by Fiona Harper
‘And the second time?’ she asked.
‘After I broke up with you,’ he replied. ‘Because I did break up with you, Saffron, even if you chose to pretend otherwise.’
She pulled a cushion to her chest and hugged it to her, looked down at her lap. ‘I know.’
Those two words were as effective as a pin in the bubble of his anger. He exhaled and dropped onto a small two-seater sofa opposite her, sitting forward, his feet apart and his arms resting on his knees. ‘I didn’t cheat on you,’ he said firmly. ‘Not that the rest of the world is going to believe that now.’
She had the grace to blush, just a little. ‘I could ring the guy up? Offer him another exclusive?’
He shook his head. ‘Spare me.’ There was no knowing what other damage she could do if he consented to that. It would be better to ride the current frenzy out as fast as possible. There’d be someone new for the tabloids to tear to shreds in a few minutes anyway.
He glanced at the paper, to the blurry photo of a tight-lipped Nicole on the cover. ‘You weren’t fair to her,’ he said. ‘If I didn’t cheat, neither did she.’
Saffron rolled her eyes. ‘She must have done something—bat her eyes at you while she was supposed to be doing that “research” she talked about.’
He shook his head. ‘No. She didn’t. In fact, she told me quite clearly that our relationship would be purely professional.’
Saffron punched the cushion she was hugging and let out a snort. ‘That didn’t last, though, did it?’
‘It lasted long enough,’ he said quietly. ‘Long enough that I did right by you, anyway.’
They fell quiet after that. He stared at the slightly bedraggled bouquet, picking out the different colours and shapes, wondering what they’d look like in black and white with a good strong light to one side…
When he looked up again she was studying him. She looked very young, clutching that cushion to her, like a twelve-year-old with her favourite teddy bear. He sighed. There were things he needed to say, questions he needed to ask, and he wasn’t going to take any joy in it.
‘I realised you and I were just coasting. Surely you sensed that too?’
She twisted her mouth, biting her lip while she considered his question. ‘A little bit.’
‘So the solution was to propose?’
She sighed, stroking the cushion. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’
Alex put his head in his hands. He was tempted to either scream or laugh. That was the thing about Saffron: you couldn’t stay angry with her for very long. ‘Seriously, though,’ he said, raising his head.
‘You know what it was like for me a couple of months ago…Michelle had just got married, and Dad gave that speech at her wedding. And when I talked to him afterwards he said he loved me, but he wished I was more like her, more…grown-up.’
Alex sucked in some air through his nostrils. Saffron worshipped her dad. He knew that had to have hit her hard, especially after all the nonsense in the press about her just before that.
‘I was so cross with him,’ she said, shaking her head and frowning. ‘It felt like he wasn’t on my side any more, and he’d always been on my side. And there you were…the only person not looking down on me and judging me. I just…I suppose I just thought I didn’t want to lose that. And it felt as if you were drifting away from me…’
He pressed his lips together. In that case, she’d cottoned on to it even before he had. ‘Are you sure just a little bit of it wasn’t because you were thinking you’d show him how wrong he was about you?’
A smile, a slightly naughty smile, played on Saffron’s lips for a minute. ‘Maybe. But then once the impulse had struck I got caught up in it. I began to think how nice it would be to have you around always.’
He smiled back, a soft sympathetic kind of one. ‘We can’t be each other’s security blanket, Saff. Marriage is supposed to be more than that. Love is supposed to be more than that.’
She nodded. ‘I know that now.’ Then she looked up at him, her eyes clear and soft. ‘Is that how you feel about her? Nicole? That it’s the something more?’
He stiffened, sitting up straight. ‘I don’t know where you got that idea from.’
She tilted her head. ‘You seemed quite intent on defending her earlier on.’
He took in a breath and held it. Had he? It hadn’t seemed like that at the time. He’d just been being clear about what was real—what was true—and what was not.
