Holly walked into the kitchen and greeted Carina with a smile and outstretched, grabby hands for the mug of coffee the housekeeper offered her.
“Life saver,” she whispered before taking a sip of the hot beverage.
“Coffee can make your kidneys blow up,” Alexia offered in between spoonfuls of cereal.
“Stay in school, sis,” Hugo told her as he scrolled on his smartphone.
Holly looked at Alexia sceptically. “Where did you hear that?”
“I saw it online.”
“Was it from a credible source?” Holly asked, already knowing the answer was a definite no.
Alexia shrugged and mumbled, “I dunno.”
Holly didn’t want to nag her first thing in the morning, so she saved the speech about not believing everything found online for another time. She took a seat at the large kitchen table and lifted the lid of her laptop. If she was going to keep to her strict deadline, then she needed to wake up and start working reasonably soon.
“Holly, can I go to Aaron’s after school?” Hugo asked.
“Sure, as long as you’re home for dinner, and you let your mom know,” Holly replied.
Victoria was struggling to identify Hugo as the almost-adult he was. She’d practically missed the fact that he had grown up and often attempted to mother him a little too much. A compromise had been made: Hugo could have more freedom, but he needed to keep Victoria informed of his plans and movements.
“Good morning,” Victoria greeted as she walked into the kitchen. “Coffee to go, please, Carina.”
“Mom, I’m going to Aaron’s after school,” Hugo announced without looking up from his phone.
Holly reached out with her foot and gave him a soft kick. He looked up at her in confusion for a couple of moments before realisation dawned. He turned to face his mother.
“I mean, I just asked Holly, and she said it was okay. And I’ll be home for dinner,” he added.
Carina handed Victoria a stainless-steel travel mug as Victoria looked at Hugo, a slight pursing of her lips clear. Holly watched and waited to see what happened next.
“Very well. Don’t be late,” she finally said.
Holly let out a soft sigh of relief. There had been a couple of arguments between mother and son as they vied for dominance. It was nice to see things settling down.
“Mom, can we watch Toy Story this weekend?” Alexia asked.
Holly stifled a chuckle and returned her attention to her laptop. When they had spoken the night before, Victoria had stated that she would ‘do whatever it took’ to spend more time with her daughter and ensure she wasn’t feeling left out. Watching the children’s movie for the eighteenth time that year was probably not something she envisaged as part of that plan.
“Well, we could,” Victoria said, her voice soft and placating. “But maybe we could do something else? We could go shopping.”
“Mom, you know I don’t like shopping,” Alexia pointed out. “You like shopping, remember? I’m the person who finds shopping mega boring.”
Holly tuned out of the conversation, her attention distracted by a mysterious email in her inbox. She didn’t recognise the sender’s name, but the subject line stated it was urgent and the contents has been marked as private and confidential.
Confident in her virus protection software, she opened the email. The breath left her lungs, and her skin instantly felt ice cold. Picture after picture loaded in the body of the email, and she was thankful that her screen was obscured from anyone else.
Her hand shook as she traced her finger over the trackpad and scrolled down the email. Her lungs began to burn. She reminded herself to breathe, darting a quick glance around the table to check that everyone was still occupied and not paying her any attention.
Satisfied that her panic had gone unnoticed, she looked back to the email and the photographs of Victoria with another woman. More specifically, kissing another woman.
There were six images in total; four showed Victoria walking or talking with the mystery woman down a street that appeared to be in New York. Two of the images showed the pair in an intimate embrace and kissing in a definitely sexual manner.
This can’t be right, Holly thought. It can’t be. Maybe this is from ages ago?
She tilted her head as she regarded the other woman; she zoomed in a little and realised she recognised her. It was Ashley Somerset. Holly had been introduced to her by Victoria a couple of months before at an Arrival event. Holly searched her memory and recalled that Ashley was something in the art studio. More importantly, Ashley was new to Arrival. Victoria had explained how she had poached her from Arrival London, which meant these photographs couldn’t be from years ago. They were recent. As in, they had been taken since Victoria and Holly had been together.
Holly’s hand started to shake even more. She snatched it away from the trackpad and held it in her other hand under the table.
She stared at the picture, thinking that there was something obvious she was missing. Maybe it wasn’t Victoria? Or perhaps it wasn’t recent after all. But if that was the case, then why hadn’t Victoria mentioned a history with Ashley?
There had to be something obvious that she wasn’t seeing, but she couldn’t think straight as long as the images taunted her.
“Holly?”
She snapped her eyes up to meet Alexia’s. “Sorry, sweetie, what did you say?”
“Do you want to come to the zoo this weekend with me and Mom?”
Holly’s gaze drifted to Victoria, who was looking at her with mild concern. She had presumably detected that something was wrong but not wanted to bring attention to it.
“I… don’t know,” Holly admitted. Suddenly, she didn’t know anything at all. “I might be working. We’ll see, okay?”
Alexia nodded, happy enough with the vague answer. She picked up her bowl and walked over to Carina, thanking her for breakfast before leaving the kitchen to finish getting ready.
“Is everything okay?” Victoria asked.
Holly couldn’t answer that. No, nothing was okay, but she didn’t want to say anything in front of Carina and Hugo. Not that she felt strong enough to say anything anyway. She felt for sure that her heart would break in two if she so much as looked at the images on her laptop screen again.
She softly closed the lid.
“Fine,” she lied. “Just distracted. Work.”
She knew she was a terrible liar, hated that she was lying in the first place, but she didn’t know what else to do.
“Are you sure?” Victoria asked, cutting right through her flimsy subterfuge.
Holly quickly nodded her head. She stood up, eager to get out of the line of questioning. “I’m going to make sure Alexia remembers her homework,” she lied. “I’ll talk to you later.”
She all but ran from the kitchen, hoping that Victoria wouldn’t follow her.