Conditional Love (36 page)

I blinked and the soundtrack inside my head screeched to a halt. It was his confidence that really grated. How dare he turn up as if nothing had happened? As if a bunch of flowers was enough to set everything straight between us? Where was the sorry, the declaration of love? Even the ‘I’ve missed you’ was missing.

A diesel engine rattled to a halt beside us. A battered old Toyota tooted its horn. It had a magnetic taxi logo hanging off the door and Bhangra music blaring from the open window. I waved to the driver. It didn’t quite fit my image of a glamorous carriage, but then this wasn’t Hollywood.

I looked at Marc. And he wasn’t my hero. Not anymore. I looked at the flowers. Twelve months too late.

‘Not on your nelly,’ I said, turning to leave.

‘Come on!’ He grinned and grabbed hold of my arm. ‘What does a man have to do to get a second chance round here?’

I shrugged him off.

‘For starters,’ I said, making a show of counting on my fingers, ‘treat me with respect and not as a convenient B & B with laundry service, then there’s the small matter of listening to my opinions every once in a while, ooh, and of course not sneak around behind my back or trespass on my property.’

Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.

Plus, I didn’t want to get angry; my make-up would run and my hair would come loose. But seriously – what did he expect? A warm open-armed welcome?

‘You shouldn’t leave things lying around if they are private.’ He lifted his shoulders in a Mafia-style shrug.

I closed my eyes and counted to ten.

‘I can change,’ he said in a how-can-you-resist-me voice.

If I didn’t know him so well I’d be flattered. He had more chance of winning Miss World than becoming the sort of man I wanted. Who by now was probably waiting on his own in the hotel lobby. But I
had
changed and I wasn’t prepared to put up with the likes of Marc Felton any more.

‘It’s a lovely offer, but I’ve moved on.’ He wouldn’t like that.

‘I get it,’ he narrowed his eyes, ‘that’s why you're all tarted up. Who is he?’

I hadn’t meant that, I meant that I’d changed, moved on from him. There was no way I could correct him, he would laugh at me, so I decided to wing it.

‘The architect.’ I pulled the pashmina round my shoulders, avoiding his eyes.

Marc gave a laugh of contempt. ‘That knobhead? I bet I know things about him that you don’t.’

Ditto. Except I didn’t believe he knew anything except that he was jealous of Nick.

The taxi driver popped his head out of the window and shouted that the meter was running.

‘I’m late,’ I said, stepping towards the taxi.

He dropped the flowers, jumped in between me and the car and snatched hold of my wrists. The confident smile had gone.

‘But Sophie, you can’t do this! I’ve got to… I need you to… I need you!’

And I was a monkey’s uncle. He needed access to my bank account. Period.

Stepping over the flowers, I kissed his cheek, peeled his hands off me and opened the door.

‘We can stay friends if you like.’ It was the least I could do.

‘Business partners!’ he said, bending down to talk to me through the gap as I slammed the door. ‘Think about it!’

I wound the window down.

‘I’ve thought about it. It’s a no from me.’

The taxi bore me off into the night and I watched him trample over the roses, kick a tree and hobble off. Bless.

forty

The bar was heaving with people. A string quartet was doing its best to be heard over the noise of hundreds of over-excited and over-inflated egos. I pushed my way through the crowds, looking for Nick.

Anyone who was anyone in the property business was there. I said ‘Excuse me’ to two rival estate agents who were boasting about what a good month they were having, I skirted round a bunch of house builders lamenting the terrible year they were having, and I gave a good-luck smile to an award nominee muttering to herself under her breath.

A solitary figure with his hands in his pockets rocked on the balls of his feet in front of the table plan. A bubble of excitement fizzed through me. He wasn’t going to do much networking facing the wall, was he? Just as well I was here to do some introductions, he would be relieved to see a friendly face.

I accepted a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and skipped over. I had put two hundred quid’s worth of effort into my appearance for this moment, it had better deliver.

‘Hi.’

Nick turned at the sound of my voice and for a second – no, make that a millisecond – his eyes lit up like a starving man at the all-you-can-eat oriental buffet.

