What Happened That Night: The page-turning holiday read by the No. 1 bestselling author

by O'Flanagan, Sheila

  ‘Wow,’ she said.

  ‘So it would be really cool if you came in and tried on the set.’

  She hesitated.

  ‘Take a chance?’

  It was those words that decided her. She believed in taking chances. She’d said so to her parents the day she’d left Cloghdrom.

  She nodded and followed him inside.

  The shop was more opulent than she could have imagined. The pile of the mink-coloured carpet was so deep that she was afraid her high-heeled shoes would ruin it, and she walked cautiously after him, conscious of the indentations she was leaving in her wake. Instead of long counters, there was a polished walnut desk in one corner, in front of which were placed two chairs upholstered in purple velvet. There were three glass displays on the floor of the store, as well as others in the window.

  A tall, elegant woman wearing a ruby pendant and an Adele Rose ring nodded at Philip, who smiled at her.

  ‘Hi, Lorraine. Is Dad in the office?’

  She shook her head. ‘He’s still at lunch with Arjan van Heerden,’ she said.

  ‘Has he bought the stones?’ asked Philip.

  ‘And how would I know that?’ asked Lorraine. ‘He doesn’t tell me the backroom business. I’m merely the sales assistant.’

  Philip laughed. ‘Oh, Lorraine! You know we couldn’t even open the door to the shop without you. It’s a pity he isn’t here,’ he added. ‘I wanted him to see the Snowdrop range on . . .’ He turned to Lola. ‘I’m so sorry. I was too dazzled by you to ask your name.’

  ‘Lola,’ she said. ‘Lola Fitzpatrick.’

  ‘I wanted Dad to see Lola modelling the Snowdrop,’ he said. ‘Don’t you think it would look gorgeous on her?’

  Lorraine looked at Lola critically, dismissing her inexpensive trousers and blouse but taking in her flawless complexion, her dark curls and her deep-blue eyes.

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘It would suit her very well.’

  ‘So let’s have a look.’

  ‘I’m not sure . . .’ Lola was aching to try on the Snowdrop set, but she felt completely out of her depth.

  ‘You’ll love it,’ Philip assured her.

  Lorraine took the jewellery from the window display. Then she approached Lola and fastened the diamond necklace around her neck, taking time to arrange it exactly. She did the same with the bracelet on her wrist. Finally she slid the Adele Snowdrop ring onto the third finger of her right hand and stood back to admire her handiwork.

  ‘Stunning,’ said Philip.

  ‘Amazing,’ agreed Lorraine.

  Lola turned to look at herself in the mirror. The girl who looked back at her was a different Lola. The flashing brilliance of the diamonds made her skin seem smoother, her hair darker, her eyes a more vibrant blue. She was the Lola Fitzpatrick she had always wanted to be. The Lola Fitzpatrick who deserved chances and who would grab those chances with both hands. She felt a wave of confidence engulf her as she moved and sparkled beneath the halogen lights.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ Philip looked at Lorraine in satisfaction. ‘She’s a Warren’s girl, that’s for sure.’

  ‘You have your father’s eye,’ said Lorraine.

  ‘She’s the kind of girl we want buying our jewellery,’ Philip said. ‘Young and beautiful and . . . and modern.’

  Lorraine, who was in her forties, raised one of her delicately shaped eyebrows.

  ‘Of course you’re modern too,’ said Philip quickly. ‘But you’re different, Lorraine. You’re a grown-up. Lola is . . .’

  ‘Young,’ echoed Lorraine.

  ‘Exactly. And she’s the person we want to be selling to.’

  ‘Maybe I am.’ Lola finally looked away from her reflection. ‘And maybe I can be a customer one day. But right now I couldn’t even afford the clasp of the necklace, let alone the whole thing.’ She sighed as she slipped the ring from her finger and placed it on one of the glass displays while Lorraine undid the necklace and bracelet. ‘Thank you for letting me try them on. It was amazing. But I’d better be going.’

  ‘You can’t rush away,’ said Philip. ‘We haven’t discussed your bread roll yet.’

  ‘I’m due back at work.’ Lola looked at her watch and gave a little shriek. ‘In exactly two minutes. I’ve got to go.’ She hurried to the door and opened it.

