The Last Kiss: A Standalone Romance Novel (The Notting Hill Sisterhood Book 1)

by Anna Bloom

  “Shhh, don’t say it too loud.” Liv waves her hand at me, but she’s not the one with a mouth full of… actually I think it is pond water.

  I widen my eyes at her. I. Am. Not. Swallowing.

  She glares at me. The longer I hold it in my mouth, the more I think it’s burning away my gums and possibly the enamel on my teeth. You could use this stuff to unblock sinks.

  Ugh sinks. I’m going to puke.

  I shake my head.

  She nods.

  I shake my head again just as Charlie looks over to our table. “Food won’t be long.” Her gaze drops to the glass. “How is it, Jules? It’s delicious, isn’t it? I have it every morning for breakfast. Great for your heart and circulation, and all sorts of inflammatory conditions.”

  I thumbs up while Liv widens her eyes even further until she’s doing her best mascaraed Bambi impersonation.

  Fuck’s sake.

  I swallow, trying hard not to gag as the liquid slips down.

  I should have gone to work. Telling Rebecca that I was going to be leaving one way or another would be better than this.

  Lenny who up until now has been sitting quietly in a highchair giving the kiss of life to a breadstick decides it’s time to have in on the action and throws the soggy snack onto the centre of the table next along.

  “Gosh, I am so sorry.” Liv jumps up with a napkin and swipes up the sloppy mess. The two women, large white wines and power suits, both offer her tight-lipped smiles and I hate them for the way they see her. That she’s just a mum who can’t control her kid.

  Up until nearly four years ago she looked just like them. Before Dickweed Darren put a spanner in the works by starting a family with her he ‘wasn’t entirely sure about’. Damn, I hate that bastard.

  With red cheeks, she sits back down and tucks her silky hair behind her ear. I pass Lenny another breadstick. “Go at it.”

  He drools a smile and then presses the overbaked bread against his gums.

  Checking where Charlie is, I quickly pour the rest of the health shot into the pot plant next to my chair. Thank God, Charlie is all about the green. Her restaurant resembles more of a greenhouse, but she assures anyone that comments that the added oxygen in the air makes for a relaxing experience.

  I suppose if my breathing gets any worse, I can always come and hang out here every day.

  Thrusting the thought to the back of my head, I refocus on Liv. “How’s the rest of the guys?”

  She smiles. “Fine, you know, busy. Actually, we are going out next week. Well, I say out, coming here for a catch up. Why don’t you come?”

  I suck my teeth. “Liv, they are your friends.”

  “Our friends.” She’s being kind. She wants to share, like all good sisters do. “They love you; you know that.”

  “That’s wonderful, but you know, I don’t think I’m really in a place to socialise right now. Hell, I couldn’t even get to work.”

  Liv straightens up, her graceful body strengthening. “So, what you going to do, just sit at home and wait for the worst to happen?”

  “No,” I pout back, “I’ve started a bucket list.”

  “A bucket list? Why?” She straightens her knife and fork, considers the remaining folded napkin before doing the same to that too. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

  “Liv. That’s not actually a helpful attitude right now.”

  “And hiding in a small poky apartment with a smelly cat is?”

  “What exactly else should I be doing?”

  Here it comes… the R word.

  “Research. You need to be prepared for when the transplant team call, have a list of questions ready. You need to speak to Dr Francis. Didn’t he want to talk about your medication.”

  I open my mouth to stop her, but she holds her hand up.

  “There’s other stuff too. You need to look into sick pay. Will you still get paid when you have bad days?”

  This makes me snort. “I’m lucky to get paid as it is. I think sick pay is taking the piss.”

  “Ah, but you still have to live, still have to pay your mortgage.”

  “Rent,” I correct.

  “Same thing.”

  It’s really not, but I don’t bother correcting her. When I’m no longer here, the flat currently my home will be rented by someone else. It’s not like there is an estate to finalise.