I prepared myself to accept his compliments. I had a coy smile all ready to go and ‘What, this old thing?’ hovering on my tongue. I had my cheek lifted and ready for him to place a chaste kiss on it. His face, however, closed up so quickly that at first I thought that he didn’t recognise me.

‘Hello,’ he replied.

He was stunned, that was all. So bowled over by my get-up that he was lost for words. I launched the smile anyway and decided to help him out.

‘What do you think?’ I smoothed my dress down and he took the hint.

‘Very nice.’

I bit back my screech of ‘Very nice! Is that all you can say?’ and forced out a ‘Thank you’. Great. Glitzy posh do and I was stuck with Mr Grumpy.

It wasn’t an auspicious start. My nerves were already frazzled after the encounter with Marc. I’d hoped Nick’s presence would be soothing, but it was more like wading naked through stinging nettles. And they say women are fickle!

He was staring at me oddly as if he was waiting for me to speak. I sipped my drink and stared back. Black-tie suited him. I wanted to tell him how smart he looked, but something in those moody grey eyes of his held me back. There was a funny silence between us and it made me uneasy.

His next words were a bit of a slap in the chops.

‘I nearly didn’t bother coming tonight,’ he said curtly.

Nerves, I thought instantly; for a man with precious few people skills, an event like tonight must be hellish. I decided to lighten the mood, get back onto one of his favourite subjects.

‘Why not, did your posing pooches misbehave?’ I nudged him playfully with my elbow.

Nick drew in a deep breath through his nostrils, gazed into the middle distance and back down to me.

‘Don’t make jokes about my charity work.’

‘You’ve lost me.’ A tray of drinks floated past and I grabbed us both new ones. He nodded his thanks and continued.

‘My photography is for the new intakes at the dog sanctuary. I try and capture their personalities for the website to help them find new homes. They are not ‘posing pooches’, they are abandoned animals and if they don’t get adopted, they get put down.’

Whoops. Not a weird hobby then. And definitely no laughing matter.

‘I bet you’re good at that.’ My smile faltered, but I soldiered on. ‘I remember you saying you could read dogs better than people.’

He laughed harshly and swigged at his drink. ‘
You
certainly had me fooled.’

‘Nick, call me paranoid, but have I done something to upset you?’

He shook his head and mumbled something which could have been ‘Unbelievable.’

‘You're scaring me now. For the love of God, spit it out, man.’

‘I had a call from the planning office today about Lilac Lane.’ He looked at me, letting the words sink in.

‘Go on,’ I rasped with a dry throat. It must have been bad news to have upset him this much. It occurred to me fleetingly that if he was so concerned about my building project, he must care for me a teensy bit.

‘They’ve received an alternative scheme for the plot and wanted to know whether Cromwell Associates wished to withdraw their planning application.’ He drained his glass and folded his arms.

‘For number eight? That’s terrible. We don’t want to withdraw!’ To be honest, I wasn’t clear what he was on about.

Nick tutted. ‘Of course for number eight. Apparently, you and Strong Developments are hoping to build three townhouses on it.’

I laughed out loud at that. He had obviously made a mistake. Or the planners had. Perhaps there was another Lilac Lane somewhere else. I had no idea, but at least I knew I was in the clear. And if that was all that was upsetting him, well, that was easily sorted out.

Nick glared at me. His usual calm features were all fierce and shouty.

‘It’s all a game to you, isn’t it,’ he said in a low growly voice. ‘With your little sketchbook and your
Grand Designs
“experience”.’ He scratched apostrophes in the air in front of my face.

‘You’ve been stringing me along, using me to cherry pick ideas for this shoddy development. You’ll ruin a perfectly good piece of land, not to mention ruin my reputation by being associated with it. How do you think it makes me look? You know how I feel about over-developing. I can’t believe I didn’t pick up the signs when you asked me about it before.’

‘Nick, I –’

He held a hand up to silence me. ‘What makes it worse is that I trusted you and I nearly broke my own rule.’

Tears pricked at my eyes, this was all getting out of control and I started to panic.

‘Hold on a minute! I don’t know anything about this.’

He stared at me for ages. The contempt on his face cut me to the bone.

‘You expect me to believe that?’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence. Yes, I do actually.’ I would have folded my arms but for my glass being in the way.

