by Bloom, Anna
Amanda caught my attention, waving across the room, distracting my thoughts of interrogation tactics. I filed them away for later when I could stew on them for an appropriately endless amount of time.
“Let’s.”
I walked for Amanda, ignoring the wobbly jelly in my stomach and trying not to focus on the brooding shape behind me. Not easy. Not easy at all.
“Ah, Ronnie, I see you’ve met Matthew already.” Amanda stood, smoothing out her sage- green dress and she leant towards me giving me a brush of an air kiss. She nailed impeccable down to the shortest hair on her head. She could have strolled out of the pages of Vogue and straight into the bistro.
My pink shirt stuck to the sweaty skin of my stomach.
“Uh.” I don’t actually know what to say. “Sort of,” I said, erasing with two careless words any sentiment I had buried deep inside. In a way it was true. Apparently, I didn’t know him at all. “Uh…”
Lame-arse quicksand pulled me down so fast I couldn’t shoot an SOS into the sky to save my mortified soul.
Ronnie. Pull it together.
What I needed was the whoosh of a lift door. The comforting click of a hotel room lock I could hide behind. He sighed and then answered for both of us. I couldn’t hear him over the static in my ears as I stared at his lips. “Veronica and I were acquaintances at university.” The rumble of his voice, although it held little similarity to the one I held onto in my memories, set off a firecracker in the pit of my stomach.
Veronica.
Acquaintances?
“Oh yes, Matty. I remember you said you went to uni here in London. What a coincidence.”
“Indeed it is.” He shifted behind me and I fought the desperate urge to glance behind and see the expression on his face. It was a lie what they said about parents having eyes in the back of their heads. You don’t give birth and grow another pair. Pity.
Then I noticed the way she looked at him, her gaze bordering on pure unbridled adoration and her words registered; Matty. No one called him Matty. I might stab her.
Territorial Ronnie needed to back off.
He’s no one to you anymore. I focused my thoughts on the crew in the office who were all waiting for me to get back and tell them how amazing this job would be. If I stabbed the client to death with a butter knife, the chance of it panning out the way we wanted were slim.
“Such a coincidence.” I tittered a laugh which would make me roll my eyes if I heard it from someone else and sat down on the chair opposite Amanda’s, leaving him to take the third.
The chair had a good view of the ladies. Obvious reasons.
I failed to not notice him peeling off his jacket and hanging it on the back of his chair before sliding down onto the red velvet. I also failed to not notice the way his white shirt shifted around his arms—wider than my dream Matthew owned. I definitely didn’t notice the stretch of his long legs as he flexed himself into a comfortable position.
Acid clawed my throat. My pulse sped so fast my temple ached.
Why was he here? Why was he doing this to me… making me breathe the same air as him and not acknowledging the fact we knew each other?
Trying to be discreet, I breathed in through my nose and slowly out through my mouth.
He reached for a jug of water on the table, his face a calm mask, and poured some into a glass, sliding it across the table towards me while remaining focused on whatever Amanda blabbered on about. I had no idea what she was saying. “Thanks,” I muttered, trying not to look at his face.
Pouring another glass, he didn’t miss a beat as he took a sip.
I stared at the one he’d pushed in front of me, his fingers imprinted into the condensation. I wondered if I placed my fingers in the exact same position if it would be like holding hands.
Holding hands with Matthew; one of my favourite things.
I jumped as a movement brushed my fingers under the table. My palms were down on my jeans, skin slicked with sweat. The chair almost vibrated as I shook. The touch moved further, homing in, lifting my shaking hand and clasping it tight. I wanted to pull away. I was disgusting, so sweaty and clammy, but I met his glance and he shot me a wink. My fingers squeezed back, and my poor little heart raced a marathon in my chest.
I snapped back from a long-locked memory and looked at Amanda wide-eyed, no clue what her jumble of words meant. I hadn’t heard a word she’d said.
Matthew was here; it was all could think, feel.
