by Emma Davies
Oscar gave a wry smile. ‘Read minds as well, can you?’ He scrutinised Callum’s face for a moment. ‘But I do understand what you’re trying to do,’ he said eventually. ‘And I thank you for it. You always think that making mistakes and taking rash decisions is the prerogative of the young, don’t you? But I can see that I’m quite capable of doing the very same myself.’ He twisted the signet ring on his little finger. ‘So, I will be patient and take your kind and thoughtful advice. As much as it pains me to have to wait that long, I’ll contact you again at the end of the week and let you know whether I’m going to follow this up.’ He sighed. ‘I’ve waited this long, another couple of days won’t hurt, will it?’
Callum nodded. ‘I think it’s the right decision,’ he said, ‘I’m here all week. Why don’t you pop back in to see me on Friday, and we can take it from there?’
Oscar got slowly to his feet. ‘Right you are, young man,’ he said, placing a hand on Callum’s shoulder. ‘And, thank you.’ He dipped his head in farewell as he made his way from the room.
He would need to speak to Lucy about this now, thought Callum. It had gone too far for him to handle by himself and Lucy would know what to do, he knew she would. He felt the burden of the responsibility pressing heavily on his shoulders. He’d do anything to have this all work out for Oscar, but sadly it would be out of his hands soon. He glanced at his watch, wondering if Lucy was back from her lunch yet. He was just about to go and look for her when someone plonked herself onto the seat next to his in a whirl of energy.
‘Hiya!’ she said.
Callum grinned broadly; he hadn’t seen Phoebe for weeks. ‘You look well.’ In fact, Phoebe looked like the proverbial cat that got the cream.
She gave him a surreptitious wink. ‘I am well,’ she said. ‘Very well. All thanks to you, of course.’
‘What have I got to do with anything?’ he asked, genuinely puzzled.
To his surprise, Phoebe blew him a kiss. ‘Perhaps I should be your manager and hire you out to other women whose boyfriends have gone off the boil,’ she said with a grin. ‘You’ve worked wonders.’
Callum swallowed. ‘Have I?’
‘Oh yes,’ came the quick reply. ‘Gary is now well and truly “engaged”, if you know what I mean… in every way. Who knew that a teeny bit of competition would work such wonders in the bedroom? Our sex life has gone through the roof! It’s just like it was when we first got together.’
Callum flicked a glance around the room, blushing furiously. What if someone heard her?
He leaned forward. ‘For God’s sake, Phoebe, keep your voice down… and for Christ’s sake explain – I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.’
She sat back suddenly in her chair, staring at Callum as if seeing him for the first time. She grinned again. ‘Sorry, I didn’t explain myself very well, did I? I’m a bit excited.’
‘Yeah, I can see that,’ muttered Callum. ‘I take it the wedding preparations are going well?’
Phoebe held out her hand with its bright red polished fingernails, turning it this way and that so that her ring caught the light, flashing little pinpoints of colour around the room. ‘I can’t give you all the credit,’ she said, ‘I acted my socks off too, if the truth be known, but whatever the reason, you helping me out with all of this made Gary realise that we’re not married yet, and if he wanted to keep me, he was going to have to get his act together – and that’s exactly what he’s done.’
Callum frowned. He wasn’t sure he liked what he was hearing. ‘But I haven’t done anything, Phoebe. What has any of this got to do with me?’
‘Well, only that me dropping your name into conversation every two minutes has worked miracles, that’s all. A little bit of the green-eyed monster and all that.’ She grinned at him. ‘And you needn’t look like that, I made sure I was really blasé about it, you know, like there couldn’t possibly be anything between us, and that I could never fancy you. I even made out that you were a bit soppy like, you know.’
‘Jesus, thanks Phoebe.’
‘No, no, I don’t mean it, you know I don’t, but just so that Gary wouldn’t get completely the wrong idea. Enough to make him think that maybe he shouldn’t take me for granted, you know, that other people might find me attractive… To be honest, I think we were both as bad as one another. We’ve been together quite a while now, and the wedding preparations seemed to drag on. It had all got a bit boring, I suppose. Now we’re all fired up again. It’s made us realise that what we have is special.’ She smiled brightly at him. ‘There’s nothing for you to worry about.’
