chapter040
The bony fingers of her demons prodded her into consciousness at exactly five a.m. Edie lay staring up at her tasselled lampshade. Your ex-boyfriend has given his side. Edie felt sure I digitally breadcrumbed a woman into imagining we had a secret connection, the only side Jack had, wouldn’t be the side he’d provided.
Every so often, Edie listlessly picked up her phone and checked again.
She and Elliot had frantically WhatsApped their mutual alarm the previous night; he’d heard when she did, as Lillian had been approached about it. They agreed to speak today when they knew what they were dealing with. She doubted either of them had had much rest.
The story appeared around seven a.m., and it wasn’t a sidebar; it merited the site proper, with a large photo of Jack and an inset one of Edie, holding a cocktail, head on one side, smiling winningly into the lens.
She clicked and scrolled. The quantity of words and pictures felt huge. It was huge. This was a novella, a macabre pulp romance with Edie as involuntary protagonist. Her own face grinned back up at her in a variety of snapshots torn from half-forgotten evenings out of recent years. Party dresses, bright lipstick, flicky eyeliner, and face pulling.
‘I Fell For Edie And It Destroyed My Wedding Day … And My Life’
EXCLUSIVE: Elliot Owen’s girlfriend’s ex warns him: ‘You don’t know who you’re dealing with’
Jack Marshall was in a blazer, manspreading on a Chesterfield sofa, giving a dynamic look to the camera. His hands were clasped between his legs. It was as if you were mid-meeting with him, and he’d decided to order a couple of single malts, drop the company spiel, and give the offer to you straight.
The pictures included one of Jack in wedding attire with Charlotte’s face obscured, and a couple of Edie and Elliot at Fraser’s party, including the one of them kissing, then the one of the fight with Elliot in the street, Edie flipping the V-sign at the amateur looky-loo paparazzo.
Wait, there she was with Declan?! The caption said: Thompson pictured with a colleague last month. There is no suggestion they are involved. Nice legal fireproofing, except your entire editorial direction suggests otherwise.
Oh, and they’d dug up an image she’d never seen before, obviously supplied by Jack, where she and he were at either end of a sofa at an office party, their faces accusingly circled. As luck would have it, Edie was chatting to another male colleague in it: a picture editor’s dream.
It was like true crime. Edie identified as the murderer of a marriage.
When actor Elliot Owen was snapped cuddling up to copywriter Edie Thompson last month, all eyes were on the loved-up duo. How had a 36-year-old from Nottingham, a total unknown, landed one of the most eligible bachelors in the world, the British heartthrob now a rising star in Hollywood?
After all, the 32-year-old wasn’t single at the time. When he and Thompson met, Owen was with model-actress Heather Lily. She publicly pleaded in vain for Owen to return to her side. When it became clear his interests were engaged elsewhere, she made her sense of betrayal clear.
Yet some onlookers were less surprised that Thompson’s job ghost-writing the Blood Gold star’s autobiography turned into such an unexpected romantic coup.
Jack Marshall, 38, an advertising executive from Herne Hill, knows to his cost that Edie Thompson’s charms can be distracting.
‘When I saw the photos of her and the actor entwined together, I thought, here we go again,’ Jack says, speaking to us about his own involvement with Thompson for the first time. ‘Edie makes men feel protective. But Edie doesn’t need protecting – it’s the other way around.’
Jack lost his new wife, his job, and his good name when he and Thompson were caught – by his bride – passionately kissing in the hotel grounds on his wedding day in Yorkshire last summer. Thompson was then a colleague of both the bride and groom at London-based advertising agency Ad Hoc.
WEDDING DAY CLINCH
‘I’m not proud of what occurred and take my share of the blame,’ Jack says, admitting that he finds reliving the episode very painful. ‘I had been with my then girlfriend, now ex-wife, for two years when I joined Ad Hoc. Edie made it pretty clear she was interested in me from day one. She always knew I was in a committed relationship. We bantered and would message and so on. She was obviously a fragile person, quite lonely even. My heart went out to her. I feared she was becoming attached and I stupidly thought I was looking after her by being her friend. With hindsight, I can see I was encouraging something that I shouldn’t have.’
