. So when’s he next over?’
    ‘Sunday,’ Jess replied through a mouthful of tangerine. ‘We’re going to dinner with his parents at the White Horse.’
    ‘Which one?’
    ‘Brancaster.’
    ‘And when he asks what you got up to the night before, you’re going to say … ?’
    ‘
Catering
,’ Jess insisted firmly. Matthew Landley was one subject she and Anna were never going to agree on, but that was nothing new: they’d been arguing about him for nearly eighteen years. ‘Let’s talk about you,’ she suggested instead, taking another sip of grape juice and imagining it was Prosecco, which was made slightly easier by the fact that Anna had decanted it into champagne flutes.
    Anna gave a short sigh. ‘Well, let’s just say if one more person advises me to “let fate take its course”, I shall be striking them over the head very forcefully with this bottle.’
    Jess smiled. ‘You, let fate take its course? Who are these people?’ Telling Anna to stop worrying was like telling a camel to stop stockpiling fluid. Some things were just down to DNA.
    ‘Do you remember Claire Bartlett, from school?’ Annaasked Jess, absent-mindedly constructing a mini-Jenga tower on her knee with the tangerine peel. ‘I bumped into her by the pool yesterday.’
    Jess attempted to recall. ‘I think so. Was she a goth?’
    ‘Ha! Not any more. She was doing Aqua Zumba in full make-up and a Boden tankini. Anyway, she couldn’t wait to tell me she’s had triplets.’
    ‘What’s a Boden tankini?’ Jess wondered, bemused.
    ‘Never mind. The point is, Claire said having the triplets was all down to yoga. She’d been trying to get pregnant for two years, then she started the yoga, and –’
    ‘Three came along at once?’
    ‘Yes! Apparently it’s all about opening and toning the pelvis, reducing stress and providing inner balance for a calm and detached mind. And cleansing the system, obviously. Hence the fruit and …’ She cast a slightly resentful glance the grape juice bottle. ‘Anyway, Claire put us in touch with her yoga teacher. She’s a fertility guru, and she’s only in Thornham, so we popped round last night for a chat.’
    ‘What’s she like?’ Jess asked, trying to pretend that she didn’t feel a niggle of