Anyway, it was time to change the subject. He shook himself and stood up, walked over to Saffron and pulled her up too. Then he gave her what he hoped came off as a brotherly hug. ‘I will always be on your side. You know that,’ he said softly.
She pulled back and nodded, her eyes shimmering.
‘I just can’t be by your side as your boyfriend any more. But I will always be your friend, if you want me.’
She let out a chuckle and punched him on the arm. Surprisingly hard, actually. ‘Of course I want you, you big wally.’ Then she heaved in a breath and let it out again, before looking at him through her lashes. ‘Are you going to see her now?’
He looked at his shoes, stopped smiling. ‘No, I’m not going to see her. We’re not together. Not after what happened the other night.’
Saffron might be maturing a little, but a glimmer of satisfaction passed across her features. ‘Why?’ she asked, sounding very nonchalant while she fixed him with her eyes.
‘Because she lied to me,’ Alex said. ‘Because I can’t trust anything she said to me.’
Saffron looked at him for a long while, and then she nodded. ‘Wow. That Vanessa really did a number on you, didn’t she?’
He stepped back, crossed his arms. ‘Don’t know what you mean.’
He picked up the slightly decimated flowers and offered them to her. ‘Here. You’d better put those in a vase.’
She shrugged and took them from him. ‘I don’t know how.’
His face crumpled into an amused frown. ‘I thought girls like you learned that kind of stuff at finishing school.’
She smiled softly back at him. ‘You should know me well enough to guess that girls like me were secretly on their mobiles all the way through lessons like that.’
She let the bouquet drop on the sofa behind her and followed him as he headed to the door. He turned to say goodbye in the hallway and found her leaning on the jamb, looking at him. ‘I really am sorry about the newspaper article.’
He shrugged. ‘I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself. I’m sorry about the proposal thing, that you and I didn’t work out. Part of me kind of wished it had.’
That was the truth. He wished he had found it in himself to love her. Life would be simple then. Far less painful. Far less complicated. He was beginning to hate that word.
‘No, you don’t,’ she said as she began to close the door. ‘But I don’t think you want it to work out with anyone.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ he said, wishing he’d just walked away and hadn’t waited for her to see him out. ‘Why on earth would you think that?’
Saffron gave him a penetrating look. She didn’t make sense very often, but when she did it was often hard to ignore.
‘You always say you want “real”, Alex, but that goes out the window once emotions are involved. You never want to see real emotions. You just push them all away and pretend they don’t exist. You didn’t let me get close to you, and I’m not sure you’re going to let her, either.’ She looked sad for a moment, then shook herself, smiled softly. ‘I should probably be happy about that. Bye, Alex.’
And then she closed the door and left him standing there, while she went back to her fabulous life.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Nicole slumped on her desk and looked at the old tailor’s shop’s clock with one eye. It seemed to take an age for the second hand to move from one little mark to the next. In her head the soundtrack to The Breakfast Club played, as she imagined the scene where the five main characters got
more and more bored as their detention stretched on, doing more and more outlandish things in the deserted school library. But just as long as Peggy didn’t do a Judd Nelson and set fire to her own shoe, they’d probably be all right.
Nicole had a bad feeling about this. It had been like this since Saffron’s article had hit the newsstands. Not that the phone hadn’t been ringing in the five hours since the office had been open. It had. But it was all journalists wanting a comment and now they’d switched it to answerphone. The one ray of light had been a call from Saffron’s friend Marcus, who Peggy had met for an initial meeting, but it turned out he was letting them know he was putting his proposal plans on hold.
Nicole had a bad feeling about that too.
It shouldn’t be like this. It was too quiet. The period between the beginning of November and Valentine’s should be their busiest patch, according to the blogs of similar long-established agencies in the States. They hadn’t even had any email enquiries about the basic ideas packages.
Nicole wanted to believe that it was just because it was Christmas Eve and most people were busy panicking about last-minute shopping or prepping for their Christmas dinners tomorrow. She tried to tell herself things would perk up again in the new year.