  ‘Wait!’ called Philip. ‘Where do you work? Will I see you again?’

  But Lola didn’t answer. She was already running up the road.

  She clattered into the office and looked around anxiously for Irene, the staff officer generally known as Dot because of her complete lack of interest in any excuses for lateness and insistence that all staff were at their desks on the dot.

  ‘She was asking for you a minute ago.’ Pat Burke looked up from the passport she was working on. ‘I told her you were dealing with someone from the general public.’

  ‘Did she believe you?’ Lola was still anxious.

  ‘Of course,’ said Pat.

  Lola smiled. Pat was one of the clerical assistants who worked on temporary contracts with the Passport Office to cover the busy summer period. She’d started working there after the death of her husband a few years previously, and although she was still on a temporary contract, she worked eight months of the year and was far more experienced than Irene or Lola. Being older than most of the staff, Pat wasn’t intimidated by Irene, and as she knew more about the running of the office than the more senior woman did, Irene relied on her whenever there were problems. Pat, who privately thought that Lola was one of the hardest-working people there, was also very supportive of her because she never tried to take advantage of her temporary status as some of the other girls sometimes did.

  ‘Where were you?’ she asked. ‘You’re never late.’

  Lola sat down at her desk and picked up one of the passport application forms so that she’d appear busy when Irene returned. But she smiled at Pat as she related her lunchtime experience.

  ‘Warren’s!’ Pat was impressed. ‘I’ve always wanted a piece of jewellery from there. I love those Adele rings.’

  ‘The Snowdrop was utterly gorgeous,’ said Lola. ‘The minute I put it on I felt like I could do anything. It was amazing.’

  Pat stretched her hands out in front of her. Her significantly more modest engagement ring twinkled in the light.

  ‘My husband always said that he’d get me one for our silver wedding anniversary,’ she said. ‘It would have been next year.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Lola. ‘I shouldn’t have . . .’

  ‘Oh, don’t be.’ Pat shook her head. ‘He’d never have been able to afford it either. Those rings are seriously expensive.’

  ‘I know. There were no prices.’

  ‘So are you going to see him again?’ asked Pat. ‘Or was this just a business thing?’

  ‘It was the weirdest experience of my life,’ said Lola. ‘And the only way I’d ever see him again is by standing outside Warren’s looking hopeful. Which, quite honestly, would be a kind of creepy thing to do.’ And then, as she saw Irene walking into the office, she bent her head over the application form and said no more about it.

  Chapter 2

  Iridescence: an optical phenomenon in which the hue of the stone changes according to the angle from which it is viewed

  Philip Warren couldn’t get Lola Fitzpatrick out of his head. He knew many pretty and attractive girls, but Lola was different. She hadn’t been overawed by him like so many young women of his acquaintance were. Which was understandable – they all knew he was a Warren and it mattered to them. It had been refreshing to meet someone who didn’t, and then to take her breath away by bringing her into the shop and insisting on her trying on the diamonds. He was annoyed at himself for not getting her number before she’d rushed away. Still, Dublin was a small city and she clearly worked nearby. He was pretty sure he’d see her again, especially now that he’d be on the lookout for her. With a bit of luck she’d stop outside the shop window and he’d get the opportunit
y to buy her a bread roll. And more.

  The door to the office opened and his father walked in. Philip knew at once that he was in a good mood.

  ‘Things go well with Arjan?’ he asked.

  Richard nodded. He opened his attaché case and took out a brifka, an envelope containing a selection of loose diamonds, which he spilled out onto the desk in front of them.

  ‘They’re good.’ Philip nodded as he picked one or two up and studied them. ‘Really good.’

  ‘I think they’ll work well in the set for Mrs McBride,’ said Richard.

  Emily McBride was the wife of a leading industrialist, and her husband wanted something bespoke for her fiftieth birthday later in the year. David Hayes, Warren’s designer, had already come up with some designs that Noel McBride approved of, so it had been a question of sourcing the appropriate stones, which Richard now hoped he’d done.

  ‘It’s going to be one of the most expensive pieces we’ve ever made,’ he said.

