‘Just a cappuccino, please.’
‘No breakfast?’
I shake my head. I’m too wobbly inside to want to eat and I’m grateful to my dad for the base layer of toast.
Josh queues to be served while I find an empty table. There’s one by the window, overlooking the boulevard that leads right up to the city centre. It’s fuggy in here so the glass is running with condensation and I resist the temptation to draw a sad face in it. Instead I pick up an abandoned napkin and wipe a clearing in the pane so that I can look through. There’s nothing to see but cars easing their way through the slush on the roads and people hunched and hurrying into the nearest shelter from the falling snow.
Then, much to my relief, I see Karen arriving for work. She’s wearing dark glasses and walking very gingerly. Though she is still wearing towering heels in the snow. It looks as if she’s feeling a bit fragile this morning and I can certainly empathise with that. I think she’s one of the few people who enjoyed the Christmas party. Not that she’ll remember any of it. I’m just glad she’s turned up unharmed. Then I realise that I’m starting to think like my dad, and stop.
A few moments later Josh comes back with coffees for both of us. He sets them down then pulls up a stool to sit on.
When we’ve both taken a sip, I say, ‘So, we need to come up with a cunning plan.’
Josh grins at me. ‘I only came into the office to find out how you were and give you some support. I didn’t expect to find myself out of a job as well.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘I didn’t mean it to happen either. I don’t know why you’re smiling.’
‘Me neither,’ he admits. ‘It just seems like a really absurd situation. I think Tyler’s overstepped the mark this time. He’s being totally unfair to you and he’s falsified my sales figures to make me look bad. If it comes to it, I hope I can prove that to an employment tribunal. At the very least, my payslips show that I’ve been paid bonuses every month. You don’t get that from underperforming.’
‘That gives me some hope. Maybe we should go to Human Resources and tell them what’s happened.’
‘We could.’ He looks hesitant. ‘That would probably work for my case, but they might not take kindly to what you did to Tyler.’
Ah. Of course, he’s right. Tyler might have been in the wrong the way he treated me, but I haven’t exactly helped matters. You know the old adage, two wrongs don’t make a right? That.
‘Maybe Tyler isn’t being as clever as he thinks he is.’ Josh looks at me over his coffee cup. ‘We do have another bit of leverage. If we want to play dirty too, that is.’
‘We do?’
‘We could threaten to tell Lance and Kirsten that he’s been having an affair with Melissa Harvey.’
‘Do we know that for certain, or is it just office gossip?’
‘I’m prepared to believe there’s no smoke without fire.’ Josh sighs. ‘This isn’t a route I want to go down, but what else can we do?’
I don’t want to stoop to Tyler’s level, but he’s already proved that he’s not a man to be reasoned with. ‘Let’s think about this very carefully. I’m anxious not to open a can of worms.’
‘I don’t want him to push you out,’ Josh says. ‘You’re good at your job. I only wish you’d told me what he was doing earlier.’
I shrug. ‘Tyler’s the one with the power. He’s holding all the cards. I’m the new girl. Who would have believed me?’
‘I would have. Will you trust me now?’
‘I think so.’ Josh seems to be cut from a very different cloth from the men I’ve known before, and certainly from Tyler Benson.
‘If that’s the best you can do for now, then I’ll take it.’ He risks another smile. ‘When you get to know me better, I hope you’ll feel differently. You do still want to get to know me better?’
I nod. This is the moment I open up my heart to him. It’s such a small step, but it feels like a mammoth leap into the unknown. I want to shield my daughter even more than I want to protect myself from harm, but I don’t think it’s good for her to go through life without a male role model apart from my dear dad. It’s not good for me to be so self-sufficient that I end up old and lonely either. I’d like another child, someone to share our life, someone to love me. So, here I am willing to dive into the abyss of romance once more.
‘You can come to my parents’ house for Christmas Day, if you’d like,’ I offer. I try to sound casual, as if it doesn’t matter to me whether he comes or not, yet my heart is pounding in my chest and my palms are as damp as these windows. What if he turns me down? I’d feel like a fool. I rush on. ‘It might be a trial. They’ll both try to kill you with kindness.’