The couple were both close enough with Thompson to invite her to their ￡35k bash in June last year at the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate, where the bride’s family lived.
Marshall has to take a deep breath before describing the chaos that ensued.
‘I’d gone out for some time alone in the garden after the speeches. Obviously, wedding days are fabulous but intense, and I wanted to take a moment to reflect. Edie must have seen me leave and followed me out.’
Marshall shakes his head. ‘I’d had a few drinks – I was already emotional. Edie decided that was the moment to tell me she was in love with me, that she was devastated I’d promised to spend my life with someone else. Then, to my shock, she kissed me.’
Jack blinks back tears.
‘In my mind, it was like the moment Keira Knightley kisses Andrew Lincoln in Love Actually, except I was Keira. Acknowledging someone’s declaration – allowing just one tiny lapse of indiscretion, for their sake, before you both put it to one side, forever.’
Unfortunately, it was less like a romcom and more a horror film – as Jack’s new bride stumbled upon them. The day ended in hysterical upset and explosive recriminations. The newlyweds separated for good six weeks later.
‘I suppose it’s natural to think the woman was preyed upon by a rogue, but in reality, it was six of one, half a dozen of another – two guilty parties,’ Jack says ruefully. Yet he refuses to blame Thompson for what happened: ‘At the end of the day, I should have stopped her. I was the one wearing the wedding ring, and it was my responsibility.’
Jack was sacked for the indiscretion, and his former bride has also since left the Ad Hoc agency by mutual agreement. Thompson mysteriously won a reprieve. She remains employed by the company at an office in Nottingham – a post created for her.
Another colleague from Thompson’s workplace, who wished to stay anonymous, said: ‘After the wedding, a lot of staff wanted her to leave and even signed a petition asking her to have the decency to go, but she ignored it. It felt very unfair that others lost their jobs over it, and she didn’t. But Edie has a way of making the friends that matter. Elliot Owen is just the latest example.’
Sources close to Owen have described him as ‘head over heels’, and sources close to the star predict he will soon pop the question.
‘Good luck to him,’ is all Jack will say about this, grim-faced, a man still picking up the pieces from an event he says he will ‘never live down’. ‘He’ll need it.’
Lucie Maguire, 35, property agent from Dulwich, is more direct about the prospect of Thompson’s reward in snagging a People magazine winner of ‘Sexiest Man Alive’. She was chief bridesmaid on the fateful wedding day. Lucie says the former bride, her best friend, still cannot bear Thompson’s name spoken in her presence.
‘Edie caused absolute mayhem for my beloved friend. Her selfishness obliterated what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life. She moved on to Elliot Owen without an apology or backward glance,’ Lucie says.
‘My advice to Elliot is to run as fast as he can, in the opposite direction,’ Lucie says. ‘I’m sure he’s bought into the idea that Edie is a wronged angel, but seducing a man into that behaviour on his wedding day? Make no mistake – she is a truly cold vixen.’
If there are wedding bells in her and Owen’s future, Thompson must hope her own guests understand the phrase is ‘you may kiss the bride’ … but not necessarily the groom.
Edie Thompson and reps for Elliot Owen declined to comment when contacted by our reporters.
As usual, that paragraph resounded with: RENDERED MUTE BY GUILT.
A dazed Edie sent the link – still without comment as she was incapable of formulating one – to Nick and Hannah.
Five minutes later, her phone buzzed with the WhatsApp group notification.
Hannah
Fuck me, I will fucking murder the lying cunt. How is this not libel?
Nick
I say we come back at this hot, sassy, and strong. I’m getting a t-shirt made with COLD VIXEN for your next pap shots. In fact, I think there’s legs in a whole COLD VIXEN line of merch. xxx (I hope you’re laughing Edie, cos that’s all it deserves)
Edie wasn’t laughing; she was crying.