Читать книгу: «A Part of Me», страница 5

James held his position. ‘That’s fair, Amy. It’s more than fair. But we don’t have time, do we? Anna could call any time now, we both know that. What do you want us to say to her while you’re thinking on everything?’

Cool nervousness swept over my neck. James knew he had me in a corner, just as I knew it was the best I could hope for. Bringing our child home was the priority, everything else we could sort through after the adoption was finalised.

James knew what I would say before I said it. ‘We say nothing, James. She only wants to arrange a meeting to talk through the matching process.’

‘And what if we’ve already been matched?’

‘Matching can take months, James.’

‘And sometimes it doesn’t. You know that, Amy. They could have had a child in mind for us for months, you know it happens. If Anna turns up with a child’s file, are you going to turn around and tell her that you need time?’

He was right. These were the thoughts that had been banging around my head when I didn’t fill my mind with other things. It had been a month since the panel had approved us, Anna would be in touch any time now. James turned at the movement out in the hallway. We watched my mother’s broken silhouette move past the mottled glass. ‘Let me make you dinner, tomorrow night?’ he said. ‘We can talk properly, without company.’

This was what I knew had to happen. It had to, or there was no chance of Anna not suspecting something was going on with us. But the offer of dinner nearly had me breaking out in a nervous sweat. My scrawny plan was already falling down. Put a brave face on to the world – yes. Jump back into dinners for two and bed-sharing? I didn’t think I was ready to do that. ‘No dinner, James. No distractions. Just talk.’

He was watching me, careful blue eyes trained on their target. He seemed more than ready to slide right back into normality. The thought of it made my skin prickle, but that was what we needed, after all. To pretend Sadie had never happened, our family never jeopardised.

James nodded. It was a small victory for him and we both knew it. I felt as though I’d just been handed my own heart to hold. ‘I have to get back to this fee proposal, James. I’ll come over, but not tomorrow. I’m behind at work, I have contractors waiting on me. After the weekend, things will be quieter.’ James nodded again, resuming a more rigid posture. He glanced at the papers on the dining table.

‘The proposal’s not for that tit in the baseball cap, is it? What was his name?’ James began to play with his keys again. He’d achieved his goal.

‘Bywater.’

‘Bywater? What’s a guy like him doing at Cyan anyway?’

Outshining James on the big-boy injuries, if I remembered correctly. I moved past him and opened the dining-room doors. James followed me slowly across the hallway. ‘Who wears a baseball cap over the age of fifteen, anyway? Knob.’

I didn’t give the obvious answer of James’s golfing buddies. Instead, I opened the front door for him and watched him through it.

James turned on the step, his eyes cautious. He was sizing me up, surveying me like one of his buildings, working out where was safe to tread. ‘Look, I’m mostly on site for the rest of the week so I won’t hassle you, Ame. But we are gonna talk soon, right?’ I was still nodding when he leant in unexpectedly and kissed me chastely on the mouth. I watched, rigid and ineffectual as he turned and walked away. James was efficient in the art of closing deals. For some reason, I remembered the time I’d nearly been had by a smarmy car salesman.

I closed the door after him.

‘Everything all right, sweetheart? I was just coming to put the kettle on.’ Mum was about as subtle as an atom-bomb.

I nodded and passed her into the dining room. She knew not to ask, leaving me to tidy up my work things in peace. I didn’t spend long at my laptop, I didn’t even sit. James had thrown my head for the rest of the night, so I fired off Bywater’s email and, much to Mum’s dismay, headed upstairs.

I was hoping sleep would find me more easily tonight, but the hours soon slipped away as I replayed James’s visit through my mind. At least the time issues we were facing with Anna were something we were both aware of. A small voice had been whispering to me that James might take the upheaval of the last couple of weeks as his opportunity to change his mind, to pull out altogether, but he’d sounded genuinely concerned tonight that we be ready for our next meeting with Anna.

