by Jules Wake
The Saturday Morning Park Run
Jules Wake
One More Chapter
a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020
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Copyright © Jules Wake 2020
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Cover design by Lucy Bennett © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020
Cover illustration © Joanna Kerr/Meiklejohn
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Jules Wake asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
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All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
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Source ISBN: 9780008323653
Ebook Edition © August 2020 ISBN: 9780008323646
Version: 2020-07-30
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Thank you for reading…
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About the Author
Also by Jules Wake
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About the Publisher
This book is dedicated to my Great Aunt Hilda who at 105 is an inspiration to us all
Chapter One
I picked up my pace, clutching my travel mug of coffee – there was no way I could start the day without a hit of caffeine – my heels click clicking like runaway castanets as I joined the midweek tide of people pouring along the path with ant-like efficiency, all headed towards Churchstone station and the daily commute to Leeds.
I listened to the sharp, staccato beat of my shoes. To me they said, quick, precise and well-organised. And just because I wore high, sexy designer shoes (Russell and Bromley thank you; who can afford Jimmy Choos?!) I wasn’t like all the bitch bosses in romcoms. They were high but not super high, and made from supple, polished black leather. As sexy shoes, went they were workmanlike but expensive. I think shoes say a lot about you. I wanted people to know that I, Claire Harrison, had got where I was through hard work and intelligence but I still had class and style. Shoes have nuances and with this pair, I’d nailed it. Just like the meeting I was headed to. I’d worked all weekend to get this presentation to within an inch of perfection.
Mentally, I ticked off my list. Presentation done. Boardroom booked. Team briefed. The truth was, I’d been working for weeks on this meeting and had clocked up many a sleepless night. Reorganising the audit team was a huge responsibility and I was just praying I’d got it right and wasn’t creating an opening for a couple of redundancies. My promotion to partner depended on this and surely by now I’d jumped through enough hoops. Unfortunately, they just kept piling more on my plate, as if to test at what point I’d give in. They’d have a long wait.
On the personal front, I’d texted my sister an ambiguous ‘maybe’ in response to repeated pleas to help her this weekend, booked a long-overdue dental appointment and seriously considered phoning the doctor to arrange a smear test. All in all, my to-do list was nicely full of ticks and just as I was congratulating myself, everything came to a sudden halt. With a start, I slapped a hand over the top of my coffee cup and stopped abruptly because an older woman with a dandelion clock of white hair wearing a sunshine-yellow tracksuit, Day-glo pink trainers, and a silver lamé messenger bag slung across her chest darted out of the lane on the right, cutting across the main path only to disappear down the opposite track. Thankfully, despite slopping wildly, my coffee stayed put and hadn’t dripped all over my brand-new kingfisher-blue suit, worn with a crisp white shirt designed to say I’m chic, stylish and extremely competent. Or at least that’s what I hoped it said to my bosses. Phew no spillage. Near disaster averted.
Unfortunately, even as I was congratulating myself, it seemed the woman’s sudden appearance had startled several wood pigeons pecking desultorily on the grass verge and with a cacophony of outraged squawks and a flurry of feathers, they clumsily took flight, heedless of the commuters hell-bent on reaching the station for the seven-twenty train.
The man in front of me stopped dead and then, in order to avoid the pigeons, the stupid idiot took a step back doing a Matrix-style back-bend manoeuvre, sending the tails of his fine wool suit flying. In some sort of slow-motion panic, I registered this as he tried to dodge one of the birds, adding a twist at the last minute that brought him face to face with me, or rather, coffee cup to coffee cup.
The refillable cups collided, a spout of brown liquid shooting up into the air. And what goes up must come down. We both glanced up with quick, horrified fascination and then there was no time to dodge the inevitable downflow of hot, wet coffee.
The splash hit my beautiful white shirt dead centre, right above my cleavage, liquid seeping through and puddling in between my boobs. Brown stains blossomed with inexorable progress, bleeding out over my chest across the front of my white shirt. Shit. Shit. Shit. I did not need this today of all days.
‘Oh my God!’ I cried and glared up at him. ‘You idiot.’ Why the hell hadn’t he had the presence of mind to hang on to his bloody coffee?
He was trying to stroke the coffee away from his own white shirt, completely oblivious to what he’d done, and then he glanced up at me, his eyes zeroing in on my damp chest.
‘Idiot? Me? Why weren’t you looking where you were going?’
