Cover

Dedication

For Sharon, with love from your naughty little sister.

Prologue

October 2016

‘At a funeral, Jason,’ I said, laughing bitterly and shaking my head. ‘At your own aunt’s funeral. Just when I thought I couldn’t be any more appalled. You’re so obviously beyond help and hope.’

I held the front door open and he exited without argument, before stopping on the top step, making no attempt either to walk away, or to come back inside. ‘I can’t explain, Edie,’ he said quietly, his head bowed. ‘It’s a—’

I held up a hand. ‘Well, you’re in luck, because I don’t want an explanation. I just want you to go.’ With that, I closed the front door and returned to the living room.

Once there, I sat back down on the sofa and ran my eyes around the room, taking in our furniture, our photographs, our books, and desperately searching for something which hadn’t been shared with, or touched and tainted by, Jason; something which was wholly mine.

At last, I found it lying on the coffee table, just an outstretched arm away.

Leaning forward, I picked up the large, leather-bound notebook I used to jot down project thoughts and ideas, whenever inspiration struck away from the office. And as a sudden sense of purpose halted the tears which had been flowing, unconsciously and unchecked, since closing the door on Jason – and on our relationship – I reached for a pen, dried my eyes and set to work.

Chapter 1

June 2018

I gazed for a moment longer at the late-spring rain streaming down the floor-to-ceiling windows behind Roger’s desk, before pivoting slowly in my chair and scanning the large white-walled, open-plan office: my safe space.

Ruby and I were currently its only occupants. Luke’s workstation, and Roger and Cameron’s long white desks and drawing tables, sat empty, while behind the glass walls of her office, Alison talked intensely into the telephone.

‘It’s going to be very male out here when you go,’ I said, concluding my rotation with my chair facing Ruby.

She looked up briefly from the printed drawings of a 1930s terraced house over which she was hunched. The design, for a basement excavation and rear extension, would be her last for Alison Gerrard Ltd before she took up her new post at Lovelock McCormick Architecture in Bath, in just one week’s time.

She lifted her head, shaking her blunt-cut, white-blonde bob out of her eyes and away from her sharp features. ‘It’ll be fine, Edie,’ she said, picking up a piece of sushi from a black plastic tray on the edge of her desk and popping it into her mouth.

‘But who’s going to supply me with emergency feminine hygiene products and tell me when I’ve gone too far with my colours?’ I glanced down at my orange shirt and wildly patterned, navy and orange A-line skirt. ‘And remind me when it’s time to get a cut and foils?’ I added, pulling absently at a length of hair, which had fallen from my messy updo.

She paused to chew and swallow before answering. ‘You can carry off colour – it’s your thing. Just like gloom is my thing,’ she said, glancing down at her short, grey shift dress, which she’d teamed today with heavy-soled black brogues. ‘Plus, I like your hair naturally mousy. Oh and I’ll gift you half a dozen boxes of Tampax before I leave.’

‘Thanks, but it’s a feminine, listening ear I’ll miss most.’

‘Well, there’s always—’ she began, inclining her head towards Alison’s office, before stopping short as the woman herself made an entrance.

‘Edith,’ she said, patting the side of her steel-grey chignon, her burgundy-lipsticked mouth hauled upwards into a tense smile.

‘Yes?’ I hurriedly picked up a stylus in a wholly unnecessary pretence of professional activity. It was a guilt-spurred response developed as a teen under the tuition of Mrs Skinner, a fine-boned, stick-thin geography teacher who dealt mercilessly with anyone found guilty of distracting chatter. And although Alison had no problem whatsoever with a conversation-filled workplace, her physical resemblance to said Mrs Skinner always provoked a look-busy reaction from me – as well as occasional unpleasant flashbacks to glaciated uplands and chalk escarpments.

‘That was Mick Jarvis on the phone. The drawings went down very well with everyone yesterday,’ she said in the clipped tone she always employed, irrespective of topic or mood. ‘“Bold, yet sympathetic” was some of the feedback.’

A sense of fulfilment and well-being washed over me. ‘That’s so great to hear.’

She nodded stiffly and withdrew into her office, adjusting her perfectly fitted charcoal jacket, before sitting back down at her desk. At sixty-one, she was still an undeniably attractive woman, her attention to detail regarding her personal appearance as fastidious as it was in every one of her drawings. And she was as formidable as she was fashionable; highly respected within the industry of which she had been part for over thirty years, with a reputation for prioritising the pursuit of architectural perfection above all else – including personal relationships, never having been married and, as far as I knew, socialising only on a professional basis. But while she had, for the past two-and-a-half years, been a scrupulously fair, generous and straightforward boss – one whom I hugely admired – female best-bud material she most certainly was not.

