Faking It

Faking It

Rebecca Smith

One More Chapter

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

Copyright © Rebecca Smith 2020

Cover design by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Rebecca Smith asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780008370190

Ebook Edition © August 2020 ISBN: 9780008370183

Version: 2020-07-17

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Acknowledgments

Thank you for reading…

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About the Author

Also by Rebecca Smith

One more chapter...

About the Publisher

This book is dedicated to everyone who is brave enough to confess that they don’t have a clue about what they are doing – and carries on regardless…

Prologue

‘Would it be possible for you to move a little to the left?’ I enquire politely.

I don’t wish to be rude but I’ve been stuck in this position for a good five minutes now and my right leg is going to sleep. I didn’t say anything initially because I wasn’t sure how long we’d be here but the evidence would suggest that I could be in for the long-haul and I’m starting to lose sensation in my toes. All hopes of this being a quickie are totally out of the window.

Nick shifts slightly to the side and continues banging away. I try to stay focused because I am very aware that this is a two-person task and I don’t want to be accused of lying flat on my back and expecting Nick to put in all the effort. It’s happened before. But, as often happens when I’m in this position, my mind can’t help wandering and before I know it, I’m compiling a mental shopping list for tomorrow’s trip to the supermarket and wondering whether I locked the back door because there’s been a spate of burglaries in this area and you can’t be too careful.

Nick grunts loudly and I wince.

‘Be quiet,’ I hiss. ‘You’ll wake up the bloody kids.’

I don’t know why I’m bothering. His relentless hammering can probably be heard halfway down the street.

Nick looks down at me. ‘Well, if you were more involved then it might be a bit less effort and I might be a little quieter and I’d almost definitely be finished a whole lot quicker.’

‘I am involved,’ I snap back. ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

I’m not really. I’m bored and I’m chilly and I just want to go to sleep but apparently this has to happen now, despite the fact that we already did it a few hours ago.

I can remember a time before all of this. A time when evenings were our sanctuary: a place where we could play and explore and voice our wildest thoughts with abandon, not stifle every sound for fear of disturbing our offspring. That was before we had kids though, when the world was big and exciting and filled with potential. Not exhausting and predictable and filled with necessary marital duties.

‘Yes!’ Nick punches the air in triumph and I roll my eyes. It’s like he thinks he’s the first man to ever do this and, as I have often assured him, he really isn’t. Nor will he be the last. But it doesn’t seem to matter what I say – his pleasure and self-satisfaction knows no bounds, and if I’m honest, his enthusiasm is quite sweet.

‘Well done,’ I tell him, scooting out from underneath him. ‘It’s still dripping though. Is that normal?’

Nick bends down and takes a closer look. ‘I think it’ll stop in a minute,’ he says. ‘It should be fine.’

I grit my teeth and try not to sigh. ‘You said that last time,’ I remind him. ‘And yet we had a full-blown flood two hours later. I’m tired, Nick. I’m too old to spend my nights doing stuff like this.’

He shrugs. ‘I don’t love it either, Hannah, but it has to be done.’

I pull myself to my feet and put down the torch. We both stare at the newly fixed bathroom pipe and the tap that is attached to it. Its random leaking makes me think that it could somehow be a metaphor for our lives but I’m too exhausted to figure out exactly how.

‘How tired are you?’ asks Nick, reaching out for my hand. ‘Only, the kids don’t seem to have woken up and the night is still young!’

I glance at my watch. The night is as young as I am, which is not very. Then again, this is the first evening in ages that our teenagers have been asleep before we are which does afford us a rare opportunity. And I’ve already spent some time on my back tonight.

I’m not completely averse to doing it again.

Chapter One

The shoes are utterly ridiculous. Seriously. I can’t think of a single occasion when I might actually wear them and I definitely don’t own any items of clothing that will go with them. They are impractical and unnecessary and I could pay for two driving lessons for Scarlet for the same cost.

I really, really want them.

‘Are you sure that they fit?’ enquires Nick as I attempt to stuff my foot inside the first shoe. ‘You look like you’re struggling a bit there, Hannah.’

‘I always wear size six,’ I complain, scowling at my unhelpful feet. ‘I just don’t understand it.’

‘Well, why don’t you ask for the next size up?’ Nick glances at his phone. ‘Surely that’s the logical solution?’

‘I already did,’ I mutter. ‘They don’t have them. But it’s not a problem because these are fine.’

I take a deep breath and push my feet inside.

‘There! They fit perfectly!’ I stand and smile triumphantly at Nick. ‘Let’s buy them and then we can pop to the pub on the way home and have a cheeky drink to celebrate being out on a school day.’

This shopping trip is the first proper time we’ve had together in ages and I want to milk every last moment before we have to return to normality.

