Michelle Vernal Box Set

by Michelle Vernal

  Nicola had been right. The city had enveloped them into its exciting, overcrowded atmosphere, and Rebecca realised she’d felt at home in Dublin from the moment her feet had stepped onto Irish soil. There was a sense of freedom in being so far from home and a sense that here, anything was possible because here she had an identity.

  Upon obtaining work permits for the thriving city at the ripe old age of thirty-two, they’d made themselves at home in the living room of Nicola and her fiancé Andy’s one-bedroom apartment. Then they had begun their assault on the Irish job market.

  “With your legal background, you’ll be in high demand,” the coiffed woman seated in the Dame Street office of the employment agency had assured her. She had finished scrutinising Rebecca’s CV and her words proved prophetic. She’d nabbed her position of PA to Ciaran Cahill, who was one of the ten partners at Fitzpatrick & Co., in a single interview. It had surprised her considering she hadn’t got off to the most auspicious of starts.

  Rebecca clutched the slip of paper the agency had given her, along with the hand-drawn map and instructions to meet with a Miss Grainne Mangan at two p.m. She made her way to Fitzpatrick & Co.’s imposing concrete offices. With confidence, she strode out of the lift and up to the receptionist, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Mariah Carey. The woman looked like she’d be more at home wearing a spangled mini-dress and writhing around to “All I Want For Christmas” than at the front desk of a law firm. Nonetheless, when Rebecca had asked to see “Miss Grain Mangan, please,” the receptionist had eyed her up and down with disdain. Her voice had sounded like a snippy little girl’s as she replied, “Ms Groinya Mangan will see you shortly. Take a seat please.”

  Despite her little faux pas, Rebecca got the job. She then had to do a crash course in the correct pronunciation of Irish names. She did not wish to offend Derbhilla, Padraig, Mairead, and Piaras, the latter of which she had nearly called Pie arse—correct pronunciation: Pierceall of whom she’d be working alongside in the commercial division.

  After her first day of work, Rebecca rushed home to share the dirt on her new co-workers with her best friend. Even after one day, the cliques easily stood out, and of course Melissa wanted to know all about the boss man, Ciaran. When Rebecca left it at his age—a young thirty-eight and seemingly nice enough—Melissa wasn’t satisfied. As with any male she had yet to see in person, she had come back with her usual, “Yeah, yeah, but what does he look like?”

  The question had made Rebecca giggle. She flopped down on the two-seater; then, seeing that her friend considered this to be no laughing matter, paused for a moment. Hugging a cushion to her chest, she conjured up an image of him.

  Average height, lean build, closely cropped dark-brown hair and those brown, almost black eyes that were uniquely Irish. No, you wouldn’t call him classically good-looking but he had something about him. Maybe rugged was the best word to capture her new employer, Ciaran Cahill.

  Melissa nodded wisely when Rebecca announced the description. She was acquainted with rugged. “Rugged’s workable and he is a partner. You need to get yourself a copy of The Rules, Rebecca,” she urged, referring to her latest Bible and bestselling dating book that under no circumstances whatsoever did she loan out.

  “Melissa, you know how I feel about that book,” Rebecca had rebutted.

  “The only reason it hasn’t worked as yet is because I haven’t met Mr Right.” She huffed, “I’m only trying to be helpful, you know.”

  “I know you are and thank you, but there’s no need because Ciaran fancies himself enough for the both of us.” She gave a sardonic little laugh. “Honestly, you want to see him in action. He’s like the lawyer equivalent of a rock star in that firm, and it’s a PA he needs, not another groupie.” She frowned, thinking about the way Pariah—as she had come to think of the receptionist (it was only one step away from Mariah, after all)—fawned all over him.

  Rebecca had been working for just over a week when the novelty of their cramped living conditions started to wear very thin. Nicola had been great about their extended stay with her cheery, “No rush, girls; it’s great having you around.” Andy, however, was a different story. He wasn’t coping with the “all girls together” setup. He’d been dropping some pretty heavy hints Melissa’s way, like, “Did you not see the ad on the board at Tesco’s for an office cleaner?” More often than not followed by, “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  To that, Melissa would hold out her dainty, well-manicured hands and say, “Do these look like dishpan hands to you, Andy?” As an added condolence, she would pat him on the shoulder and assure him that she had plenty of things in the pipeline. Then she would turn her attention to Rebecca to casually ask, “Can you lend me a tenner?”

