Chapter Three

 

DOUG SHIFTED IN his sleep as I tried to wrestle back some of the covers. No doubt, by the rumbling snores, I would have little in the way of peace. Giving up on a bad job, I got out of bed and crept into the kitchen. Rebecca was raiding the fridge.

“You sleepwalking or consciously hoarding?”

“Awake,” Rebecca mumbled. “You should be with the foghorn.”

“I can hear him through my earplugs.”

“That’s what happens when they win a tournament. You’re lucky he isn’t tied to a lamppost naked.”

Rebecca pulled out the box of pizza from the fridge and wandered to the sofa. She had a t-shirt and boxers on. A pair of boxers I knew only too well. “I take it, your bed mate is snoring too?”

“Didn’t bring her home.”

I pulled out the jam and buttered some bread. “That bad, huh?”

Rebecca sighed, her eyes staring into nothing.

“Miss Evans again?”

In the month since our little share-fest, Miss Evans had been relentless. Warning Rebecca that she was playing with fire was not an option.

“I want to tell her it has to stop.”

“But she has you where she wants you.” The woman did too. She’d gotten Rebecca nice and inebriated, leapt on her, and had taken pictures. Now, there was no escape route.

Rebecca groaned. “I hate it.”

“I know.”

I sat beside her and munched on my bread and jam. “Doug is set on me going with him to Marseille.” I took another bite. “He is obsessed with the place.”

“I told him you’d go if he opened it in Paris,” Rebecca offered. “He didn’t bite.”

“Maybe I should tell him that something awful happened there and I can’t face going back.” I shuddered. Too close to the truth. I couldn’t do that.

“You think the woman will remember?”

Would she? Had it been as unforgettable for her? Had her heart been as totally etched with that time as mine was? “I doubt it.”

“If Doug is anything to go by, she’ll be clambering over the seats to get to you.” Rebecca smiled. “Maybe I could track her down and distract her?”

“Don’t you dare.” The venom in my voice shocked me.

“You just don’t want to go back there because you’re scared.” She looked at me. “Not about him finding out . . .” She frowned. “You’re worried that she will.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not.” She sat up straighter, pizza forgotten. “Pip, you are worried how you’ll react.”

“It’s a big city.” I held my hands up. I couldn’t cope with this. We’d get to why I left and then I’d be a jibbering idiot. “She’s probably not even living there anymore. She probably went home to her parents.” At least I hoped so. It was bad enough I had deserted her without thinking of her being alone.

Rebecca laid her head back on the sofa. “Will you stay in mine tonight?” She nodded to her room. “He’s gonna be roaring like a lion until well past midday.”

“Thought you’d never ask.” I pulled her to her feet and put the pizza box back in the fridge.

“Why did you never look at me like that?” Her words were so quiet, I wondered if I’d imagined them.

“I promise you that I have never looked at any other woman . . . like that.” I linked my arm with hers. “Trying to explain it makes it even more irrational.” She opened her bedroom door. “I mean, it was just her as a person . . . the whole package . . .”

“What did she look like?” Rebecca pulled back the bedcovers and patted the pillow down. “And don’t just say French.”

“Well, that’s what she looked like. Tall-ish . . . olive skin, long brown hair . . . I guess, sinewy?”

I cuddled up to Rebecca as she wrapped an arm around me. “What about her job? What did she do?”

“At the time, she was training to be in the gendarmerie but she worked back home, helping her dad in his stonemason’s business too.” Just talking about her made my pulse quicken with joy. “She could philosophise and discuss any topic with a passion that invigorated everyone around her.”

“You’re right,” Rebecca said. “She does sound French. I wonder what they feed them over there.”

“Food is a passion for them, I swear.” I smiled, the memory of lively debates on everything from cooking preparation to ingredient choice. “In her case a salade niçoise was her favourite.”

“She ever take you to an Italian?”

“Yes.” I was not getting sucked into Rebecca’s trap though. “I can’t remember what we had.”

“Liar.”

