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“How can anything on Earth ever compare to him?” I asked her.

“It won’t. But you have to carry on. ‘
S
till the clock ticks on and time doesn’t wait
…” She couldn’t complete the lyric, a solitary tear rolling down her cheek.

“
A
nd you have to accept the cruel hand of
fate
,” I finished for her.

She nodded.
“
Don’t cause him any more pain.
If you love him, let him go.”

I didn’t cry.
I had come to ter
ms with it.
Oli
via left, without another word.
It had all been said.

Chapter 22

Surprisi
ngly, I slept well that night.
I suffered no nightmares
, no intense dreams of longing.
I woke up feeling refreshed, my e
yes no longer sore from crying.
I was nervous about my meeting with Ben’s dad, but it was nice to feel
an emotion that wasn’t despair.
I missed Marty, of course, every molecule of me longed for him, but Olivia
was right, I had to let him go.
I dressed in jeans and a fitted jumper, boots and
my warmest coat.
It was still frozen outside, and I felt like my heart was frozen too, no longer aching with every beat, but numb, unable to feel anything.

It was a fifteen
minute walk to my dad’s office.
I’d sat outside the building many times in my dad’s car, until Mum put her foot down about the hours he was working, but I’d
never actually set foot inside.
It was a big, purpose built unit on an industrial estate, nothing special from the outside, but I remembered how proud my dad had been when they m
oved the business here. It had meant so much to him.
I was so nervous, I was
shaking.
I was about to wish for Marty again and stopped myself, remembering that every time I wished for what I couldn’t have, I inf
licted more pain on both of us.
I took a deep breath and pulled ope
n the cold, metal door handle.

It was warm inside the reception area and I smile
d at the woman behind the desk.
She looked like she was in her forties
and she didn’t return my smile.
I opened my mouth to speak, but she beat me to it.

“You’re from the temp agency?
Yo
u’re late. And wearing jeans!”
She sounded stern, and I felt myself visibly shrink.

I apologised, not sure why I felt it necessary, “I’m sorry, I…”

She cut me off before I could finish speaking, not allowing me to explain why I was here. “There’s no point apologising, this is a profession
al office and you don’t fit in.
I will be ringing the
agency and asking for a refund.
We wanted a personal assistant for holiday co
ver, not a teenager in jeans.”

“But I’m…” I tried to speak, but she cut me off again.

“Mr Acton will not be happy about this – did they tell you
that his business partner died? Nasty car crash.
Mr Acton was distraught, he’s doing the best he can, and without a
n assistant it’s twice as hard.
You temp girls treat office work like a laugh, but this is people’s bread and butter.”

“I’m here to see Mr Acton.” I felt flustered from her onslaught and on the verge of tears from her mentioning my father and his death so casually.

“I’ll bet you are, now that you
’ve heard me mention his name.
Were you going to sweet
talk him into giving you a job?
It won’t work, darling, not even a pretty girl like you could talk him into hiring an assistant w
ho wears jeans to the office.”
The intercom on her desk buzzed into life, making both of us jump.

“Andrea,” a male voice, made metallic-sounding through the electronic box, interrupted us, “I have a young lady coming
in to see me today, Miss Lee. Bobby’s daughter.”

Andrea,
the receptionist, turned white.
Her mouth was open so wide I could see
silver fillings in her mouth.

“Andrea, did you hear me?” the voice continued, “I h
ave a Miss Lee visiting today.”
I pointed at myself when he said Miss Lee.

It was An
drea’s turn to sound flustered.
“She’s here, Mr Acton.” Andrea
said into the intercom.

“I’ll be right out to meet her,” Mr Acton replied.

Andrea stared at me, eyes
wide in horror at her faux pas. “I’m so sorry.
Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee?”

Your resignation?
I pondered to myself. “A cup of tea would be lovely,
thank you,” I said, politely.
She nodded and was about to get up, when a door opened to t
he side of the room we were in.
A tall, confident looking man strode out and h
eld out his hand to shake mine. He had a strong handshake.
My hand looked like it belonged to a doll, next to his.

“So nice
to finally meet you, Miss Lee.
I’m so sorry about your dad.”

I swallowed hard, speaking of my parents always made me struggle to co
ntrol my emotions. “Thank you.
Cal
l me Claudia,” I muttered.

“Please,
come through to my office.
Andrea, could you get Miss Lee a drink?” He turned to me, “Tea? Coffee?”

“Andrea already offered,” I felt like being kind, even though she’d been so horrible to me; clearly, being aro
und Marty had rubbed off on me.
I hoped that neither of them noticed me
wince as I thought of his name.

“I’ll just get your drink.” Andrea sounded relieved.

Mr Acton led the way into the next room, which had a desk in it – I assumed this was his office, but he continued walking to another door across this room.

“We haven’t got a personal assistant at the moment, Jenna left a few weeks ago and I have
n’t found a decent replacement.
We were hoping to get someone in to cover the Christmas and New Year period, the
re’s always a catastrophe then.
My office is through here and your dad’s office is through that door.
” He pointed at the other door.
“His office hasn’t been touched since…”

“He died.” I completed the sentence for him.