“Ronnie, Matthew has come onto the project to steer this rebrand and guide our re-launch.”
At last I made sense of something. I snapped back into the present, the gleaming cutlery and crisp tablecloth; sapphire eyes watching me under dark lashes.
I glanced between the two of them and tried not to look like I stared deep into the enemy camp. I mean there was no need to think they were in cahoots with each other; that would be paranoid not to mention unprofessional.
“Okay.” Could someone stop my voice from sounding like I was drowning. Please. “Matthew.” I forced myself to look at him. Those cheekbones, the dark brows, the expressive lips that never used to purse that way. His mouth wore a foreign line, like it was unknown territory on an undiscovered map. “Do you know much about frozen foods?”
“Matthew’s father-in-law owns Supersaver Foods, Ronnie,” Amanda said like I should know. Which I should. I really should. But…
“Craig McStandish is your father-in-law?” I directed my question straight to him. “I didn’t know Julie was a McStandish.” Her name burnt my tongue on the way out. It squeaked and my small cough afterwards didn’t hide the awkward note it held.
If I knew I didn’t remember.
It was fifteen years ago. Would I have remembered anyway?
Yes. Yes, I would have.
McStandish was one of the most notorious businessmen in the United Kingdom. He made Dragon’s Den look like a playgroup for toddlers.
I glanced at Matthew’s ring hand, blatantly staring, like aiming at a moving target and priming to shoot. My brow furrowed, and I bit on my bottom lip as I stared at his wedding ring that wasn’t where it should be. The ring Angela told me about just the other day was nothing more than a small imprint and a strip of white skin.
Did he know someone had stolen it? Maybe he’d fallen asleep on The Tube and a pickpocket had taken the opportunity. I was about to say something when he said, “I took Supersaver Foods as part of my divorce settlement.”
Divorce?
My eyes stung from staring so hard.
Divorce?
Had I heard that right?
His eyes danced like fireflies, long dark lashes fluttering, and I caught a snapshot from the past I didn’t think I’d see again.
Divorced?
It was the final straw.
“Excuse me, I just…” Nope. I pushed my chair back and headed straight across the restaurant with its white clothed tables and shining cutlery to the small corridor with the sign for the ladies. Bollocks though, because the doors to the relevant toilets weren’t there, only a long draughty corridor which led to a set of stairs at the end.
I broke into a sprint, wincing at the navy shoes I’d burn when I got home.
Wiping my mouth, I stared back at myself in the mirror. When would this end? I couldn’t remember a time when my stomach didn’t tangle into knots, when my heart didn’t escape from my throat at the first sign of a situation I didn’t find comfortable.
There were the years at uni when I could breathe, but they’d been short-lived. Once I’d re-entered the big wide world my old habits had found me again, fast.
Angela, in her best friend capacity, always seemed to be right; how had I run this company for so long by myself?
I met my reflection and smoothed my blonde hair down, pushing my fingertips into the skin under my eyes to pat away the sheen of sweat.
This was business. My business, and I couldn’t fail now.
Rinsing my mouth with water, I steeled my nerves with a s
tiff mental bitch slap.
I didn’t know why he was there. Or why he was divorced. Divorced. I needed to push Matthew Carling back into the past where he’d belonged for the last fifteen years. The man I once knew no longer existed. He would have said hi and given me a kiss on the cheek outside the restaurant, he would have squeezed me tight and lifted me off my feet. He would have jumped out of the lift at the hotel for the reunion and he would have grasped my hand and helped me to breathe through the panic. I had to hold on to all the things he now wasn’t, for the sake of the staff, for this business I’d built from nothing for the last five years.
I opened the door to the bathroom, but the past bounced back at me like a slap in the face.
“Oh, you’re a boy.” The wine heated my blood and I clutched onto the doorframe of room eighteen. I waited for the panic to arrive, as it always did, clawing and suffocating, although the wine helped, maybe a bit too much.
“Nope, last I checked I had a fully working penis and two rather full ball bags.”
