by A. E. Radley
Either? Amber thought.
“Well, she invited me to stay at her house for a few days,” she said, “so she couldn’t have disliked me that much.”
There was a pause. “What?” Bronwyn finally asked.
It suddenly hit Amber that Bronwyn wasn’t the kind of person to allow rights to expire or come so close to expiring. Especially not something that could be relaunched like the Lund collection.
Maybe Paul hadn’t been the first person looking into this project? Maybe this was something that had been going on for a while? If Bronwyn was so eager to get rid of Amber, and she was, then possibly this was her way to do that because it had already proved impossible for others.
Bronwyn wanted what she couldn’t have. She was a shrewd businesswoman, but she also had vanity projects that sucked up time and money.
Was this a pet project of Bronwyn’s?
“To discuss plans,” Amber lied. “We got on well, but she wants a full, deep dive into the proposals. She’s not used to business discussions, so she wants someone to explain it to her, over a few days and in her own home. Someone she trusts. She’s invited me to stay, but I told her I couldn’t commit to anything. Obviously, I had to defer to you.”
Amber struggled to keep the sound of her wide smile out of her tone. Okay, so she’d fudged the truth a little. She had no such guarantees that Emilia wanted to discuss plans, but surely after a few days together Amber would be able to convince her? She had a lifeline now. Surely Bronwyn wouldn’t fire her if she had Emilia Lund on the hook?
“She wants to discuss it further?” Bronwyn questioned. “At her home?”
“Yes, as I said, she’s very reclusive, and she’s very old school. She doesn’t have a phone or even the Internet, so the only way is to talk to her face to face. We had a lovely lunch together, and she invited me to stay at her guesthouse for a few days to get the rest of the details nailed down. But I told her I couldn’t confirm anything until I’d spoken to you. I’ll go back and cross the t’s and dot the i’s if you want me to, but if you think it’s a waste of resources then—”
“No, no. I think we should follow through,” Bronwyn said eagerly.
“If you think that’s the right thing to do,” Amber replied, enjoying having the upper hand for once. “I mean, it would save an awful lot of back and forth. I can get final approval on everything while I’m there, and then we can get straight on with the project without having to wait for Emilia—sorry, Miss Lund—to reply to our questions via post. Which is her preferred method of communication, unfortunately.”
She stopped by the exit to the airport, not wanting to go out into the cold just yet. She knew she was playing a dangerous game by stringing Bronwyn along, but she really did think that she could convince Emilia. At the very least, the visit would buy her some extra time.
“Do you have any holiday left?” Bronwyn asked.
“Two days,” Amber said. Those two days would expire in March, she’d been saving them for the inevitable job interviews coming her way. Now she felt them slipping through her fingertips.
“Well, I’m sure you won’t be talking about business all the time you are over there. It might be prudent to use some of your holiday in order to account for that. We’ll discuss it tomorrow morning. I have a meeting at eight-thirty, so I’ll see you at eight sharp.”
Bronwyn hung up, and Amber let out a groan. Her long day was about to turn into two long days. But at least she wasn’t fired.
Yet.
10
A Realisation
Emilia ran from the kitchen window towards the living room and threw herself into the armchair in front of the fire. She hurriedly picked up a book and opened it to a random page.
It was all she could do to keep herself from giggling. Hugo was going to have such a surprise when she told him what had happened.
The front door opened.
“Hallå!” Hugo called out.
“Hej!” Emilia replied. “Kom in.”
Hugo took a while to take off his winter clothes and hang them in the hallway. Emilia sighed at the continued delay, still trying to look like she was casually reading.
Finally, Hugo walked into the living room and stopped dead.
He looked at her suspiciously. “Vad händer här?”
“På Engelska?”
“What’s going on here?” He pointed to her face. “You’re looking all…”
“All?” she fished.
He sat down on the sofa and looked at her. “You actually did it, didn’t you? You had the meeting?”
Emilia deflated. She reached forward and softly smacked his arm. “I was supposed to tell you that, you weren’t supposed to guess.”
He laughed. “I’m a good friend, I know what goes on in your life. So, how was it? Was it awful? Was she really old? And boring?”
“It was fun!” she announced. “She wasn’t old, she’s around my age. We talked, ate together, and she’s coming to visit next week.”
Hugo’s smile vanished instantly. “Visit?”
“Yes, I asked if she wanted to stay here for a few days. She sent me a letter, it arrived this morning. She’s coming on Monday and will be leaving on Friday, as we discussed during our meeting. It’s going to be so much fun. I’m making a list of things we can do.”
Hugo held up his hand. “Vänta… vänta.”
“English,” she reminded him.
“She’s… coming here? To stay?”
“Yes, I’ve put fresh linens in the guesthouse. I wasn’t sure how many towels to use, so I just gave her all the spare towels.”
“Are you crazy?” Hugo cried.
“Maybe she showers a lot?”
“Not that.” He jumped to his feet and paced in front of the fireplace. “You’ve only known her for a couple of hours. Now you’re inviting her to your house. She could be a… mördare!”
