by Carrie Elks
Grant rubbed his chin. ‘Yeah, maybe. I don’t know what we’re planning to do with the baby yet. But if the offer still stands when we make the move, I’ll seriously consider it.’
‘If you want a job, it’s yours. You know that.’
‘You don’t need to do me any favours,’ Grant said. ‘Not that I’m not grateful for everything you’ve done. Because I really am.’
‘It wouldn’t be a favour. You’re too good a worker to lose. If you want to work part time, full time, from home or whatever. Just say the word.’
‘I appreciate that. Thank you.’ Grant sounded choked. ‘It’s going to be a big change, being a dad, moving away from here. It’s nice to know there are options.’
‘You’re a good friend,’ Lachlan told him. ‘My best friend.’ His only friend, but that didn’t need to be mentioned. ‘I’ll always be here for you.’
‘And I’ll be there for you, too,’ Grant promised. ‘Man, we’re getting all goddamned emo, aren’t we? Shall I grab us another beer?’
Lachlan checked his watch. It was almost midnight. ‘Nah, it’s late, I should be getting home. And you should be getting to bed with your wife.’ He stood, offering his hand to his friend. ‘Thanks for a good night. And congratulations, on all counts.’ This time he meant it.
He really did.
The car crossed Manhattan in less than fifteen minutes, not bad for a Friday night. Lachlan nodded at the guard as he walked into the lobby and headed straight for the elevator and to his thirtieth-floor apartment. As soon as he slipped his key into the door and pushed it open he could smell the soft floral scent of the cleaning supplies his housekeeper used. Everything was neat, his breakfast dishes long since cleared away, his clothes laundered and folded, and placed back in his wardrobe.
There was nothing to do except shower, clean his teeth and climb beneath the thousand-count sheets on his bed.
Maybe he should have called an old girlfriend. Or stopped at a bar. Anything to get rid of the echo of his footsteps as he walked through his empty apartment. Anything to soothe the ache that hadn’t left his chest since he’d said goodbye to Grant.
It had to be the sushi. Maybe it hadn’t gone down well. Or it could be the beer. He grabbed a couple of indigestion tablets from the mirrored medicine cabinet in his bathroom, leaving a thumbprint on the glass as he pushed it closed.
An almost perfect oval, with a swirl and loop design. At least it would give his housekeeper something to clean on Monday.
After climbing into bed, he checked his phone one final time before turning off the light. A dozen emails from different business contacts, five meeting requests for the following week. But not a single message from a friend.
He flicked it off, throwing it carelessly onto the table next to him, where it landed with a thump. Closing his eyes, he turned over, ignoring the dull ache in his chest. He was wealthy, he was powerful, he was successful. He had things he’d dreamed of growing up as a child.
What wasn’t to like about his life?
8
Good counsellors lack no clients
– Measure for Measure
Lucy stepped out into the spring air. The sun was battling its way through the wispy clouds, the yellow hues lighting up the puddles from the earlier rain. She blinked twice, letting her eyes become accustomed to the light. The temperatures were warming up, enough for her to wear only a lightweight coat, ditching the gloves and scarf that had become like a second skin for her.
It was only a short walk to the office – a ten-minute brisk pace through Princes Street Gardens and across the railway line. The footpaths were lined with flowerbeds, the green shoots of daffodils and tulips forcing their way through the brown earth. Tiny buds were unfurling on the once-barren trees, the pink candyfloss blossom heralding the brand-new season. In only a few weeks it would fall and coat the grass and footpaths, and the leaves would begin to grow. After a long, cold winter, it felt as though everything was finally coming back to life.
She clambered up the steep stone stairs that seemed to be everywhere in Edinburgh, her lungs protesting at the sudden exertion. By the time she made it to the top she was out of breath, though there was no telltale sign of vapour as she panted. The air was too warm for that. Thank goodness for small mercies.
‘Coffee?’ Lynn asked, as soon as Lucy walked into the office. ‘I was making one for Malcolm anyway.’
‘Yes please. And when you’re ready can you come in and find me,’ Lucy said, hanging her jacket on the stand in the corner of her office. ‘I need to move a few meetings around.’
As Lynn wandered off to make the coffees, Lucy pulled her laptop out and plugged it into her workstation, lifting up her office phone to check for any voicemails. She didn’t get that many these days – most people either emailed or called her mobile. But she still had a few traditional clients – mostly older ladies with more assets than they knew what to do with – and occasionally they’d leave a tremulous message, asking her to call them back.
Not today, though.
After coffee she made some phone calls, then sorted through the piles of letters Lynn had left, filing them into importance. That’s when she saw the one from Dewey and Clarke, the solicitors Duncan MacLeish had appointed. She picked it up, scanning through the words. They proposed a meeting to discuss a compromise, to avoid filing in court.
She licked her lips, reading the words again. Then she scanned the letter and sent an email straight to Lachlan. It was still the middle of the night in New York, or Miami, or wherever the hell he was today, but he’d get it when he got to work in the morning.
