by Mandy Baggot
‘What’s funny about that?’ Hannah asked.
‘Nothing. I didn’t realise I had … made it sound that way.’ Had she? ‘When did you … start to think that you might like him.’
Hannah shrugged. ‘He’s funny. He makes me laugh. He’s good-looking.’
Isla looked at her sister then, saw a blush pinking up her cheeks. Hannah really liked Raj. Really liked him. This hadn’t happened before. Well, if it had happened before, she definitely hadn’t told Isla about it.
‘Do you think he’s good-looking?’ Hannah queried, pulling her wheelchair to a halt.
‘Well … I …’ What to say? What to say? ‘He has nice eyes.’
‘I know,’ Hannah said, dreamily. ‘So dark and mysterious.’
In truth, Isla hadn’t looked at Raj’s eyes. She didn’t remember seeing much of his face at all as it was always half-hidden by a cap. He didn’t smell bad. Was that really all she could conjure up? There was no way she was saying that!
‘You can leave now,’ Hannah said, swinging Ronnie around and lining the wheelchair up with the ramp into Portobello Flowers.
Isla ignored the slight and instead breathed in the heady scent of the blooms in buckets on the pavement ready for a day of sales. White lilies sat next to plump yellow roses and deliciously fragrant red, pink and purple freesias spilled out of a large pewter urn. Subtle pastel carnations, bright gerberas and tiny pine cones were all wrapped up in Christmas-themed paper waiting to entice shoppers looking for something to festive-up their living space.
‘These are so lovely,’ Isla said, still sniffing. ‘Maybe I should get some for my office.’
‘You don’t have to buy flowers from here just because I work here,’ Hannah reminded her like she did every time Isla felt the urge to purchase. ‘Just get some cheap ones from Tesco.’
‘I like Claudia’s flowers,’ Isla protested. ‘And they last longer.’
Hannah was already halfway up the ramp. Her sister was here, at work, safe. Now Isla had to sprint for the Tube and hope there were no delays. She would have to look at the feather Christmas tree later, on the route back.
‘See you tonight,’ Isla called. ‘I’m going to make lasagne.’
‘Maybe we can invite the couple at number eleven,’ Hannah called back. ‘If Raj is right about them arguing all the time, perhaps a dinner with new friends might help.’
Isla smiled. ‘We’ll go over there. Introduce ourselves.’
‘See you later,’ Hannah said as Claudia opened the front door for her.
‘Bye!’
Five
Breekers London, Canary Wharf
It was ten past nine. Ten past nine! Isla was late, and on the Tube she had been pressed up against multiple people she wouldn’t usually have got within a hundred metres of, given the option. Despite the wind-shear factor rivalling anything the Arctic could throw up, she was now sweaty, with chapped lips and hair that needed Toni and Guy. Whisking through the glass doors of Breekers London she steamed toward the lifts, mentally going through the fundamental points of the Ridgepoint Hospital project she had been supposed to be starting to talk about at nine. This project was big – as important as the very first client she had handled. That first success had helped forge her path to the top at Breekers, going from personal assistant to department manager in a few quick years. She had come so far and grown so much from that desperate, yet hopeful, twenty-year-old, fresh out of college and suddenly a carer to her sister. 9.13.
‘Morning, Isla.’
‘Good morning, Denise.’ She greeted her favourite receptionist, then took a much-needed breath. ‘I don’t suppose Robert Dunbar’s running late, is he? Apparently there’s a gas main causing all sorts of problems out there.’ She hadn’t believed Poppy for a minute but it was worth a shot.
‘Robert was in at eight,’ Denise answered, pushing her glasses up her nose.
‘Of course he was,’ Isla muttered under her breath. You could set Big Ben by Robert’s punctuality. She made to stride off, perhaps run up all the stairs and get fit while she tried to beat the lift. Oh, there was a Christmas tree now. When did that arrive? She slowed her pace a little. It was beautiful and real. She inhaled the pine, spruce scent and it seemed to immediately lower her heart rate and inject her with a calming antidote to the rush and tear of crossing the city …
‘So,’ Denise began. ‘He’s coming here.’ The last part of the sentence was whispered like a government secret was being passed over and it had something to do with the Pope.