  At long last, one balmy evening, Melissa had bounced onto her end of the couch with the news that she had scored a job. Clapping her hands together excitedly, she screeched, “I’m going to be Tamara Lewis’s personal assistant!”

  “What?” Rebecca’s eyes widened with disbelief as she sat hugging her knees to her chest. “As in the Tamara Lewis?”

  “Ireland’s answer to Miss Minogue. Yep, the one and same,” Melissa affirmed. “Me and Tamara are like this,” she added, crossing her fingers.

  Rebecca could hardly believe what she was hearing. Melissa, her best friend, was going to be working for Tamara Lewis. One couldn’t turn the music channel on in Ireland without being assailed with images of the cutesy blonde.

  “How?” she managed to utter.

  “The agency sent me for an interview and we hit it off straight away. Tamara just loves Kiwis, which is why the agency put me forward. She’s into all that Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings crap, you know. Plus she kind of digged the fact that I am just a teensy bit older than she is. She thinks that me being a woman of the world means that I’ll be able to share the benefit of my wisdom with her.”

  Rebecca leaned over and smacked her friend over the head with her pillow. “You’re such a tosser, and what do you mean a teensy bit older? Tamara’s barely out of her teens, isn’t she?”

  “She’s twenty-one, and I used a spot of creative licence when it came to my age. So what?” she challenged.

  “You mean you lied?”

  “If you must put it like that, then yes, I told a porky pie.”

  Sceptically perusing her friend, Rebecca’s eyes narrowed and Melissa threw her pillow back at her. “Don’t look at me like that! The girl thought twenty-eight was ancient; no way would she have given me the job if she’d known I was in my thirties.”

  One of Rebecca’s mother’s little pearls of wisdom sprang to mind: No good ever came of telling a lie. Well, bollocks to that, Mum, she thought while looking across at her friend with admiration.

  The spin-off from Melissa’s amazing new job was that it scored them their Quayside apartment. Finally, both employed and armed with the hefty deposit needed to get themselves into a flat, they had begun the depressing search for accommodation. With both of them working full-time, the only chance they had to view anything was after work. They’d joined the hundreds of other foreign desperados looking to get out of their overpriced hostels and into an overpriced apartment.

  Too many wasted evenings had been spent queuing up to view apartments too small to swing a cat in. Let alone expect two grown women to share—with or without sex lives—and Melissa’s face told all. Tamara had asked her what the problem was, and no sooner had she finished telling her than Tamara picked up the phone. One brief phone call from the Tamara Lewis got them into their very own fully furnished, two-bedroom apartment for a song. Or rather, a signed photo of Tamara in hot pants that would give Kylie a run for her money for the landlord’s hormonal son. Nicola had waved them off with a tear in her eye while Andy did a little jig reminiscent of a Morris dance.

  From the armchair where she was sitting with her legs curled up under her, Rebecca surveyed her surroundings. When they’d moved in, the apartment had been bland. It looked like a plain cardboard box wit
h a view. They’d put their mark on the place now as various knickknacks gave apartment 2A, Ha’Penny House, its homely feel. Rebecca’s eyes alighted on the Egyptian papyrus print they’d bought on a week’s break in Luxor. She felt a smile twitch at the corners of her mouth as she remembered how they’d wound their way around the dirty streets of the Souk before being lured over by Haji and his toothless grin. The three of them had stood by his stall haggling like they were in a bigamist marriage—Haji over the price, Rebecca and Melissa over which print to choose. As it happened, the Golden Eye of Horus didn’t exactly go with the lime-green furniture their landlord supplied them with, but it was a talking point.