Nick frowns at me. ‘I don’t think—’

‘I love them!’ I interrupt, thrusting one foot out in front of me. ‘Look how long they make my legs look. They’re everything a person could possibly ask for in a shoe and I’ll be happy for the rest of eternity when I own them.’

‘Everything a person could ask for other than them actually fitting you,’ retorts Nick. ‘Which I would have thought was a pre-requisite in any item of footwear.’

‘They fit me just fine,’ I snap back. ‘I am a grown-ass woman and I am clever enough to know whether a pair of shoes fit me or not.’

Nick raises his eyebrows. ‘Come on, Hannah, why can’t you just admit it? The shoes don’t fit but that’s not a problem – there are plenty of others to choose from.’

But the others are not like these beautiful creatures, I wail in my head. I don’t want other, less exotic, more comfortable shoes. I want these shoes. I deserve these shoes. I have waited an eternity for shoes covered in sequins with a glitter heel and I am not leaving this shop without them. They are going to make my life better, I just know it.

I gaze at my husband, bestowing him with my most gracious and beatific smile, which feels surprisingly natural now that I’ve got these shoes on. I actually feel a bit like a princess. I really think that purchasing them will revolutionise my life; there’s nothing that I won’t be able to do when I’m wearing footwear as striking as this.

‘They’re perfect,’ I tell him. ‘They’re exactly what I need.’

I sit back down and slip them off (ignoring the slight sense of relief that they are no longer viciously pinching at my toes) before handing them to the sales assistant.

Nick shakes his head at me as she starts boxing them up, but I can see a smile tugging at the edge of his mouth.

‘You’re sure they fit?’ he asks. ‘We’re supposed to be buying you a pair of celebratory book-publishing shoes, not a piece of medieval torture equipment.’

I finish lacing up my trainers and reach out to take his hand.

‘I love them,’ I tell him, keeping my voice quiet so that nobody will overhear us, while also cleverly evading his question. ‘And every time I look at them I’m going to remember what they represent, which is me being an authentic, genuine author.’

‘They are very nice,’ Nick agrees kindly. ‘And you’re going to look stunning in them.’

The sales assistant hands me a boutiquey-looking paper bag and Nick hands over his credit card. And then we leave the shop, the bag swinging back and forth in my hand. This is who I am now. I am a woman who wears impracticable high heels and who shops in dinky little bespoke stores and goes into town with her husband after work just because she feels like it. I am confident and secure and, for the first time in ages, at peace with who I am. I am a wife, a mother, a teacher and a (secretly) published author of an erotic novel.

Life is sweet.

‘Oh my bloody god!’ Scarlet’s shriek slaps me in the face the second that we walk through the front door. ‘I honestly can’t believe you, Mother!’

It turns out that my sweet life and newfound peace lasted for exactly eighty-three minutes. I don’t know why I’m surprised. I’m lucky I even had that long.

I drop my lovely paper bag and its even lovelier contents on the floor and freeze. This is it. The moment I’ve been waiting for. The charade is up and my identity has been revealed. Life as I know it is over. In some ways it’s a relief – I’ve been living in such fear of being found out in the weeks since More Than Sex was published and at least now, with the cat well and truly out of the bag, I can relax. No more hiding in the shadows. No more denying who I really am. Maybe this will be a good thing?

I am a complete and utter fantasist.

‘You’ve done some whack stuff in the past,’ my daughter yells, her face scrunched up in anger. ‘But this? Congratulations, Mum – you’ve totally outdone yourself this time.’

‘What are you screeching about now?’ asks Dylan, opening the living room door.

‘Yeah,’ joins in Benji, peering under his older brother’s arm. ‘Why are you being so rude to Mum? Again.’

Dogger nudges her way in between his legs and joins in the staring, her big, brown eyes darting between us as she too tries to make sense of this terrible situation.

Nick pushes past me and gives Scarlet a stern look. ‘I don’t know what has upset you but whatever it is, I am not prepared to listen to another word while you’re shouting.’

‘I think she knows.’ I put a slightly shaky hand on his arm. ‘She’s obviously going to be feeling a bit upset, Nick. We’ve always understood that.’

Nick turns to look at me, his face draining of blood.

‘We agreed to keep it a secret, Hannah,’ he mutters. ‘How have they found out?’

‘Not they,’ I hiss back. ‘Scarlet. And I have no idea. But they’re all going to know now, aren’t they?’

I gaze over his shoulder at my children. Scarlet and Dylan are seventeen and eighteen now, almost adults themselves. I have no idea what this discovery is going to do to them at such a crucial and formative stage of life or how I’m ever going to look them in the eye again, now that they know what I’ve been getting up to. Particularly Scarlet. There’s no way that she’s ever going to accept my new career. Not without an almighty teen-fuelled meltdown, anyway. And I can live without that.

