Secrets

Chapter Twenty Five

Ian

There's a knock at the door and I head out of the kitchen to the hall. I open the door and Jase is outside. I welcome him in and we head to the kitchen where Holly greets him with a hug. She pours him a glass of wine and we all sit around the breakfast bar.

"Did you speak to her?" I ask.

"I did and I think we were wrong. I don't think she's taking anything. I even threatened a drug test but she told me to go ahead and do one straight away because she'd never taken anything."

"I knew she wouldn't do something that like." Holly says, taking a sip of wine. "She's not that type of girl."

"Any other suggestions then?" I ask and they shake their heads. "I'm getting worried about her. I feel like something big is going to happen and we're going to miss it. She's in trouble Jase and until we know what kind of trouble, we can't help her."

"Have you thought about just asking her?" Holly asks.

"You can't ask her. She'd never tell us the truth." Jase answers.

"Why not? I thought she thought of you two as family?"

"I hope not," Jase jokes, "She hates her family." Holly hangs her head in defeat. I know she adores Blake too and she doesn't want anything to happen to her.

"Did we get her into this too young? Maybe she wasn't ready." I say.

"She was ready." Jase answers. "This isn't to do with that. It's to do with the shit she's had to deal with." His phone beeps and he takes it out of his pocket. "It's from Blake. She says, 'going away for a while. All is well. Speak soon.'"

"Going away for a while? What does that mean? Going where?" I'm starting to get frantic. Not at the thought of losing one of the best employees I've ever had, although that is a concern, but that she is young and damaged and in some trouble that we don't know about and is disappearing. "Tell her not to."

Jase picks up his phone to call her. It must go to answerphone because he leaves a message. "Blake, hon, give me a call. If you need a vacation that's fine, just let me know you're okay and where you're going. Call me."

He hangs up the phone and puts it on the breakfast bar. 

"Maybe we just give her some time to blow off some steam and then she'll be fine."

"And if she's not? We have no idea what she's running away from, or to! The girl has blown millions of pounds in two years with absolutely nothing to show for it and you want us to let her blow off steam?" I snap.

"Don't have a go at me, Ian." Jason snaps back at me. "I'm doing everything I can here. We can't tie her up and demand she tells us the truth. Technically, you're just her employer and I'm just her colleague."

"That's BS and you know it. We are her family, probably the only family she's got, and family stick together. As soon as she calls you back get her to come to the studio. The only way to fix this is to keep an eye on her."

"She could move in here?" Holly suggests.

"Here?" I repeat. It's not an awful idea but I don't know why she'd suggest it. On second thought it might be a bad idea with Devan...

"Why not? You need to keep an eye on her and it's not as if she's living in high class accommodation now is it? She should move in here, even if it's just for a month, and maybe she can get things in order and we can help her."

"That's not a bad idea." Jason agrees.

"She'll never agree to that. Besides, there's the issue of Devan."