‘You know what would put him off?’ Midnight added.
‘The baby?’
‘Exactly.’
Phoebe stared across the shop floor at where Steve was running his finger along the top of Gareth’s till and gesticulating about something it was obvious only he could understand as Gareth stared at him blankly. Phoebe assumed he was complaining about cleanliness, but as it wasn’t Gareth’s job to clean the tills it seemed a bit unnecessary. Perhaps Steve was having a mini-breakdown, just one of the weekly occurrences Phoebe now missed as she worked upstairs. ‘I suppose it’s going to have to come out sooner or later,’ she said thoughtfully, her eyes still trained on Steve. ‘I only kept it to myself because Jack said…’
‘But, it’s not up to Jack, is it? This is your life and your call. If you want to tell people then you go for it.’
‘You know what?’ Phoebe turned to her and smiled. ‘I actually really do want to tell people.’
‘Then do it.’
Phoebe pulled Midnight’s wrist towards her and looked at her watch. ‘Half an hour until the next story session. I don’t know if that’s enough time to make the announcement.’
‘What are you going to do, organise a marching band? Stop making excuses. Go up there and tell Dixon. That’s all you’ll need to do; it’ll spread like wildfire after that anyway.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘Of course I am.’
They were interrupted by a shamefaced and rather shell-shocked Gareth. ‘Um… Steve says –’
‘I know what Steve says,’ Midnight snapped. ‘I’m coming.’
‘Hey…’ Gareth backed away.
‘No need to shoot the messenger,’ Phoebe cut in, cocking an eyebrow at Midnight.
‘I’ll do more than shoot him if he doesn’t piss off,’ Midnight returned as they watched him scuttle back to his till.
‘I think he’s rather hoping you will,’ Phoebe said with a mischievous smile.
‘Gareth? I don’t think so. You know that amazing guy I said I wouldn’t find in Millrise? He’s exhibit A. If you ever needed more evidence than that I don’t know where you’d find it.’
‘He’s not that bad.’
‘He’s not that good either and I’m not desperate. Not yet, anyway. Now, vamoose!’
‘Okay, okay… I’m going. God, you’re so bossy.’ Phoebe headed for the stairs. ‘Wish me luck!’ she called.
‘You’re going to need it,’ Midnight muttered as she smiled and waved.
Phoebe ran so fast up the stairs that she almost didn’t see Adam on the blind corner until it was too late. He was partly the reason she was running that fast in the first place, hoping to make it to the relative safety of her and Dixon’s office before she bumped into him anywhere he could make more of his increasingly obvious advances. Far from curbing his behaviour, since the rumours about their kiss on the rooftop had emerged, he didn’t seem to care too much for discretion at all. So, while she was expecting to have to do her customary ducking and diving on the stairs as she tried to negotiate a way out of the situation, she didn’t expect what actually followed.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry…’ she mumbled, hand on her chest. ‘I was rushing… back from lunch… you know how it is, something to talk to Dixon about…’
‘Right.’ Adam dug his hands in his pockets. ‘I’m glad I bumped into you, actually. Not this literally, of course.’
‘Really?’ Phoebe glanced past him, but her escape route was well and truly blocked by his frame. Perhaps deliberately. Not that it mattered, of course, even if there was enough space to squeeze through she didn’t suppose for a minute she’d get away with it. ‘Is it anything important, only I have a story session in about twenty minutes or so and –’
‘Doesn’t Melissa Brassington do those?’
‘Yes, but –’
‘And perhaps one of the other shop floor staff would step in and look after the café and till?’ he added, pre-empting her fallback excuse. The fact was that she had already arranged for all those things to be done. She only liked to be on hand, watching from the sidelines, just in case she was needed. It had been that way from the start and it was hard to let go of the habit. Adam had obviously noticed the usual pattern.
‘It’s just that I like to be there. Something might need sorting or go wrong.’