Her voice was heavy with sleep. I was thankful that probing me had helped still her restless mind. I had no idea how she coped with being forced to “entertain” Miss Evans.

It made me glad that I was off the market. Doug was all I wanted. It made things an awful lot simpler that way. She was more than likely married and happy to some model-esque wife who was perfect in every way. She wouldn’t even spare a thought for me, would she?

 

THE RAIN HAD decided it would camp out in London for the spring as the month wore on. Rebecca had been at Miss Evans beck and call which meant Doug had happily muscled in. He’d been so constant that I was starting to wonder if he had actually moved in. I wasn’t overawed with finding his socks in my pile of laundry. When he told me he had to go away for a business trip, I was guilty of feeling just a tad bit relieved.

“I’ll be gone a few days at most,” Doug told me as he held me tightly. “I want to get some things sorted for the centre and I’ll be back.” He smiled. “Or you could come visit?”

“I’m busy, sweetheart.” I would be so for as long as I could delay. Space, space and quiet. Space, quiet, and control of the TV. “Last thing I want is to be going back there.”

A frown wrinkled his forehead. “What?”

“A year was long enough in that place.” I hated lying, but the closer his centre opening got, the more the panic seemed to warp my thinking. “Now, if you offered me Paris or maybe Toulon . . .”

“I thought you loved it there?”

“I love the memory of it.” At least that wasn’t a lie. “But I don’t want to revisit the past.” Again honesty, I was on a roll. “I’d rather make new memories with you.”

He squeezed me tightly, his kiss more possessive than usual. Did he want to shove me in his suitcase or what? “We will. I love you, Pippa.”

Clinging to the hope that he had gotten the hint at last, I returned his kiss in kind. “I love you too, sweetheart.”

An hour later I was in my cubicle thumping away at my sticky keyboard. Rebecca summoned me into her office.

“You okay there?” I asked as I shut the door behind me.

“No.” She had puffy eyes and her nose was streaming. Did she have a cold? “Judy.”

I hurried around to her. “What happened?”

“She wants more.”

That did not sound good. “How do you feel about that?”

“You sound like a shrink.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

She rested her head on my chest as I perched on the arm. I hoped it would hold me or we’d end up sprawled in a heap. “I’m heavier than you, quit worrying.”

I kissed the top of her head and held her close. “What do you want to do?”

“Nothing.” Rebecca sighed. “She was married to the director. I don’t care what she wants.” She nuzzled in closer. “I can’t do it.”

“Wow, you sound so noble.” I wanted to squeeze the pain out of her. “Why couldn’t you have been like this all along?”

“Where would be the fun in that?”

“You might get a woman that deserves you instead of the rubbish you pick up.”

Rebecca chuckled. “Oh they do deserve me . . . A cocky idiot like me is what you get for straying.”

There were times I wanted to knock sense into her. Why couldn’t she see what a wonderful woman she was? “So what did you say?”

“That I didn’t want to know.” She gripped hold of my shirt, squeezing it between her hands. “I told her we had to stop talking.”

“You did the right thing.” I was so impressed by her strength that I felt a new wave of affection for her. “How ’bout we forget work and go watch some DVD’s—”

“She fired me.”

“What?”

Rebecca pointed to the box on the desk. I’d walked straight past and not even noticed. Good thing I’d never wanted to be a detective.

“But they can’t do that!” My heart thudded and my stomach churned up with the injustice of it. That couldn’t happen, there were laws. There were . . . well . . . laws.

“She did.”

Security knocked on the door. I clung to Rebecca. No, no, that wasn’t fair.

“Miss Whitely?”

Rebecca got up and picked up the box off her desk.

I seethed with thudding anger as I watched her walk out of her office. No, this was wrong.

“Wait.” The lovely security guards, who I often skived off work to chat to, stopped and let Rebecca turn around. “Just wait there a moment . . . please?”

Not waiting for a reply, I marched down the corridor and burst into the meeting room.

The director, Miss Evans, the board, all looked up at me.

“Something wrong?” the director asked.

