Bring Holly Home

by A. E. Radley

  “That I’m a cradle robber,” Victoria said.

  “I don’t care what they say,” Holly confessed. “I just pity anyone who doesn’t feel as happy as I feel every day.”

  It was true. She was happy every day. Overwhelmingly so. They’d been dating for just over two months. They’d quickly undone the power of attorney to provide Holly with the autonomy that she desperately sought. As far as she was concerned, Victoria still owned her heart.

  Victoria had used her contacts to provide Holly with the opportunity to write for a couple of large lifestyle websites. She still worked part-time as a receptionist, but the side income was steadily growing, and she knew that before long she’d be able to work from home and focus on her writing.

  While Victoria had used her network, Holly knew that she had only been accepted based on her skills. Most significantly, Victoria had understood how important that was to Holly. It would have been easy to just click into Victoria’s family and live a life of luxury without having to lift a finger. But Holly would have been miserable. She had to find her own success.

  She realised that she had been caught in her own little dream world for a while, and Victoria had yet to speak. She looked up and caught the older woman staring at her with a slack jaw.

  “What?” Holly asked.

  “I… I’m just surprised to hear you say that. I feel the same way,” she admitted.

  “I know. I can read you like a book.” Holly winked.

  Victoria rolled her eyes. “Hardly.”

  Nearly, Holly thought. She’d gotten very good at reading Victoria over recent weeks.

  “How much will the house cost to renovate?” Holly asked.

  “We’re not renovating, we’re tearing it down and—” Victoria’s eyes widened and she stopped her mouth immediately.

  “I knew it!” Holly jumped for glee at being able to trick her. “I knew it was you. I told you that my room was cold, that I saw one cockroach in the yard, and suddenly the landlord has an offer he can’t refuse and gives us all one-week notice. I knew it was you.”

  “You were living in third-world conditions,” Victoria defended her actions. “I couldn’t, in good conscience, allow you to carry on your recovery there.”

  “You know I’m all but recovered, right? My physio is next to nothing, it’s basically an exercise class these days. And my memory, well, nothing’s changing there.”

  “How do you feel about that?” Victoria asked.

  “About my memories not returning?”

  Victoria nodded.

  Holly shrugged. “It’s fine. If I remember things, then that’s great, but if I don’t, that’s fine, too. I’m more invested in the new memories that I have now. And my journals have given me loads of information on things that happened before.”

  She knew that Victoria still worried about Holly’s memories returning and Holly running for the hills. Holly did everything she could to reassure Victoria that would never happen.

  It was remarkable how sensitive Victoria was. Holly would never have guessed that beneath the cool exterior lived a very insecure woman. But she loved it. It gave her the opportunity to constantly offer love and support, and Victoria lapped it up.

  “Knock knock.” Gideon’s voice floated down the stairs from the main hallway. “Can I come down? Are you all decent?”

  Victoria rolled her eyes and shook her head. Gideon had been teasing them about their relationship since the moment Holly accidentally let it slip.

  Holly chuckled. “Come on down,” she called back.

  He entered the guestroom and looked at them both with a cocky grin.

  “Moving in together already, so sweet,” he drawled. “Though you are taking the separate bedrooms thing to a whole new level.”

  Holly noticed the light tint of a blush on Victoria’s cheeks.

  “I’m sure I won’t be down here for long,” Holly said. “When you’ve found someone you want to be with, it’s hard to stay away. Even if you feel you should for the sake of respectability.”

  Victoria looked mightily pleased with herself. She raised her chin and looked towards the window. “To hell with respectability,” she murmured.

  Gideon looked as surprised as Holly felt, but he gathered himself together quickly enough.

  “Hear, hear,” he said. He turned to Holly. “Now, what are you wearing for the gala? The Valentino, surely?”

  Although he was facing Holly, it was obvious that the question was directed to Victoria.

  “Of course,” she said. “She’ll be the talk of the town.”

  “She will,” Gideon agreed. “You both will.”

  “I’ve been trying to convince her to stay home,” Victoria said. “To save herself.”

  Holly chuckled. She walked over to the armchair where Victoria sat like a queen and deposited herself in her lap. She wrapped her arms around Victoria’s shoulders.

  “And I’ve been trying to tell her that it’s all worth it and that I’ve never been happier.”

  “One day, I’ll convince you how wrong I am for you,” Victoria joked.

  “Never,” Holly said adamantly. “You’re the person who found me when I had nothing, you breathed life back into me. And then I found out that I’d been in love with you before I even knew who you were. I’m never letting you go.”

  “Good, because listening to you both complaining about each other was such a dreary pity party,” Gideon said.

  Holly looked at Victoria and raised her eyebrow. “Shall I?”

  “Yes, do.”

  Holly reached down, pulled her Converse Low Top off her foot, and threw it at him.

  It just missed him as he rushed out into the hallway.

  “I’ll be upstairs when you can behave yourselves,” he said between fits of laughter.