I turned back to Ruby. ‘I think there’s more chance of Roger sympathising with me over my PMT than of her lending a listening ear, don’t you?’

‘She’d listen to anything you had to say. She thinks you’re great. Case in point are those warm words about your design,’ she added, reaching for another piece of sushi. ‘Well done with that, by the way.’

I smiled, a little sadly, knowing that the conversion of a listed pre-war substation into several homes was a project that Ruby had been rather keen on herself – something I hadn’t realised until Luke, our loose-tongued office administrator, had let the fact slip. ‘Better check Ruby doesn’t poison your coffee,’ he had sniggered, after Alison had approved my pitch. ‘She thought she had that one in the bag.’

I’d been surprised because Ruby had never hinted either her interest or her disappointment to me, and still hadn’t for that matter. Instead, she had stuck to perusing my ideas and being quietly supportive. It was that kind of support – as well as the workplace female camaraderie and gossip – which I knew I would miss.

‘It’s just nice to have someone relatable around,’ I said, turning my chair towards my desk.

‘You get on really well with Roger and Luke,’ she murmured, frowning thoughtfully at the design in front of her.

‘They’re great,’ I acknowledged, ‘but they’re not hugely relatable, are they? Roger’s old enough to be my dad and Luke’s a decade younger than me, lives with his mum and takes selfies to check his hair. He’s not going to empathise with my late-thirties cankle-angst and cellulite battles. I swear my bum is relocating into my thighs,’ I said, twisting in my chair to look. ‘I think it needs a sling, or a bra, or something. Do they make bum-bras?’

‘Mid-thirties.’

‘What?’

She glanced up at me. ‘Your mid-thirties cankle-angst and cellulite battles. You’re thirty-five.’

I tutted and then, seeing that she looked genuinely concerned, added, ‘You know I’m only joking, don’t you? I mean, I’ll definitely miss having you around and my bum is genuinely melting into my thighs, but I’m fine.’

At that, she stood up and came to stand beside me, placing a hand on my shoulder. ‘I know you are,’ she said gently.

I reached up and patted her hand. ‘Like you say, Luke and Roger are great. Plus, there’s always the new guy. He’s quiet, but seems nice. I feel really bad that I haven’t made more of an effort with him, actually.’ I looked guiltily past Ruby towards Cameron’s empty desk on the far side of the office, reflecting that I had said little more than ‘Hi’ and ‘Bye’ to him each day since returning from my Italian break. ‘I haven’t had one proper conversation with him yet.’

‘He’s hardly the new guy,’ said Ruby, following my gaze. ‘He’s been here almost a month.’

‘That long?’

‘He started two days before you went away.’

‘Wow, you’re right, he did,’ I said. ‘I guess I’ve just been completely wrapped-up in this since I got back.’ I jerked a thumb over my shoulder towards the drawings currently on-screen. ‘You know what I’m like once I get my teeth into something. But I must find time to ask him how he’s getting on.’

‘Hmm…’

I looked up to find her still staring at Cameron’s desk, her smile now replaced by a very definite frown.

‘What?’ I nudged her with my elbow.

‘Nothing, it’s just that he’s not the easiest guy in the world to connect with, so I wouldn’t feel too guilty about not getting to know him if I were you. I made a real effort and asked him to come for lunch a few times while you were away, but he said no. And I heard Roger offering to take him for a pint in one of those pensioner places he hangs out in, but again it was a no.’

‘So not a fan of socialising with work colleagues?’

‘I guess it depends on the colleague.’

I waited for further explanation, but all she offered me was a shrug. ‘Oh, come on,’ I wheedled, tugging at her dress. ‘Don’t leave me hanging. I hate being out of the loop.’

She hesitated for a moment, before bending down and, despite a total absence of eavesdroppers, lowering her voice. ‘It’s just that he’s keen enough to make a friend of Alison,’ she said, with a disdainful emphasis on the word. ‘While you were away, he was in her office more times than the rest of us put together, and an awful lot of their conversations out here were sotto voce.’

I laughed and reached up, placing a hand on each of her shoulders and giving her a gentle shake. ‘You’re not seriously trying to suggest that there’s something going on between them, are you? He’s only a couple of years older than us and, even if the twenty-year age gap between them wasn’t an issue, this is Alison you’re talking about.’

‘God, I’m not saying they’re having sex, Edie,’ she said, with a slight shudder. ‘I’m just saying that he has no problem chatting to the boss and, I might add, going out for a drink with the boss after work.’

I felt my eyebrows rise involuntarily.

‘Aha, yes,’ she said triumphantly, pointing at my wrinkled forehead. ‘Interesting, isn’t it? He’s happy to schmooze the woman who holds the purse strings and hands out promotions, but he won’t have a pint with the hoi polloi.’

