by Mandy Baggot
She looked up across the street to the Breekers offices, snow flashing faster, the smell of bus fumes mixing with evergreens being sold on the corner. Two trumpeting angels glinted from the façade of the department store next door. Isla had never felt less Christmassy and she hated that. Usually, by now, she would be relishing all the sights, sounds and scents of the season – brass bands and choirs busking carols for charity, chestnuts being roasted in the street over metal barrels, titbits of delicious traditional food being offered to entice you into restaurants. Nothing was evoking joy and happiness. And it was all Chase Bryan’s fault. What had she been thinking last night? Kissing him! She shivered as the memory washed over her again. She may have instantly regretted it and Britishly apologised, but she had also hoped to revisit it in her mind sometime, perhaps while eating a box of Lindt and watching Live and Let Die over Christmas. Now the whole experience had been tainted. Now all she was going to remember was kissing someone who had lied to her from the moment they had met.
‘Coming in or staying out? Ah! You’re looking at those angels wondering if they might be something for the Christmas party décor?’
It was Aaron at her shoulder, nudging her arm. And that was something else that wasn’t going as seamlessly as it always did – the Christmas party. The highlight of her year, her moment to shine, was, right now, the absolutely last thing on her mind. It was going to be a complete disaster and, at present, she really didn’t care.
‘No,’ she answered. ‘I wasn’t.’ She stepped off the pavement, looking to judge the traffic and attempt to cross.
‘Wait a minute. What’s up? I thought you went to Colin Matthews’ party last night. You love Colin Matthews’ parties.’ Aaron took hold of her arm.
‘I did,’ Isla replied. ‘It was good.’ Again, all she could conjure up was lying on that cinema bed gazing into those hazelnut-coloured eyes. The hazelnut-coloured eyes belonging to the lying back-stabber. She needed to recover before Aaron asked any more questions. ‘Are you up to speed with Ridgepoint Hospital yet?’
‘Sugar. Honey. Ice Tea. Isla, there were six folders to go through,’ Aaron stated, one hand of fingernails in between his teeth.
‘Eight,’ Isla said, stepping on to the road. ‘There are eight folders.’
‘I only have six,’ Aaron answered.
‘Well, what have you done with the other two?’ Isla questioned, striding forward.
‘Nothing, I … Isla, what’s going on?’
She had made the other side of the road but she couldn’t seem to shake Aaron’s questions. And the worst thing about that was she was stuck between wanting to burst into tears or spit fire. She opened her mouth to reply, not really knowing which one was going to come out.
‘I—’
‘Yes,’ Aaron said.
‘I can’t tell you,’ she blurted out quickly.
‘Something happened at the party, didn’t it?’ Aaron guessed. His eyes then bulged and he opened his mouth wide, palms of his hands slapping his face. ‘Something with you and Mr U.S. of A.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Isla snapped a little too quickly.
‘I don’t believe you. I know that look,’ Aaron continued. ‘It’s the one I wear when I’ve had an extremely productive evening at G.A.Y.’
Isla pushed opened the door and stepped into the lobby. She needed to shake Aaron off. The best thing to do was get someone to help. She headed straight for Denise’s reception desk.
‘So, what happened,’ Aaron continued, tracking her. ‘You know you want to tell me.’
‘Good morning, Denise,’ she said, smiling. ‘Aaron wants to know all the details of Mr Bryan’s hotel suite.’ She adjusted the bag on her shoulder. ‘How big was the bed? How big was the mini-bar? What’s hot and what’s not on the room service menu.’
‘I …’ Aaron began, looking at Isla.
‘Well,’ Denise began. ‘Let me tell you, that suite is to die for.’
Isla backed away then hurried toward the lifts before Aaron could say anything else.
Forty-Nine
‘Give it back, Brooke!’
‘Not until you say you’re sorry.’
‘What for?’
‘For treading on my boots!’
‘Daddy! She has Cubby!’
‘Blah, blah, blah.’
‘Daddy!’
And, as he looked at the map, there it was. Chase’s very worst fears confirmed. There was Beaumont Square, Isla’s home, inside the red line of the Notting Hill plan. He had told himself, no matter what, it wouldn’t matter. It was business. He had known there would be some opposition and discomfort. You couldn’t get picky about who was affected. But this was feeling so wrong.