‘It’s commendable that you do. Can you spare five minutes, though?’
‘Um… I suppose I could.’ Phoebe didn’t really see that she had a choice.
‘Good. We’ll use my dad’s office.’
‘Won’t it be locked?’ Phoebe asked. Old Mr Hendry had a grand office along the corridor from HR but it was seldom used these days and was always locked. Adam seemed to prefer working from various other offices and bases around the store, to keep a closer eye on his empire everyone supposed, but Phoebe often thought that if she was forced to spend her time in a room like old Mr Hendry’s she’d probably choose to work from other places as often as she could too. She’d only ever been in there once, and recalled that the overwhelming smell of damp was even stronger than in the office she shared with Dixon. That, and the fact that there were a lot of faded portraits too.
As soon as she had asked the question, she knew how stupid it was. Adam shook the offending article in front of her. ‘It won’t take a minute.’
Phoebe wondered vaguely what the it he was referring to was. And if it was only going to take a minute, then she didn’t rate it much. However, unable to come up with a convincing excuse to escape, Phoebe had no choice but to follow him up the stairs, past the sanctuary of Dixon waiting behind a closed door, and along to the empty office in question. He rattled the key in the lock and it swung open on squeaking hinges to release the fusty smell of old wood and damp carpets.
‘After you,’ Adam said as he reached for the light switch. Phoebe stepped in, and then the door was closed. She noted that the blinds were down but Adam didn’t attempt to open them, preferring to keep the daylight and the outside world from their meeting. It didn’t really seem like a good sign, but Phoebe couldn’t quite grasp why. She tried to comfort herself with the idea that he wasn’t bothering to open them because he wasn’t planning to use the room for long. He turned to her, digging his hands in his pockets again.
‘First off, I’d like to thank you for the hard work and loyalty you’ve shown to the store over the past few months.’
Odd, Phoebe thought as she wondered how to reply. No please sit down, no preamble – in fact, no real need to thank her when you considered that her loyalty and hard work amounted to half a year with the company that others had spent half their lives faithfully serving. Was he going to bring them all up here one by one, make them stand in a dark office and thank them?
‘Thank you,’ was the best she could do. She hovered uncertainly by the door. Was that it? Could she go now?
‘The new revenues from your story sessions and themed events aren’t enough to pull us completely out of the danger zone yet, and I suspect we may have many more tricky years ahead of us,’ he continued, ‘but I’m confident that you’ve helped us make strides in the right direction.’
‘Good,’ Phoebe replied. ‘It’s what Mr Hendry hired me to do so I’m glad that my work is helping.’
She glanced around the room so that she wouldn’t have to look at him. It looked dusty, even though she knew that the other person who had a key was the cleaner, who came up here every night to give it the once-over. These sorts of rooms always looked dusty, though. Perhaps it was the bad rap they got from old horror films and period dramas.
Not that any of it was important now, of course. Just what was going on here? Usually, at this point in a room alone with him, Adam would have been breathing down her neck in an attempt to get close. But now he was standing feet away from her, hands in pockets, wittering about the business with a look like a lost puppy. This wasn’t Adam Hendry, at least, not the one she knew. Or, perhaps this was more like the real one than any version sh
e’d met before. Either way, she felt almost sorry for him in this state. She also rather liked this Adam, who seemed fallible and uncertain, and, well… human.
‘And how is everything with you?’ he asked. Phoebe couldn’t help a slight disbelieving raise of her eyebrows. ‘I mean,’ he continued, ‘it’s just that… I hope you don’t mind me saying but you haven’t seemed always completely content over the last few weeks. It’s nothing to do with your job here, is it?’
‘God, no! I love my job! I had a few personal issues, but it’s all fine now.’
‘That’s good.’ Another uncertain hesitation. ‘I’m your boss but I like to think I can be a friend too. And so I want you to know that you can talk to me anytime you like about anything that’s troubling you.’