  Holly giggled. She turned to Victoria. “I don’t think I can behave myself,” she said seriously.

  “Me neither,” Victoria admitted as she reached up for a kiss.

  About the Author

  A.E. Radley is an entrepreneur and best-selling author living and working in England.

  * * *

  She describes herself as a Wife. Traveller. Tea Drinker. Biscuit Eater. Animal Lover. Master Pragmatist. Annoying Procrastinator. Theme Park Fan. Movie Buff.

  * * *

  When not writing or working, Radley indulges in her third passion of buying unnecessary cat accessories on a popular online store for her two ungrateful strays whom she has threatened to return for the last seven years.

  * * *

  Connect with A.E. Radley

  www.aeradley.com

  Call for ARC Reviewers

  Reviews are essential for authors, especially in small genres like lesbian fiction. Regardless of quality, books without reviews quickly fall down the charts and into obscurity.

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  That’s why authors need ARC Reviewers. These are people who are willing to provide an honest review in exchange for an early, free copy of a book.

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  Also by A.E. Radley

  Flight SQA016 - Book One in the Flight Series

  Spurred on by overwhelming and ever-increasing debts, Emily White takes a job working in the first-class cabin on the prestigious commuter route from her home of New York to London with Crown Airlines.

  On board she meets Olivia Lewis, who is a literal high-flying business executive with a weekly commute, a meticulous schedule, and terrible social skills.

  When a personal emergency brings them together, will Emily be able to swallow her pride and accept help from Olivia? And will Olivia be able to prevent herself from saying the wrong thing?

  Also by A.E. Radley

  Mergers & Acquisitions

  Kate Kennedy prides herself on running the very best advertising agency in Europe.

  One day her top client asks h
er to work on a lucrative project with the notoriously fastidious Georgina Masters, of the American agency Mastery.

  The temporary merger causes a fiery clash of cultures and personalities. Especially when Georgina sets her romantic sights on Kate’s young intern, Sophie.

  Mergers & Acquisitions | Preview

  By A.E. Radley

  CHAPTER ONE

  “A sports car?” Kate repeated. She furrowed her brow at the idea.

  “Yes, silver and red and really, really fast,” Yannis said.

  He stood up and paced excitedly around the meeting room. Yannis was tall, over six feet. His lanky frame seemed at odds with his constant need to bound around.

  Kate suppressed a chuckle as she watched him pace. She appreciated his enthusiasm, no one wanted to work with a miserable client. But Yannis was almost too enthusiastic. He switched from one major project to another without stopping to catch his breath.

  “Why a sports car?” Kate queried.

  “We build engines, sports cars need engines. This is fantastic,” he announced.

  Kate suspected that Yannis felt his high-intensity enthusiasm would wear off on those around him. Bouncing around meeting rooms with excitement and informing people that things were fantastic were his way of injecting passion into a project.

  Yannis was certainly a successful businessman, but he also was primarily an ideas man. Leaving the details to others. Like her.

  “It’s… different,” Kate allowed.

  “Different is good. Exciting.” Yannis paused in front of the windows that overlooked the sprawling City of London. “We need to be different. We need to move, grow, change, adapt.” He leaned closer to the glass and peered out of the window. “You can see my house from here.”

  Kate rolled her eyes good-naturedly. She stood up and walked around the meeting table to join him by the window. This wasn’t the first meeting she had spent chasing after the excitable man, and it probably wouldn’t be the last.

  “This is east, yes?” He pointed out of the window. Before she could reply, he was staring intently into the distance, looking for landmarks.

  “Yes,” she replied. “Yannis, let me just get this straight in my mind. Atrom are going to build a sports car—”

  “Ten,” he corrected, still gazing over the city to get his bearings.

  She felt her eyebrow raise. “Ten?”

  “Ten,” he repeated. “Selling for a million pounds. We’ll only sell ten. I’m having one, of course.”

  Kate looked skywards. “Right, okay. Atrom are going to build ten sports cars, each priced at one million pounds, and you will buy one for yourself?”

  Yannis looked at her. He smiled and nodded his head. “Yes, that’s it. And this is big news, so I need my favourite marketing guru to tell the world for me.”

  “And we’ll be more than happy to help,” Kate assured. “I assume you want the works? Press releases, websites, viral campaigns, video campaigns, news slots?”

  “Everything. International,” Yannis said. He looked at her seriously. “It is very important to me that this is international news.”

  “That’s definitely something we can do.” Kate mentally put together a quick marketing brief. While she considered Yannis an idiot for investing in a project that was a glorified toy for himself, she welcomed the money the project would bring.

  “It’s a big job,” he said.

  “It is,” Kate agreed. Huge, in fact. Atrom Engineering was by far their biggest client, in terms of size and profitability. The introduction of a new product, and all that went with it, meant a huge amount of income for Kate’s agency, Red Door.

  Yannis Papadakis was the kind of CEO that Kate adored. He was rich, eccentric, and didn’t think twice about spending a small fortune marketing his already successful engineering company.

