‘Not as far as I could throw her,’ Pip said. ‘It was a very nifty piece of work, if you don’t mind me saying.’

‘I do mind,’ Jake said. ‘That’s the problem. Does everyone else know?’

Pip leaned back and folded his arms. ‘Depends who you mean by everyone else.’

‘Most of the office.’

‘All of the office,’ Pip confirmed.

‘Damn.’ Jake puffed out a disgruntled breath. ‘They must think I’m an idiot.’

‘Put it down to jealousy. I think most of them would be delirious to get near enough to Neve to have her nick their projects.’

‘I’ve got nothing much on the cards,’ Jake moaned. ‘Do you think Alec is passing me by?’

‘You need to talk to Alec about this, Jake.’

Jake straightened up. ‘That means you know more than you’re telling me.’

‘I know that this relationship isn’t doing you any obvious favours.’

‘What am I going to do?’ Jake shook his head as if that would help clear the fug that had somehow settled in his brain in recent weeks.

‘I am the last person to ask for advice about women.’

‘You’re older and wiser than I am,’ Jake pointed out. ‘Well, older.’

‘I think wiser is more pertinent,’ Pip said. ‘I’m not the one shagging his workmate.’

‘It seemed like a really good idea at the time.’

‘Most of the biggest cock-ups in the world usually do.’ Pip tasted his beer again. ‘No pun intended, mate.’

Jake hung his head.

Pip, sensing his despair, took sympathy on him and changed tack. ‘Did you manage to catch up with Lyssa before she left?’

‘Yes,’ Jake said. ‘She looked so…so happy.’

‘That’s good.’

And it was good. Wasn’t it? It was just that it was also a little bit unexpected. He was the one who was supposed to have upset the apple-cart. He was the one who had moved on. And yet here he was wallowing around in the smelly mud of emotions while Lyssa seemed to have got her act together pretty damn quickly. A bit too quickly, if you asked him. Wasn’t a relationship split supposed to be devastating? Shouldn’t there be a period of mourning or something to mark its passing? Should your ex-girlfriend really be jumping on the next available plane to start some sort of half-arsed adventure when she’d never been remotely moved to do that sort of thing before? Lyssa seemed to have got over him so quickly. And that was something he hadn’t really bargained for at all.

Chapter thirty

Chapter thirty