I tried to visualise it all being okay, the two of us and the child we didn’t yet know, living somewhere picturesque and wholesome, like the mill. Fishing on the riverbank, balloon-adorned birthday parties on the lawns, friends and family coming over with their own kids. We didn’t need a super-home. We didn’t need anything but the people in that picture, yet still it felt like an unreachable fantasy. And still sleep evaded me.

CHAPTER 8

‘ER, HOUSTON? WE have a problem.’

The delicate issue of cohabitation was always going to have to be tackled at some point. This morning, that time had come. With my back to most of the office, I couldn’t see Sadie without swivelling my chair, so for nearly three hours, I hadn’t, locked in position like a stiff neck. Sadie had proven Phil wrong and had made it past the eleven-thirty benchmark, the time by which Phil had bet a fiver that Sadie would’ve cried off sick again.

Hannah was admiring a crisp five-pound note, Blu-tacked to her monitor. It was a momentous occasion that saw Phil lose a bet. One small step for Hannah, but a giant leap for office junior-kind.

Phil’s chair squeaked again. Hers hadn’t stopped swivelling all morning. It wasn’t yet noon and so far, her hawkish monitoring of Sadie’s end of the office had produced a near constant commentary of whispers and tuts.

‘Ame!’ she muttered for the umpteenth time. I carried on with the lighting plan the contractors were patiently waiting on. I didn’t need to know what Sadie was doing now. ‘It’s work-related, I promise. You really need to deal with this before Adrian does.’

That wasn’t necessarily good to hear either. ‘Don’t tell me the shop-fitters are working from superseded drawings again?’ Someone was in trouble if they were. I skipped around the workstation to Phil’s desk. Open on the screen was Phil’s cc’d copy of the email I’d sent to Rohan Bywater.

‘What about it?’ I asked. Phil gave me a few more seconds to work out what the problem was. ‘I had to give him your details, Phil, because I can’t work with him! The guy’s a big kid. Please be the point of contact on this if he takes us on?’

Phil pursed her lips as if about to whistle through them. ‘Er, I don’t think he’s going to take us on, Ame.’

Off the back of Phil’s expression, I tried to remember the figure I’d ended up quoting him. ‘I gave him a second option on the fees.’ I shrugged. It wasn’t like I’d priced him out of using Cyan completely.

‘The fees? Amy! I didn’t get as far as the attachments! I’ve just scrolled down the email to get to them and, and …’ Phil actually appeared lost for words. ‘Are you mad?’ She jabbed a pen at her monitor. ‘Read,’ she instructed. I skimmed over the email I’d hastily sent the night before, mumbling through the text.

Dear Mr Bywater,

Further to our earlier conversation, please find the attached fee proposal outlining our costs for the interior redesign of Briddleton Mill House, areas as specified on the accompanying plan. We have drafted two fee options for your consideration, as attached.

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact my colleague, Philippa Penrose, on the above number.

Best Regards,

Amy Alwood

It was only a little buck-passing. It usually took a lot more to get Phil’s knickers in a twist. ‘I don’t see the problem? It’s polite, professional …’ I joked.

Phil had that rarest of gifts, the ability to bestow a full-bodied smile that held absolutely no warmth to it. ‘Scroll down the page, Miss Polite Professional,’ she instructed.

I exhaled and began scrolling through the screen. Beneath my message, a large blank space stretched out several lines further down the screen. I carried on moving down through the whiteness, until that name appeared again.

Bywater,

I’d love to see someone kick your arse with your own peg leg.

A whoosh of breath rushed into my lungs. It wasn’t unlike a scene from Indiana Jones when someone opens the crypt and the air gets sucked away before all hell breaks loose. ‘Oh shit! Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!’

Phil sat open-mouthed. ‘You got that right. Why the hell did you write that on the end of a client’s email?’

I stared panic-stricken at the screen, willing the words in front of me to change. They didn’t. Well, that was that then. I slapped a hand against my stupid forehead. ‘Adrian is going to hit the roof. He’s going to sack me. I’ve just given him the perfect excuse to get rid—’

‘Calm down,’ Phil soothed. ‘You didn’t copy Adrian in on it. You’re just gonna have to call this guy up, quick, and, er …’

‘And what, Phil? Apologise for insulting him? Or for being so professionally inept that I didn’t check my own email before hitting SEND?’ I slumped into the free chair beside Phil, covering my face with my hands. ‘I must have pressed the return button, instead of delete. I moved the words out of view,’ I said shakily. I began to tap the heels of my hands against my forehead. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid!’