And then there’s Benji. My sweet, loving, innocent ten-year-old boy who has no comprehension of a world where a mother’s actions can bring lasting shame and humiliation upon her unwitting offspring. He’ll be shunned from every party and the days of sleepovers and playdates are long gone. I’m pretty sure that none of the other mothers will let the child of an erotic writer associate with their offspring. Nobody is going to care that I only did it because my hours had been cut at work and I needed to find a way to fund the ever-increasing needs of our children. Well, that and to prove that I could be more than just a mum.

This is not a relief. I am not relaxed. I will happily live a farce, a pantomime, a fake life that is a total sham if it means my children, and everyone else on the planet, never find out about what I have done.

What I am doing.

I close my eyes for a second and pull on every last bit of strength that I can find. And then I open them and address my teenage daughter.

‘How did you find out?’ I ask, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘Who else knows?’

Maybe there’s a way of carrying out some degree of damage limitation. The kids discovering the truth is bad enough but what if this information came via school? I won’t be able to walk into work on Monday morning if everyone in the staffroom knows. But perhaps she found out online on some dodgy website.

Maybe there’s still some hope.

‘The whole school is talking about it,’ she snarls at me. ‘I doubt there’s a single person who doesn’t know.’

Oh fucking fuck. This is bad.

‘We can explain,’ starts Nick but Scarlet rounds on him, her cheeks flaming red.

‘This hasn’t got anything to do with you,’ she says. ‘It’s not you who wrote it.’

Nick nods his head. ‘That’s true. But I fully support your mother in everything that she does and this is no exception. In fact…’

He pauses for a second and I see him gulp slightly as he prepares to incriminate himself alongside me. God, I love this man. He won’t let me walk to the gallows on my own.

‘In fact, it was me who encouraged her to send it once it was written. And I stand by that decision.’

Scarlet’s mouth drops open in horror and I step forward to stand beside my husband. We are united in solidarity. If we fall, we fall together.

‘I don’t actually believe this,’ she murmurs. The shock has clearly got to her and I peer closely at her lips, trying to see if they’re turning blue and wondering if I should make her a cup of sweet tea.

‘What has Mum written?’ Dylan leans against the doorframe and looks at us all with interest. ‘What’ve I missed?’

‘It’s important that you understand the context that this was written in,’ I begin. I might as well own the announcement now. ‘First and foremost, what I want you all to remember is that there are many different types of writing and erot—’

‘A detention slip!’ bellows Scarlet, drowning out my words. She’s obviously recovered from the shock, which I am thankful for on a number of levels. ‘For Ashley.’

‘What?’ asks Nick, confusion etched across his face. ‘You’ve written what now, Hannah?’

I start to laugh as I let go of his hand and slump down against the wall, relief making my legs weak.

‘And now you’re going to laugh about it?’ Scarlet’s voice is raised in pitch by several octaves. ‘Well, that’s bloody marvelous, Mother.’

‘I’m not laughing about that,’ I gasp, struggling to take a breath. ‘I’m laughing because, well—’

‘Yes?’ asks Dylan. ‘What’s so funny?’

I look up and see all four members of my family gazing down at me. Benji is smiling encouragingly, as if I’m about to tell them a joke. Dylan has the look on his face that he gets when he suspects that we’re up to something and I know he won’t rest until he finds out what – he’s learnt from the best – Scarlet is glowering with what looks like serious murderous intent while tapping her foot on the ground impatiently, waiting to hear my excuse, and Nick is staring at me with what can only be described as fear, his eyes pleading with me not to cock this up.

I nod my head and gather my thoughts and then I throw myself onto the sacrificial altar.

‘You’re right,’ I lie. ‘I’m laughing because I wrote Ashley Dunsford a detention note.’

Dogger pads across the hallway and stares at me balefully.

‘You are a terrible parent,’ my daughter lovingly hisses. ‘There are literally hundreds of people at our school and yet you decided to single him out. Why couldn’t you have chosen another kid to punish?’

I push myself off the ground and look her in the eye, my relieved laughing fit over. I don’t need her to tell me that I’m not going to be winning Mother of the Year anytime soon. I’m pretty sure that the award criterion doesn’t include spending your days trying to figure out the sexiest way to describe a penis.

Although for what it’s worth, in my esteemed opinion there is no sexy way to describe a penis.

‘Because it wasn’t “another kid” who was vandalising school property with a can of spray paint, was it?’ I give her a firm look. ‘It was Ashley Dunsford and quite frankly, he should consider himself extremely fortunate that I only gave him a detention and not community service or a prison sentence.’

‘I don’t think that’s your jurisdiction, is it?’ enquires Nick, relief plastered across his face. ‘I’ll make us some tea.’

