How to Get Over Your Ex
Page 17
She opened the next door without knocking.
‘Zander...’
He spun by the tinted glass in the half shadows. The studio on the other side was fully lit and much easier to see than he had been in reverse. She did her best to stay back in the shadows, out of view of gossipy eyes.
‘Georgia.’ He swallowed. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m good. And you?’
‘Good.’
Excellent. That meant they were both crap. ‘I wanted to ask you about the cheque.’
‘That money is yours. You shouldn’t be penalised for your thrift.’
Thrift. That made her sound about as exciting as a dusty old book. ‘Twenty thousand pounds, though?’
He shrugged. ‘You earned it. What will you do with it?’
She hadn’t let herself think. ‘Maybe back to Turkey?’
‘You should. See it properly.’
‘There’s so many options once you have actual money in your hands,’ she breathed.
‘You can do whatever you want. I hope you enjoy it.’
His sincerity struck her. And why not? She wouldn’t have fallen in love with a man who wasn’t genuinely lovely.
‘Why are you hiding in here?’ she asked.
‘I’m not hiding, I’m monitoring.’
‘That seems to have upset your staff.’
He smiled, not the slightest bit sorry. ‘I’m sure. Some of them are big on fame and short on accountability.’
Silence fell. Next door the work-experience girl reappeared with her cuppa and glanced around anxiously.
Georgia pushed away from the wall. ‘Well, I should go.’
‘Are you nervous?’ he asked.
Yes, and not just because she was going on air. ‘A bit. This is going to be hard for me.’
‘I’ve been very clear on the limitations. Anyone who mentions Bradford will be collecting unemployment next week.’
The kindness touched her. And his total obliviousness hurt her lungs. ‘Thank you.’
‘I heard about his new girlfriend,’ Zander risked. ‘How do you feel about that?’
Feel? ‘I’m happy for him.’
‘I worried for you. That you might—’
‘Take it personally?’
He dropped his eyes.
‘I’m not going to say I loved the implication of him finding someone so soon. That it must have been me that made the two of us a bad fit.’
‘That’s not how it works.’
‘Yeah, it does. Finding someone you can spend your life with is rare enough so the chances of both people finding that someone in each other...’ She left the rest unsaid. ‘Truly,’ she reassured. ‘He seems really content. It’s been a tough year for him but he’s found his reward.’
Zander stared. Breathed out slowly. ‘You’re a good person, Georgia Stone.’
She lifted her chin. ‘I know. I’d be my friend if I wasn’t already me.’
His lips parted in a classic Zander chuckle.
‘I’d better go. Your producer’s taking my absence out on your work-experience girl.’
He looked into the bright booth and she turned for the door. His voice stopped her just as she reached for the handle. ‘Georgia...’
She turned.
‘You’re looking good.’
No, she looked pretty much the same as she always did. With the exception of the grey smudges under her eyes that she’d worked hard to disguise. ‘Thank you.’
‘And you’re sounding good.’
She could easily have said something flippant, but these might be the last words they ever exchanged. She wanted them to count. ‘I am good. I’m finally doing what makes me happy. Regardless of what everyone else expects. It’s very...healthy.’
‘Healthy.’ He turned the word over on his lips. ‘It’s very compelling.’
Her chest tightened. Two minutes before going live on air was not the time to mess with a woman’s head. ‘See you later, Zander.’
Though, no, she wouldn’t. Not after today.
Today was the end.
She stepped back out into the full fluoro-brightness of the radio station and crossed back to her own studio. She smiled at the young girl who passed her a cup of tea as she walked in and let the producer set her up with her headphones and mic, again. And she did a cracking job of ignoring Zander’s presence. Even though she could barely see him now in the darkened studio next door, she felt his every breath.
The two announcers ran through a barrage of vocal warm-ups, which she figured were mostly for show, and she gave the young girl now inside the control box two thumbs up for a great cuppa.
Amazingly the hot drink did help, just slightly.
‘Thirty seconds,’ the producer announced over the studio loudspeaker, and the sudden sound of commercials filled the room. The announcers sat, smiled at her, and readied themselves.
Georgia took a deep breath and forced her mind off the man whose gaze burned into her back.
* * *
‘You’re listening to EROS: all the best music all the time. We’re back with The Valentine Girl, Georgia Stone, who has just finished the most amazing year of self-discovery. Georgia—’ the announcer was gifted at sounding as if he hadn’t used the last song break to go over in detail what they were about to say ‘—what was the highlight of your year?’
She leaned a little more into the microphone and did her best to imagine she was speaking only to her gran, not to three million Londoners. ‘There was a moment, just a heartbeat really, high above Cappadocia in the balloon, when everything in my life just—’ she struggled for the right word, then found it ‘—reconciled.’
‘Reconciled?’ the younger announcer said.
‘Everything just clicked. Into place. And I knew that I’d found what I was looking for.’
‘What were you looking for?’
She forced herself not to even flinch in Zander’s direction. ‘Myself, mostly.’
‘That sounds very Zen.’ The second announcer giggled, dubiously.