*

My desk phone began ringing out behind us. We all ignored it. All morning I’d wished for something, anything, to take my mind off Sadie sitting a few yards further down the office, flanked by her own team of whispering chair-swivellers. Now I had it. I was going to lose my job. I’d managed to pluck up the guts to come back here, and now I was going to have to explain to Anna anyway that I’d been sacked for abusing a guy with only one leg.

The ringing at my phone cut out, promptly replaced by a tinnier ringing at Hannah’s desk.

‘Hannah speaking?’ Hannah turned in her chair to face me. ‘Yep, she’s just talking to Phil.’ Hannah’s eyes widened. ‘Hang on a sec.’ She covered over the mouthpiece. ‘Ally’s got Mr Bywater on the reception phone. He’s asking to be put through to you.’

I stood bolt upright. ‘Now?’ I yelped.

‘Uh-oh.’ Phil grimaced.

Hannah was drawn back to her phone. ‘Oh … okay.’ She covered the mouthpiece again. ‘She’s putting him through now!’ she whispered, thrusting the receiver at arm’s length towards me with an apologetic frown. My arms were flapping hysterically, ferociously pointing a finger at Hannah, pleading with her to take the call. What do I say? Hannah mouthed, but it was too late. ‘Er, hello, Mr Bywater …’

My silent gesticulations continued as Hannah trod water for me. She quickly caught the gist of all the arm-flapping. I was out of the office. No, I was out of the office ill. I’d call him back.

‘No, Mr Bywater, it’s Hannah. We met yesterday. I’m afraid she’s not currently in the office, she’s … on site.’

Ill, Hannah! You should’ve said I was ill, with some horrible disease of the mind!

‘Can I take a message and get her to call you back as soon as she’s in?’ I winced at the thought of having to call him eventually. ‘Oh,’ Hannah said, contemplatively. ‘Er, okay?’ I watched her return the phone to its base.

Phil looked at me, then Hannah. ‘Well? What did he say?’

‘Nothing.’ Hannah said sheepishly. ‘He, er, he didn’t say anything.’

‘What?’ Phil demanded. ‘What the hell was he calling for then?’

Hannah began to flush. There was something she wasn’t saying. ‘What do you mean, he didn’t say anything, Hannah?’ I asked, already feeling a resurgence of Bywater-related apprehension.

Hannah looked down the office nervously. ‘Adrian started talking to him and he ended the call.’

‘Rohan Bywater is with Adrian?’ I asked, puzzled. ‘Adrian Espley?’ Hannah looked positively flustered now, darting uncertain eyes to Phil, then back to me again. The flush in her cheeks had deepened to an even cherry-red by the time she looked over to where Adrian’s hulking frame loomed into the far end of the studio. At first, I didn’t recognise the client beside him. His tan seemed not quite so deep, his shoulders bigger set inside the crisp lines of a slate-grey suit.

‘Shit, indeed,’ Phil muttered ominously.

Rohan Bywater’s dark mussed hair was no different, but teamed with stylish formal wear it came off as a deliberate trend, rather than the messy crop he’d sported yesterday. I felt as though somebody had just plunged a hand into my chest cavity and squeezed what it found lying around in there. Dropping into a crouch wasn’t a conscious move, but there I suddenly was, seeking refuge between Hannah and Phil’s legs.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Phil demanded.

I felt the colour drain from my face. ‘Hannah’s just told him I’m out of the office!’ I cringed.

‘You told me to say that!’ Hannah whispered defensively.

‘I know, I know!’

‘Yeah, don’t listen to her, Hannah. She kicks people and tells lies,’ Phil quipped. I’d have jabbed her in the leg had I not have been in the latter throes of a meltdown. ‘Holy hotbuns, Batman!’ Phil whispered excitedly. ‘He did not look like that when he was last in here.’