He jabbed at finger at the table plan. ‘The cosy little seating arrangement tells me otherwise. Excuse me.’

He strode off and left me to find my name on the plan.

Our department had been put on a circular table of eight. I groaned as I read who Jason was next to – Frannie Cooper from Fringe Benefits! He must have really upset Donna to get landed with her. Only last week Frannie had threatened Jason and me again that she was considering taking her marketing budget elsewhere. If only!

Poor Nick was sitting on the other side of her. I say ‘poor’, the way I was feeling about him at the moment, they deserved each other. Part-time Maureen was bringing a property lawyer she had known since the eighties. Come to think of it, he was about eighty. If he was still awake for coffee and mints it would be a miracle.

And sandwiched between Donna and me was Mr Philip Strong from Strong Developments. He must be Donna’s guest.

Phil Strong. It was all coming back to me now. The sharp suit, the BlackBerry and the black car parked outside my bungalow. I had to admit, it did look bad. No wonder Nick found it hard to believe me.

Marc was behind this mess. There hadn’t been a mistake at the planning office; he had submitted a second application without my knowledge. It looked as if he was determined to do a deal with this Strong fellow whether he had my say-so or not. The gobshite.

That explained the flowers. He’d had it all planned out: turn up at my house with a humungous bunch of flowers, watch as I fell to my knees in pitiful gratitude and then have another bash at changing my mind.

Ha. Well, that hadn’t worked.

I turned back to face the rest of the room, scanning the corporate faces for Phil Strong. I wasn’t even sure what he looked like, I’d only had a brief glimpse in the gloom of the bungalow. I couldn’t see Nick either; he had better not have bailed out on me.

All of a sudden, the room started to spin. What was it with me and Valentine’s Day? Next year I was staying in on my own and getting drunk. But right now I needed to escape from public view; I could feel a self-indulgent little cry coming on.

The end cubicle would have been my first choice but it was already taken. I lowered the lid on the loo and sat down. I didn’t need to go, I just wanted a bit of space to collect my thoughts. Odd choice – the ladies’ loos. But in the middle of winter I didn’t want to be hovering round outside with all the smokers.

Would it be really bad if I went home now? It would if I wanted to keep my job. Donna would be livid.

I rolled up some toilet paper and pressed it under my eyes in readiness for the tears. If I’d known the evening was going to be this traumatic, I’d have brought my mascara along with me. But my evening bag had already been struggling to cope with my phone, keys, purse, one dog-eared business card and a pen so I hadn’t bothered.

The tears wouldn’t come. I strained but still nothing. Perhaps I wasn’t sad at all? Perhaps I was very, very angry? With Nick for instantly jumping to the wrong conclusion and with Marc for, well, for everything else.

All that straining hadn’t done me any favours. Now I did need the loo.

I was still wrestling with my tights when I caught the sound of quiet crying coming from the cubicle beside me. I knew from living in a very small flat with no privacy that this sort of crying really hurt your throat.

I froze to double check. Yes, definitely some misery going on. And was that a faint smell of cigarette smoke?

Poor thing. And it wasn’t even seven o’clock!

I bent my head down towards the gap between the cubicles.

‘Are you OK?’ Stupid question.

‘Can you pass me some paper, please?’ came back the halting reply.

‘Sure.’ If only my problems were so easily solved. There was a pile of new loo rolls balanced on the cistern. I selected one and held it to the gap.

A hand with long fingers, a huge emerald ring and raised veins snaked towards mine and snatched it off me.

I’d recognise that bony claw anywhere; I’d felt it land on my shoulder like a hawk descending on its prey often enough.

‘Donna?’

I heard a muffled F-word. Definitely Donna. She blew her nose, sniffed a few times and then the quiet heaving continued.

I flushed, washed my hands and waited until the woman reapplying lipstick at the mirror left.

‘Donna, it’s me, Sophie.’ I knocked softly on the door of the end cubicle. I pressed my face close to the door. ‘Let me in.’

I expected her to tell me to go away, at which I would have shrugged my shoulders sadly, told myself I’d done my best and left her to it.

However, the bolt clunked across, changing her status from
engaged
to
vacant
. I steeled myself and pushed the door open.