‘Daddy! She’s suffocating him!’
‘It’s a bear, dummy! You can’t suffocate a bear!’
‘Stop it!’
‘Say sorry!’ Brooke ordered.
‘All right! Enough!’ Chase erupted. ‘Just shut the hell up!’ He leapt from his seat at the boardroom table and hit out at two ballpoint pens, knocking them to the carpet. He felt sick. He felt emotional. He felt out of control. This wasn’t good. This did not bode well. A little disorientated, he tried to regulate his breathing. He was at the window, staring out on to the street. The snow was coming down thick and fast, traffic moved slowly, pedestrians walking with their heads held down against the wind. Was Isla out there somewhere, battling the elements, red hair tousled like it was last night when he’d ached to run his fingers through it …
‘Sorry, Daddy.’
Maddie’s sweet voice hit him like a train. What was he doing? Shouting at his daughters. Losing it again. He turned back from the window to face his children.
‘No,’ he said softly. ‘No, I’m sorry. I’m real sorry.’ He took strides towards them, reaching out to ruffle Maddie’s hair. He looked to Brooke but her scowl remained, Maddie’s bear still in her hands.
‘Is it work, Daddy?’ Maddie asked. ‘Is it as difficult as my math class?’ She slipped a small hand into his.
He shook his head. ‘I’m not sure anything could be more difficult than math class.’
‘But you’re good at math,’ Maddie said.
‘I was,’ he answered.
‘It’s no excuse for taking your anger issues out on us,’ Brooke stated gruffly.
‘No,’ Chase agreed. ‘Like standing on somebody’s boots isn’t an excuse for kidnapping a bear.’
‘I’m sorry for standing on your boots, Brooke,’ Maddie said softly.
‘Brooke?’ Chase asked.
‘This thing needs a wash. It smells of every freakin’ day of her nine years,’ Brooke said. She tossed the toy back to her sister.
‘Can we go to Sugar High for lunch, Daddy?’ Maddie asked.
‘We’ve only just had breakfast,’ Brooke answered, putting her earbuds into her ears.
‘I don’t know,’ Chase responded. He couldn’t think past the plan on the table. He needed to do something, but what? Could he suggest the board looked at reducing the size of the plot somehow? He only needed a couple of hundred yards. Just enough to save Isla and Hannah’s home. No, no getting precious and personal. Doing that made a mockery of everything he had been telling people in his motivational videos. Decisions should be led with the head not the heart. Ardent responses were trigger-happy ones. Careful and considered was the only thing that worked. That being the case, the only thing he knew for sure was he had to tell Isla the truth before she heard it from someone else.
Isla stood outside the door. Close but not close enough to be seen. Chase was in the boardroom already and there were plans on the table in front of him. Were they the maps he hadn’t shown her? The very plans Hannah and Raj had stolen from her neighbours? Was she going to enter the room and have him jump comedic style and start to try and conceal them? And why was her heart racing just looking at him? Why could she still remember the feel of his body next to hers? Anger, that was the only explanation. And she was furious, ready to unleash hellfire. Except, Mad
die and Brooke were with him … and it seemed that Ethel had decorated the ceiling with more sparkly woollen pompoms. Could you be furious in a room full of Christmas pompoms? She supposed there was only one way to find out.
She pushed open the door.
‘Isla!’ Maddie greeted her first and she offered the girl a smile before redirecting her gaze to Chase, expecting him to start flapping around with the paperwork he had seemed so engrossed in. Perhaps these were decoy plans. Maybe the real ones were in his hotel room … or perhaps Verity and John’s copy she now had in her handbag was the only one. There was no movement from him apart from his hands going into the pockets of his trousers.
‘Good morning,’ she greeted brusquely.
‘Hey,’ Chase replied. ‘Do you want coffee? I was gonna order coffee.’
‘No thank you,’ Isla responded.
‘English tea?’ he asked.
