Page 61 of You Belong With Me

Edie absorbed the seismic nature of that declaration. The pub’s music system thundered with INXS’s ‘Never Tear Us Apart’, and Edie felt completely bewitched. Bewitched and bewildered.

You don’t think it will last.

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Things are back on track with Elliot Owen and his British secretary GF. But sources tell us that his closeness with co-star Ines Herrera rocked their fledgling romance. TheBlood & Goldalum had some explaining to do when snaps of him cosying up to the stunning actress in NYC dropped. We hear he jumped on the first plane home to placate his furious significant other that they were ‘just friends’. It put HBO productionYour Table is Readyon hold, leaving execs majorly pissed. Looks like it did the trick though: Owen and his civilian love Edie Thompson were all over each other at a London party last night. Maybe she needs to confiscate his passport.

‘British secretary?!’ Edie said. ‘Civilian love?! Fuck me.’

‘Hahahaha. It makes you sound like my wartime bride. Thinking about it, you’d look great in that style. Fancy role-play? I could be a soldier. Have you had some of the chickpea thing? It’s really good.’

They spoke in low voices, in low light. Having found a pub where Elliot could go unnoticed, Edie was emboldenedthat this unassuming Indian restaurant could work, too. Elliot kept his head down when being seated, and a clientele moved about less during dinner than drinks.

Edie had decided the details of the exposé could wait, but she finally broke and asked to see it during their meal. It was a two-part Instagram story on an account with two million followers. Edie felt as if someone had run on stage and yanked her trousers down.

‘Why isn’t it a full story in a newspaper, like the party?’ Edie said, putting her phone away.

‘No pictures, no proof. They can get away with it as a piece of trivia, but the way they got this is so clearly an invasion of privacy that they’d not want that much scrutiny, I bet.’

‘What if the party photos were a total stranger and nothing to do with this?’

‘My take on the party story, on reflection, is that it couldn’t have been a random chancer. To provide the material and have it run that fast means it was someone with a relationship with the press already. They had a contact, and they probably intended to get pictures of us beforehand, once they knew we were invited. The turnaround wasn’t an average drunk person thinking,hmm, I wonder how I earn from these sly shots on my camera roll. They knew a journalist who’d pay them for it.’

Edie absorbed this with a small shiver. ‘So, whoever sold those photos is the same person leaking about your Dales trip?’

‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. It feels likely, but my feelings are now running hot.’

Edie glanced around the room. ‘You know – about Fraser. What you could do is simply trust him. Tell him what’s going on, and that you know it’s not him. Ask for his help.’

‘Hmm, yeah,’ Elliot said. ‘Except it would be a delicate balancing act of making it clear I don’t think it’s him, without him quickly figuring out who I might like for it. I’ve already shown my hand on doubting the wedding. If he twigs I want him to investigate Molly, it could tip him over the edge. Don’t forget’ – Elliot dropped his volume further – ‘I have had to apologise for keeping something very important from him recently.’

Of course: Elliot’s adopted status had been known by all three of the immediate family, yet not by Fraser until it was about to make the news. Elliot had worried, when he found out from poking around documents in the loft aged eleven, that his brother would reject him if he knew that Elliot was adopted, Fraser was their biological son. Then, twenty years on, he was forced into telling Fraser the truth before the tabloids did instead – far scarier. Luckily, Fraser was astonished, emotional, but not angry. He wasn’t the ragey type.

Edie nodded. ‘Consider that if gets back to Molly that you’re on to her, she might stop anyway. Problem solved,’ she said, tearing a piece of naan bread in a decorous fashion and dunking it in the chickpea thing. Itwasgood.

‘Except, if I know it’s Molly and he doesn’t, why would I sit back and celebrate Fraser signing up for a lifetime of her and her clan? That sort of behaviour is a big character note. Other vices would follow. To say nothing of how little I’dwant to be around her. Trust is like virginity and all that – you can’t lose it twice.’

Edie thought about what Elliot’s mum said:he was like a tiny adult, checking I’d remembered my house keys.His conscientiousness was making it hard to let go. Edie felt loyalty to Fraser – loyalty he deserved.

‘I know it’s tough, but whether or not it is her and whether you catch her, I think you have to step back on the wholeMolly not being your tasteissue. You want to protect him and guide him, but Fraser’s a grown-up making his own decisions. If he trusts her and it turns out it was misplaced, that’s a matter for him. She’s his choice. Fraser could’ve said:oh, don’t bother with Edie, she’s not from your world,I want an intro to Margot Robbie.I must’ve been a bit of a curveball, but he accepted me completely. You have to do the same with Molly. I think you owe Fraser that.’

Edie pushed away again the thought of what Elliot had said about falling in love.

‘You know, you’re clever, and you’re kind. It’s a very good combination,’ Elliot said, gazing at her.

Edie tried to banish doubt and accept the compliment. She sensed their drawing a line under the hunt for the mole, for the time being.

‘You’re serious aboutRoboCop?’ Elliot said, as Edie took her shoes off and jumped onto the bed. ‘I wondered if that was a cute joke.’

‘I’m not a Cute Girl.’ She patted the space next to her.

Elliot took his shoes off and joined her, and Edie settled in under his arm.

‘Does being in films make you like films more or less?’ she said, during the title sequence.

‘Ones I’m not in are pretty much as they always were to me. Sometimes I find myself wondering what the director’s instructions were or how they got a certain camera shot.’

They watched the steady escalation of violence in a peaceable silence, Edie putting an arm over Elliot’s stomach. This was so nice.

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