“She’s not a murderer. She’s a businesswoman.”
“They can be murderers,” he said.
“She had kind eyes,” Emilia argued. “And she’s a woman.”
“Women with kind eyes could still be a murderer,” Hugo said.
“Well, Amber isn’t a murderer. She’s nice. She likes the countryside, and we’re going to go for long walks. We are practically friends already. And once she has come to stay and gets to know me more, we’ll be very good friends. I wouldn’t be surprised if she comes to stay two or even three times a year.” Emilia nodded her head definitively. How dare Hugo besmirched Amber’s good name. Of course she wasn’t a murderer. She was Emilia’s friend. Or, at least, she soon would be.
Hugo just stared at her. He shook his head and turned to face the fire.
“It will be fine,” she reassured him. “She’ll be in the guesthouse. If she’s weird then I’ll tell her to leave. And if she doesn’t… then… I’ll cycle to the police station in town and tell them to come and remove her.”
“Will you please use the mobile phone I gave you?”
“I’m not sure where it is,” she admitted. “It kept making noises, so I turned it off.”
“Those noises were probably me texting you to let you know I’m coming over.”
“I know when you’re coming over, I hear your car.”
Hugo let out such a large sigh that the flames in the fireplace flickered angrily.
“Are you angry with me?” she questioned.
He turned around, his expression softening. “No, I’m just worried about you. This wasn’t what I had in mind when I said you should socialise more. You shouldn’t be inviting strangers to your house.”
“Abby’s not a stranger—”
“Amber,” he corrected.
“Amber’s not a stranger,” she tried again, wondering where the name Abby had come from. “And she definitely won’t be when she’s stayed here for a few days and we get to know each other.”
Hugo sat on the edge of the sofa. He looked at her intently, wanting to understand. “So, you two really got on
well? You must have for her to agree to stay. It must have been some meeting?”
“Yes, well…” Emilia got to her feet and pointed to the kitchen area. “Coffee? I should make coffee.” She wasn’t ready for Hugo to quiz her. Yes, the meeting was successful but not in the way Hugo thought. They hadn’t suddenly clicked and become best friends.
Hugo’s brow furrowed. “Em?”
“Hmm?” She hurried away.
“What did you do?” he asked, following her into the kitchen.
“What do you mean?” She flung open the cupboard doors and started gathering everything she needed for coffee.
“You’re not telling me something,” he said, standing behind her. She could feel his stare burrowing into the back of her head.
“There’s lots of things I don’t tell you, Hugo,” she said. “I had an egg for lunch, you didn’t know that. I’m not such an open book.”
“And now you’re rambling.”
She lowered the coffee scoop into the dark grounds. She knew she’d been busted. It was just a matter of time before Hugo wheedled it out of her. She may as well come clean now.
“I might have suggested we could talk more about business, about the English rights to Grandmother’s books, while she stayed here.”
Hugo’s eyes widened. “You didn’t…”
“What? It’s not that big a deal. She’ll forget all about that when she comes here and gets to know me. We really did connect. I feel like we’re going to be good friends in no time.”
She felt guilty for causing Hugo’s disappointed look. She knew she had done wrong, even if she was great at justifying it to herself. Deep down she knew she had manipulated Amber.
“Em…” Hugo finally breathed out.
“I know, I know,” she confessed. “It’s just, things were going well. We clicked. And then I knew she’d be going soon, and I didn’t know how to get her to stay and then I had this stupid idea.”
She braced herself against the kitchen countertop.
“I’m a bad person,” she announced.
“You’re not a bad person,” he said. “Just lonely and in need of company. But this isn’t the way to go about it.”
“I know.” She felt a weight lift from her at finally being honest. As much as she had almost convinced herself that she had done the right thing, at the back of her mind she knew it was wrong.
Part of the reason she had been so determined to convince herself that she hadn’t done anything wrong was because she knew it was too late to fix things now. Amber was on her way. No letter would reach her in time. And she’d started the ball rolling by lying that she would even consider talking about business matters. To pull out now would include the enormous embarrassment of admitting to that lie.
“You have to tell her,” Hugo said.
“It’s too late, she has a morning flight.”
“Call her? Use my phone if you really can’t find yours,” he offered.
She had found her phone, under the bed and covered in dust. She’d put it on the bedside table and reminded herself to find the cord to charge it up. In hindsight, she realised it was a peace offering to Hugo. I did this terrible thing, but on the bright side I found my phone.
“I don’t know her personal number. Only the office’s and they’ll be closed.” Not to mention the very thought of making a telephone call was enough to quicken her heart rate.
Hugo nodded. He stared at the floor as he tried to come up with a solution.
Emilia wondered how things had gone so wrong so quickly. She’d gone from not wanting to meet Amber at all to desperately wanting to prove both to Hugo and herself that she was capable of making a friend. She still genuinely believed that she could be friends with Amber. There was a connection between them that she’d never felt before. Of course, that might have been because she rarely saw anyone else to have a connection with these days.