She sighed and changed position. ‘Want another cup of coffee?’ she asked without picking up her head.
Peggy made a gagging noise. ‘If I drink any more I think I’ll slosh when I walk. Maybe we should—’
She was cut off by the phone ringing. Both of them sat up straight and listened attentively, waiting to see if it was yet another journalist.
‘Hello?’ a slightly nervous male voice said. ‘This is James Hunter.’
They stared first at the phone and then at each other. Jimmy Hunter? Saffron’s friend?
Peggy lunged for the phone and snatched the receiver up. ‘Hello?’
Nicole sat up straight, ears straining, but with only Peggy’s half of the conversation to go on, it was very hard to make out if it was good news or bad news.
‘Yes…I see…Of course, we understand entirely…Goodbye, and thank you.’ Peggy put the phone down. She looked over at Nicole. ‘A firm, but polite, “I’m going another way” when it comes to planning his proposal. In other words, he’s scurrying off to Detest and Squinty. Out of loyalty to Saffron.’
Nicole propped her elbows on the desk and rested her chin in her upturned palms. ‘Well, that’s it, then, isn’t it? Both of Saffron’s contacts—the only new bookings we had—have now cancelled, and after that article it doesn’t look as if anyone else is beating down our door. This could be the end of Hopes & Dreams.’
The end of her hopes and dreams too. She’d busted a gut to get herself this far, and look where she’d ended up—worse than being back at square one. At least she’d had her reputation back then.
‘What we need is a miracle,’ Peggy muttered, and then she looked over at Nicole. ‘Why don’t you give it another whirl? It worked last time.’
Nicole shook her head. ‘Nah-uh. No way. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.’ This time she was keeping her mouth shut.
But even as she pressed her lips together and forced herself to check her empty inbox one more time, her heart couldn’t help whispering a tiny plea. Not for herself, but for Peggy and Mia. They didn’t deserve to lose all their savings because she’d been too proud to tell the truth. And she loved this place, loved the work she did helping people start their lives together. She glanced at the other end of the shop. She’d even come to love that stupid pink wall.
She didn’t know if it would make a difference, if her prayer would do anything more than bump into the ceiling and disappear. She’d also run out of faith and was too tired to take the ‘fake it until it happens’ approach anyway. All she could do now was try to navigate the chaos of her life as honestly and humbly as she could and hope that she’d learned her lesson enough for life to give her a second chance.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Nicole pushed a chipolata wrapped in bacon round her plate. Usually, Christmas lunch was her favourite meal of the year. Her mum’s turkey dinners were legendary, with home-made bread sauce, pork-and-chestnut stuffing, crispy roast potatoes. And then there was the gravy. Occasionally, Nicole fantasised about bathing in that gravy…
The table around her was full of noise. Mum liked a houseful at Christmas. Auntie Pat was here, along with her two sons and their wives and assorted little ones. Nicole put her fork down, deciding to stop worrying the life out of the sausage and leave it alone. At least there was so much commotion with all the other guests that no one seemed to notice she was a bit quiet. She felt as if she were in her own little bubble, insulated from the noise of crackers and the petulant refusals to eat anything green.
However, after lunch, as everyone else was flopped out in the living room watching a film and she was helping her mother with the last of the washing-up, Mum put down her tea towel. Nicole could feel her watching her as she attacked the roasting tin with a washing-up brush.
‘What’s up, darling? You don’t seem your usual self today.’
Maybe that was a good thing. She wasn’t sure if she liked the ‘usual self’ she’d fashioned herself into over the last few years. That girl was a fake and a snob.
She wasn’t going to tell her mother that, though, and prepared to churn out one of her standard non-committal responses as she really got into the corner of the roasting tin with the brush, but then she also abandoned her task and turned to face her mum.
