by Lily Hayden
“And I didn’t think my day could get any better,” he grinned confidently at her, inwardly thrilled when her full cherry-coloured lips turned up into a genuine smile. “It was a pleasant surprise to see you in my calendar today.”
“I booked in some time with Georgia,” she touched the arm of his suit jacket gently and, even in his preoccupied state, he felt the heady buzz that accompanies subtle flirtation. “So, it made sense to have my one-on-one with you in person while I’m here.”
She raised one slim hand brushing a silky tendril of hair back over her shoulder and Tim’s eyes moved to the creamy, exposed skin of her neck. He could feel her watching him; a knowing smile playing around the edges of her mouth.
“Are you staying overnight?” he asked.
“Not this time,” she replied. “It’s only a couple of hours on the train so it didn’t seem worth it.”
He felt his stomach sink in disappointment. “Well, I’m happy to sign it off next time if you’re seeing Georgia as part of your development plan.”
Her eyes lit up. “I’ll bear that in mind.”
She fired up her laptop, and he reluctantly turned his attention to the business performance of the South-West region for the next hour. He could see the figures weren’t great, but he found himself going easy on the woman where he would have given anyone else the grilling of their life.
Well, they’ll all be outsourced sooner rather than later, he tried to justify his unique treatment of the woman.
“Thanks Tim,” she beamed when the meeting was over. “I know it’s not been the best quarter, but I’m confident that we’ll be back stronger than ever in the next month. My team are working on a really promising trial to generate more revenue, but it’s still too early to show much traction.”
“Well, I look forward to hearing more about it,” he replied. “And hopefully I’ll see you again soon.”
He watched her leave, his eyes hypnotised by the sway of her hips and found himself wishing very much that he would.
****
With the success of his day not even the germ-infested, sweaty carriage of the train home could dampen Tim’s spirits as he headed home for the evening.
He’d been carefully weighing up the pros and cons of offshore operations for the past year, trialling a small, outsourced unit in India. The business was desperate to cut costs and he knew that his boss had expected excuses and resistance to job cuts and rollbacks, yet Tim had delivered a plan that gave over-and-above what was expected of him. When he pulled this off, it would only be a matter of time before he stepped up to the next level. He was elated with how well he’d handled the pressure, every nerve buzzing with the heady thrill of success. He was under no illusion that the execution would be challenging, but the hard part, selling the strategy, had been achieved and he was more than confident that he could deliver.
This would elevate him to the next bracket financially. Another zero on the end of his salary, more shares, huge bonuses. He barely felt the biting April wind as he strode the short distance from the station to his house; his mind full of all the luxuries the next level would afford him. He pushed open the door to his home, still buzzing with excitement as he wandered through to the kitchen to share his news with Eleanor.
“Hey,” she glanced over her shoulder to greet him. “Can you do me a favour and take a glass of water up to Hugo? I think he’s got a sickness bug. He’s not looking great, so I’ve put him in our bed to keep an eye on him.”
“Our bed?” Tim frowned with annoyance.
She knew he didn’t think children should sleep in their parents’ bed and he didn’t particularly fancy the thought of sharing his bed with a potentially-vomiting child, any more than he appreciated having orders thrown at him the moment he’d entered the house.
“Yes,” she said in her gentle-but-firm tone that brooked no arguments. “I need to give Bea her bottle, unless you want to do it.”
“I’ve just walked in,” Tim felt his buzz start to sour.
Her lips turned up into a tight smile as she brushed past him to reach for a plastic tumbler from the cupboard.
“How was your day?” She asked as she flicked the cold water tap on to fill the cup.
Tim opened his mouth to speak, but before he could answer there was a roar from the floor above them.
“Mummy!”