‘Really?’ asked Callum weakly. ‘Are you sure about that?’
‘Don’t be daft.’ She laughed. ‘Gary’s a pussycat.’ She tapped her fingers on the keyboard in front of her. ‘So, how are you, anyway? Still working on your business ideas?’
Callum swallowed, trying to unglue his brain sufficiently to make sense of what Phoebe had been saying. There was something really not right about all of this, but Phoebe looked so happy he was reluctant to ask her for more details. In the end, self-preservation got the better of him.
‘I’ve put together a few ideas, yes,’ he said tentatively. ‘In fact, I wanted to have a chat to you about some of them, but maybe now’s not the right time. I can’t see Gary going for it, not now he’s probably baying for my blood.’
Phoebe’s head swivelled around to look at him, her ponytail swishing to one side. ‘Why would he be doing that?’ she asked, surprised. ‘He’s totally cool about you and me.’
‘Phoebe, there is no you and me.’
‘Exactly!’ she exclaimed. ‘Honestly, Callum, it’s the oldest trick in the book. All I did was mention a few times how much help you’d been sorting out stuff for the wedding, and then when I’d got Gary’s attention I showed him what we’d done, all the things I learned. He knows there’s nothing between us, and he was chuffed to bits with all the computer stuff I can do now. All I did was show him the possibility of what might have happened if I fancied you, but seeing as I don’t, it’s okay. You don’t mind, do you? I know you don’t fancy me either.’
Callum wasn’t exactly sure what he thought. He knew that Phoebe’s words were meant to reassure him, but strangely they were having the opposite effect. In fact, his stomach was churning.
‘No, I don’t mind,’ he said slowly. ‘Listen, Phoebe, I haven’t had my lunch yet and I’m starving. I’m just going to pop out for a bit. You don’t need my help now, do you?’
Phoebe had already turned back to the computer. ‘Nah, I’m good,’ she replied.
The day outside was a little cool and it only took a minute for Callum to realise that he should have brought his jacket with him. A weak sun was trying to break through the clouds, but a cool wind was blowing across the car park and Callum could feel the hairs on his arms begin to rise. He blew out his cheeks, wrapping his arms around himself as he leaned up against the wall beside the library steps. He wasn’t sure what had just happened inside but it didn’t feel right.
He supposed he should be happy. His relationship with Phoebe, if you could call it that, had only ever been about trying to help her out. He had enjoyed their conversations; she was easy to talk to and, as the weeks had gone by, he had felt quite comfortable in her company. Couple this with his IT duties in the library and he was beginning to think he had got this whole ‘talking to people’ thing down to a fine art – or at least to a point where people didn’t think he was a complete prat. He knew that Phoebe had dropped his name into conversations with Gary before, she had already mentioned it, so why did it feel different this time? Why did he feel like he had been used?
The answer, of course, was staring him in the face: because it was so very different from how he felt about Lucy. He’d wanted to help her too, to relieve the burden that the library’s never-ending IT problems caused her, but instead of taking what he had to offer and then dismissing him once she’d got what she wanted, Lucy had set about helping him.
He’d been a complete idiot over this whole business with Phoebe. He had thought he’d been so helpful with her wedding planning, but really he’d just been a handy accessory in her plot to make her fiancé jealous. It hadn’t helped that he’d been captivated by all the images he had seen of people in love; the romance of it all, a desire to experience all the things that were missing from his own life and that he so desperately wanted. Something had changed. Now he didn’t feel quite the same as he had those few weeks ago, and Phoebe and his silly business ideas were no longer what he needed to make him happy. It was time to get real.