‘He?’ Isla asked, her interest piqued enough to turn away from the Christmas tree. ‘Santa? … Richard Branson again?’
‘More infamous than both of those,’ Denise said.
‘Batman?’
Denise leaned forward over her granite and sparkle reception desk. ‘Chase Bryan.’
Was she supposed to immediately know who that was? If it hadn’t been fifty-something Denise starting this conversation she might have thought it was one of the twenty-something hot actors Hannah was wanting to talk about. It still could be. Hadn’t Denise had a month-long obsession with Zac Efron last year?
‘Um … is he in La La Land?’ 9.17.
‘Almost,’ Denise breathed. ‘New York.’
Isla racked her brain for film titles. ‘Um … Miracle on the Hudson?’
‘He’s your boss. And my boss. And virtually the boss of the whole world.’
‘I thought that was Stephen Hawking.’
‘Chase Bryan is the new CEO of Breekers International.’
What? When did the company get a new CEO? Wasn’t it still ‘Big’ Bill Wartner? Big Bill with his thick, reassuring beard and pearly white smile, hair like salt and pepper candyfloss. He spoke like he had just stepped off the set of a Western and she had always imagined him in a leather waistcoat and chaps on a Dress Down Friday. Had he retired?
But instead of asking where Big Bill was Isla blurted out ‘When?’ and ‘Why?’ Was he going to be here for the Christmas party? What if he thought she had spent too much on the food this year? Was she going to have to switch lobster for crab at short notice? The caterers had gone suspiciously quiet lately. Perhaps she needed to drop them another email today …
‘I thought you would have known, being one of the top brass and all,’ Denise stated. ‘No one I’ve spoken to seems to know why. I didn’t know he was coming until this morning when Carrie heard something from Liz on the fourth floor … and then we got the email.’
Had Denise said ‘top brass’? Was she ‘top brass’? Ideally, Robert’s job would make her feel like she had really arrived but she knew the sort of hours he worked and she had Hannah.
‘So, they didn’t tell you then … before the email,’ Denise continued.
Isla looked at her watch again. ‘I’ve no idea about anything except that I’m very late and by the sound of it I need to check my emails,’ Isla said, turning away from the desk.
‘Oh,’ Denise said. ‘Strange.’
She stopped in her tracks. Something in Denise’s tone was off. Facing the receptionist again she asked, ‘Denise … what should I have needed to know before this email?’
‘Well, that’s why I’m surprised you didn’t know any of this.’
9.20.
‘Denise!’ Isla exclaimed. ‘What do I need to know?’
‘Well …’ Denise breathed. ‘You’re going to be Chase Bryan’s go-to girl.’
What? What had she just said? She swallowed. ‘His what?’ she asked out loud.
‘It said that any messages or calls or anything for the CEO had to be filtered via you while he’s over here.’
What?! She was going to be a secretary to someone she didn’t even know was in the company at all? How did that happen? Denise had just said she was ‘top brass’! Why couldn’t one of the actual personal assistants assist? And, surely you informed someone they were about to have a job role change before you announced it to the entire firm! She didn’t know what to say. And what exac
tly did being a ‘go-to’ girl entail? Going back to taking minutes and typing? Answering his mobile phone?
‘I need to go upstairs,’ Isla said, looking at her watch again. 9.22. She suddenly felt queasy and the lovely spruce aroma was somehow smelling a little too much like Olbas oil.
‘Do you know what time Chase Bryan gets here?’ Denise asked. ‘Because I might be able to squeeze in a hair appointment in my lunch break if it’s not until this afternoon.’
Isla closed her eyes as she headed to the elevator. Up until ten minutes ago she didn’t even know who the guy was. Now it seemed like he was about to take over her December.
Six
The Royale, Hyde Park
Chase felt like he’d been hit by a 4x4 driven by an angry business rival – or his ex-wife – that had then reversed back over him several times. And there was noise. A buzzing and a bleeping and something else that sounded like an Adam Levine high-note. He raised his head off the pillow … it felt like someone had swapped it out with a giant marshmallow.