‘Oh… thanks,’ Phoebe said. She wondered when the hidden camera crew was going to leap out and start patting her on the back while she cried tears of relief mingled with embarrassed laughter and repeatedly called them all bastards. Because this situation couldn’t be real.
‘When you say your personal life…’ His hand came out from his pocket, brushed through his hair, and then shot back where it had come from. ‘You’re still okay with…’
‘My boyfriend?’ Phoebe finished for him. She had half guessed this might be where the conversation was leading. In one way or another, any interaction with Adam ended up at this point. But it had never gone quite this way before. Why the sudden uncertainty? It was a new and difficult to believe revelation, but perhaps Adam genuinely liked her rather than seeing her as another conquest. Something had changed, or at least, it felt that way. Phoebe almost preferred the old Adam, the predatory letch; it was easier to say no to him, especially back in the days when she was more certain of Jack. This Adam was really rather sweet. If he’d been like this from the start, who knew where things might have ended up?
Phoebe took a deep breath. ‘There’s something I need to tell you –’
‘Come for a drink with me…’ Adam blurted out before she’d had a chance to finish.
‘What?’
‘You know, a drink.’
‘But I’m –’
‘Seeing someone, I know. But you could give it a try, couldn’t you, a night out with me? If you have fun then we could… well, you could…’
‘Dump him for you?’
‘All’s fair in love and war, right?’ He gave her a guilty smile that held glimpses of the Adam she knew of old, a faint look of superiority that assumed she wouldn’t be able to resist. It was absolutely all she needed to resist.
‘That’s true. But it wouldn’t change the fact that I’m carrying Jack’s baby.’
Adam stared at her. It wasn’t the way she had wanted to break the news to him of her pregnancy – not to anyone, in fact – but what else could she do? Midnight was right; it was the only way to put him off once and for all. If it didn’t, then he needed therapy.
‘Oh…’ he replied stiffly. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Thank you.’ Phoebe inched towards the door. ‘Sorry…’
He gave her a tight, forced smile.
‘Maybe, though…’ she added, ‘it would have been fun to go out…’ Get out, Clements! What the hell are you doing; you’re making it worse! The moment was awkward as hell and she found herself filling the chasm of silence with platitudes that she knew were idiotic to say the least. But he had been so uncharacteristically sweet that she simply wanted to make him feel better about it all. ‘I probably would have said yes…’ she continued, ignoring the Jiminy Cricket voice in her head telling her to stop, ‘had things been different…’
‘Of course you would.’
‘I’ll go then…’
‘Phoebe!’ he called as she turned to leave the office. ‘I hope you’re going straight to HR to make the necessary arrangements. I’m quite certain that the health and safety rules change when you become pregnant. You’re not supposed to keep information like this from the company.’ In that moment, the Adam of old had returned, the familiar arrogance present in his voice.
‘I will. I’ve only just found out,’ Phoebe lied.
‘Good. Then I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘You’re finished for the day?’
‘Meetings this afternoon… very important meetings off site. One more thing…’
‘Yes?’
‘I can rely on your…’
‘Discretion? Yes, of course.’
He nodded his thanks and Phoebe let herself out.
She went straight to the bathroom, too stunned to go and see anyone else just yet. She needed to collect her thoughts and she wanted to keep her promise to Adam that she wouldn’t tell anyone about what had just happened, not even Midnight. Especially not Midnight, now that she came to think of it. She had a feeling that her face would betray a certain drama if she talked to anyone before she’d had time to pull herself together.
She turned over the events as she splashed water on her face. It had been lovely to see that Adam was a real human being after all, but horrible all in the same breath to have to dash his hopes. Phoebe had always assumed that his interest in her was purely about sexual power, that she was just another potential notch for his bedpost. Now she wondered whether his feelings had indeed been more genuine, while being Adam Hendry, he’d simply had no way of expressing them other than playing the letch. If that was the case, the fact that she’d had to refuse him in such a blunt way upset her more than she could fully comprehend. She had never wanted to hurt anyone in life, not even a man like him. Now, right at the back of her mind, was a new foreboding that she may well have sealed her doom at Hendry’s by humiliating the future CEO, no matter how unintentional it had been. Only time would tell and she would have to deal with it as it happened.