‘I don’t want any drink.’ She sniffed. ‘But I do want to know the location of the super-village.’ That was blunt and to the point. ‘Right now,’ she ended. Now she just had to study his reaction. How was Mr Motivator going to breeze himself out of this one?
‘Girls, would you mind giving me and Isla the room for a second?’
He hadn’t looked left. She had googled ‘the tell of a liar’ on the Tube on the way here, and apparently looking left was a sure sign that an untruth was being bleated.
‘Can we make coffee?’ Brooke asked. ‘And have as much sugar as we want?’
‘I guess,’ Chase replied.
‘Maybe have sweetener instead?’ Isla found herself suggesting. She swallowed. Someone ready to unleash the hounds of hell shouldn’t be concerning herself with a young girl’s sugar intake. She needed to toughen up.
‘Are you gonna arrange another date?’ Maddie asked, smiling.
Isla bit her tongue. Her resolve was not going to crumble. She was not going to keep recalling images of their kiss in the snow. At this moment, she despised Chase. He had lied to her. He had deceived her like the slippery motivational-speaker-slash-hypnotist that he was.
‘I told you, Pumpkin,’ Chase said. ‘Last night was a work thing.’
And there it was. Showing him Hannah’s run-down community centre, Larkspur Gardens, her heart and soul, it had all been in a day’s work for Chase.
‘Come on, Maddie,’ Brooke said. ‘I’ll show you how to make a four-sugar latte.’
‘Cool,’ Maddie said, cuddling her bear and following her sister.
Isla bit her bottom lip. As soon as that door closed behind them she was going to let rip …
Chase started talking before the door swung completely shut. ‘The location the board has chosen for the super-hotel and village, the location we all felt was the best fit was—’
‘Do not even think about lying to me,’ Isla blasted. ‘If you’re thinking of telling me it’s on the outskirts of Haringey or Feltham don’t bother because—’
‘It’s Notting Hill,’ Chase informed her. Then it seemed to strike him. ‘And you already know,’ he whispered, shoulders sagging. ‘How do you know?’
‘So, it’s true.’ Isla’s voice cracked as she caught hold of the back of a chair and attempted to steady herself. ‘You’ve come here, not only to bring this new monstrous idea to fruition, you’ve come to build it in the middle of one of the most wonderful communities there is. A community I’ve been sharing with you every day since you got here.’
‘Isla,’ Chase said, removing his hands from his pockets and taking a step towards her.
‘How could you do that? How could you eat cake in Sugar High? How could you let me take you to Diwali, to Portobello Market, to invite you into my home when all the time you knew you were going to plan to tear it apart?’
‘It wasn’t like that, Isla.’
‘No?’ she exclaimed. ‘Well, what was it like? Were you sitting there wondering how much money Breekers were going to have to offer residents for compensation as you tucked into Geeta’s curry?’
He shook his head.
‘When were you going to ask me what the going rate was for someone’s home including some sort of nostalgia bonus?’ She gasped theatrically. ‘Were you sizing up whether the lion enclosure would fit on mine and Hannah’s plot?’
‘Isla, please, let me speak.’
‘Why?’ she exclaimed. ‘Why should I let you speak? Because you’re the big boss and I have to do what you say if I want to keep my job?’ She took a breath. ‘Well, Mr Bryan, you should remember you also told me you valued my opinion and my honesty, so this is me being honest.’ She pointed a finger at him. ‘I will not let you do this. I will not let Breekers do this. There is absolutely no way you are going to get planning permission for this in Notting Hill, no matter how much you grease Rod Striker’s palm. And even if by some ugly Christmas miracle you do get permission, then I am going to lie down in front of the bulldozers myself.’
She felt sick now, completely sick with tension like she might spew all over the floor at any moment. She wanted to scream and cry and throw herself at him, pummelling her fists on his chest … and he was just standing there looking so cool and calm, practically emotionless.
‘My beautiful sister who had her whole life torn apart in that car accident is now petrified that we are going to have to move. That everything she loves – her job, our square, the shitty little community centre, our friends, their shops and restaurants – it’s all going to be turned to rubble, and the company I work for is in charge of that.’
‘I understand how you feel,’ Chase spoke.