‘Flipping heck!’ Hannah agreed. ‘He looks better than he did on his bike too.’

I was about to succumb to a full-on panic attack. ‘Phil! What am I gonna do?’ Phil cocked an eyebrow and looked down over me. ‘Under the desk?’ She shrugged. Phil rolled her chair back a little, allowing me the option of shuffling into the alcove. For a second, I actually considered it.

‘And here they are!’ boomed Adrian, coming to a stand still between the backs of Hannah and Phil’s chairs. ‘Charlie’s Angels.’ I scrunched my eyes closed. Adrian could be like an embarrassing uncle at times. Like I needed any help with the embarrassment right now. ‘Is that you, down there, Alwood?’ he called, a forced joviality in his voice.

Phil cleared her throat. ‘You found that earring yet, Ame?’ she asked nonchalantly. I quickly pulled the stud from my lobe before wriggling backside first out of my inadequate hidey hole.

‘Found it.’ I smiled gingerly, holding the stud up in my fingers.

Hannah graduated from cherry-red to scarlet. ‘Oh … there you are, Amy!’ she tried. Phil rolled her eyes.

I tried not to look, but some part of me actually hoped there would be something of Bywater’s perpetual smile on his lips. I glanced up at him. His face was more angular when it was serious. His features statuesque and solemn, as if they should be made of marble, not flesh. I think I preferred the smile.

‘Amy, do you have a minute? In the boardroom?’ Adrian moved off towards the meeting room without my answer. Rohan Bywater watched me get to my feet. ‘Local site visit, was it?’ He nodded towards the boardroom.

‘Shall we?’ He didn’t wait for my answer either.

The look on Phil’s face said it all. See you on the other side … maybe.

Why had I even come back to work again? I mouthed a few expletives to myself and followed the two men into the boardroom.

Adrian was wrestling with the window blinds, trying to lessen the light streaming into the conference room when I walked in after them. Rohan Bywater moved beside me, the scent of his skin reaching me just before his voice did. ‘Cheer up, you look like someone’s about to get their arse kicked.’

I swept my skirt underneath myself and slipped into one of the chairs, waiting for the inevitable.

‘Right,’ Adrian started, ‘fantastic news. Mr Bywater is happy with your fee proposal, Amy – thanks for organising that so efficiently – and would like you to get started.’

What?

I checked Adrian’s expression. He always exuded elation after securing a new client. Bywater’s face was harder to read.

‘The senior design-led option,’ Bywater added. ‘That would be you, right?’

I tried not to grimace as I attempted to piece it all together. That email was beyond offensive. ‘You’re hiring me? As project leader?’

Bywater remained cool in his chair, eyes piercing against his darker features. ‘I read through your email last night. Top to bottom,’ he added carefully, ‘and I can tell I’ll be in safe hands.’ Bywater watched my hand move up towards my ear. I stopped myself and sat on it instead.

‘And you’d be right, Mr Bywater. Amy’s one of our best.’ Adrian sounded like an over-proud parent.

I tried not to squirm in my seat as Bywater fished to make eye contact. ‘I can see why you hold her in such high regard, Adrian. Professional, conscientious … I’m excited to get going,’ he said coolly.

‘Great!’ Adrian approved, clasping his hands together. ‘How soon would you like us to get started?’ I felt the burn of Bywater’s glare, boring into my face. I tried to remain facing him, avoiding his eyes obviously, instead fixing mine on the silky pigeon-blue stripes of his tie.

‘Do you like a challenge, Miss Alwood?’ Bywater ran his fingers over the tie, stealing it back from me, new grazes gracing a couple of his knuckles.

‘Excuse me?’ The feebleness in my voice was not lost on anyone.

Bywater’s tawny eyes were heavy on me now, daring me to delve into them for the reasons he could possibly want me anywhere near his house.

‘Challenges are good, don’t you think? It’s healthy to push yourself out of your comfort zone, exhilarating even. You strike me as someone who could deal with a few ups and downs and push the mill on for me.’ Bywater was almost smiling. For some unsettling reason, I was starting to suspect that his willingness to have me work for him was actually down to the fact that he liked a challenge. Worse still, he seemed to like challenging me.