Again I waited to turn; a mouthful of sick looking for a way out. Ma would have been right when she said I’d never make it through my first day. I hated it when she was right. It didn’t come. I stared as lips curved into a smile that made my heart pitter patter faster, stronger, like running a race and being one second away from the finish line.
“Do you need proof?” The tall boy, lanky with a shock of dark hair grinned as he reached for the shiny buttons on his jeans. My eyes travelled down there, unable to stay up top.
“No, no no.” I couldn’t lift my eyes; they were superglued on his crotch. “We are having a drink though. If you want to join us?”
“Us?”
“Me, and uh...” My cheeks warmed as I failed to remember anyone’s names.
“With you?”
“Well. Not like that.” My face flamed to marshmallow toasting hot.
I needed to go and hide; bury myself under the duvet and never see the light of day again.
“I can’t have a drink with someone when I don’t know their name.”
“Veronica.” I blurted. Kill me. Please.
“Veronica? That’s a very grown up name you have there.”
I nodded, speechless. His voice, with a melodic strum like a guitar in perfect tune, Scottish? Irish? I’d never been very good with accents, made my stomach tumble like it free fell from thirty thousand feet.
“Veronica. I’m Matthew.” He held out his hand and my fingers slipped into his. His hand, so big though, easily encased mine. I gazed up at him even though he stooped slightly to talk to me. I became acutely aware of the white socks on his feet; something about them was appealingly attractive.
“Hi, Matthew.”
Advocate
“So the problem we have.” I slipped back into my chair, the stranger in the seat along from mine didn’t break pace for my arrival. “Is that Supersaver Foods isn’t high street viable anymore.”
“What do you mean?” A frog had taken up residence in my throat and I picked up the glass of water and tried to sip some without combining the froggish tickle with a burp.
“Supersavers has no place on the high street; it’s not one of the big four and neither is it a European import.” His tone crinkled dry as he relayed facts that his face told me were of no interest to him.
“I went through the data, and most of your branches are from the Midlands up.” My palms welded to the table-top where I could stop them shaking.
“It’s a family business that started in Scotland and then grew down the country,” he said, his head inclining a little.
I know. I read the brief, repeatedly, while I worked out how to get the job—you fucking idiot. I wanted to throw a knife at him like a javelin, spearing him straight in the chest.
Okay, so I didn’t know it was a business that happened to be his in-laws. Because life didn’t like to assist me in any way I could avoid awkwardness.
“I’m sorry.” My gaze cemented itself to the table. No matter how hard I tried to lift it to meet his. Just fucking do it, Ronnie. I blinked onto his bloody stunningly handsome—why hadn’t he aged?—face. No smile warmed his expression though, and it helped me get myself on track. “I don’t understand why you’ve taken on the company right now. It’s undergoing a rebrand that I believe…” I cast a quick look at Amanda. “Has been on the cards for a few months now.”
Amanda shifted in her seat. My eyes narrowed.
“I’m sorry, Ronnie. I didn’t give you the full details. You see Supersavers was about to be closed down. McStandish has filed for bankruptcy. Matthew stepped in and agreed to take it as part of his divorce.”
Angela seemed to have considerable knowledge about my old friend’s divorce. I blew a half-hearted draft of air through my lips.
I stared at him and it slashed like knives against my skin. “Why? I’m assuming your assets with your wife… would be split fifty-fifty. Supersaver Foods isn’t worth anything, not if it’s filing for bankruptcy.”
My heart sunk. I couldn’t take on this job, couldn’t sign a contract on this. I was trying to keep my business afloat—I needed someone who could pay.
He cleared his throat, his long fingers looping around his glass. “Because when I started divorce proceedings five years ago, the company wasn’t in receivership, but now there are one thousand members of staff to whom Supersaver Foods is worth something. It’s their pay-check.”
“Ronnie,” Amanda said. “Please say you will work on this. Yours was the only pitch we were interested in.”
“Why?”
It’s Matthew who spoke. “Because you care.” His gaze held an unanswered question.