He shivered suddenly as his stomach gave a loud growl of hunger. First, he needed to find something to eat, and second, he needed to know what to do about Oscar.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lia could feel the nervous excitement fluttering in her stomach. What would they learn today? Would she be able to master it? Usually, as soon as she took her partner’s hand, she would relax into the rhythm and movement and all her anxieties would fade away. Today, though, the nerves were proper nerves. The last time she had seen Jasper she had been blunt to the point of rudeness.
In the days leading up to the class, she had replayed in her head the conversation she’d had with Hattie in the park. The more she thought about it, the more she realised that she had jumped to conclusions over Jasper’s behaviour, and never given him the opportunity to fully explain his very unusual request. Perhaps she had made a terrible mistake and the flowers, the charm and the anxiety were all genuine. He had acted with a gentleness and real generosity of spirit towards her mother, and those things were hard to fake.
The room was beginning to fill up around her, and Lia caught Hattie’s eye as she glanced around. It was three minutes to seven and there was no sign of Jasper. Already people were beginning to join up with their usual partners, and Lia hovered anxiously by the tutor, wondering if she should resume her former partnership with Joe. It would be perfectly understandable if Jasper didn’t come, and even if he did, it would be perfectly understandable if he didn’t want to dance with Lia.
A loud banging of the double doors at the side of the room made her look up, along with everyone else. Jasper. Lia smiled. She had fallen for it herself before; those doors were half the weight they looked and swung wildly if you gave them too much of a shove. Jasper’s hasty entrance into the dance hall had caused a lot more of a scene than he’d intended.
For a moment Lia thought that he was about to turn on his heels and leave but, after a lengthy pause staring at the ground, he set off determinedly in her direction. She took a step back, quite alarmed by his pace, only to watch him stalk straight past her without so much as a nod. He approached the tutor, taking her arm and bending his head low to hers in urgent conversation. The tutor’s head rose and quickly scanned the room. Lia moved forward, hoping to catch her eye, but her gaze settled upon an older woman across the room. Lia didn’t know her name but she was an accomplished dancer.
She couldn’t deny the disappointment she felt. It was what she had wanted, but now that it looked like she was actually going to lose her opportunity to dance with Jasper again, she felt deflated. This shouldn’t be how it ended. She might not want to be Jasper’s date to the charity ball, but she could at least help him to get there; she owed him that much. To her surprise, she found her arm on his even before she knew what she was going to say. He looked up, startled and a little embarrassed.
‘Hello again,’ she said simply.
Jasper nodded, his eyes raking the floor. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought it best if we didn’t—’
‘Dance?’ suggested Lia.
‘Speak,’ finished Jasper at the same time.
‘Oh.’
‘I had no wish to make you angry,’ he said, ‘but it seemed I failed in that regard also.’
Lia could hardly deny it. ‘Perhaps,’ she acknowledged. ‘But then I also failed to give you a fair hearing, which was the very least you deserved.’
Beside them the tutor sneaked a glance at her watch.
Lia pulled Jasper to one side. ‘How about we dance?’ she suggested. ‘And the rest we can get to as and when the opportunity presents itself. That is, unless you’d rather…’
He looked up, a soft curve settling on his wide mouth. ‘No, I’d rather dance with you. Shall we?’ And with that he led Lia out onto the floor.
It was different this time. Jasper still danced with ferocious concentration but even Lia could see the huge improvement in his technique. He moved with a light placing of his feet; quick, decisive, and assured. In fact, on several occasions she realised that she was the one wrong-footed; Lia felt every note when she danced, but this sometimes came at the expense of her technique. Jasper, on the other hand, danced like he was following a series of technical drawings, in need of a bit of colour to bring them to life. As they swept past one of the large mirrors in the room, her heart thudded with the realisation that if they could each impart to the other a little of their individual flair, they could be very good indeed.
She laughed. ‘Have you been practising?’ she asked.
Jasper’s brows knitted together in a frown. ‘I don’t have much time,’ was all he said.
‘Ah,’ she said, acknowledging his situation. ‘Why don’t you come back to mine for a coffee after the class, and this time I’ll let you explain.’