‘There are worse ways to go,’ Josh says. ‘If you’re sure it’s OK, I’d really love to come.’
‘Great.’ I resist the urge to run round the pub, punching the air. ‘I’ll let you know what time and all that.’
‘Can I bring something? Contribute to the meal? Buy some wine? I’d like to get Mia a gift too.’
Now we’re both a bit awkward. ‘Just bring yourself. That’ll be enough.’
‘Thanks, Louise. If I’m honest, I was dreading Christmas alone. I’ll look forward to it.’
We exchange a shy and wary smile.
Josh drains the dregs of his coffee and puts his cup down in a very decisive manner. ‘Now that we’re fortified, let’s go and get our jobs back.’
Chapter Fifty-six
Kirsten had just finished getting dressed when Simon came back into the bedroom after calling Lance Harvey. There was a sombre air about him and his face was pale and serious. It wasn’t the happy, smiling countenance that had kissed her yet again before leaving the room not ten minutes earlier. She settled herself on the edge of the bed and waited. Simon sat next to her and took her hand in his. He fiddled with each of her fingers without speaking.
‘You might as well spit it out,’ she said when he didn’t fill the silence. ‘I gather Lance didn’t take your resignation too kindly. Did he get all heavy and threaten legal action?’ Kirsten studied his face, wishing she could read the veiled emotions. ‘You have to remember that beneath that fading exterior beats a strong, litigious American heart.’
‘No, he didn’t threaten me with legal action,’ Simon said with a ponderous puff of breath. ‘He didn’t threaten me with anything at all.’
‘What then?’
Simon looked at her squarely. ‘Before I could say anything, he offered me a promotion.’
‘What?’
He gave a humourless half-laugh, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘He offered me the chairman’s job.’
‘The chairman’s job?’ Kirsten rubbed her hand over her face. ‘Does that mean Lance has been given the push? Is he not coming back from the SACKED programme?’ She’d suspected as much.
‘No.’ He risked a wry glance. ‘Quite the opposite. Lance has been promoted too. He’s now executive president of Fossil Oil.’
‘Oh my God,’ she said, shuddering. ‘The lunatics are finally in charge of the asylum.’
‘That’s pretty much what I thought.’
‘Tyler will fling himself off the nearest cliff when he hears this.’
‘I know.’
‘So what did Lance say when you turned it down?’ Kirsten grimaced. ‘I bet he was livid.’
There was another uncomfortable silence, during which her heart started to beat louder and faster. Simon looked distinctly ill at ease, avoiding her gaze.
‘You did turn it down?’ she ventured quietly. ‘Tell me that you did.’
Simon gazed at the wall, his eyes steady, unflinching. ‘Not exactly.’
Kirsten buried her face in her hands. ‘Please tell me I’m not hearing this.’
‘I didn’t say yes either.’ Simon massaged his temples.
‘But you didn’t say no.’
He shook his head.
She took a deep breath. Already she could see all their silly, reckless plans floatin
g away. She should have learned by now that when something sounded too good, then it generally was. ‘So, what did you say?’
‘I said I’d think about it.’ He turned his face to her for the first time. ‘He’s going to keep the job open for me until the new year. I have to make a decision by then.’
Folding her arms around herself, she tried to ease the sinking feeling that had started inside her. ‘I think the decision’s already made, don’t you?’
‘It would be madness not to consider it, Kirsten.’
‘And it would be madness to think that we could ever have a relationship if you decide to work for Fossil.’
The hangover Kirsten had forgotten she was due suddenly pushed itself to the front of her brain, making it throb violently. A churning nausea rushed to her stomach, she wanted to heave. This was Christmas Eve – she should be enjoying a bit of festive cheer, having a convivial glass of champagne while she made a ham-fisted attempt at mince pies and stuffed all the important little cavities of the turkey with pancetta or something. The thought of interfering with raw turkey gave her stomach another violent swish. She should be enjoying wrapping last-minute presents and wafting round the house lighting scented candles, filling it with the aroma of cinnamon and cloves, waiting, nerves shredded, for Tyler to come home. This wasn’t the day to be having life-changing discussions, particularly not with a dehydrated brain. She should have known it. Wasn’t it supposed to be Christmas Day that was the most stressful day of the year? Hers had come a day too early.