‘Me?’ I asked, now rummaging one handed in my shoulder bag. I had some travel tissues in there somewhere.
‘You went into the back of me. In a car, it would be your fault.’
What? He had to be flipping joking. ‘You reversed into me. Look at the state of my shirt.’ I let out a ‘Grrr’ noise out of sheer frustration. My shirt was absolutely ruined. And why was he glaring at me as if this was my fault.
Wow, he has unusual eyes, a kind of golden green.
Who cares about his effing eyes, Claire? What is the m
atter with you?
Given the circumstances, that was a completely inappropriate observation. Since when did I go around checking out men’s eyes? I gave up on that sort of thing a long time ago. A girl can only suffer so many disappointments. My career was enough for me; besides, lots of men couldn’t hack it. Couldn’t handle that I was more successful than them.
‘Shit. I’ve got a meeting with the board in an hour’s time. Look what you’ve done.’ I glanced down at my coffee-stained shirt.
He pulled a hanky out of his pocket and began rubbing ineffectually at his chest, which made me bite back a quick smile of amusement. Couldn’t he see that his shirt, like mine, was toast? ‘And I’ve got a meeting with the Vice President of Commercial Banking in an hour’s time,’ he snapped back, those unusual eyes flashing with fury.
‘And I’m presenting to the CEO who is coming up from London,’ I retorted as I shook out a tissue to mop up the worst of the liquid, now cooling and pooling with an uncomfortable tickle between my breasts.
‘Good for him. Are you attempting to play my-job-is-bigger-than-yours? Because I can assure you, my meeting is pretty important.’
‘Just like a man to assume his meeting must be more important than a woman’s.’
Oh God, I’ve been down this road so many times.
‘Not at all.’ His eyes narrowed as he said a touch snootily, ‘I’m just observing that my meeting is very important and that I’m now going to be on the backfoot if I go in looking like this.’ With surprisingly expressive hands, he flicked them downward to make his point.
‘I’ve been preparing for this meeting for weeks,’ I snapped back, my heart starting to thud with the realisation that this really was a disaster. This meeting was supposed to show the big wigs that I was the ultimate professional, totally in control, and knew exactly what I was doing. The swan gliding without effort and not the puddle duck swimming for her life.
For a brief moment, we both stood examining ourselves and each other, surveying the damage, horribly aware of the curious looks of the other commuters and then we both carried on our pre-programmed trajectory towards the station, mopping ourselves as we went. He with a large hanky and me with a succession of tissues.
I winced as we fell into step together. At least I’d got off lightly. Only my shirt was ruined, perhaps thanks to the small shelf of my boobs – useful for once – which had taken the brunt of the coffee downpour. Unfortunately for him, there was a stain right down his crotch. That stain wouldn’t be coming out any time soon. That really was a disaster.
‘Where do you work?’ I asked.
‘What?’ he asked shortly with an angry glance my way, as if to ask what the hell did that have to do with anything.
‘Where do you work?’ I asked again, even more irritated. I was trying to be helpful.
‘Beechwood Harrington,’ he snapped out.
‘No,’ I said a little more gently. ‘I meant the location. Is there a shop near where you work, like an M&S or something?’ I nodded to his trousers. ‘You could buy an emergency…’ My voice trailed off as he looked down and his eyes widened in horror. He muttered an epithet under his breath.
‘This is a six-hundred-pound Armani,’ he snarled. ‘Marks & Spencer doesn’t cut it in my line of work.’ He checked his watch and I could see him doing the same rapid calculation I’d just done. Was there time to go home and change?
‘It’s better than nothing,’ I returned. ‘I was trying to help. Find a solution. Have you got time to go back home and change? Or you could phone someone?’
‘Phone someone?’ He didn’t need to look quite so incredulous.
‘Yes, like in your office. I’m going to phone my PA – she comes in later than me – and ask if I can borrow another shirt or something.’ Ros, my fantastically reliable and awesome assistant, lived in the city and absolutely refused point blank to arrive at work a second before she had to – she had school-aged children that had to be dropped off – but was a trojan for every second she was at work.
‘What?’ He looked at me as if I were completely mad.
‘It’s a solution.’ I was big on solutions; in fact, most of the time that was my job.
He gave a short mirthless laugh. ‘Hmm, I can just see myself in Chas’s suit. I’m a thirty-two waist. He’s at least a forty. Oh, let me see, Gav, he’s five foot ten. Half-mast trousers are all the rage in my office.’