*
‘You’re an only child, aren’t you?’ he asked as Lia placed two mugs of tea on the table. ‘So you know the weight of expectation placed on you to carry forward the family line, heaped on you alone because you’ve no other siblings to dilute it?’
‘Well, I’m not sure there was ever any expectation placed on me, at least not in the sense you mean.’ She cocked her head to one side. ‘There was certainly expectation of another kind…’
Jasper’s olive eyes regarded her solemnly from across the table. ‘How so?’ he asked.
Lia picked at a scratch on the table surface. ‘Only that my mum’s never been what you’d call a strong person. She didn’t cope well when my dad left, and although I was only a young child, I learned to be self-sufficient pretty quickly. Mum soon became reliant on me, too – even before she got ill. And now she depends on me entirely.’
‘I think I may just have qualified for the most insensitive idiot of the year award,’ said Jasper with a grimace. ‘Honestly, I think I deserve to be thrown out again. Shoving my petty problems in your face is the height of selfishness, given what you cope with on a daily basis.’
‘Only because your desire not to let your family down is so strong. I wouldn’t say that was selfish. I can see how trapped you feel, how tied down you are by your sense of duty to your family. That’s a feeling I know well. I didn’t give you the opportunity to explain before, but now’s your chance. I’m not promising anything, but I’d like to understand why this is so important to you.’
Jasper fiddled with the buttons on his shirt. ‘Have you even heard of us?’ he asked.
‘No, but then that’s hardly surprising. I hardly step foot out the house, and big business is not exactly my forte.’
‘No, mine neither… and that’s the problem, I guess,’ replied Jasper. ‘I love my family, but not what we do. I never have done. My dad was born to it, as were his brothers and his father before him. But where they all walked the walk and talked the talk, I stumble my way through the days with a very patient secretary who just about manages to keep me from making a complete arse of myself.’
‘But just because you’re family, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you have the same skill set – surely they must see that?’ Lia studied his face. ‘It’s no crime to want to do something different. I’m sure they’d understand.’
‘They’d accept it if they had to,’ said Jasper, running a hand through his hair, ‘but I’m not sure they’d ever understand it. They live, eat and breathe the family business, and they think everyone wants a taste of it… except for me, that is. I think it’s
poisonous.’
Lia stood up, crossing to a cupboard. ‘Would you like a biscuit?’ she asked, reaching in to take down a packet and placing it on the table. ‘So, what do they do then? Why don’t you like it?’
‘They trample all over people,’ Jasper replied bluntly, reaching forward to take a cookie. ‘Of course, they dress it all up so that it looks nice and appealing. Businesses fail for all sorts of reasons, but often it’s because there’s a weak link. So, they go in as “consultants”, under the guise of saving them, when in reality they’re only there to make money by exploiting their failings – and by putting stress on the weakest link until it breaks, they’re the ones who get to come to the rescue. By rescue, I mean selling off component parts of the business, sometimes all of it, and coming out looking like the sun’s shining from every orifice. They make people think our presence in their company was what they wanted all along, but really they’re there to destroy it.’
‘Oh.’ Lia swallowed. ‘That doesn’t sound quite so appealing.’
Jasper sighed. ‘I’m being melodramatic.’ He squinted up at her. ‘But some days that does feel like what we do. That, and putting on a good show.’
‘Is that where the charity ball comes in?’
Jasper looked at her for a moment, a gentle frown on his face. ‘No… it was a metaphor,’ he said, ‘like when—’
‘I know what it was,’ said Lia with a grin, which faded as she took in his expression. ‘I was just trying to… you know… well, lighten the mood a little, make a bit of a joke?’
Jasper was staring at her.
‘Not a very good one, admittedly,’ she muttered.
She heard a loud crunch as Jasper bit into his biscuit. He chewed determinedly. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘that’s my problem. I take it all too seriously.’
Lia dunked the last of her own biscuit into her tea, throwing it into her mouth before it disintegrated. ‘So, what makes you unserious?’ she asked. ‘Something must do.’