‘Oh don’t be so cynical,’ I tutted. ‘There are always loads of things to go over with the boss when you start a new job. You know that. Maybe Alison is trying to help him settle in. God knows I haven’t tried very hard,’ I added, experiencing a fresh wave of guilt.

‘This is different,’ she insisted. ‘I honestly think he’s best kept at arm’s length.’

But displaying equal stubbornness, I shook my head. ‘As much as I would love a bit of office intrigue, Alison is nobody’s fool and doesn’t like suck-ups. If she’s going for drinks with him, then it’ll be strictly business, and maybe he was genuinely tied up when Roger invited him to the crumblies’ pub.’

She opened her mouth to object, but I got in first. ‘Give the guy a chance. I bet he’ll come out for a drink if I ask him.’

‘Maybe he will,’ she shrugged. ‘Maybe he’ll see you as useful – as someone with the boss’s ear – as opposed to me and Roger: a woman on her way out of the door and Mr Ilkley-Moor-bar-t’at, not far off retirement.’

I pulled a disapproving face, more at her description of Roger than her continued cynicism. ‘OK then,’ I said, ‘I bet he’ll come for a drink with us if I ask him.’

Her eyebrows arched sceptically. ‘Us? With you and me, you mean? How much do you want to bet?’

‘Fiver,’ I said, holding out my hand.

She stared down at it. ‘That wasn’t a literal challenge, Edie. Take my advice and let it go.’

I thrust my hand further towards her and, after a moment, she sighed and then shook it, just as Cameron re-entered the office, clutching a coffee in one hand and a soggy, brown paper bag in the other. His thick, mid-brown hair had been darkened and plastered to his head by the heavy rain, and he looked weary, as well as wet, as he placed the bag and cup down on his desk and hung up his sodden navy blue raincoat. A twitch of his dark eyebrows and an upward tilt of his broad, stubbly chin in our general direction, was his only greeting, as he sat down heavily and removed a wrap and a banana from the bag.

I wasn’t sure whether it was because Ruby had just moments earlier shared her rather negative assessment of him, but his wordless, barely-there acknowledgement of us felt distinctly on the chilly side. Nevertheless, turning to Ruby, and determined not to let her detect any newly sprung misgivings, I smiled brightly. ‘No time like the present,’ I whispered and rose to my feet.

She placed a hand on my arm and shook her head. ‘Let’s talk about it first,’ she said.

I frowned, bemused by her concern. ‘Why are you being so intense about this? It’s just a drink,’ I replied quietly. ‘Just have the cash waiting when I get back.’ Then, allowing her no time to raise any further objections, I strode purposefully across the office to where Cameron sat with his back now to us, apparently engrossed in a table of figures on his screen.

However, when I cleared my throat and he swivelled slowly in his chair to face me, his unsurprised, neutral expression was that of someone who had actually been fully aware of my arrival, and perhaps not entirely delighted by it either.

‘Hi,’ he said, a nod of his head making the word sound like an indication that I had permission to speak, rather than a greeting.

‘Hi.’ I managed a small smile, whilst attempting to suppress an early and uncomfortable suspicion that Ruby’s stated opinion of our newish colleague might not have been entirely wide of the mark. But anxious not to let my doubts take hold, I stretched my smile to breaking point and decided to get straight to it.

‘I tend to get rather absorbed in my projects and, since I got back, I haven’t taken the time to say a proper hello. I was just saying to Ruby that I feel really bad about that,’ I began apologetically.

At the mention of her name, his grey-green eyes narrowed, flicking quickly left and past me, towards Ruby. I turned to see her sitting at her desk, leaning over her work, her hair falling forward and obscuring her face from view.

‘So anyway, the pair of us are going out tonight,’ I continued a little uncertainly, turning back towards him, ‘to a wine bar, if you fancy coming along. Fingers crossed you’ll have dried out by then and, if not, we’ll just sit you next to a radiator and let you steam.’ I laughed lightly and waited for him to join in.

There followed a silent and mildly uncomfortable pause, during which, if he smiled, I missed it. Instead, he simply stared up at me, before at last taking a deep breath and picking up his wrap. ‘It’s fine. I know from Alison how focused you are,’ he began, his tone low and deeply serious, which did nothing to lessen a growing tension in my spine. ‘I’m afraid I’m busy tonight, so I’ll have to say no to a drink. But thanks for asking.’ And with that, he offered me a nanosecond of a smile, glanced briefly again in Ruby’s direction and then swivelled in his chair to face his desk.

I stared at his broad, white-shirted back, experiencing a combination of mild indignation at his rather curt rejection of my invitation, and resentment that he had apparently been discussing me with Alison. The fact that his current clipped manner wasn’t at all typical of his interactions with Luke and Roger – his male work colleagues – did nothing to quell my fledgling feelings of negativity towards him.