She had the best parents in the world, and yet sometimes she felt so lonely in their company. It was hard—being this perfect daughter, this perfect person—and she didn’t want to feel this sense of distance between her and them any more. If she was really honest with herself, she was tired of dressing for that ever-elusive perfect life she wanted. What had been so wrong with the one she’d already had?
‘I’ve messed up,’ she said simply. ‘That’s all there is to it.’
And the whole story came out—Alex and everything—over a cup of tea while the roasting tin sat in washing-up water that was rapidly turning cold and greasy. She shook her head as she finished her tale. ‘He’s never going to forgive me.’
Her mother sighed and looked at her. ‘Do you remember the Ashers who used to live next door?’
Nicole blinked. Of course she did. But what did that have to do with her life going down the toilet? ‘Yes. I loved their tree house, remember?’
Her mother nodded. ‘I also remember that you were always round there playing with Jeremy and Isla and Kate. Sometimes I had to drag you back here kicking and screaming.’
Nicole chuckled softly. Yes, she remembered that. Even aged eight she’d been able to dig her heels in and cause herself and everybody else trouble.
‘You used to pretend you were one of them,’ her mother added. ‘You’d borrow the girls’ clothes and talk the way they talked. Once I even caught you calling yourself Nicole Asher, you wanted to be part of their gang so badly.’
Nicole pulled a sad face, shaking her head. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I probably didn’t realise how hurtful that must have been at the time, thinking I didn’t want to be part of this family.’
Her mother shrugged her words off. ‘I understood. I think it was more about wanting to have brothers and sisters and have that sense of fitting in. I knew you found it hard being an only child.’
‘It was…sometimes. But you know I think the world of you and Dad.’
Her mother nodded, looked a little wistful. ‘I wanted brothers and sisters for you too, but it wasn’t to be. There were complications when I had you…I always knew it might be difficult after that.’
Nicole couldn’t stand that look in her mother’s eyes. She leaned over the table and hugged her. ‘I’m sorry I let you down,’ she whispered. With only one child to bet on, she’d felt the pressure to fulfil all their dreams, not that they’d pushed for that. It was just that she’d loved them so much she’d want
ed to make them proud, to prove she was enough all on her own. And look at her life now.
She sat back down again. She probably shouldn’t have spilled the beans about Hopes & Dreams, Saffron and Alex, but she found she couldn’t regret it. She felt cleaner, calmer. And she and Mum were having a proper talk for the first time in ages.
‘There’s nothing to be sorry for,’ her mother said, looking quite determined. ‘We’re proud of you no matter what, because of who you are, not because of what you do.’
Nicole couldn’t respond to that. There was a lump the size of an undigested Brussels sprout in her throat.
‘You’ve blossomed into such a lovely woman, Nicole. Only, I don’t think you see it, and it breaks my heart. You’re always so hard on yourself.’
A tear slid down Nicole’s cheek. ‘Peggy said that to me too.’
Ever practical, her mother reached for the box of tissues and handed one to her. ‘That girl might have some strange ideas about what to wear, but she’s got a good head on her shoulders.’
‘And he said it,’ Nicole added, her voice breaking a little. ‘Alex…’
Her mother nodded, smiling softly. ‘He sounds like a keeper.’
Another tear escaped. Just when she thought she’d got all the ones clogging her lashes marshalled and behaving properly. ‘I think he is. I’m just not sure I am.’
Her mother’s expression changed instantly. ‘Nicole Amelia Harrison, don’t you dare talk like that!’
She looked down at the top of the kitchen table, scarred by years of use, but nonetheless beautiful for it. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled.
‘If he likes you as much as you say he does, then there’s hope,’ her mother said, and then she laughed gently. ‘You’ve got to give the poor lad a chance to regroup. All of that coming out in one night must have been a heck of a shock.’ Nicole nodded. She supposed that was true. ‘But he says he doesn’t know who I am.’
Her mother patted her hand, stood up and retrieved her tea towel. ‘There’s only one answer to that—show him.’