  The living room afforded them a great view over the river. On the mornings when she didn’t oversleep, Rebecca liked to curl up on the sofa to sip her coffee and munch on marmalade toast. Her morning wake-up routine gave her enough time to watch the mist wisp like tendrils of hair across the Liffey’s dark waters. She loved Dublin. For her, it was magical, always buzzing with the unspoken promise that something exciting was about to happen. There was nothing like a stroll down Grafton Street with its colourful street life and up-market shops, or O’Connell Street—a hub for both vehicle and foot traffic with the battle-scarred GPO standing sentry over the proceedings. It always rejuvenated her with the knowledge that here she had a second chance. In this hustling city, she wasn’t Rebecca Loughton, the girl who didn’t follow her dream, the younger sister of Jennifer Carlton of Cuisine with Carlton’s fame, and spinster-daughter/constant worry of Dick and Pamela Loughton. In Dublin, Rebecca had an identity of her own and, being a thirty-four-year-old single woman, employed by a rather attractive partner in one of Ireland’s largest legal firms didn’t seem too bad at all.

  Now, though, she sighed as she came back to the present with an unpleasant jolt, she was going to have to go home.

  Chapter Four

  ON MONDAY MORNING, Rebecca woke to find that the pain over her eyebrow had disappeared, but the cocktail of self-loathing and alcohol had not. Feeling more than a bit sorry for herself, she clutched her stomach and debated whether or not to pull a sickie. That always appeared so suss on a Monday morning, though, she thought while staring up at the ceiling as though the answer lay in the crack spidering across the drywall. She did feel sick, but she supposed she’d better stay in Ciaran’s good graces if she wanted time off.

  Get up and face the music, Rebecca! she admonished herself before gingerly pulling her dead weight up into a sitting position, hoping the nausea would soon pass.

  An hour and a half later, as the ten stories of concrete that housed Fitzpatrick & Co. loomed up at her, she felt her stomach lurch. Swallowing the bile that threatened to rise into her throat, Rebecca forced herself to pull open the heavy glass doors. It was a small bonus to find that instead of a firing squad waiting for the lifts, there was only Mary from WP.

  “Morning, Rebecca,” the older woman grunted, pushing the little arrow that pointed upwards. “I don’t like Mondays, me.”

  For once, Rebecca was in agreement with her. “You and me both, Mary. You and me both.”

  “Sir Bob got it right with tat song of his, didn’t he?” Seeing Rebecca’s nod, Mary carried on in her broad, working class twang. “He was a fine ting in his day, tat one. I’d have let him park his shoes under me bed and administer a bit of Bob Aid, so I would!”

  Ugh, what a thought! Rebecca managed to scrape up a watery smile as she held her hand up in protest. “Too much information for me, too early in the day. Thanks, Mary.”

  “So how was ya Friday night then?” The lift doors picked that moment to ping open, and the two women stepped inside it. “You were well on your way when I left, so you were. Did you go on from here then?”

  Mary had a horrible habit of living her life vicariously through the younger staff members of Fitzpatrick & Co., Rebecca thought grimly, nodding by way of reply as she punched the button for the ninth floor.

  She crossed her fingers in the hope that the lift would jam after Mary waltzed out on the third floor. No such luck, though, and Rebecca watched the numbers light up with breakneck speed—4, 5, 6, 7, 8, oh bugger it, 9. Hastily checking to the left and right to make sure the coast was clear, she stepped out into the corridor and headed for the kitchen. The pressure was getting to her. A caffeine fix was her only hope for getting through the morning.

  Her stress levels went through the roof a moment later when she pushed opened the kitchen door because there, sitting at one of the Formica tables in the otherwise empty kitchen, was James. Despite her face feeling like she’d just bitten into a hot chili, she managed to choke out a relatively civil, “Good morning.”

  Noticing as she did so, James paled at the sight of her, which in turn made his spots look even redder than they usually did. He stammered out a modest “hi” before—like the little Dutch boy pulling his finger out of the dyke—his words spilled out in a great big torrent: “Look, Becs...”

  Aagh! She hated it when he called her that!

  “Friday night was great and everything and I think you’re a nice person...” He paused, twirling the straw nervously around in his can of Coke.

  Hang on a minute, Rebecca thought, frowning. It sounded vaguely familiar, and she didn’t have to wait long to find out where James was going with the conversation.