Eleanor had dropped the tumbler into the sink and bolted past him up the stairs before Tim had even had time to process the sound. He tilted his head, momentarily concerned, but the sound of retching made it clear that Hugo did indeed have a stomach bug and there was no life-threatening emergency. Left alone to his own devices, Tim pulled open the door of the warming oven and was appeased to see his dinner was made, and he set about portioning the sweet potato and lentil curry onto a plate alongside a homemade naan. He paused, wondering whether to make Eleanor’s, but he could hear Hugo still heaving in the bathroom upstairs and he thought she might be some time. He opened a bottle of wine and sat down at the dining table with his meal-for-one. The curry was delicious, but he couldn’t help thinking as he forked the meal into his mouth that this felt a little anticlimactic. He watched the wall clock tick away the minutes as he ate, and he was almost finished by the time his wife had returned. His first thought when she padded back into the kitchen was that she looked dreadful; her eyes puffy and bloodshot, and her hair up in a messy bun on her head.
“Is he ok?” Tim asked, before gesturing towards his plate. “I haven’t put yours up yet as I didn’t know how long you’d be.”
Eleanor grimaced and waved a hand dismissively. “I couldn’t eat anything after how sick Hugo’s been. I’ll take him up a water and get Bea to bed.”
Tim watched her leave, plastic cup of water in one hand and baby bottle in the other, feeling a twinge of sympathy for her. He knew it wasn’t her fault that he hadn’t got the welcome that he craved, so he carried the bottle of wine and two glasses through to the sitting room to wait for her. His phone buzzed next to him with a message from Emma, and he hurriedly turned the ringer off feeling the first flicker of real guilt at the thoughts he had been having. Deep down, he knew Eleanor deserved better. He’d had his fair share of braying city girlfriends at university; interchangeable Sarah’s and Rebecca’s, but nobody in his personal life came close to Eleanor Mellish-Brown. To Tim, it was his marriage to Eleanor that had established that he’d finally made it to where he wanted to be; a respectable, card-carrying member of the upper echelons of society. He tried to remember this as he sipped his wine waiting for his wife to reappear; Emma’s text unopened on the phone next to him. It was only when he had finished his second solitary glass that he called out to her. When no response came, he climbed the stairs in search of his wife, but the landing was dark with just the white glow of Hugo’s night-light. Tim crept along the soft carpet peering through the open door of his bedroom.
A surge of disappointment followed by a prickle of irritation transformed his good spirits as his eyes settled on the sleeping body of his wife curled around their young son. Tim held back a sigh as he moved quietly into the room. Hugo was fast asleep; arms and legs splayed out like a starfish, sweaty curls stuck to his forehead, with his thumb tucked in his mouth. Tim scooped his pyjama-clad son up into his arms carrying the child into his own bed, before shaking his wife gently awake.
Groggy and disorientated, Eleanor peeled open her eyes.
“You feel asleep,” he chastised her softly. “It’s not quite half eight.”
“Oh gosh,” Eleanor forced herself into a sitting position, smoothing down her hair before she noticed their missing son. “Where’s Hugo gone? I thought he was falling asleep too?”
“In his own bed,” Tim told her firmly. “Leave him there. He’s perfectly fine.”
“He’s been really sick,” Eleanor protested as she rose to her feet.
Tim placed a warning hand on her shoulder. “He’s better off being in his own bed. He’ll sleep better and we’ll hear him if he�
�s unwell during the night. Now, come down and have some supper. You’ll be no good to anybody in this state in work tomorrow.”
Tim could tell from the way she pressed her lips into a thin line that she was cross with him as she tiptoed into their son’s room, but after brushing Hugo’s forehead with her fingertips she reluctantly followed Tim downstairs.
Once downstairs, Tim had assumed her attention would be back to him, but instead she began to tidy up the kitchen declining the proffered glass of wine.
“I’m exhausted,” she announced once she had finished loading the dishwasher. “I’m going to bed.”
Tim opened his mouth to convey his annoyance, but she had already left the room. Disgruntled and feeling neglected, he took his wine back into the sitting room. He picked up his phone idly, remembering Emma’s message.