  ‘I was thinking about that,’ said Philip, ‘and wondering about our future lines.’

  ‘Oh?’ Richard scooped the diamonds back into the brifka.

  ‘There was a girl in here today,’ said Philip. ‘She was young and gorgeous and she tried on the Snowdrop. It looked absolutely amazing on her.’

  ‘The Snowdrop looks amazing on everyone,’ said his father.

  ‘True,’ agreed Philip. ‘But Lola made it come alive.’

  Richard looked at him speculatively.

  ‘So . . .?’

  ‘So I was thinking we should be targeting young, beautiful women with our stuff,’ said Philip. ‘At the moment we’re selling to matronly old dears who can afford sky-high prices. Or at least whose husbands can afford them. But we should be thinking of the future and women like Lola now. We should be getting them into our stores.’

  ‘Does this girl have a rich father? Or a rich husband?’

  ‘No,’ said Philip. ‘But she talked about owning an Adele piece some day. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we had a range that was affordable enough for women to treat themselves sooner?’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t,’ said Richard. ‘We’re exclusive. If everyone could afford a Warren’s piece, then we wouldn’t be exclusive any more. Besides, women don’t buy jewellery for themselves. They get it from their husbands.’

  ‘That’s a very old-fashioned outlook.’

  ‘It’s true, though.’

  ‘At the moment. But—’

  ‘Are you thinking with your heart or your head?’ Richard interrupted him. ‘Or has this Lola person interested an entirely different part of your anatomy?’

  Philip snorted but said nothing as he went to the upstairs office. All the same, he was still thinking about Lola Fitzpatrick when they shut up shop a few hours later. She was unforgettable.

  Richard mentioned the conversation to Adele that evening, adding that their son’s eagerness to extend their range seemed to be based on wanting the young woman who’d come into the store to be able to wear Warren jewellery.

  ‘Who was she?’ demanded Adele. ‘Do we know her?’

  Richard shook his head. ‘I talked to Lorraine afterwards,’ he said. ‘Apparently she’s noticed her looking in the window before.’

  ‘Casing the joint?’ Adele’s eyes widened.

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ Richard laughed. ‘Lorraine said she seemed to be an ordinary young girl. It was Philip who encouraged her to try on the jewellery.’

  ‘He can be so idiotic at times,’ said Adele.

  ‘He’ll inherit the business one day.’

  ‘And when he does, he’ll need a sensible wife beside him,’ Adele said. ‘Not some flibbertigibbet who could lead him down the wrong path like my own father. I suppose she was pretty.’

  ‘Gorgeous, Lorraine said.’

  Adele groaned. ‘He’s a sucker for a pretty face,’ she said. ‘And he has a habit of falling for totally unsuitable girls.’

  ‘He usually extricates himself in the end,’ remarked Richard. ‘You don’t have to worry that every man will do what your dad did, Adele. I haven’t bankrupted the business and run off with my secretary, have I? I don’t even have a secretary!’

  ‘No.’ She smiled at him. ‘I chose well with you, Richard. You’re a good man and I love you. But we have to look out for Philip. Peter, too. We’re an established family with a successful business. We don’t want money-grabbers riding on our coat-tails.’

  Richard knew he could do nothing to sway Adele from her belief that young girls were always trying to seduce wealthy men in the way her father had been seduced years before. Tobias Pendleton had been the chairman of a medium-sized manufacturing company when he ran off with his secretary, a pretty woman nearly twenty years his junior. He’d siphoned money from the company accounts before his departure, and as a result the business was declared bankrupt shortly afterwards. Adele and her mother had been left virtually penniless. Lucia Pendleton had died the following year and Adele always insisted it was from a broken heart. Although she remained angry with her father, whom she never saw again, most of her ire was directed at Sophie, his secretary, who, she insisted, had thrown herself at him regardless of the fact that he was a married man.

  Richard knew that she’d never lost her bitterness over it. So he simply remarked that he was sure Philip would forget about the girl in the shop quickly enough.

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Adele. ‘Because he’s the future of Warren’s and we can’t afford for him to make a spectacular mistake.’