“I’ve got a team of staff of my own who are hoping I can keep them employed.”
His stare didn’t break; it destroyed me from the inside out. Piece by piece it took me apart until I was left returned to nothing more than a teenage girl filled with want and longing so intense it was like I was filled with fire. “So then you get the situation we are in.”
I nodded once. I’d rue it, I knew I would. But I couldn’t say no. My brain wouldn’t allow me to. He knew that. He’d remembered that about me.
“I’m assuming the creditors have given you a time frame to show them a contingency plan.” It’s sad how much I’d researched the bankruptcy procedure.
“Two weeks, otherwise they start administration.”
“Two weeks?” I gasped low and gawked at him openly. “Two weeks? Are you sure?”
My chest tightened with his nod.
Two weeks? I couldn’t come up with a menu plan for home in less than two weeks, let alone a branding that could save a slumping cheap supermarket chain.
A waiter came up with a tray of drinks and settled it on the table. I smiled at him, thankful for the distraction.
“Oh, I ordered you tea while you were in the bathroom.” Matthew’s voice lilted, a strum of A major chord.
The waiter placed a mug of tea in front of me and then one in front of him. Angela got a fancy cup with a cappuccino. I glanced at the other tables, all laid with smart glassware and fine china and then I looked at the builder’s mug in front of me.
That’s not dining room china; it’s kitchen.
There could be no feasible reason for my drink to be in a wide and ugly bit of ceramic, other than he’d asked for it. “Two mugs of tea, bigger the better.” Remembering the long-forgotten words punched like a dead weight in my gut.
Then I did something terrible. I met his gaze and I saw him in the deep recesses of blue. I didn’t see the man in the suit, I saw him.
“Sugar?” Another strum of A major. He pushed the bowl towards me and his shirt sleeve moved and around the wrist of his left arm I spotted cords of cotton plaited together and tied tight around his skin. Ragged and old; the ends frayed; “That makes us best friends now.”
“Thanks.” I took the sugar bowl and concentrated on spooning a heap into the tea. And then another heap just because I didn’t want to lo
ok up again, didn’t want him to see the memories on my face, or that I fucking cared, because I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to care, but I couldn’t seem to do anything else.
And this opportunity, this chance to succeed, had just turned into a nightmare I didn’t know I could survive. In two weeks, he’d be gone again, and I’d have to go back to being angry, mourning and hating. But this time I’d be even angrier because I’d know he still had cotton threaded around his wrist and he in turn hadn’t forgotten either, no matter how much he pretended otherwise.
Take me to hell. No. Don’t bother. I’m sure I’m already there.
I glanced up to find him watching me, his gaze a complex puzzle of expectation. “Two weeks. Do you think you can?”
Aha! Another thing he’d remembered. My complete inability to create anything until my muse whispered in my ear. Lucky for me I had Fred who could perform without incentive.
I opened my mouth to say, ‘yes, sure, no problem.’ But instead I said, “Two weeks with you?”
“Just like old times.” His lips curved at the edges and my heart clanged with a long-forgotten tune.
Doomed. I was doomed.
* * *
“Mum?”
I groaned into the duvet. “She’s on holiday.”
“Nonna wanted to know if you are planning to cook dinner?”
I groaned louder, with guts and feeling. I mean I wasn’t on a massive crying jag or anything. I just needed to sit alone. In a room. By myself. Alone. Alone.
For five minutes.
Maybe five hours.
My brain wouldn’t slow. Wouldn’t stop thinking.
Memories… ideas… fucking annoying little things like: didn’t his shirt fit his shoulders so fine… followed by, I wonder why he never called… I wonder why he’s still wearing that stupid bracelet.
My head contained too many thoughts for one woman to process. A dangerous pressure built behind my right eye, pounding like a nuclear twitch.
I’d thought of calling Angela. But then I couldn’t think of anything to say. So what, Matthew Carling and I would be working together for two weeks? He wanted me to help save his company. I’m a branding expert, not a bloody business consultant.