“Train delays = just got in! Wine required!” Emma’s message read accompanied by a photo message of her slender hand holding a large glass of wine.
Tim had to double-take at the image. Despite the framing of the glass, there in the background was an unmistakeable slim, bronzed leg peaking from beneath a frothy mountain of bubbles. Tim studied the photo, feeling himself stir with desire. The wine glass was clearly the focus of the photograph, the background was blurry and out-of-focus, but his eyes were drawn back to Emma’s naked limb and he couldn’t stop himself picturing the full scene, no matter how hard he tried.
“We both deserve a celebratory glass or two,” he settled on a safe response, batting the ball back into Emma’s court.
As he hit send, he felt the addictive thrill of anticipation, and his stomach was in knots by the time her response came.
“Definitely. Drinks next time?”
Wow.
His earlier reservations had been well-and-truly snuffed out by the combination of Eleanor’s lack of interest and Emma’s boldness, and he was unable to resist sending back an eager acceptance.
Holly
Holly McAllister had been working on the Intensive Care Unit for four years and not a lot surprised her anymore. Her colleagues had tipped her off that the partner and child of the hit-and-run woman were sat with her and, with this in mind, she entered the room prepared for a barrage of questions. She’d learned, long ago, that she needed to detach part of herself from the tears and the emotion. She was far from heartless, but she had an important job to do, nursing the very sickest patients back to health or providing them with comfort and dignity in their final days. But no amount of experience could have toughened her enough for the scene that she worked into.
The hit-and-run mum, whose name was written in fresh, black marker pen on the chart above the bed, was heavily sedated. She looked peaceful; her face untouched by the four tons of metal that had smashed into her delicate frame, her eyes closed, long brown lashes resting against her fair skin. Tubes and wires snaked from various parts of her, but the medication being pumped into her kept her still and compliant. This wasn’t the part of the scene that disturbed Holly, making her heart lurch in her chest as she struggled to keep her face neutral. It was the small boy, no older than eight or nine, stood at the head of the bed. In his left hand, he clutched at his mother’s shoulder, the only part of her accessible through the delicate medical equipment, and his right hand covered his small face as if attempting to hide his anguish from the room. His skinny shoulders moved up and down with the force of his muffled sobs.
As upsetting as it was to see a child cry, Holly had seen children saying their final goodbyes to their parents before. It touched her through the toughened mask of her professionalism, but the frightened child pulled at her heartstrings not for his heartache but for his loneliness. As the boy broke his heart, the partner of his mother sat in the cushioned chair against the window, legs stretched out. His body was angled away from the child, all his attention on the phone in his hand. Holly felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise in restrained anger at the man’s lack of empathy for the child.
As if he could feel Holly’s eyes on him, the man glanced up at her before looking away disinterestedly. A cheerful jingle trilled from the phone and Holly felt her blood heat up as she recognised the tune from a mindless game that she sometimes played to unwind.
“Are you alright?” She ignored the man moving to the little boy’s side to place a hand lightly on his arm.
He lowered his hand, revealing red-rimmed teary eyes and a snotty nose. She handed him a tissue from the side of the bed and when he took it, clutching it in his hand not using it for the intended purpose, she took it back gently wiping his eyes and then his nose. She scrunched the tissue up and tossed it in the bin.
“What’s your name?” She asked him in her firm, no-nonsense manner.
“Toby.”
“My name is Holly,” she told him. “I’m going to be looking after your mum. She’s going to be a bit poorly for a while, but she’s in the best place to get better and she’ll be home when she’s ready.”
“Is she going to be ok?” His voice was small, and she could hear the desperation in his tone.
“She’s going to be fine.” Holly told him.