For a second, his smile got the better of him. If he was looking for a sparring partner, he was going to be disappointed. I wasn’t even up to a staring contest.

‘I’d like to get the ball rolling as soon as possible, if we can, Adrian?’

‘Sure, sure.’ Adrian nodded in agreement. ‘Amy? How soon can we get up and running?’ I was supposed to be starting on a new restaurant next week. I knew then Adrian had seen the fees I’d quoted for this job.

Through a gap in the blinds behind Bywater, I caught sight of James walking resolutely through the office. Sadie glanced up at him as he passed her desk. I shifted in my seat.

Adrian cleared his throat. I reeled my concentration back inside the room. ‘Well, ah … when would you like to sit down and work through your needs, Mr Bywater?’

‘Monday morning works for me,’ he said, looking to his wristwatch.

I glanced sideways. James was hanging over Phil. Phil began pointing over this way.

‘Super.’ Adrian beamed. ‘I’m sure we can get Dana to shift around anything else you’ve got booked in, Amy.’

I watched James lean in towards Phil, closer than was advisable. She’d been waiting for a chance to let rip but she was listening to him, albeit reluctantly.

‘Amy?’ Adrian called.

Rohan Bywater’s eyes narrowed under darker serious brows. Adrian had adopted a more serious expression too.

‘Sorry?’

‘Monday,’ Adrian repeated. ‘You’ll be starting at the mill on Monday.’ I nodded.

‘It’s good of you to accommodate me so quickly,’ Bywater said, glancing out towards James and Phil. ‘I don’t want to take up any more of Miss Alwood’s time now, though, I’m sure she has other challenges to deal with before we get started next week.’ A knot began to form in my stomach. Rohan Bywater set me on edge, but I still owed him a grovelling apology. Something else to dread on an ever-growing list.

‘She is a busy girl,’ Adrian agreed. ‘We can finish up here, Amy. You get on if you wish.’ Bywater got up from his chair to shake my hand before I left. I didn’t look at him at all now. I left the boardroom to the sound of Adrian asking whether or not Bywater was a rugby man, while I traded one anxiety for another.

*

‘What’s going on?’ I asked James, acutely aware of two things. The first, he had promised to give me space at work, and the second, Sadie was watching the show.

‘Anna just called. She wants to make an appointment to come over, to the house.’

‘What did you say?’ I yelped. ‘We can’t see her yet!’ Social workers were like bloodhounds. She’d know. She’d smell it on us – relationship failure.

‘I told her that we’re away until next week, to buy us some time. I didn’t know what to say, Ame, so she’s suggested calling us the week after. I thought she might ring your phone too so I just wanted to make sure we had our stories straight before you dropped us in it.’ Phil huffed accusingly. James turned his back to her, shutting her out. I could feel myself getting more flustered at the thought of Anna just turning up. ‘We need to sort ourselves out, Ame,’ he warned, ‘or we’re gonna be stuffed.’

I didn’t mean to, but the sensation was suddenly there, choking me.

‘Amy, please. Don’t get upset,’ James said, closing in on me.

‘That’s your sodding fault,’ Phil snapped at him. I turned away from them, mortified that this might happen here.

Don’t you dare, I warned myself, grappling to keep my cool.

‘I’m fine, James. Please,’ I snipped, pinching the tension over my nose. ‘I just need to get back to work.’ Because work was going to be just bloody marvellous from Monday onwards.

Keeping my back to the office, to James and Sadie and the rest of them, I stood there like the complete loser I felt, considering all the ways in which my life had so abruptly become this big, ugly catalogue of disasters. I’d thought that I could just press on, one awkwardness at a time, until all the pieces fit again, but I couldn’t even make a day without something falling apart in my hands.

If I’d been under any illusion that I could somehow dupe the rest of the world around me – my boss, my mother, the social worker – into thinking that everything was just hunky dory, it all evaporated into thin air when I saw Rohan Bywater watching me through the boardroom blinds.