‘What happened to escaping? To scuba diving, sun, sand, sea and sex?’ Feelings of disappointment and rejection swept over her. Now that she’d finally plucked up the courage to leave Tyler, she didn’t want her next relationship to turn out to be just as disastrous. She turned her attention back to Simon. ‘We were going to run away together and start a carefree life of fun and freedom. We were going to grab back the years we’ve lost with both hands. How could you have forgotten that so soon?’
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ Simon said steadily. ‘I wanted to talk it through with you. That’s what people in a relationship do.’
It wasn’t what her and Tyler did. Fossil Oil said what they wanted to happen, Tyler agreed, her opinion was ignored and she trailed along unhappily in the wake of everyone else’s decisions. That’s what had happened in her relationship. Now Simon was expecting it to be different all of a sudden. ‘There’s nothing to talk about.’
‘I think there is.’
Kirsten closed her eyes and waited for her rolling stomach to still. ‘I’m going to be sick unless I have a cup of camomile tea,’ she said, getting up from the bed, her limbs leaden and reluctant.
Simon held her shoulders. ‘I’ll get dressed,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll come downstairs and we can sit and talk it through rationally.’
It sounded perfectly sensible, perfectly reasonable, but she could feel him slipping away.
Kirsten was sitting at the kitchen table, elbows propping her up, nursing the insipid-looking tea, cherishing the burning sensation in her hands that, at least, contrasted with the sick numbness the rest of her body was experiencing. Simon, like Tyler, was going to let her down. It was inevitable.
Seconds later he appeared at the door and leaned on the frame, hands in pockets. He was wearing his crumpled dinner suit and equally crumpled shirt. His freshly washed dark fringe flopped forward on to his forehead. He pushed it back with his fingers and she resisted the urge to do the same. He looked absolutely terrible and she knew that she had never loved him more.
‘You could have borrowed some of Tyler’s clothes,’ she said.
‘Stealing his wife is one thing,’ Simon replied, ‘doing it while wearing his clothes is another.’
Kirsten smiled wearily. ‘Do you want some tea?’ she asked.
He strode across the kitchen and sank into the leather sofa by the French doors. Lounging back in it, he gazed out into the garden. Tyler never sat like that. He always sat upright, ready to pounce.
The snow had now reached this part of London. It fell in delicate swirls, landing softly in the garden, making it look as if someone had sprinkled icing sugar over everything. It was so pretty, it made her want to cry.
Simon turned his eyes to her. ‘Come and sit with me.’ He patted the seat next to him. ‘I want to know what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling.’
‘I’m feeling hungover,’ Kirsten replied bleakly. ‘Very hungover.’ In all honesty, she didn’t dare to begin examining her true feelings. Once that floodgate was open she felt as if she might never close it again.
She picked up her tea and crossed the kitchen to sit with him. If this was going to end badly, then she wanted to feel the comfort of his warmth one more time. She snuggled in next to him, laying her head on his shoulder.
‘I could do it for a year, Kirsten,’ Simon reasoned as he stroked her hair. ‘While we’re planning to set up another business. The salary is huge. We could bank a pile of cash that would cushion us for a long time. I have to consider it.’
She took a lingering sip of her tea and eventually shook her head. It seemed a perfectly acceptable argument, but she knew what Fossil Oil was like. It wasn’t happy until it had drained all the life out of you. ‘You’d be back on that treadmill, Simon. Trapped, unable to get off.’
‘It doesn’t have to be like that,’ he assured her. ‘It would buy us some time and it would look good on my CV.’
‘You wouldn’t need a CV for it to look good on if you were running your own scuba-diving centre or café.’ She gave him a look that asked him to deny it.