Or because Amber was there on business and was showing her best side.
She rubbed her face. “This is a disaster.”
“No, we can fix this,” Hugo reassured. “She’s on her way, there’s nothing you can do to stop that. So, once she is here you have two choices. One, you talk about business with her. Or two, you tell her quickly that you’re not interested in talking about business with her so she can decide if she wants to go home.”
Neither solution sounded appealing, but she knew that he was right. She couldn’t keep Amber in her home under false pretences.
“You’re right,” she agreed. “I need to decide which of those is the lesser of two evils.”
11
Preparing for Sweden
Amber walked down the steps of the theatre and into the cold night air. She turned and waited for her friend Caroline to catch up to her. Most of the old London theatres had been built many years ago and then retrofitted to absorb the hundreds of theatregoers who attended each night. That meant that the small doorways and corridors had never changed, and getting out of the building after a performance was usually akin to an endurance test.
After a few moments, Caroline was ejected from the building. Somehow, she’d found herself stuck between two groups of old people who all wanted to walk together while chatting about the musical. As they exited the main doors, she pulled herself free of the crowd and rushed over to Amber.
“Wow, I thought I’d never see the outside again,” Caroline joked.
“Why do we always go to the theatre in the winter? There are so many people who don’t usually go and have no idea of theatre etiquette,” Amber complained.
“Deals.” Caroline looped her arm through Amber’s, and they started to walk up the street towards Covent Garden. “Money-off deals. We’re both poor, remember?”
“True,” Amber agreed. “I’m just fed up with sitting next to people who have brought in a paper bag of boiled sweets and proceed to rustle the bag throughout the show.”
“That’s nothing. The woman next to me had a small bottle of wine from M&S that she got out of her jacket pocket.” Caroline laughed. “Honestly, I know they struggle to fill the seats in the winter, especially at Christmas what with the pantomimes going on, but there needs to be an entrance exam before people are allowed into the theatre.”
“Agreed.” Amber chuckled. She knew to passers-by they must have sounded terribly snobby, but they weren’t as bad as all that. They had just had enough of paying eighty pounds per ticket only to have the show ruined by people with no manners.
“Obviously, we’re having a glass of wine to debrief.” Caroline led them into a busy wine bar.
It was noisy, and Amber winced at the sound of Christmas tunes and multiple conversations turning into a loud din.
“There’s an upstairs,” Caroline said, indicating a metal staircase with a nod.
Amber gestured for her to lead the way. They cut through the crowd and up the stairs. It was already much quieter on this top floor, but Caroline continued walking into another room. Finally, the ambient sound was at a level Amber could cope with.
“This is nice,” she admitted as she scoped out the location.
“Local knowledge.” Caroline tapped the side of her head with a finger.
They started to remove their coats and winter wear at a booth with a window that overlooked the busy street below.
“Being a lush,” Amber corrected with a wink.
“Rude. And, for that, you can buy me a drink.” Caroline plopped herself down on the leather bench.
Amber grabbed her purse out of her bag and went over to the quiet upstairs bar. She was thankful for Caroline’s local knowledge. Otherwise she’d never have stepped foot in the busy bar. Even if the knowledge was gathered from many, many nights out on the town.
Of course, Amber went out drinking with friends more often than she probably should have, but that was the way in London. Britain had a pub and bar culture like no other country, and the millions of workers in London embraced the lifestyle morning, noon, and night.
She was ser
ved quickly and took two glasses of red wine back to the table.
“By the way, I’m not going to be able to come to your work Christmas party after all,” Amber apologised as she sat down.
“Oh?” Caroline took a sip of wine.
“Yeah, work thing.”
Caroline raised an eyebrow. “Nope.”
Amber tried to keep her expression neutral but felt panicked. Caroline always did this. Somehow, she could read exactly when Amber was trying to hide something.
“Sorry?” she asked.
“You’re lying to me. If it was a work thing then you would have complained about it the moment I saw you after work. You would have been all, ‘That bitch Bronwyn is making me work,’ but you didn’t do that. You’ve left it to the very last moments of the evening, which means you’re trying to hide something.”
Amber took a sip of wine before pushing her glass to one side.
“Okay, you’re right… I just know you’re going to tell me I’m being crazy.”
Caroline looked positively gleeful. “Spill.”
Thankfully, Caroline already knew that her employment was hanging by a thread and that she desperately needed to keep her job. Amber took a deep breath and quickly summarised the situation. She talked about going to see Emilia, their weird meeting in the bakery. Then she explained Emilia’s desire to get to know people she planned to do business with, and her agreement to go and visit her again.
Caroline swirled her wine silently for a few moments. “So… you’re going to Sweden to stay in some recluse’s barn for a week?”
“I wouldn’t put it like that,” Amber argued.
“Thousands would,” Caroline said. “Are you insane? You don’t know this woman at all except to know that she lives off the grid. Come on, Amber. The very phrase ‘off the grid’ was invented to describe those nutcases in movies who murder people.”
“She doesn’t seem like that, she seems nice.”