‘Can we get back to the game?’ Benji asks Dylan. ‘I think Scarlet’s stopped yelling at Mum now.’

Dylan nods but I see him giving me another curious glance before he disappears back into the living room and I know that he’s suspicious. I’m going to have to cover my tracks even more carefully if he’s going to start sniffing around my business.

‘Have you stopped yelling?’ I ask Scarlet, once the door is closed.

She nods, her face flushing pink.

‘And do you have anything else that you’d like to say to me?’ I enquire. The terror that my secret was out is abating and I’m ready to address the appalling manners of my daughter.

‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbles and I resist the urge to ask her to enunciate her apology more clearly. ‘I shouldn’t have shouted at you. I was just really embarrassed that you’d given Ashley a detention. It makes me look bad.’

‘It doesn’t have anything to do with you,’ I tell her. ‘He did something stupid and now he has to deal with the consequences. That’s the end of it.’

‘I just thought that he might, you know…’ Scarlet shuffles from one foot to the other. ‘He might blame me for you giving him a detention and then he might go off me.’

‘Oh darling, that’s not going to happen!’ I say.

More’s the pity.

‘Not that I really like him anymore,’ she rushes on. ‘So don’t go thinking that I care or anything, because I don’t. I’ve got bigger stuff going on like running for Head Girl, which is way more important than boys.’

She pauses and flicks her hair over one shoulder. ‘And he doesn’t even think about me like that now we’re in the Sixth Form. Obviously.’

‘Obviously,’ I agree, as she starts to head up the stairs. ‘But perhaps you could inform him that if I catch him graffitiing the words “Scarlett Thompson Is Blazing” on the wall of the gym ever again, I will not be held accountable for my actions.’

Her head whips round.

‘Is that what he wrote?’ she asks. ‘Oh my god! He’s such a dick. I’m never going to live this down at school. I’m mortified!’

The huge grin plastered across her face suggests otherwise.

‘You can also tell him that Scarlet is spelled with just one “t”. If he likes you enough to get a detention for you he should take the time to learn how to correctly spell your name.’

But my words are lost in a draught of floral body spray as Scarlet dashes upstairs, her phone out and her thumbs darting across the screen as she rushes to update her friends on this new and scintillating detail.

‘Here you go, Hannah.’ Nick hands me a mug as I step inside the kitchen. ‘That was a bit of a close call, wasn’t it?’

I shudder and wrap my hands around the warm tea.

‘I really thought they’d found out about the book,’ I tell him. ‘I think I’ve aged about ten years in the last ten minutes.’

Nick nods and sinks down onto a chair. ‘I know what you mean. But I suppose we should think about what we’re going to say when they do find out. Because they will find out, Hannah – you know they will.’

I sit down next to him, resisting the urge to ditch the tea and pour a glass of wine instead.

‘We can’t let that happen,’ I tell him. ‘They are in no way mature enough to understand what I’m doing – they’d totally get the wrong end of the stick and it’d all get completely out of hand.’

He nods again thoughtfully and stares out of the window. ‘We’re just going to have to be more careful. You can’t panic like that again – you almost told them everything.’

I make a huffing sound. ‘It’s a shame you didn’t think about that when you sent off my manuscript to an agent then, isn’t it? None of this would even be a thing if you and Cassie hadn’t stuck your big noses into my business.’

He turns to look at me, the corner of his mouth twitching. ‘Right. So you wish we hadn’t helped to launch your porn writing career, then? You hate everything about it and you’re never going to write another word?’

For the love of all that is holy. If I’ve told him once, I’ve told him fifty gazillion times; I do not write porn. I write tasteful, informative and highly accurate erotica.

And I don’t hate it.

I actually love it.

It’s the first time in forever that I’ve had something that is purely just for me and, on the days when I’m stressed about my teaching job or the kids are driving me insane or everything just seems like hard work, my writing is a warm little secret. It makes me feel special and daring and unique.

I take a sip of tea and think about what just happened. Nick does have a point. The kids don’t know about the book but I almost blew the whole thing. I’m going to have to be much cooler if I want to maintain my anonymity, which I absolutely must do at all costs. There’s no way that I can allow anyone to find out about my side-hustle. Other than Nick, my best friend Cassie, and my mother, nobody knows that Twinky Malone, the author of More Than Sex, is really me – and they never can.

I’ve shared every aspect of myself since becoming a wife and a mother but I’m not sharing this. Even if sometimes I want to shout about my triumphs from the rooftops, I know that I have to keep quiet. Not that I don’t imagine myself being interviewed on daytime television sometimes (mostly when I’m in the bath after having drunk a couple of glasses on Wine Wednesday). The presenter will ask me how I came to write erotic fiction and I will smile at her coyly before telling her what I told myself on the day that I stumbled onto this particular side-hustle.