  She wouldn’t have been happy to know that Philip couldn’t stop thinking about Lola, even though he hadn’t seen her again since the day she’d come into the shop. He’d been totally smitten by her arresting beauty and her charming self-consciousness about trying on the Snowdrop range. He’d seen her light up when she was wearing it, the sparkle in her blue eyes matching the sparkle of the gems, and he’d decided there and then that he was going to sleep with her. And even though it was annoying that she’d run off on him, it was refreshing too. No girl had ever left him without leaving him her number before. He had to find her and he had to have her.

  He was confident that he would, eventually.

  After all, he was a Warren, and the Warrens always got what they wanted.

  No matter what.

  Chapter 3

  Pearl: a hard, lustrous stone formed within the shell of a pearl oyster

  ‘Is it the handsome man or the fabulous diamonds you’re thinking of?’ Lola’s best friend Shirley asked the question a few days later while they were having a drink together in their local pub in Rathmines. ‘You’ve been moony ever since you told me about him.’

  Lola chuckled. ‘Philip Warren is a total hunk,’ she conceded, ‘but it’s that gorgeous necklace I can’t get out of my head. Though I have to admit that a man with ready access to it might be worth getting to know. I felt like a million dollars wearing it.’

  ‘It probably costs a million dollars.’ Shirley grinned.

  ‘I keep wondering how much it was all worth,’ admitted Lola. ‘I’m pretty sure I was wearing more than my annual salary around my neck.’

  ‘More than both our salaries,’ said Shirley. ‘Being a librarian doesn’t exactly put you in the diamond-buying bracket either.’

  ‘I wonder what would’ve happened if I’d legged it out of the store and down the street while I was wearing them,’ said Lola.

  ‘I doubt you’d have got past the door,’ Shirley said. ‘I bet they have all sorts of security.’

  ‘I didn’t see any, but I guess so,’ said Lola. ‘It’s a totally different world, you know. The carpet, the display counters, the desk – there wasn’t a cash register to be seen. I kept asking myself how people actually pay for the stuff.’

  ‘Not with cash, obviously,’ Shirley said. ‘I mean, you’d hardly hand over thousands in used fivers, would you?’

  Lola laughed. ‘Unlike the mart.’

  Shirley laughed too. Shirley’s father w
as also a farmer in Cloghdrom, where the business of buying and selling cattle was generally conducted in cash. And, added Lola, in surroundings a million miles away from the plush carpets at Warren’s.

  ‘But seriously,’ said Shirley, after they’d stopped picturing an auction of cows covered in diamonds, ‘did you fancy him as well as the diamonds?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ agreed Lola. ‘But I’m not in Dublin for the men, Shirley. I’m here for my career.’

  ‘I think it’s good that you have your priorities right,’ Shirley said. ‘All the same, marrying into Warren’s could be a career move too. Certainly it’s an entirely different kettle of fish to marrying a lad from Cloghdrom. It’d be like hitting the jackpot.’

  ‘I don’t see getting married to anyone as a career move,’ protested Lola. ‘Besides, you’re jumping the gun. He didn’t even ask me out.’

  ‘Draping you in diamonds is a good sign.’

  ‘He doesn’t have my number and he doesn’t know where I work,’ said Lola.

  ‘But you know exactly where he works,’ Shirley pointed out. ‘So you could be a modern, liberal woman and do the asking instead.’

  ‘If I wanted to,’ agreed Lola.

  ‘Exactly.’

  Lola smiled and didn’t reply. But she couldn’t help remembering how she’d looked with the Snowdrop necklace glittering around her throat.

  And she liked the picture.

  She went to Cloghdrom the following weekend and didn’t think about Philip Warren or the Snowdrop necklace. Nor did she think about him when she returned to Dublin, as the busy season had kicked in and people were queuing down the street to get their passports in time for their holidays.

  ‘Why they always leave it till the last minute I’ll never know,’ she said to Pat as she worked on yet another urgent set of documents.

  ‘Worse are the idiots who think it’s funny to fill out the form saying their sex is “yes please”.’ Pat sighed and put the third one she’d received that day to one side. ‘Don’t they realise it’s going to be sent straight back to them?’ She looked at her watch and then at Lola. ‘Are you going on your lunch break?’