‘People only say that when they have completely no bloody idea how you feel!’ she screamed. ‘I told you how I felt about Notting Hill. I showed you everything I loved about it. I took you to Larkspur Gardens, I—’
He interjected hard. ‘Kissed me like no one’s ever kissed me before.’
Chase couldn’t help it. Looking at her now, soaking up the insults he knew he more than deserved, he couldn’t stop thinking about that moment in the private park, with the crazy frog fountain, feeling colder than he’d ever been on the outside and hot as hell on the inside. Then emotion had got the better of him and he wouldn’t have changed that moment for anything.
‘Don’t!’ Isla exclaimed. ‘Don’t talk about that! You lied to me!’
‘I didn’t lie,’ Chase said. ‘And you did know I wanted to meet with Rod Striker.’
‘I thought that was because he knows everyone and you wanted to know everyone.’ She shook her head. ‘Was I a joke to you? The naïve little Go-To Girl who didn’t have a clue what you were planning?’ She swallowed. ‘Just some dumb secretary you could hoodwink!’
‘I was gonna tell you—’
‘So tell me now,’ she snapped. ‘Tell me why my neighbours, the new people across the street, had this plan in their house.’
He watched her draw a map out of her bag and flap it at him.
‘What?’ He had no idea what she was talking about now.
‘Verity and John, I don’t know their last name or names, or even if they’re real names, but they either work for you or they work for a competitor. Whichever it is they have all the details, the whole shebang.’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘So, which is it?’
He had never heard of these people. No one was working for him. And if a competitor knew what they were planning it would be a disaster. Anxiety was flooding his gut two-fold now. ‘I genuinely have no idea.’
‘Genuinely?’ She scoffed. ‘I’m not sure you know the meaning of the word.’
‘Isla, please, that isn’t fair.’
‘Fair? How dare you talk about fair!’
‘This is a business decision,’ Chase reminded her. God, he hated himself a little right now. ‘It’s about the best location, the most central location, the right place for this project to succeed.’ And he needed to succeed. To replenish his daughters’ depleted college funds for one thing. Divorce didn’t come cheap.
‘Don’t business-speak me
,’ Isla ordered. ‘I am a person. And Notting Hill, it’s more than a location … it’s a hub, it’s a living, breathing community full of eccentricity you don’t get anywhere else. Places like that should be held up and admired and … saved. Not swapped for chrome and glass and … shoe-shiners and golf and … Cirque du Soleil.’
‘Isla, I’m caught between a rock and a hard place,’ Chase attempted. Maybe he should tell her, tell her everything. Be honest. He’d asked for that from her and she’d given it to him. He had started to open up about Colt, but it wasn’t all of it. Perhaps if she knew the whole story, knew exactly what he’d been through and how he was still clawing his way back from the brink. He took a breath. No, that was just selfish and this wasn’t about him. This was entirely about her now.
‘And what about me?’ Her voice cracked just a little and he saw the tears forming in her eyes. ‘How am I going to tell Hannah that it’s true? That the firm I work for wants to destroy her world? How can I tell her that if I want to pay the bills I am going to have to be complicit in that?’
‘Isla.’ He reached for her, needing to connect with her. To what? Console her? At this moment there was nothing that he could offer her.
She stepped back. ‘I can’t work with you today,’ she said, swallowing. ‘If I’m honest, don’t know how I’m going to be able to work with you, or even for this firm, ever again.’ She sniffed. ‘So perhaps it might be better if you talked to Aaron.’
‘Isla, please,’ he begged.
She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, there’s absolutely nothing left to say.’
Fifty
Portobello Road, Notting Hill
Isla had walked out. She had never walked out of work in her life. In fact, it had been known for her to be forced out of work when the late-night security took over. But here she was, playing truant, AWOL, a Sugar High Christmas muffin in her hand, the hood up on her coat, sitting in Portobello Road and taking in every single nuance as if it was all going to disappear the moment she took her eyes off it.
She watched everyone going about their business, this leading-up-to-the-Christmas-season day just like any other. Except for her it wasn’t just an ordinary day. Everything had altered because of that map and the thick red line that said change was coming. And what control did she have over it? What handle did anyone here have on it?