  “I had lunch in New York last week,” Yannis continued. “With Georgina Masters, you know her?”

  Kate tried to control her grimace. “I’ve met her a couple of times. Award ceremonies, conferences. That kind of thing.”

  “Mastery is considered to be the best advertising agency in America.” Yannis walked back to the meeting table. He sat down and opened his MacBook. He hunched over the small machine and typed in his password. “Georgina really knows her stuff.”

  Kate hummed noncommittally at his mention of the woman. If life were a cartoon, Georgina Masters would be her arch nemesis. The two women were constantly compared within the industry and by the media. They were both businesswomen in their forties, give or take, who had set up successful marketing companies in a male-dominated sector. Of course they were often compared. But comparisons are rarely kind; they certainly hadn’t been between Kate and Georgina.

  Kate had come to loathe the very mention of Georgina Masters. She was sure Georgina felt the same way about her.

  “She is very interested in the sports car industry,” Yannis was saying. He turned his MacBook around so Kate could see the screen.

  She stepped away from the window and walked towards the table. She wasn’t particularly interested in whatever Yannis was about to show her, but she knew she had to make an effort.

  “This car was built by some guys in California, they are trying to go for the world land speed record. Georgina is representing them.”

  Kate picked her glasses up from the table and put them on. She peered at the website. It was garish. She had no doubt that many would think it was a fantastic example of modern web design. Flashing images, unclear navigation, lightboxes popping up. To Kate, it was gimmicky and crass. Just what she had come to expect from Mastery.

  “It’s a bit… flashy. Don’t you think?”

  Yannis grinned. “Yes,” he agreed.

  Kate removed her glasses and tapped the arm on her lip. “If this is the style you like, we can definitely follow this example. Maybe tweak it a little so there’s not quite so much… visual noise.”

  Yannis spun the MacBook around to face him again and started to type. “I want you and Georgina to work together on this. Red Door and Mastery working together. Hand in hand. Then, this project would have the best marketing minds in America and in Europe. Together, the three of us can make something really exciting.”

  Kate blinked. She stared at Yannis, but he was again lost in his computer screen and oblivious to her reaction.

  “You want us to work together?” Kate couldn’t shake the shock from her tone. “Georgina and me? Working together?”

  “Yes, isn’t it perfect?” He didn’t look up.

  “Perfect isn’t quite the word I’d use,” Kate confessed. The last thing she wanted was for Georgina Masters to swoop in and take all the glory. And, potentially, the entire Atrom contract. “Yannis, we’ve worked together for years. I like to think we have a good working relationship?”

  Yannis was focused on his screen. “Yes, yes, of course.”

  Kate knew he was only half-listening to her. “And Atrom and Red Door have always worked well together, haven’t we? We can directly attribute the twelve-percent sales growth Atrom experienced last year to Red Door’s advertising campaigns. Bringing in another voice, it could be tricky.”

  Yannis patted the seat next to him, still focused on his screen. “Look at this.”

  Kate rolled her eyes and shuffled around a couple of seats at the round meeting table. She put her glasses on again. Yannis gestured to a presentation chart on the screen.

  “We need to get more social,” he explained to her as if she were a child.

  The presentation bore the Mastery logo. Kate pursed her lips. Clearly Georgina had presented this to Yannis and convinced him to take a new direction. Upon closer examination, it was clear that Yannis had been enticed by pie charts and line graphs that showed upward trends.

  Competitor agencies pitching to existing clients wasn’t a new thing. Any marketing director worth their wage would use any opportunity to speak to decision-makers. Subjectivity was not just the beauty of the marketing industry; it was also
its curse.

  In other businesses, a job may be a simple predefined product. The business makes widgets, a widget has set parameters. The business decides its success on widgets produced.

  But marketing involves so much more. Marketing can be good or bad, or good and bad at the same time. A logo can be loved and hated within one focus group.

  The individuality of marketing allowed seeds of doubt to be planted by competitors. A magic formula could be proposed, fancy charts could be distributed and buzzwords deployed. All business owners want to recreate the success of other businesses, so a marketing agency promising such success was a potent thing.

  Kate looked at the presentation with interest. As she thought, it contained all the generic statistics regarding social media success rates—the standard lure marketing agencies used to hook new prospective clients.

  “Engineering firms can only benefit from social media to a point,” Kate explained. It was a conversation they’d had several times before. Each time she explained it, Yannis agreed and understood. But within a few weeks, his flighty mind had forgotten and she was left to repeat herself. “The average person on the street doesn’t care that the engine on a train is made by Atrom.”

  “We need to be a part of the conversation,” Yannis insisted, clearly repeating the buzzwords he’d recently heard.

  “There is no conversation about your sector, Yannis,” Kate replied. She took off her glasses and let out a small sigh. Competitor interference in marketing was a common thing. One day a client would be happy, the next they would have read an article and would be explaining what they felt her agency needed to do.