  “The thing is, Becs—you’re a bit old for me, don’t you reckon?”

  Rebecca was gob-smacked. He was calling her a cougar, and if he weren't right, she’d smack him one, she silently seethed, staring at his smugly apologetic grin.

  However, instead of resorting to fisticuffs, she behaved in a manner befitting of her age and took a deep breath before bowing her head. “You’re right, James. Let’s just put Friday night behind us, shall we? Pretend it never happened.”

  Naturally, over the course of the weekend, James had texted all of his fellow summer placement pals about their dalliance. They, in turn, were now busy lounging on various PA’s desks, spreading the hot goss. It had (judging by Pariah’s contemptuous announcement of a courier parcel at reception for Mr Cahill) also spread as far down the ranks as reception. By lunchtime, the pointing, stares, and loud, growly cat noises for Rebecca’s part were beginning to die down. As were the “way hey heys!” followed by a thump on the back for James’s part.

  “Oh Rebecca, how could you?” Derbhilla’s eyes were like china-blue saucers as she quickly deleted the Win Pop message her friend had just sent her.

  “Don’t!” Rebecca hissed, poking her head around the divider separating their two workstations. “I already feel like I’ve been branded with the letter S.” Shuddering, she added, “I just feel sick every time I think about it.”

  “You and me both.”

  “Thanks for that, Derbhilla. It’s alright for you to sit there like Mrs Morality. You’ve got the sanctity of marriage to stop you from doing stupid things.”

  “That and an ability to curb my alcohol intake.”

  “Yes, and if you hadn’t bought those shooters—”

  Rebecca didn’t get a chance to finish because Derbhilla’s eyes nearly popped out of her head as a truly heinous thought occurred to her. “Did you, you know, do the deed?”

  Rebecca’s face flamed as she spluttered, “I most certainly did not!”

  Derbhilla’s eyes slowly returned to their normal size and, sinking back into her seat with relief, she crossed herself, murmuring a Hail Mary before asking, “Does Ciaran know?” She was convinced there was sexual tension between the two of them despite Rebecca’s continual protestations to the contrary.

  “How should I know?” She hoped not, she thought, trying to shrug nonchalantly because not even Derbhilla was privy to the information that at last year’s Christmas party they’d shared an inebriated snog hidden from view in the cloakroom. It was a snog from which they had reluctantly prised themselves apart upon hearing footsteps approaching. It was not seemly for a senior partner to be caught carrying on with his secretary. Rebecca had sm
oothed her dress down and tottered back into the hall—shaking her groove thing for the rest of the night as though nothing had happened. Until they happened to share a taxi home together, that was—his home. Neither of them had mentioned that night. She sometimes wondered what was running through Ciaran’s mind, though, when she caught him looking at her unawares. Knowing him as she did, he was probably wondering about the one who got away—well, he could just keep on wondering.

  Rebecca shook those thoughts away and filled her friend in on what had transpired in the kitchen earlier that morning, promptly sending Derbhilla into a fit of the giggles.

  “Serves you bloody right for being a cradle snatcher!” Derbhilla snorted.

  Rebecca managed a small smile in return, still not quite able to see the humorous side of it all. Okay, I like a joke as much as the next person. Enough is enough, though, she thought moments later while watching Derbhilla reach for a tissue from the box she kept handy. The woman was crying with laughter, for goodness’ sake; it was time to change the subject. Her eyes roamed down the corridor to Derbhilla’s Gestapo-like boss Eileen’s office. Good, the door was shut; that meant she’d be frantically dictating. Ciaran was down in the boardroom with the Miller Group’s president, signing off documents. With the coast clear, Rebecca had some more news to vent. Like a demented frog, she scooted her chair around to Derbhilla’s side of their desk and gave her the edited version.

  “My sister phoned me yesterday. Turns out her hubby Mark’s been having an affair, and she wants me to come home to look after the children while they go to Aussie for a fortnight to try to work through things.”

  Derbhilla immediately sobered up, her eyes beginning to widen again.

  “Would you stop doing that?” Rebecca glared at her.

  “What?”

  “That thing you do with your eyes. It’s freakish.”