‘I need some fresh air, Kirsten.’ Simon rubbed the back of his neck, strong smooth strokes with hands that had so skilfully seduced her body just a short while ago. ‘This is a tough decision. I’d be walking away from a hell of a lot, from the top job, from what I’ve always wanted. I’ve got to get my head round it.’
Kirsten’s hands started to tremble and she put her cup down before she spilled tea over both of them. ‘If you walk out now, Simon, there’ll be no going back.’ Her voice sounded calm, but it belied the screaming that she was doing inside. ‘You put a job before me once before. You left me alone because of your ambition, and look where that got us. I won’t let you do it again.’
‘That was different. Now we’re older and wiser. This time we won’t let Tyler drive us apart. I promise you.’
The telephone rang, making them both start, its shrill noise at odds with the subdued atmosphere in the glossy kitchen. Kirsten pushed herself up from the sofa and went to pick it up.
‘Tyler?’ she said, surprised to hear her husband at the other end. Normally when he was at work everything else was forgotten.
‘I hated the way that we left things this morning,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to call to see that you were OK.’
Behind her she could hear Simon lever himself from the sofa and cross the room. She turned and held up her hand. Five minutes, she mouthed. Their eyes met and he shrugged sadly. A tight band squeezed Kirsten’s heart and the words of endearment that Tyler was pouring down the phone blurred to an insignificant rush.
‘I know I’ve got a lot of explaining to do,’ Tyler continued. ‘But we have too much to lose. We love each other.’
Simon was walking away and she was letting him. She watched him as he trudged down the hall, head hung low. He turned at the front door and waved, a tight unhappy movement that hurt like a knife being pushed under her ribs. Kirsten put her hand over the receiver, blanking Tyler out.
‘Simon!’ she called out. ‘Don’t go.’
Yet he was already out of the door. He closed it quietly behind him.
She stood like a statue, unable to move, as dead and as unfeeling as stone. He’d gone. Gone, gone, gone. She’d given him a choice and he had taken it. He was out of her life again as quickly as he had come back into it. Kirsten could feel her lip starting to quiver and she clamped it down, biting it with her teeth until she could taste blood.
Tyler’s voice brought her back. He was shouting down the phone at her. ‘Kirsten? Kirsten? Are you even listening to me?’
‘I’m sorry, Tyler,’ she said, speaking like a woman in a daze. Which she was. ‘I didn’t catch that.’
Her hands were shaking. It was going to take more than camomile tea, possibly even more than a gallon of Rescue Remedy, before she could start to make any sense of this.
‘I’ll leave work as soon as I can. The snow’s getting quite bad here.’
‘What?’ she said automatically to her husband.
‘I can make things right. I know I can. It’ll be just me and you from now on. Hand on heart. I’ll try to be the husband you want. You won’t regret it.’
His voice was soothing, placating, wheedling, promising her all the things she had yearned for during ten long, lonely years. It ran over her like cool water. But it was as if it was all happening to someone else. Someone else who was capable of making rational decisions.
Then she paused, snapping back to listen to his final promise, letting it travel through her struggling brain, considering the implications, weighing the consequences one against the other. An exhausted sigh escaped Kirsten’s lips.
‘Yes,’ she said without emotion. She didn’t have the energy or the will to fight her husband any longer. ‘Of course you can come home, Tyler.’
Chapter Fifty-seven
Josh and I appear at Tyler’s office door just as he’s hanging up the phone. He’s reclining in his chair, feet crossed on his desk. There’s a smugness about his face that I find nauseating. My resignation letter is still laid out in front of him. He looks up and scowls at us.
‘I thought I’d given you two your marching orders. Did I not make myself clear enough?’
Josh ushers me into the room and then closes the door behind us.
‘You’ve gone too far, Tyler,’ Josh says reasonably. ‘I know how you’ve been treating Louise. She should have put in a complaint to Human Resources about you sexually harassing her.’
‘For goodness’ sake,’ Tyler says. ‘Don’t be dramatic. This isn’t the Dark Ages. It’s just a bit of office banter. She didn’t mind.’