Page 84 of The In-Laws

Melanie told her about seeing Ross arguing with a woman at the Goldstone awards, and the slap, and how she’d then received an email from Ruby Rose, asking for a meeting at the Fitzroy office.

‘And then I googled her and it’s the same person. And –’ she paused – ‘on her Instagram page, she’s pregnant and there is lots of secrecy around who the father is.’

Katie spluttered her coffee into the cup. ‘Jesus Christ!’

Melanie exhaled. ‘Yep.’

Katie whipped out her phone and looked up Ruby Rose’s Instagram page. ‘She’s not exactly hot, but I guess she’s young and kind of cute.’ She scrolled through the posts and messages. ‘Oh, look, someone’s asking who the dad is and she says, “I can’t reveal that just yet.”’ Katie showed Melanie the message.

‘Yeah, it all seems to point to Ross. Now that I think of it, she says she’s seven months pregnant here. When I saw her she had a big coat on, so I didn’t notice anything, but that’s probably what they were arguing about.’

Well, well. Ross was a dark horse. Katie was gutted for Amanda, but it all began to make sense now, why they had rushed home to ‘look after’ Nancy when they had barely come home once a year before now. Why Amanda had looked so broken when they came back and seemed so upset. Maybe it also explained why Ross was so tightly wound up and such a dickhead to everyone – guilt is a difficult burden to carry.

‘Do you think Amanda knows about it?’ Katie asked her sister-in-law.

Melanie shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea, but I wouldn’t be surprised. They seem distant from each other, her and Ross. They’re usually so in step, but they haven’t seemed close at all when I think about it.’

‘Yeah, I thought she just hated being home, but now that you mention it, I’ve seen her be pretty cold towards him. Theo was saying something about them not being back in Ireland just because of him, but then Lucy barged in and interrupted us. He must have been talking about Ross. God, poor Amanda. That’s too much for anyone to deal with. A son expelled and a husband playing away from home.’

‘She must be a lot stronger than she looks.’

‘She must feel so alone. We need to support her.’

‘I was thinking the same.’

‘Do you think Nancy knows?’ Katie asked.

‘No. She’d be much harder on Theo and Ross if she did. Nancy will go nuts when she finds out Ross was having an affair and got a young writer pregnant. Ruby was one of his publishing house’s authors. It’s inappropriate on so many levels and reflects very badly on him. Nancy will be furious.’

‘What will we do about all this info, though? How dowe approach it? I was awake all night worrying how to tell Amanda about Theo, but now with this other bombshell … My head’s spinning.’

Melanie pushed her coffee cup to the side and propped her chin on her hands. ‘Okay, we’re assuming Amanda knows something about Ruby, and we know she knows about Theo, but she probably doesn’t know about his recent drugs purchase, so the main shock will be that.’

‘Unless Rosshasn’ttold her about Ruby and the baby.’

‘Yes, but if she knew about the affair, she would surely have looked Ruby up online and seen the pregnancy news that way.’

‘True.’ Katie nodded.

‘To buy time, I emailed Ruby to say I was tied up but could potentially meet her next week. What I’ll do now is set a date for her to come over and meet me for a chat about signing her up. Although I’m wondering now if that was just a ruse to get into the office and see Ross.’

‘What’s a ruse?’ Katie asked.

‘A stunt.’

‘Right. Yeah, you could be spot-on there. Maybe he’s ignoring her calls so she wants to doorstep him like she did at the awards.’

Melanie nodded. ‘Exactly what I’m thinking. She was absolutely insistent that the meeting had to take place at the agency, even though she’s pregnant and lives in London. So I’d say that’s her plan all right. She’s banking on me not having a clue about the affair and then sweeping in unannounced. Ross is going to get one hell of a shock when she walks into the office.’

‘She might waddle. She looks quite big now,’ Katie said, grinning.

Melanie smiled. ‘I know I shouldn’t be getting any satisfaction out of this, but I am a bit. He’s such a sanctimonious arse.’

‘I need to see this. I’ll have to make an excuse to pop in to see Jamie. I have to see Ross’s face when he’s confronted by his hugely pregnant mistress in front of everyone. Oh, my God, it’s going to be so good. Karma!’

Melanie picked up her phone. ‘Right. I’m going to email her now and ask if next week suits her to come to Dublin to meet.’

Katie rubbed her hands together. ‘Is it really bad that I can’t wait?’

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