Her spleen was potentially ruptured, but she was a strong, healthy woman despite her small frame. The car that had hit her must have attempted to slow down as the impact had been moderate but not severe. Holly knew the road that the accident had happened on was notorious for reckless driving, but if she’d been hit at high-speed there was no doubt that the woman would be dead. She was young enough to have strong odds for making a full recovery, but it would take a while until she was on her feet fully. Holly was pretty confident that she’d make it, but the hard part would be recovery: avoiding overdoing it or infection. Holly felt her eyes move back to the deadbeat still playing on his phone. If that was all the support this poor woman had, Holly had real concerns for the woman and her child.
Tim
“Tim, I’ve got Eleanor on the line.”
Tim’s Personal Assistant stood in the doorway to his office, looking equal parts apologetic and uncomfortable.
I wish she’d learn to knock, he thought in annoyance as Emma slid discreetly to the left to put a few inches between them and restore the scene to a perfectly respectable meeting.
“I’m in the middle of a meeting,” he tried to keep his tone even. He knew that the last thing he wanted to do was risk annoying Marie.
“She said it’s urgent,” Marie smiled apologetically. “I offered to take a message.”
Grudgingly, Tim got to his feet glancing back at Emma wondering if the intrusion had unnerved her, but she settled back in the chair crossing one long, stockinged leg over the other with an air of unfazed confidence. She met his eyes and the corners of her lips curled up into a knowing smile. Even with Marie loitering behind him, he could feel the stir of desire at Emma’s self-assuredness. Tim suspected that part of the attraction for her was the fact that he was married. It should have been a huge red flag, but for some reason it enhanced his craving for her.
“I’ll be two minutes,” Tim told her.
He pulled the door shut behind them accepting the phone from Marie without meeting her eyes.
“Everything ok?” He asked gruffly without preamble.
“It’s your sister,” there was a hint of panic to Eleanor’s usually calm tone. “She’s been in an accident. She’s ok, but she’s going to be in hospital a few weeks.”
The fleeting concern Tim had felt was instantly replaced with irritation.
This is exactly why I don’t take personal calls during the workday.
He cleared his throat ready to say just as much, but Eleanor began to speak again.
“She’s down in surgery now,” she explained. “The hospital has called around her next-of-kin to see if someone can take Toby.”
“Toby?” Tim frowned in confusion.
“Her son,” he heard exasperation slip into Eleanor’s tone.
Tim had assumed Eleanor had been referring to Rose and he flinched as he thought of h
is red-haired, feisty youngest sister and her small, scrawny son.
“Can we talk about it later?” He asked, not seeing how it was any concern of theirs. “I’ve left a meeting for this.”
“Tim, Belle’s partner has left the boy at the hospital. He’s sat at the nurses’ station,” Eleanor said with urgency. “Apparently he’s got no father or grandparents that can take him. Rose and Will aren’t answering their phones. If someone doesn’t go and get him soon, they’ll hand him over to social services.”
Irritation spread through Tim’s chest. He hadn’t heard a peep from his family in years, yet now he was being expected to take calls in the middle of his working day about someone else’s childcare problems.
“What are you expecting me to do?” Tim asked in frustration. “Do you expect us to take the child in?”
“Yes!” Eleanor exclaimed, ignoring his sarcasm. “Of course, I do. Ideally, Rose or Will could do it, but nobody can get hold of them. I’m assuming they’re both in work. I would drive down there, but I’ve not met him before. You should be the one to go, plus you’ll want to see your sister when she’s out of surgery.”
“Eleanor, I cannot just leave work,” Tim argued. “Do you have any idea…”
He trailed off, suddenly conscious of Marie’s eyes on him. She had clearly heard the whole conversation, and he knew that she would be aware that he’d cancelled a meeting this afternoon in order to take an extended ‘working lunch’ with Emma. He felt his cheeks redden as he realised that if he didn’t go, Marie might wonder why he’d abandoned his nephew and his ill sister to wine and dine one of his employees. And one that was spending far more time at Head Office than usual. It would only take Marie gossiping to one of the other PA’s to have the whole office talking about it, and everyone knew that the directors got all the scandal from the assistants.