‘Maddie, you’re not doing it right.’
‘I’m pressing as hard as I can.’
‘You’re not doing it right. Let me do it.’
‘That’s not fair. I wanna play.’
‘But you can’t play it right.’
‘Can so.’
‘Maddie, just give up already.’
‘No … gimme the controller back!’
The bickering was like a bucket of cold water to the face. Chase drew back the covers, grabbed his T-shirt, pulling it over his head before walking to the doors of their suite.
‘Give it back!’ Maddie screamed. ‘If you break it then we’re gonna get in trouble.’
‘If I break it I’ll say you did it,’ Brooke retorted.
‘Hey!’ Chase yelled, seeing enough. He stepped into the living area and looked at his daughters. Both of them had stopped at the sound of his voice. Brooke had an Xbox controller in her right hand, her left hand over Maddie’s, trying to tear away the other. Maddie looked pale-faced, exhausted and ready to cry. The bleeping was from the TV where cars and what looked like Smurfs were bouncing around on the screen in a computer animation.
‘What’s going on here?’ he asked.
Neither of them spoke or moved.
He sighed. ‘I thought we were catching up on some sleep.’
Now Brooke dropped her hand from Maddie’s and settled for folding her arms across her chest and adopting a chin-stuck-out obstinate stance.
‘It’s too light outside,’ Maddie replied. ‘And it’s the day.’
‘I know it’s the day and we’re all trying to work out our time zones, but we’re all dog-tired.’
‘I’m not tired,’ Brooke announced.
‘Me neither,’ Maddie said.
So, it was just him who felt like someone had removed all his internal organs on the flight over here and put them all back in in the wrong order.
‘Okay, so what do we do?’ he asked, moving towards the full-length window that overlooked the street outside. It was busy, the streets buzzing with working-day life, yet there was also a laid-back vibe he never seemed to feel in the thick of Manhattan. God, there were people down there with steaming cups of take-out in their hands. He would just about kill for a caramel latte right now.
‘We could go to McDonald’s,’ Maddie suggested.
‘Are you kidding me?’ Chase asked, looking to her.
‘I like McDonald’s,’ Maddie protested.
‘The burgers suck, Maddie. Seriously suck,’ Brooke stated.
‘We’re not gonna come all the way across the pond to eat crap we can eat at home,’ he said. Apart from a one-minute visit to Starbucks. But that was coffee. Coffee had a whole different set of rules.
‘Daddy!’ Maddie exclaimed. ‘You said the C-R-A-P word.’
Brooke sniggered. It was the closest thing he had seen to a smile since they’d left JFK.
‘Sorry, Maddie.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I just mean, if you wanna go eat, let’s go eat something British.’
‘What sort of thing do they eat?’ Maddie asked.
‘I know they drink a lot of tea,’ Brooke informed. ‘Tyler has a cousin who lives somewhere called Leighton Buzzard.’
‘Sweet tea? Like Mawmaw makes?’ Maddie queried.
‘No, it’s not sweet and you add milk,’ Chase told them.
‘Can we try it?’
‘Sure,’ Chase agreed, as his mind still served him images of froth and Arabica beans. ‘Listen, I’ll go get dressed and we’ll take in the town and drink tea.’
‘Cool,’ Maddie said excitedly.
‘Can we go somewhere with WiFi?’ Brooke asked with a sigh.
‘Sure,’ Chase answered. ‘I’ll be a minute.’
The controllers for the game station were dropped to the chaise and Maddie went scuttling off to her bedroom while Brooke sunk down on to the sofa with another pout. Chase turned back towards his room and once inside, closed the doors behind him. Taking a deep breath, he leaned his entire weight on the oak doorframe and shut his eyes. This wasn’t just fatigue or jetlag he was feeling, this was fear. He needed this job to work more than he had ever needed anything before, but maybe he wasn’t up to it. How did you come out and be the man with a vision and all the business answers when really you were running on empty? And there was no way he could go back to that dark place, not again. The current solution was to try and do what he had been doing since the day Leanna had told him she was leaving him … dig deep, dig deeper and pretend. The trouble was he had been doing a lot of pretending for so long …
‘This is a golden opportunity,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Don’t mess it up.’ He opened his eyes and blinked at his reflection in the mirror on the wall above the bed. ‘There is no such thing as a bad decision,’ he repeated. ‘A decision is only bad because you let success escape you.’ He breathed out. ‘O-Y-F.’ He focused his inner self. ‘Own your future.’