I looked down at his legs, and up and up and up. He must have been at least six two. He had long legs, really long legs, a slim waist, broad chest, and wide shoulders. My mouth went a little dry. If he hadn’t been so grumpy, he’d have been seriously hot. Especially with those gorgeous eyes against his dark skin, which were now studying me with a slight hint of amused condescension. I think I might have been ogling. Feeling a blush streak my cheeks, I hurriedly said, ‘Have you got hand driers in the loos? Maybe you could rinse your shirt out… dry it off in the gents.’
With a glower he shook his head. ‘Any more bright suggestions?’
‘I’m only trying to help,’ I said with an indifferent shrug. It was his problem after all.
‘It would have helped a lot more if you’d been looking where you were going.’
God, he was like a dog with a bone. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous. You’re being childish. What’s the point of going over old ground? What’s done is done and now you need to find a solution. If you’re not interested in my very sensible suggestions, that’s your loss.’
I was pleased to see my words shut him up rather neatly. As we hit the edge of the park and the familiar station sign loomed into view on the other side of the road, I pulled out my phone.
‘Hi Ros, it’s Claire. Sorry to bother you so early. Yes. I’m on my way. Can I ask a huge favour? I’ve had a bit of disaster. A spillage… yes… coffee everywhere. Please can I borrow a clean shirt? White?’ I asked with more hope than belief. ‘Okay. I didn’t think you would.’ I laughed out loud at the very thought of it. ‘Do you have a colour that anyone might describe as pale?’ Ros favoured patterns and bright colours. ‘I know,’ I responded to Ros’s snort and observation that her impressive double-D accommodating shirts would drown me. I’m a comfortably average thirty-four B. ‘But I’m desperate.’
‘Thank you, I owe you… not that much.’ I laughed at her suggestion that she was given the rest of the week off. Ros was nothing if not forthright and ballsy.
‘Handy to have such an accommodating PA,’ observed the man rolling his eyes.
‘Jealous?’ I asked sweetly, now that salvation was at hand. He ought to be; Ros was worth her weight in gold, and the rest. She was a diamond among PAs and my absolute rock.
‘It’s just a question of hiring the right sort of people.’
The man snorted rudely. I shrugged again. For God’s sake, I’d tried to help him but if he was just going to be sarcastic he could sort himself out.
‘I have an excellent PA,’ he retorted, ‘but I don’t think my legs will do justice to one of her Reiss skirts.’
We flashed our travel passes and headed down to the platform in perfect synchronicity, my quick strides matching those long legs.
As usual at that time, it was crowded. He came to a stop in the one clear area and I was buggered if he was going to have it all to himself, so I stopped there too. There was room for us both despite his scowl at my proximity. Ignoring him, I began to scroll through my messages on my phone.
Damn, my sister wasn’t taking no for an answer.
Don’t give me that I’m working crap. It’s Saturday. Even Wonder Woman gets a day off. Tell me you’ve got something better to do.
My sister Alice was not one for subtlety. I sighed. I was knackered. The last thing I wanted to do was spend a Saturday trimming her sodding hedge. It was horribly overgrown, took up two sides of her garden and I really needed to go into the office. Maybe I could fob her off to the following Saturday. I was so behind, having been given yet another project to sort out. That was the by-product
of being good at your job and good at finding those pesky solutions. You ended up with everyone else’s problems and had to solve them when someone else threw in the towel with the deadline imminent. Going into the office at the weekend meant I could get loads done. Gritting my teeth, I wondered if I ought to offer her the money to pay for a man to come in but I’d already paid for my nieces’ school dinners and their summer uniforms this month. Not that I minded, but every now and then Alice would get on her high horse and accuse me of throwing my money around to ‘buy people’.
Thankfully, the arrival of the train dispelled my thoughts on the best solution for Alice’s hedge and I realised that my new friend and I had boarded the same carriage, snagging the last available seats which were, as bad fortune would have it, bang opposite each other. He plugged himself into his phone and I pulled out the sheets of my presentation to go over my points one last time, making sure I had committed all the figures to memory, absently tugging at my clammy shirt to pull it away from my chest. Damn. It was guaranteed that my best M&S Rosie for Autograph bra was ruined and, to add insult to injury, I’d bought four pairs of matching knickers, at a ridiculously expensive price.