  “Also, did Dr Francis give you any idea on how long you will be functioning like this, when things might change?”

  I grasp her hand and squeeze tight. “Liv, stop. This is just the first day. We don’t need to have everything spreadsheeted, calendared, and organised right this moment.”

  She doesn’t look convinced. In fact, she looks like she wants to get her laptop out to start crunching numbers.

  “So anyway, tell me about your girls’ night.” I swiftly change the subject before she can get her phone out and start the ‘regime’. “What’s the occasion for the Notting Hill Sisterhood?”

  “Rachel is having future mother-in-law issues. We decided she needed wine.”

  I cock an eyebrow while my stomach rumbles and I eye Lenny’s breadstick with the rabid zeal of a starved wolf.

  “Ooh, sounds fun.” I stare her dead in the eye. “Sign me up.”

  Charlie swings back with two big bowls of salad, more garden feature than actual food. “You coming next week, Jules?”

  Liv smirks and spears at her salad, peering into the dense forest with the tip of her fork.

  “I’ll see,” I nod vaguely, “I’m not sure when I’m going to hear from the hospital.” This will be my excuse from now on. I’ll officially never have to socialise again. Yay for me.

  Charlie pulls a seat from the empty table the other side of ours and plonks down. With only two tables occupied to keep her busy I guess she needs a break. I look around the restaurant. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen it with more than two tables full.

  Ah. I see now the unspoken messages Liv was trying to tell me earlier.

  “You okay?” I ask Charlie. The Notting Hill gang might be Liv’s friends, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care. As reluctant an adoptee I might be, they’ve looked after me the last couple of years since I got sick.

  Got sick.

  I probably needed to rephrase that now. Got sick kind of implies that there will be a recovery.

  “Oh, you know. I’m thinking of doing a special wine night or something, try to pull in some new faces.” She nods, plastering a smile.

  “Wine and cheese?”

  Liv arches an eyebrow. “Cheese? Are we in the seventies? Do you want pineapple on sticks too?”

  Jesus, I’ve got cheese Tourette’s. Next, I’ll be suggesting a French-themed night in a vegan health kitchen.

  “Sorry, I kind of forget the vegan thing.” I spear a hedgerow of salad and shove it in my mouth before I can say anything else or get asked anything else.

  Charlie smirks, her dark eyes dancing. “So how was your Friday night, Jules?”

  “Fine. How was yours?”

  “Depressingly quiet.” A grin starts to stretch across her face. “Bet yours wasn’t.”

  Liv throws her head back laughing.

  “You bitch, I told you that in confidence.” I glare at her.

  My cheeks burn while Liv claps her hands together making Lenny squeal. “I’m just so excited you weren’t at home reading a book.”

  “You told Charlie?” I glare at her then swiftly turn to Charlie. “No offense, Charlie.”

  “None taken.”

  Liv is biting on her lip, pretending to wipe Lenny’s soggy, crumb-covered face.

  “Exactly who else have you told?”

  Her face says it all.

  “Great!” I put my fork down. “Liv, that’s not cool.”

  “It is. Sooooo cool. My boring big sister got seduced by a sexy Frenchman… be grateful I haven’t taken out an ad in The Times.”

  I scowl, my forehead aching with the ferocity of it. ‘I don’t think Th
e Times allow adverts for that kind of thing.”

  Charlie leans in, across the table. “So, tell me, is it as hot as it sounds?”

  “Stop it guys, I already feel dirty enough.” This is a blatant lie. I don’t feel dirty at all. I feel hot as hell every time I so much as allow myself to think back to Friday, “and I’m never going to see him again. It was one night. I don’t even know where he comes from, his name, or anything.”

  This much is the truth.

  Well, I know he’s from Perpignan in the Pyrenees, but I’ve looked on the map and it’s a bloody large town to search for a one-night stand in.

  Not that I would search for him.

  Of course not, that would be silly.

  That would make it a Not a One Night Stand.

  Okay, stop thinking about him now.