It was less than five minutes before her phone lit up, and his name flashed across the screen. She felt a pulse of excitement – or maybe it was adrenalin. Every time she spoke to Lachlan MacLeish it felt like she was going in to battle with a side of herself she didn’t recognise.
‘Good morning. You’re up early,’ she remarked. ‘Or is it late?’
‘It’s almost five in the morning,’ he told her. ‘I need to fit in a run before I get to work.’
For a moment she pictured him in his running gear. Strong, muscled legs, iron-like arms. He had the kind of body that could shelter you from a storm, if only you would let him.
Oh, for goodness’ sake. Get a hold of yourself, Lucy.
‘Well, don’t let me stop you,’ she said. ‘Good health comes first. You can always email me later if you have any questions.’
‘I would,’ he said, sounding amused. ‘But your email didn’t have any attachments, so I can’t read the letter.’
Oh bugger. She pulled up her emails on her screen, and he was right, there was no paperclip icon to show the scan was attached. How the hell had she managed to mess up something so simple?
‘I’m so sorry, I’ll resen —’ Her apology was interrupted by a loud blast of a horn reverberating down the phone line. Then there was some shouting, the words muffled so she couldn’t hear them. ‘Lachlan, is everything okay?’
‘It’s fine. Some taxi driver thinks the lights don’t apply to him.’ Lachlan sounded a little breathless. ‘It was something and nothing.’
‘Are you running right now?’ she asked.
‘Yep. Just reached Central Park.’
‘And you can still carry on a conversation?’
‘I’m just warming up. Once I’m going a bit faster it’ll be harder, but it’s all about the breath. As long as the conversation matches the rhythm of my run, I could talk for the whole time.’
She tried to imagine Central Park at this time of year. She’d visited New York when she’d graduated, using the golden handcuff payment she’d received from Robinson and Balfour to fund her travels. ‘What part of the park are you running in?’ she asked him.
‘I’m just doing a circle of the reservoir and then I’ll head back downtown. I’ve got a meeting at seven.’ She could hear the rhythm of his breathing now. ‘In fact, I’ve got meetings at seven, nine, eleven and one. Plus a site visit this a
fternoon. So I won’t be able to take a proper look at the email until tonight. Will that be a problem?’
Her heart was beating in time to his exhalations. ‘It’ll be fine. I’ll check my emails later, in case you reply before I go to bed. And if you need to call me, then do. I don’t want the different time zones to cause us any problems.’
‘I appreciate that,’ he said, his voice still as clear as day. ‘But don’t stay up on my account. I’m going to be stuck in the office until late, so it could be the middle of the night before I get to read it. I’m not going to wake you up over this.’
She waited for the relief to wash over her, but it didn’t. Instead, she felt a sense of disappointment so sharp it made her wince. Did she want him to call her in the middle of the night?
‘Sounds like you’re burning the candle at both ends,’ she said. And yet wasn’t that what she did too? You didn’t get to the top of your game by working nine to five. You pushed yourself to the limits, then pushed a little more.
With his good looks and his natural charm, it would have been easy for him to glide through life. But instead he had this determination to always come out on top. She couldn’t help but be impressed by it.
‘Yeah, well, it’s a dog-eat-dog world. I worked hard for what I’ve got. I don’t intend to lose it now.’
She could tell from the cadence of his words that he’d sped up. ‘I should let you go,’ she said, feeling reluctant to end the call. ‘You need to finish your run, and I need to send you this email, this time with the letter attached.’
He laughed. ‘Okay, Lucy, I’ll speak to you later.’
She ended the call, placing her phone down on the desk beside her laptop, and tried to ignore the way his words made her feel. I’ll speak to you later. She wasn’t sure whether that felt more like a threat or a promise.
The way he was making her feel – as though her perfectly ordered world was being tipped on its edge – it was almost certainly both.
Lachlan leaned back on his chair, running his fingers through his hair as he closed his eyes for a moment, blowing out the mouthful of air he’d been holding. It had been a long, damned day, and it wasn’t looking like ending any time soon. His inbox was loaded with emails that Grant had marked urgent, and his cellphone voicemail had been flashing full all day. At sometime around seven that evening, a delivery guy had brought him a bag full of Chinese takeout, but the cartons remained on his tables – their contents cold and congealed.
He shrugged off his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt, loosening the collar that had been rubbing at his neck all day. Scanning the contents of his inbox, his eyes immediately stopped on a familiar name, one that made the corner of his lips curl up. Lucy Shakespeare. She was like a cool balm on his overworked soul.
He looked around his office, at the sleek interior, the marble floor, the expensive paintings mounted on the wall. He was in no position to complain – not when he’d achieved more than he’d ever dreamed of as a kid, kicking around the streets of Miami, trouble following him like a bad smell. And for years he’d been satisfied with what he had – with the magazine articles that lauded him as the next big thing, with the invitations to exclusive galas and premieres – all the things that accompanied success. And yet now, alone in the office, it didn’t feel as fulfilling as before.
