Maybe she doesn’t remember me. It was dark. It was late.
‘You could say that.’
‘And you, Mr Boretti... Valentine...’ She drawls out my forename, the tease building in her voice, and I hear Alan cough to my left. Is it a sign of his own discomfort, or is it a veiled warning to Olivia to put the knives, or the flirting, away? I’m buggered if I know.
‘Are you an old romantic too?’ she purrs, Alan’s cough not even earning the briefest of looks from her. ‘Come to fix the reputation of a woman who has to be, what, nearly twice your age and should know better?’
‘Really, Olivia.’ Alan bristles. ‘That’s not...it’s not...’
I’m used to my age being an issue among those who don’t know me, but being underestimated nearly always works in my favour. I don’t like how she uses it now though.
‘What, Alan? What is it?’ she throws at him.
‘I think what he’s trying to say is that I’m here to look at the PR for the entire company, the charity too. Getting the right message out there is key.’
Her smile is saccharine-sweet. ‘It is, isn’t it? Reputations are so fragile in today’s world, where social media helps spread the word faster than one can...’
She rakes her eyes over my entirety and doesn’t finish. And I wait for it, wait and wait...
‘Well, anyway, since it’s not just me you’re here to fix, I have some place else I need to be, so if you want to discuss strategy with Susan, our director of sales and marketing, I can get on with some actual work and we can talk later.’
‘Olivia, I hoped—’
She cuts Alan off with a tight smile. ‘Alan will make sure you have my PA’s details, won’t you? That way, a mutually agreeable time can be arranged.’
Alan gives a resigned nod.
‘Excellent. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr Boretti.’
And that’s it, she’s gone, and I’m left with five board members all looking at me with expressions as bulldozed as I feel.
And shouldn’t it be the other way around?
Shouldn’t she be the one left floundering, wondering what the fuck she’s got herself into?
Olivia
This isn’t happening. It’s like some weird dream.
I walk through the office not really seeing anyone, my hand still warm from his touch, my pulse skittering and my cheeks... God, do they burn!
I need to get some air. Some air and some conviction that it’s not him. That, no matter how similar he looks, it can’t be. It just can’t.
Pippa, my PA, is making a beeline for me through the open-plan office and I wave her away. I don’t trust my voice, or my ability to keep a lid on the fire inside. I’m angry. No, I’m more than angry; I’m bloody livid.
Fixing the company’s image, the charity’s even, is one thing; fixing mine... I flick my ponytail over my shoulder and hold my head high. I won’t let them do this to me. I won’t let the office see me like this either. Just a few more steps and I’ll be in the outer foyer, another few and I’ll be in the crisp cold air and the...rain.
I grimace and detour to my office, pull my fierce-red coat off its stand and shrug it on, belt it tight and move before anyone else can try to talk to me.
How could they? How could Alan? And of all the people to get in...this man who looks so much like the one I saw four weeks ago.
Looks like? It is him and you know it.
My gut knows it. My wounded ego knows it.
My hypersensitive, pebble-like nipples know it!
Fuck.
‘I beg your pardon?’
Jennings, our doorman-cum-security guard, frowns at me and I plaster on a smile. ‘Sorry, thinking aloud.’
His frown deepens, his eyes not missing a trick. ‘You okay, Ms Carmel?’
He’s always addressed me as Ms so it doesn’t sting with my widow status, but my smile still feels shaky.
‘Absolutely. Fine and dandy. Just need to get out and stretch my legs.’
He reaches behind him and pulls a guest umbrella from the pot by the door. ‘In that case, you best take this.’
‘Thank you, Jennings.’ My smile eases with his thoughtful gesture and a part of me feels desperate to spill all. I’ve known him for as long as we’ve owned the building, Nathan and I, and that’s too many years to count.
And the truth is, I don’t have a confidant that I can offload on. I won’t even spill all to my sister, Fee. Nathan was my ear and he was enough. But I don’t have him any more...
And that’ll teach me for making my husband and our business my all.
Now that he’s gone, there are a lot of things I don’t have and many that I do. Money is the biggest thing. I have more money than I know what to do with. His life insurance, our company, our success, it’s given me plenty.
But there’s a huge gaping hole that I just can’t fill. And each time I seek to, I end up in trouble. The Bugatti and the crash. The free-climbing incident last month where I narrowly escaped being impaled on a rock. The product launch party where my loose tongue lost us an important investor. The charity ball fiasco in which my dazzling red dress left a little too much exposed.
Is it any wonder the board want to fix me? I shake my head, my ponytail flicking with it.
Screw it, screw it all!
Life’s too short. Every one of those incidents was about living by that motto and making the most of life. I won’t go back to how things were.
I stride outside, the umbrella tight in my grip as I remember the one scenario the board doesn’t know about... Valentine Boretti, on the other hand...he was there, until he ran.
And his swift departure brought a premature end to the entire experience. Not that he could know that...
Is it really him?
He didn’t look as young in the club. But then it