  No… now…

  Liv and Charlie are staring at me grinning, so I flip them both a double zap sign.

  Right, salad.

  My phone rings and my gaze automatically locks on Liv’s. I grab my bag off the floor and fish my phone out. Unknown number.

  “Hello?”

  “Miss Brown?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Dr Simmonds’ secretary from Queensborough Hospitals.”

  My heart races. Good racing, not bad. “Hi.”

  “I’m just calling to arrange an appointment. How are you feeling?”

  I’m taken aback, eyes stinging.

  Then it hits home. For the first time I actually get it.

  Doctor’s secretaries are never nice. Living on a power trip, their professionalism is almost cutting. She’s just asked how I am.

  Which means I’m actually really bad.

  9

  Reality Wears Dark Clouds

  “Darling, I’ve been so worried.” Rebecca ushers me into her office like she’s the queen inviting me into her palace.

  “Sorry.”

  “Sit, sit.” She motions me down and then pulls her own chair around. Her heels are six inches high and as slender as a matchstick.

  Rebecca taught me all about heels seven years ago when I arrived straight from university, optimism painted like a fresh coat of paint on my future. I’d worn ballet flats which she’d looked at with such abhorrence I might as well have turned up in carpet slippers. Darling, heels are your power tool. Your mind might be brilliant, your ambition might be endless, but heels stop everyone in their tracks and give you the chance to speak.

  Clearly, I’d tried to explain feminism to her and I’d held off on the heels for the first week. Then I realised that as the only woman on the team my lack of dick shaped appendage and sporting knowledge wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

  So, I went and bought a pair of heels that made my eyes water when I wore them.

  The office shut the fuck up the next day.

  So maybe I won’t get my feminist badge after all, but do you know what? Whatever works. A woman can’t fight everything.

  Rebecca has that look on her face. It’s her calm, concerned, tell me everything look.

  I slump down lower in the leather seat, skirt sliding. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  She nods, head tilted, lips pressed straight. “What look?”

  “That one!” I point at her face. “You want me to spill my guts.”

  “Spill your guts? Julianna, you’re so vulgar sometimes. You can’t spill your guts in here, you’d ruin my Persian rug.”

  I grimace at her and she licks the top of her cherry-red mouth.

  In her mid-fifties, Rebecca Livingstone is simply the most put together woman to walk on earth. She arrived once in the middle of a rainstorm and stepped into the office without a single hair out of place, not one drop of water on her coat. I’d asked her how she’d done it. My own hair looked like I’d got out of the shower and I’d already been in the office an hour before her. She looked at me, directly in the eye and said, “Darling, I made them keep the car running out front until the rain stopped.”

  It wouldn’t have crossed her mind that a car idling for an hour on a busy London, already congested, street would have burned another little hole in the ozone.

  She’s not inherently evil, just… well… from a planet where they don’t worry about the ozone and drive around in cars with drivers at their beck and call.

  Rebecca Livingstone is the last in a long line of Livingstone’s on Fleet Street. The family made their money with the railways during the Industrial Revolution. A picture of Great Great Great Great-however-many Livingstone hangs in the dusty boardroom. He’s got a handlebar moustache and looks like he may have had pervert tendencies. I try to keep my back to him at all times just in case he’s looking at my tits.

  His son, Rupert Livingstone, was what they would have called a ‘cad’. He cared nothing for the business of trains and industry. He wanted to influence people, ride the shit out of those in charge, and mock his peers. So, he did, pouring all his money into where I now sat.

  Satire Weekly. Yep. What he lacked in imagination and brain he made up with in hard cash.

  Satire Weekly.

  It was literally titled what it was.

  It’s enough to make you cringe when asked what you do and where you work, hence my by now well practised ‘A satirical newspaper’ because that’s what it is folks.

  Not that any of that matters.

  Days are numbered, and not just mine.