I frowned down at him, only a reluctance to hand over a fiver to Ruby preventing me from throwing in the towel just yet.

I cleared my throat for a second time, prompting him to drop his wrap from a height of several inches onto his desk before turning, with renewed and undisguised weariness, to face me once again.

‘Sorry,’ he said, running a hand through his wet hair and then shaking the drips onto the floor, ‘I didn’t realise there was more.’ He looked up at me resignedly from under heavy brows.

‘Won’t keep you a moment,’ I said, with forced cheeriness. ‘I just wanted to remind you that Ruby leaves us for her new job next Friday. Hopefully you can find a gap in your schedule to come along to her leaving drinks. It’d be great if we were all there to say goodbye.’

I continued to smile, whilst noting that he appeared increasingly tense. At the best of times, his build made him look like a man in danger of being strangled by his own work shirt. But now, at the mention of drinks with his colleagues, he seemed to expand somehow, like Bruce Banner about to transition into The Hulk.

He eyed me unblinkingly for a second or two and then, without comment, picked up the remains of his wrap, replaced it in the precariously soggy paper bag and stood up, causing me to take a step backwards.

‘Thanks for the reminder. I’ve a lot on but, yeah – thanks for the reminder,’ he repeated, in an accent which now had just a hint of Danny Dyer about it.

I looked steadily up at him, refusing to acknowledge his width and height advantage. I didn’t know what the newly adopted, tough-guy tone was all about, but I had encountered enough ridiculous displays of workplace machismo in the past that if he was attempting one now, it wasn’t going to faze me.

I folded my arms and nodded, but didn’t reply.

He looked pleasingly uncertain for a moment and then reached for his coffee cup, holding it up. ‘They’ve given me a flat white, instead of a cappuccino,’ he said darkly, now quite unmistakably channelling EastEnders and dropping consonants like confetti at a wedding. ‘I’m gonna have to go back to Costa.’

I smiled acceptingly, genuinely amused by his bizarre, mockney-based attempt to assert himself. ‘Cor blimey,’ I said casually, ‘that’s a shime.’

He blinked in apparent confusion, before his expression hardened. Then he unhooked his dripping coat from the hatstand and brushed past me, exiting the office with a mumbled and gravelly, ‘Back soon.’ A second or two later, I heard the lift doors hiss open and shut.

‘Did you really just say cor blimey and shime?’

I turned to find Ruby standing behind me, smirking. ‘And what’s with the folded arms and legs astride?’ she asked, looking me up and down.

‘Didn’t you hear him?’ I gestured towards the corridor. ‘He suddenly started putting on a Cockney accent for some ridiculous reason – so I just joined in. And, even if I do say so myself, my effort was way better than his. He sounded like Prince William crossed with a Kray twin. Oh and he was trying to play the height card with me too. Amateur,’ I huffed.

‘He’s over six foot tall, Edie,’ she said, ‘and from Hackney,’

‘So?’ I made my way back to my desk.

‘So, short of shuffling around on his knees, he’s always going to be taller than you.’

‘You know exactly what I mean,’ I said, pulling out my chair. ‘It was his body language.’

‘And as for the accent,’ she continued, ignoring the interruption, ‘the clue is in the word Hackney.’

After a brief pause, I turned my head slowly towards her, my eyes widening as the significance of the location dawned on me. ‘Oh God, he’s from East London,’ I murmured, putting a hand to my mouth and recalling the details of Cameron’s CV: Hackney born and bred, UCL educated. I glanced uncertainly towards the corridor. ‘I’d forgotten. I thought he was trying to assert himself. You know, like when David Turner from planning makes eye contact and does that twitchy thing with his pelvis just before he sits down.’

‘Nope. That’s just how the guy talks.’

‘So why haven’t I noticed?’ I said, biting my lower lip.

She shrugged. ‘Well, you haven’t really had much to do with him, have you? And to be fair to you, the accent doesn’t often surface. I’ve noticed that it’s definitely way more pronounced when he’s stressed and on the back foot. Day-to-day he sounds pretty Home Counties.’

‘Oh no,’ I groaned, the thought that I had somehow managed to stress him out making me feel even worse. ‘He’s going to think that I was mocking his roots now, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, he is,’ she replied matter-of-factly. ‘Unless, of course, he thinks that was your Kylie Minogue impression. But either way, don’t feel bad about it,’ she continued, returning to her desk, ‘because it was really funny.’

The Story Continues on BooksBarbecue!

Enjoyed this preview? ❤️ Do not stop here!

Read the complete book free online → 🔗

Continue reading now on BooksBarbecue and discover every page!

Love reading? Bookmark BooksBarbecue.com for more amazing books!

Happy Reading!