Introspection. Broadcasting death, Zander had warned her all those months ago. She closed her eyes and gave in. ‘And spy school was pretty cool, too.’
And they were off...asking with enormous relief how she’d felt firing a gun and what it was about numerical codes that made her such a natural at solving them.
Empowered and no idea were the respective answers.
‘An empowered woman with a gun in her hands, look out!’ the male announcer said.
Georgia didn’t even bother laughing out of courtesy.
The man’s eyes flicked up to the control booth window where the producer was making uninterpretable hand signals.
‘We’re going to take some of your calls now...’ the announcer said. He glanced at his computer monitor. ‘Lucinda from Epping, go ahead.’
Lucinda from Epping wanted to wax lyrical about belly dancing and how much she enjoyed it since starting it on Georgia’s recommendation. She was easy to enthuse with because the belly dancing was something she’d kept up even after the necessity to go had ended. It was somewhere she could escape back to Göreme in her mind. Back to Zander.
And back to the way he’d made her feel when his arms were around her.
Russell from Orpington wanted to complain about his girlfriend and her high standards and how impossible it was for an ordinary man to meet the expectations of empowered women.
‘Just try, Russell,’ she murmured. ‘None of us are looking for perfection. Just a decent effort.’
That even birthed a knowing smirk between the surly producer and her teenaged slave.
‘Alex from Hampstead. You’ve had your own—’ the young announcer stared at his computer screen and did his best to pronounce what was obviously an unfamiliar word ‘—epiphany?’
‘That’s Alek,’ the quiet voice said, and Georgia tightened up like a barrel bolt. ‘With a K.’
The announcer rolled his eyes. ‘Clock’s ticking, mate.’
&
nbsp; Could they not hear it? She glanced between them all and none of them seemed to have the vaguest idea that it was their boss on the line. Her chest started to rise and fall. She forced herself not to turn around but her inner eye was focused squarely on the glass of the mirrored studio behind her.
‘I’ve had exactly the same moment,’ Zander murmured down the line. ‘That moment where everything just falls into place and works. Effortless.’
‘It’s a great feeling,’ Georgia pressed past her dry throat. Was he talking about his engagement fifteen years ago?
‘And once you’ve had it and then you lose it it’s...intolerable. Worse than never having it at all.’
Yeah, he was. Her chest tightened up.
‘But once you’ve had it,’ she whispered, ‘then you at least know what to strive for. You know what your bar is.’
‘True.’
And she didn’t meet his bar the way every man out there would struggle to meet Zander’s.
The announcer glanced at his producer for assistance; clearly this wasn’t his idea of riveting radio.
‘What if you fear you’ll never reach it again?’ Zander said, low and personal.
His voice, in her earphones, was like lying on that daybed in Göreme with him. Intimate. Breathless. She closed her eyes, pressed the ear pads harder to her head to keep him close. To keep it private.
‘If you reached it once,’ she whispered, ‘then you know you can reach it again.’
Even though he was talking about his fiancée, she hated the pain she heard in his voice. She loved him; she didn’t want him suffering. The way she was.
‘Is that what you believe?’ he murmured.
‘I have to. Or I’d go crazy wondering if I let the best thing in my world go.’
The announcer suddenly saw an in. ‘And someone else has snapped him up now,’ he said.
Georgia’s eyes flew open and her stomach heaved. Had Zander moved on already? ‘What?’
‘Your ex. He’s spoken for.’
Relief and anger pulsed under her skin in equal measures. Daniel. Not Zander.
The producer’s lips formed a string of swearwords clear enough to be readable even by her. The announcer seemed to remember he wasn’t supposed to mention Dan. He flushed to his roots. And then paled.
She wondered if Zander hadn’t exaggerated how stern a warning he’d given them all.
Silence screamed live on air. She was so conscious that she had to say something. ‘I still adore Dan.’ She picked her way carefully to an answer. ‘But, no, I wasn’t talking about him.’
‘Aren’t you going to ask me where it was?’ Zander murmured down the line.
The announcer circled his finger above his head, signalling his producer to wind up the call. She moved to disconnect the call.
‘No!’ Georgia said out loud and stilled the announcer’s gyro-finger and the producer’s steps.
‘No?’ The husky voice grew amused.
‘Not you, Alek,’ she corrected, matching the warmth. ‘So go ahead. Where did you have this epiphany?’
How could she be alone in the dark with Zander when three million people were listening? Yet she just didn’t care.
‘There’s a tiny town up near the Scottish border. Great for viewing sunsets.’
Her breath caught.
The radio staff threw up their hands in silent protest as their segment started to unravel before their eyes.
‘I kissed a woman there and it changed my life.’
The blood rushed from her face. ‘A kiss can’t change your life. Only you can do that.’
‘I’m beginning to understand that.’
Both announcers and the producer all snapped their focus behind her and their mouths gaped open. She turned and saw the studio lights now fully blazing next door. Illuminating Zander leaning casually up against the glass, his mobile phone to his ear.
‘You taught me that,’ he said.