  “Do you mind if we just leave it?” I try to smile at Rebecca. Despite her lack of concern for the environment, she’s looked after me well, especially the last couple of years.

  She eyes me. “We can, for now.”

  I sigh deeply. “Thank you. How were things on Friday afternoon?”

  She flashes me small and even white teeth beneath cherry lips. “Well, the building is still standing. Alan and Reece didn’t punch each other during the final print release, and we started the print run at three this morning as we do every week.” She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Proving that we can manage without you, so you should probably take that long overdue holiday I’ve been suggesting.” I wave my hand at her, but she carries on. “For two years.”

  “I don’t need a holiday.” I smile brightly, ignoring the fact stamped on the back of my brain that I’d soon be on a permanent vacation to the other side.

  “Everyone needs a holiday. Sunshine, cocktails, sex.” Her smile turns sly. I think she might be describing her own weekend.

  Then I remember mine and a faint heat warms my face.

  “I’ve got to go back to see Dr Francis one afternoon. Is that okay?”

  She pounces like a cat on a mouse. “So soon? But you only go every six months.”

  I nod, face free of any thoughts I have locked away, any truth that might want to print on my skin. “Yes, but he needs to talk about my medication, and it took longer than my allocated appointment time last week.”

  “Darling, Julia, I don’t care how many times you need to go to the hospital. You could go every day if you needed to. I just want to know you are okay. I couldn’t cope without you, you know that. How would I deal with all those men?” She says men like it’s a dirty word. Which to her, these guys probably are.

  Satire Weekly is staffed by a motley crew and let there be no denying it.

  Shame we are going to fold soon, because sadly while the world has moved on, Satire Weekly is still firmly languishing in the Industrial age.

  “It’s just as well I’m not going anywhere,” I lie barefaced.

  “Good, good. Now, I’ve got lunch today, darling, with that investor.” Her eyes glint and I try not to scrunch my face. Rebecca knows a lot of old money. They have different ways of discussing things than the rest of us. “I probably won’t be back. Can you make sure the building is secure?”

  My face falls. I can see it in the reflection of the window.

  “Don’t worry, darling, I’ll make sure they all know they have to leave on time tonight.”

  I offer a tig
ht smile. “Sure, not a problem at all. I don’t have anything else to do anyway.”

  She stands up, pushing her chair back to the other side of her ornate desk. “I thought so. I’ll bring coffees and pastries tomorrow as a treat.”

  Getting up, I smooth down my shirt over my trousers, noticing Rebecca flick a glance at my lack of skirt. She shakes her head but doesn’t say anything.

  “Anything else? I’m going to go and check the print room?”

  “No, no, that’s all.”

  My hand is on the door as she calls me back. “Darling, better check the print run. I’m not sure if I might have made a teeny bit of a whoopsie on Friday.”

  A deep and painful groan lodges itself in my throat. “Sure.”

  Without another word, I launch from her door, heading straight through the office half-filled with the editorial team, to the stairs to the underbelly of the building.

  “Jules, where you going?” Flynn, one of the ad managers, calls after me.

  “She’s fucked up the print run again,” I shout back over my shoulder, not stopping to see if he’s heard me or not.

  Two hours later I trudge back up the stairs, using a wet wipe to rub dust from my hands. We are the only newspaper to still have our print room on the premises—which I think says it all about the number of copies we sell.

  Today though we’d be two thousand copies short of what we should have been, because someone, and I’m not casting blame here, but someone—Rebecca—managed to delete a cell in my spreadsheet which means our American copies haven’t printed.

  Not a car crash in itself, but the plates have already been changed. One way we make money is to loan out our printing capacity to other small prints.

  So, Satire Weekly was palleted and shrink wrapped by the time I got down there, while Chicken Monthly was whizzing through the printer.

  I fall into my chair.

  “How bad?” Flynn flicks a rubber band at me.

  “Just two thousand short thereabouts.”

  He winces.

  “Question is, will any of our readers in America even notice if their copies don’t turn up?”