I took a deep breath. “Yes.”

Expectant eyes waited for me to say something else. It was wrong, Rebecca . . . It was wrong. “Your ex-wife is unprofessional.” Bad start, I would never make a good lawyer.

“Excuse me?” The director was a nice guy. I really did not want to rip his heart to shreds. Everyone knew he still loved the wench.

“Miss Evans. She fired someone without grounds for dismissal.” Was that even a term?

“Miss Saunders, please explain yourself.”

Miss Evans sat there with a smug grin on her face. I was never one to open my mouth about anything. I never rocked the boat. Here I was about to destroy the poor bloke’s heart. What did I do?

“She blackmailed Rebecca.” Nice start, numpty. “Now she’s fired her.”

“You fired Miss Whitely?” The director frowned. “Why?”

Miss Evans did not look so confident now. “She made inappropriate suggestions—”

“You’re lying!”

The director looked as shocked at my outburst as I was. My knees felt like they were about to buckle and I could see my own hand wobbling as I ran it through my hair. “She came to our flat. Doug can vouch for that.”

“I simply—”

“She told Rebecca that if she didn’t . . .” I wasn’t brave enough to actually say the words so instead motioned with my hands and nodded to signify that it was in that way. “Then she would get her fired.”

“Judy?” The director seemed less than surprised at her. An element of boredom seeped through. Ah, so she’d always been a floozy. “Miss Whitely was a perfectly good sales rep.”

“Was?” I scowled. “You can’t do this to her.”

“I think you have said enough, Miss Saunders,” the director said. His voice was gentle but enough to tell me that the matter was closed. “We will talk about this at a more appropriate time.”

They were going to sweep it all under the carpet. Miss Evans looked quietly smug at his words.

“No.”

“No?” The director looked over his glasses at me.

“No. I will not talk about this at an appropriate time.” No way. I wanted to throttle the vicious bitch. “I’m done. I quit.”

Miss Evans and the board looked unmoved.

“And I will be making sure that Doug knows about the way you treat your employees.”

Boy, didn’t that change the mood. “Now, Miss Saunders—”

“Forget it.” I stomped towards the door. “Consider Fletcher Enterprises an ex-client.” I slammed the meeting room door closed with a satisfying thud and turned to see Rebecca, the security guards, and a gaggle of staff all staring wide-eyed at me.

“I was saying . . .” I took Rebecca by the elbow and led her towards my cubicle to pick up my bag, my coat, and my little ornament of a hug Doug had bought me. “We need to go watch DVDs.”

“I think I may fight Doug and propose,” Rebecca mumbled as we headed into the lift. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as awesome.”

My hands were still shaking as I gripped hold of my ornament. “I can’t believe I just quit.”

Rebecca adjusted her hold on her box of things and shook her head. “I can’t believe you just quit.”

Rebecca followed me out to Winston. I guessed the company car was a moot point now. Aptly enough, it was still raining so our riding off into the sunset was more a sodden squelch to the car park. Elizabeth Bennett never had to deal with this crap.

“We’re jobless,” Rebecca said, stowing her stuff in the back seat. “What do we do now?”

“I would say call my mum but I doubt even she could fix this,” I said as we got in.

Rebecca squeezed my knee. “DVDs it is then.”

Winston spluttered into life and Rebecca’s teary words rose above the squeaky brakes. “I love you. You know that, right?”

“I’ll remind you of that when we are scrabbling for pennies to eat.”

Rebecca laughed. “Thankfully you have a rich fiancé.”

Ah, Doug. I really hoped he would become a hero, Mr. Darcy style, and make good on my threat. I really hoped that he could support us until Rebecca and I found new jobs. He’d always offered and now it seemed like we couldn’t refuse.

“At least he’ll get his wish, huh?”

Rebecca nodded. “Yeah. Don’t think we have an excuse not to go to France now.”

“We?”

She squeezed my knee again. “Like I said, I have your back.” She smiled at me. “Besides, maybe some French R and R is just what we need.”