Georgia stared, lost in the fixed focus of his eyes. ‘I did?’
‘I watched you week after week, plunging into situations that you weren’t comfortable with, taking the best parts out of them. Always positive. Always interested in the people you met. You only had to do the minimum but you didn’t, you applied yourself fully to it.’
‘I wanted to fix myself.’
‘You weren’t broken. You never were. You’re perfect the way you are.’
‘Perfectly crazy?’ She smiled through her tears.
‘Perfectly competent.’ He tipped his head. ‘I want to be competent, too.’
‘You are.’
‘No. I’m not. I do a job I hate because someone once told me I was good at it. I live a life I hate because someone once convinced me I wasn’t worthy of better.’
Lara.
She stood and tugged her headphones and mic with her. They were her lifeline. An umbilical cord to Zander. She crossed to the glass. ‘She was never worthy of you.’
‘I believe that now. It’s taken a long time. She didn’t have your courage. Your character.’
No, she didn’t. ‘What life would you lead, if you could choose?’ This moment was too important to care whether EROS’ listeners were interested. They might have gone to a commercial for all she knew.
‘I want to go back to my roots. Making audio documentaries for syndication. It’s what I always wanted to do.’
She thought about all those unnecessary hours of additional sound he’d recorded. ‘Is there a market for that?’
‘I’ll make a market. My house would make a great studio.’
She smiled. His optimism was so infectious.
She placed her small hand on the glass, over his large one where he leaned on it. His eyes glowed down into hers. ‘What else?’ she whispered.
‘I’m going to travel more. See amazing things. Record amazing things. My world has grown way too tiny.’
‘You won’t be able to travel.’ She laughed, though it was more of a cry. ‘You’ll be poor.’
‘You forget, I run marathons. I’ll run the world on foot if I have to.’
He would, too, this new Zander. The best of the two Zanders. A tear streaked down her face. She curled her fingers on the glass and wished she could touch his.
‘What else?’
‘I’m going to get a new gardener.’
The rapid change in direction threw her. ‘What happened to Tony?’
He shrugged and smiled, but it was nervous. ‘Tony won’t live in.’
‘You want a live-in gardener?’ He might not be able to afford that, either.
He nodded. ‘If you’re free.’
Behind her, the announcers gasped, as one. And it saved her the trouble.
She had to swallow twice to get the words out. ‘You want me to be your gardener?’
He curled his fingers to match hers. ‘I want you to have the garden. And you’re going to need to tend to it every day.’
‘You want me to live in your house?’ she whispered.
‘For ever, George. With me.’
‘But you don’t want to get married? You told me.’
He shook his head. ‘I didn’t want to get hurt. But that hasn’t worked. I hurt every day because I’m not with you. So I’m cutting my losses.’
All over London women probably gasped, but Georgia knew exactly what that meant.
‘Ever the romantic, Alek,’ an announcer said in both their ears.
Zander didn’t laugh. Neither did she.
‘I love you, Georgia,’ he whispered through the glass, down the line and out of three million radio speakers. ‘I thought I was managing the rest of my life but the moments with you were like a blazing beacon and they spilled light on just how dull the rest of my existence has become.’ He took a breath. ‘It’s lucrative but it’s nothing without you. Totally empty.’
Tears clogged her throat. She struggled to clear them.
‘Are you proposing, Alek?’ the second announcer prompted, scenting a ratings slaughter.
Georgia stared at him through the glass, speechless. Then she ripped her headphones and mic off and turned for the door.
The announcers went into panic mode but she didn’t care. They’d talk their way out of it; they always did. They could earn their enormous pay. She threw her gratitude to the young work-experience girl, grinning from ear to ear, who held the studio door open for her so that she could practically run through it.
Outside, the whole office stood, transfixed, staring at the studio doors. She ignored them. Except for Casey who bounced on two feet, tears streaming down her face, both hands pressed to her excited mouth.
Zander met her the moment she burst through the door. Swept her up and locked her to his strong body, turning slowly, eyes squeezed shut.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he murmured over and over.
‘For what?’ she gasped, lifting her face from the crook of his neck. ‘Practically proposing on air?’
‘For letting you go. For making you go.’
‘I needed to stand alone. I needed to find that part of myself and know I could survive it.’
He sighed. ‘Your courage shamed me.’
‘No...’
‘But it inspired me, too. To be authentic. To risk everything.’
‘Did you think I’d say no?’
‘I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t planning on calling in when I went into that studio. I just saw you and you were so radiant and...fine...it boiled my blood.’
She tipped her head. ‘It made you angry that I was doing well?’
‘It made me angry that I wasn’t. I so wasn’t. And I realised why the moment you walked back out of this studio. You took all the light with you.’
‘And you want me to live in your house?’
‘I want us to be together. I think I’ve been sitting in that house just waiting for it to populate itself with a family. A family I didn’t want. But, truthfully, I don’t care where we live. In fact, I’d be really happy to go back to Göreme and grow old underground with you. Whatever you want.’
Heat filled her cheeks. ‘I really want your garden.’