But at least there was no way she could keep her pregnancy secret now. And she really didn’t want to anymore.
For a short while her problems with Jack were pushed out of her mind as colleagues around the store congratulated her. Once she began telling everyone about her pregnancy, she wondered how she had thought the idea so scary before. One or two offered dated but well meaning advice, while Tania Simpson, proud mother of five children, told her horror stories about childbirth and childrearing. No horror story could compete with the one she already knew, of course – Rebecca’s story – but she tried to put this out of her mind and enjoy the good wishes that everyone was sending her way.
Dixon had been the hardest to tell, because Phoebe felt keenly how much he had come to rely on her and just how much he’d miss her help when the time came to go on maternity leave. He’d never say it, of course, but he didn’t need to. They’d grown very fond of each other in a short time, and Phoebe would miss not seeing him every day at work.
She’d already decided she would return to work (not that a decision ever really had to be made there) but she’d still have to be away for six months at least. She told Dixon that she’d stay in touch and that she still wanted to contribute in an unofficial capacity, even if she couldn’t be on the premises. He told her that they’d tick over just fine in her absence and he’d hear nothing of the sort. Her baby needed her more than Hendry’s, he said. She knew that his sentiment was heartfelt and honest, but underneath it all he was feeling just a little lost.
She’d been so wrapped up in the various conversations around the store that there had only been time for a brief check on the first story session of the afternoon. By now it was two-thirty and she still hadn’t had the opportunity to phone Jack either. It was all very well shouting about motherhood, but perhaps she ought to sort out the father too. And someone else occupied her thoughts now that things had calmed down a little. She kept telling herself that Adam wasn’t and never would be her type, but she couldn’t stop thinking about him. If only things had been different; who knew what might have been? If only he hadn’t been so damned vulnerable and normal during their last meeting, perhaps she wouldn’t be feeling this strange, wistful sort of guilt now.
Sti
ll, she had work to do and all that would have to wait. She forced thoughts of both men from her mind and tried to concentrate on the pile of paperwork currently heaped on her desk.
‘It certainly explains a lot,’ Dixon said. It was actually the fourth time he had said this since Phoebe had broken the news to him. ‘I had wondered why you looked so washed out all the time but I didn’t like to ask. And those funny turns you kept having when I brought in certain food for lunch.’
Phoebe silently wondered who wouldn’t have a funny turn when faced with the stench of mackerel and red onion sandwiches right under their nose. She simply smiled.
‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner, but I had to be sure, you know.’
‘Yes… quite. It’s very sensible to make certain before you announce anything. And I’m grateful that so many of your projects are pretty much self-sustaining, you’ve set them up so well. It shouldn’t be too difficult to keep them up and running when you go off to have the baby.’
‘I hope so.’ Phoebe chewed on the end of her pen as she turned her attention back to a fancy dress catalogue. She flicked a page and began circling some prices.
‘Can I get you anything?’ Dixon asked.
Phoebe looked up. She didn’t need anything now and she hadn’t needed anything the previous three times he had asked. She hoped this wasn’t going to be a recurring theme for the rest of her working time or she might start to find it irritating, no matter how well-intentioned.
‘I’m fine, honestly. There’s really no need to worry about me.’
‘But if there was anything you need you’d tell me? I feel terrible about all those times you must have needed a window open, or felt faint, and I didn’t do anything about it.’
‘You couldn’t have known if I didn’t tell you,’ Phoebe smiled. ‘How is that your fault?’
The Spring of Second Chances : An absolutely perfect and uplifting romantic comedy Page 29