“I’m sorry.” He had dark grey ey
es and they shone with wetness.
He looked
away from me, embarrassed.
He pulled the handle on the door and held it open for me.

“You were friends, as well as work colleagues, weren’t you?” I asked.

He swallowed and I felt desperately sorry for him, here he was nearly crying in front of a teenage g
irl that he’d never met before.
“Yes,” he croake
d, his voice soaked in emotion.
He motioned to the seat in fro
nt of the desk and I sat down.
He walked over to the window behind the desk, facing away from me, staring at the view – it was clearly a strategy to avoid crying in front of me – the win
dow looked out on a car park.
The door opened and An
drea shuffled in with my drink.
She placed it carefully on the desk.

“Is there anything else you need m
e for, Mr Acton?” Andrea asked.
He shook his head.

“Thank you, Andrea,” I said, certain that Mr Acton was unable to speak at the moment. Andrea left the room and Mr Ac
ton remained facing the window.
The roo
m was silent for a few minutes.
I watched him –
he didn’t look how I imagined.
I thought he’d be f
at and middle-aged.
He was talle
r and younger than I’d thought.
I could see the resemblance to Ben, the same grey eyes and brown hair, although Mr Acton’s hair was flecked
with salt and pepper grey hair.
Eventually, he turned around to face me, his cheeks flushed.

“Sorry.
I haven’t really talked about Bobby’s death with anyone.”

“You didn’t come to the funeral,” I said.

He cleared his throat.
“We had a big deal on – I knew where Bobby
would have preferred me to be.
He loved this business.”

“I know.”
I
smiled, weakly.

“Did you want to see his office?”

“Yes, please.”

“Go ahead, I’ll give you
a few minutes alone,” he said.
I was certain that the time was really for his benefit, for him to compose himself.

I walked out of Mr Acton’s office and into the o
ne that had belonged to my dad.
It had a
slightly musty smell of paper.
Where the weak, winter sunshine shone through the window, particles
of dust circulated in the air.
A comfort
able chair sat behind the desk.
I instinctively wanted to sit in it, to see what
my dad saw when he was at work.
The chair creaked
slightly as it took my weight.
I leaned my head to the side and breathed in the scent from the chair, its comforting smell reminding me instantly of
my dad’s favourite aftershave.
I looked ar
ound the room.
Filing cabinets filled up one wall, the other had a bookshelf filled with books on building
, property development, design.
All things I
didn’t really know much about.
There were some certificates and photos further along the wall with the
bookshelf.
On the wall facing the desk, directly in front of the chair, was a huge, fr
amed photo of my parents and I.
It was one taken w
hen I was about five years old.
On the desk itself were other photo frames, images capturing my growth from toddler
to teenager.
My mum and dad in a black and white wedding photo, forever frozen in the first flush of romance,
poised to feed each other cake. It was all too much.
I slumped over the desk, crying yet again.

I don’t know how long I stayed like that, but I felt a hand on m
y shoulder, gently prodding me.
Mr Acton stood over
me, holding a box of tissues.
I gratefully took
one, sure that I looked a mess.
He knelt down next to me.

“Thank you for the tissues, Mr Acton,” I blubbed.

“You’re welcome and call me S
am.
When you’re ready, I’ll take you on the grand tour of the building.”

“That’s nice of you, I’d like to see it, but to be honest, I don’t think I’m cut out for running a
property development company.
I’m only eighteen.”

“You don’t know until you try. I started wo
rking here when I was nineteen.
I’d just got my then-girlfriend pregnant with Ben, I’d quit university
and desperately needed a job.
I learnt everything from your dad.” Sam looked at me earnestly.

“You don’t want to be saddled with a teenage business partner,” I said.

“Oh, I don’t know, I’ll bet you’re more mature than most of the middle-aged farts I’ve co
me across in this line of work.
And I’ll bet the builders would be eating out of your hands if you flu
ttered your eyelashes at them.
It ne
ver works when I try it.”
Like Ben, he made weak jokes that I
felt compelled to laugh at.

“It’s so strange, seeing where my dad spent so much of his time…” I paused, about to tell him something I’d never told anyone, not even Marty. “When I’m in the house on my own sometimes, I pretend that they’re just at work, that they will come back at any moment…seeing all of this, untouched…” I’d run out of words to describe my feelings.

“It makes it real?” Sam ventured.

“Yeah.
It felt real already, but it feel
s like a sharper pain today.
I
don’t know how to explain it.”
I looked to the ceiling, anywhere but at the photos around the room.

“You’ve been through a lot,” he simply said.

I nodded and took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

Sam took me on a tour of the building, the offices where architects worked on plans and interior decorators worked on computer
simulations of completed rooms.
He explained as much as he could about the business, but I think he could
tell it was going over my head.
When he started talking about profit margins and y
ields, I felt completely lost.