Hot off the Press | Charles Leclerc | F1

f i f t y - o n e

Fia found an empty office and held the door open for Mark. Once inside, she closed it behind them and began pacing up and down. Her mind was running at a hundred miles an hour. Meanwhile, Mark lingered near the door, arms folded, looking sheepish.

The room was small and square, with just enough space for a desk and a couple of foldable plastic chairs against the far wall. Fia was pleased by this; she wanted Mark to feel confined, like he had no choice but to confront the truth. A collection of empty cardboard coffee cups was stacked at the edge of the desk next to a sandwich wrapper, crumbs scattered across the computer keyboard. The office was clearly in use, which meant they had limited time.

"Well?" Fia demanded. Arms folded, she glared at Mark. The lines on his face were deeper than she remembered, his slightly crooked nose no longer charming. His usual expression of get-on-with-it joviality was all but gone, replaced instead by a kind of haunted look. It was the same look, she realised, that she had glimpsed when he spoke about the absence of his wife at the coffee shop.

"Eleanor and I—" he began. Then he shook his head like he'd thought better of whatever he was about to say. He pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes. "I don't have any excuses."

Fia's respect went up for him a notch. She knew from past visits to the Sandwell household that Eleanor wasn't easy to live with—her own children secretly referred to her as the ice queen—but that didn't make his infidelity any more defensible. "How long?" She repeated her question from before. "Weeks?" Mark looked at her. A vein in his temple was throbbing. "Months? Christ, years—"

"Months," he said quickly. "Since the start of the season."

"And Eleanor has no idea." Something in Mark's expression flickered. "What? Don't tell me she knows."

"Not in straightforward terms, no. But Fia, you've got to understand, Eleanor and I have been unhappily married for a long time. We have...let's call it an agreement."

Fia's jaw went slack with shock. "But who—"

"Who is my wife sleeping with?" He chuckled without humour. "Sit down, we might be here for a while."

"But Sadie..."

"Would be devastated if she knew."

"You have to tell her."

"Fia—" he began, but she took a bold step forward, silencing him.

"No. I won't keep your secret from her, so don't even ask that of me. I mean"—she threw her hands up in exasperation—" to what end, Mark? What are you going to do, run off with Silvia? Continue seeing her in secret forever and lying to your children?"

Crossing the room, Mark placed his hand gently on Fia's shoulder, and despite her better instincts, she didn't shrug it off. His skin was grey under the fluorescent lighting, stretched thin like a canvas sheet over his bones."Everything Eleanor and I have done," he said, drawing in a deep breath, "has been for Sadie and Nicholas."

Fia remembered the intense jealousy she had felt when she first met Sadie's family, how they made her long for wholesome dinners and long Sunday walks with cousins and aunts and siblings she didn't have. How perfect Sadie's life had seemed from the outside, and it had all been built around a lie.

"I don't see how sleeping with Silvia benefits your children," said Fia, angry at her accidental complicity in a long-standing secret.

Mark exhaled slowly. The air seemed to rattle in his chest. "Divorce was never on the cards for Eleanor and me. Nick might have coped with it, but Sadie...well, I'm sure you can imagine. We couldn't risk her chances at Oxford. We thought it was better to come to an alternative arrangement."