Seven
Breekers London, Canary Wharf
‘So, picture the scene.’
Isla’s colleague Aaron moved his hands in the air like he was painting the shape of a rainbow and edged closer to her desk.
‘Somehow, I end up at a country music night at this club in Soho. Don’t ask. And … Sugar. Honey. Ice Tea. There’s this hotter than hell guy I’ve been eye-flirting with at the bar all night … and he’s wearing the tightest pair of jeans – and I mean the tightest pair of jeans – and I think to myself, as I’ve drunk more bottles of Sol than Mexico produces in a month, that I am the luckiest guy right now and then …’ He performed a dramatic pause. ‘Guess what happens?’
Aaron still smelt of those bottles of Sol and nothing like the sweet fragrance of the sugar, honey or ice tea words he always said super-fast when he didn’t want to say shit. Isla sat back in her chair to both look at him and inch further away from his breath.
‘I don’t know what happens,’ she replied. ‘But I’m hoping those tight jeans stayed on, at least until you were out of the club and in a hotel room.’
‘He kisses a girl!’ Aaron exclaimed like Mr Tight Jeans had committed mass murder.
‘Oh,’ Isla stated.
‘Oh?’ Aaron said, sliding his bum on to her desk and looking shocked. ‘The guy is gay! He’s gayer than gay. Gayer than Ian McKellen gay … and obviously hotter, a bit Matt Bomer if I had to pin him down to something, and …’ He sighed. ‘I really thought I was going to get to do that but—’
‘Aaron,’ Isla said. ‘Is there a point to this story or is it something we can pick up another time? Maybe at a bar when I’m not trying to work out why I don’t seem to have arranged enough blinis for the Christmas party or why the caterers aren’t responding to my emails?’ She was completely ignoring this dropping-to-secretary level thing. Ignoring it! She had more important things to manage … and blinis were important when it was already December!
Aaron stood up, his dark head nudging one of the glittery, supposed
ly Christmas, pompoms Ethel the cleaner had made and hung from the ceiling at random points around the office. He took a step back and fastened the button of his jacket. Now he looked a bit miffed and Isla felt instantly guilty for not listening properly. The girl-kissing-alleged-gay-guy scenario was obviously more to Aaron than an anecdote they were going to share for years to come.
‘I get it,’ Aaron said. ‘You’re the “Go-To Girl” now. Super-important. Uber-busy.’
The Go-To Girl. She was hating that phrase already.
‘It really isn’t my new job description,’ she said quickly. Although theoretically it was, as of this morning, when she had stumbled late, dazed and confused, into what was supposed to be a meeting about the new hospital development. Instead it had turned into a meeting about how she was going to be the contact point for all things Chase Bryan while he was in town. And either no one knew how long he was going to be in London or they were all remaining pretty tight-lipped about it. She had quickly made a suggestion that one of the admin staff take on the role but Robert had looked at her a little like she had just offered up the services of a monkey who couldn’t even peel a banana. Isla had always found the typists and assistants very competent, but when she had opened her mouth to elaborate on this the conversation had been moved on and she knew she had no immediate choice. She was clinging to the word ‘immediate’. A cooling-off few hours, perhaps a day, and she was almost sure there would be some wiggle room on the role.
‘Well, I’ve heard he’s hot,’ Aaron remarked, his tone a little softer.
‘And gay?’ Isla asked.
‘Sadly not … well, if you can believe Denise’s third-hand gaydar. She hasn’t actually seen him yet, says it’s like a clairvoyance. He’s divorced, two children. Wanted to be an astronaut but ended up playing ice hockey, so I’m envisaging tight pants and buttocks like two of Harry Hill’s heads down his trousers.’ Aaron sighed like a thespian in Othello. ‘Then after hockey he relaunched himself as a business coach.’