It was hard to put his finger on the reason why. He thought of his father, the man who’d gone to his grave hardly knowing his first-born son. Had Duncan MacLeish Snr. been content with his life? Lachlan thought he probably had. He’d built an empire, after all, one that had turned him from impoverished Scotsman into Miami magnate. What wasn’t to like about that?
Moving the cursor to Lucy’s message, he clicked it open, quickly reading through her words before downloading the attachment. Her emails were so similar to the way she talked that he could almost hear her voice as he skimmed her concise note. Could almost picture her typing it, her eyes slightly narrowed, her lips pursed in concentration.
In the weeks since they’d first met at his hotel in Miami, she’d proved to be exactly the attorney he needed. It was crazy the way he looked forward to their discussions, so much that he’d called her that morning when the sun had hardly risen in the New York skyline, the desire to hear her voice outweighing any good sense he had left. Even crazier that his morning run, accompanied by their conversation, had been the best part of his day.
He’d never had a crush before, if that was what this was. Grant hadn’t been wrong when he’d said women came to Lachlan. He liked their company, enjoyed their conversation, and yes, sometimes they went to bed together. But that was as far as it went. He certainly didn’t spend his free time thinking about them.
Until she came along.
He shook his head at his own thoughts, a half-smile lifting the corner of his lip. She was good at what she did, and that’s what he liked about her. She was key to him getting the inheritance he wanted so much, and that was what mattered.
Not her beauty, not her poise, nor the way she pulled him in every time they spoke. She might have been unlike any other woman he’d ever met, but that was all irrelevant. She was his attorney and she lived two thousand miles away. His life was complicated enough – he didn’t need to add to it.
A glance at the clock on the far side of his wall told him it was almost eleven p.m. He rubbed his dry eyes and sent a message to his car service, asking the driver to pick him up in half an hour. That left him enough time to reply to Lucy’s message and then read through his other emails, before getting home and heading straight for bed.
All work and no play was definitely making Lachlan an exhausted man.
‘So it’s all agreed, then?’ Cesca asked. ‘Thank goodness the home can take him, it’s going to be so much better for everybody.’
‘I still hate the idea of him being in a care home.’ Juliet screwed up her nose. ‘I just feel so… guilty, you know? Like I’m neglecting him. I haven’t seen him for more than two years.’
‘You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about,’ Lucy said. ‘None of you have. He wouldn’t want you to give everything up to take care of him. If anybody should be taking care of him it’s me. I’m the one who lives closest.’
A barrage of ‘No’s came through the laptop microphones. Lucy’s screen showed her three sisters all sitting in different parts of the world. Cesca was still in Budapest, where Sam was filming on location. If you looked close enough you could see the telltale signs of her hotel room – generic paintings on the walls, plain yet elegant bedding, not to mention the three suitcases in the corner of the screen.
Juliet, on the other hand, was sitting in her kitchen in Maryland, USA. Expensively modern and beautiful, and yet somehow soulless. Poppy was in the corner, colouring in her usual way – full of gusto. Thomas, Juliet’s husband, was nowhere to be seen.
Then there was Kitty. The baby of the family. She was sitting outside a coffee shop in LA, the morning sun illuminating her long, blonde curls. In her hand was a supersized insulated cup, and she was sipping on it as they spoke. She looked beautiful – and no wonder. Falling in love had been good for her.
‘So what about the house?’ Cesca asked. ‘Will the insurance let us keep it empty? We can’t rent it out while it’s got all that stuff in.’ They all knew their father was a hoarder.
‘I’ve spoken to a couple of companies that specialise in house clearance,’ Lucy told them. ‘I don’t think we should do anything until he’s settled, but after that we’ll have to look at selling it – we’ll need the money to pay for his care.’
‘It feels horrible, selling the family house,’ Kitty said. ‘Dad loves that place. So did Mum.’
Lucy glanced over to the side table, covered with a collection of family photographs in silver and black frames. On the left-hand side was a small black-and-white print of a tall, handsome man and a beautiful woman, laughing as they ran down the steps of the register office. Her mother was resplendent in a short, cream dress; their father wearing
a smart suit and perfectly knotted tie. It looked more like a vintage advert than a family snap.
‘We don’t have much choice,’ Juliet said quietly. ‘We want Dad to have the best care, and the house will pay for it.’ She swallowed, her voice lower still. ‘Anyway, it’s not as if he’s ever going to be able to live in it again, is it? He’s only going to get worse.’
That silenced them all for a minute. When Lucy glanced at the screen her sisters were all looking down.
‘We’re doing the best we can for him,’ Lucy finally said. ‘And that’s all we can do. I know it’s horrible, but at least this time we get to do it right.’
‘Of course we are,’ Cesca agreed.