‘I wanted to get out of the city.’
‘At four in the morning?’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘So you took your shiny new toy out for a spin in the torrential rain and drove it into a ditch? Great way to wake you up.’
‘I didn’t do it intentionally.’
‘Didn’t do it...’ She shakes her head in despair.
‘Please, just calm down.’
‘Calm? Are you serious? What’s going on, Liv? Is it some weird midlife crisis? Is it Nathan, because seriously, sis, there’s enjoying your freedom and then there’s—’
‘Please, Fee.’ I wince as my head pounds in time to her words; the mention of Nathan and her very vocal expression of how messed up our relationship was making my stomach roll. I don’t have the strength to defend him, to defend ‘us’, not right now.
‘I’m sorry, but it’s madness. Think about how Mum felt seeing it on the news before anyone had a chance to call her.’
‘Mum?’ I go to sit up and groan as pain shoots up my spine and my entire body seems to go into spasm. I collapse back, grateful for the plush pillow beneath me. ‘Is she here?’
‘No.’ She softens her voice and leans in to press a soothing hand to my shoulder. ‘I told her she didn’t need to travel the length of the country to check on you because I was closer, and you were fine.’
‘And I am fine.’
‘Aye, you look it too.’
I roll my head to her, my smile small. ‘Cheers, little sister, I love you too.’
‘Just telling it how it is.’
‘And I just need a decent sleep in my own bed.’
‘Well, that’s not happening until the doctors have all their test results back and they know you’re okay.’
‘I am okay.’
‘Will you stop it?’
‘Stop what?’
‘Putting a brave face on everything!’
I close my eyes again, try to lose myself in the darkness that beckons. A brave face? It doesn’t feel so very brave. Not really.
CHAPTER FOUR
Olivia
MY FACE IS feeling even less brave two weeks later as I sit in the boardroom with a less than impressed board around me. The glass table at which we sit reflects the view through the Georgian windows, damp and dreary, the perfect weather to match my mood.
When Nathan and I purchased the inner London townhouse and converted it into offices it was an exciting new venture, an investment, an opportunity. Bright, optimistic, happy.
Now I wish we’d fitted it out with splashes of colour—pinks, oranges, anything but chilling monochrome. Not even the verdant vibe of the strategically spaced plants can lift it.
I reach for my water glass and take a sip, feel the weighty silence settle around me, inside me.
I should have listened to my sister when she suggested I take a few weeks off. But, in my experience, being on holiday leads to too much thinking time, too much restless energy and a need to kill it off with something. Anything.
All of which would only land me back in this exact position.
‘So, you understand, Olivia,’ Alan, my chief operating officer, stresses, ‘this is ultimately for the good of the charity.’
‘Let me get this straight. I’m being given a babysitter for the good of the charity I am no longer the face of?’ I try to keep my voice level as my fingers drum the glass table top.
‘He’s not a babysitter. His PR company is the best in the business. They’ll fix this media blip and have everything smoothed over in no time.’
Anger spikes in my bloodstream, my teeth gritting. Breathe. Just breathe. ‘It doesn’t need smoothing over.’
‘It does, Olivia, and you know it.’
Alan morphs into my late father now, his condescension cutting deep, and I bite my tongue on the ‘Bullshit’ that wants to escape. I eye them all—Susan, Peter, James, Scott and... Alan—take in their grave expressions and count to ten.
‘I disagree.’ Calm and controlled once more, I fix my focus on Alan, the man who’s leading this little intervention. ‘I stepped down months ago. I am not—’
‘It doesn’t matter that you’ve stepped down; you’re still involved,’ he interjects, giving me no quarter. ‘It’s still your charity as far as the public are concerned—the press, the investors, those that matter. It’s for the good of the company too; you must be able to see that. Nathan would want you to see that.’
It’s a low blow, bringing Nathan into this, and he knows it. I see it in the compassion that glistens in his otherwise stoic and weathered face. See it reflected in the eyes of the other board members as they all look to me, waiting for me to acquiesce, and I breathe through the flash of hurt, of anger, of...feeling cornered.
‘You make it sound like I don’t have a choice,’ I say, fisting my palms on the table top as the fight burns ever brighter inside me.
‘You don’t.’
Valentine
I can be patient. I’ve spent years dealing with demanding celebs, aristocrats with over-inflated egos, politicians with crazy schedules and even crazier personal lives. It’s the nature of the PR beast. They’re the people who need their images fixing on a daily basis. And they’re the people most likely to keep you waiting.
I can take it up to a point, but I don’t pander to the theatrics. It’s what made me good at it. Well respected. The man to call.
And now I run the company. I don’t get dragged into the day-to-day grind. I spend more time wining and dining, reaping the rewards of a hard-earned career, all at twenty-nine.
But here I am, doing the job again. Waiting for the first face-to-face confrontation with Olivia, and that patience I mentioned—it’s wearing thin.
I sit in the reception of their converted Georgian townhouse, not your typical headquarters for a world-renowned logistics firm, but something tells me that has more to do with its founders: Olivia and her late husband, Nathan. And it can’t be easy for her, walking through these doors every day and having that constant reminder of something she shared with the man she loved for over two decades.
Layla and
