What a Girl Wants (42 page)

‘Then you’ve decided on the advertising?’ He looked genuinely surprised and more than a little upset. ‘There’s nothing I can do to change your mind?’

‘No, I haven’t decided,’ I said, letting go of the ponytail, my hair spiralling down my back. ‘But I can’t let him down again, I have to do this for him. If I can get him the contract, we can work the rest out from there.’

‘Then we’ll get you a return ticket,’ he told me, swigging down his red-hot espresso as though it was iced water. ‘And you’ll come back to us as soon as you’re ready.’

‘You’re so nice to me.’ I shook my head and turned my attention to my toes. ‘I really feel like I don’t deserve it.’

‘Don’t let yourself be under any illusion that you’re not worth it,’ he reprimanded. ‘I know you still don’t really believe me but you’re a bloody good photographer and I need someone I can trust, and you need a job. That seems like a fair trade to me. Now, which one of these logos do you like the best?’

I held my hand over my eyes to keep out the sun, listening to Al’s opinions on the six almost identical logos on the screen, and smiled. It was like Amy always said, when life gave you lemons, the best thing to do was cut those lemons up, knock life down and rub them in its eyes, screaming, ‘Have that, you bastard!’ As philosophies went, I’d heard worse.

Someone at Gatwick airport must have got my memo about how sad I was to be leaving Italy because the second we touched down, the clouds broke over London and glorious sunshine lit up Monday morning in the old smoke. I had spent all day Sunday editing the photos I’d taken so far, trying not to refresh my email every seven seconds looking for something from Nick and listening in on Al and Amy’s grand plans for their retail scouting tours around the world.

Any part of me that had questioned Amy’s abilities was wiped clean away by the end of the day. She was drawing out floorplans, explaining what fixtures and fittings they would need, working up staffing plans and, quite frankly, being amazing. I hadn’t given my friend enough credit; she was perfect for this job and I felt terrible for having doubted her. The only thing Amy really needed was the self-confidence to see it through and for someone to take her seriously. That might be hard if you were a Topshop HR woman and all you saw were neon thigh-highs, a cropped unicorn T-shirt and a CV with more holes in it than your average sieve, but I should have known better.

And now all I needed was for Charlie to decide he was speaking to me just long enough to get through the Perito’s pitch without kicking me square in the uterus and then everything would be fine and dandy.

I had a loaner phone from Domenico and I’d called Charlie from the airport, leaving him a message to let him know I was coming, but he hadn’t replied. I chose to believe he was quietly pleased rather than silently furious and, after flying through airport security, I arrived at the Perito’s offices just in time. I pulled out a mirror in the lift, making sure the concealer I’d borrowed from Amy was still covering my black eye well enough that I wouldn’t scare anyone.

‘Right …’ I took a deep breath in and closed my eyes. ‘Be brave, don’t be a chicken.’

The lift stopped on the seventeenth floor and I smiled at the receptionist as I hobbled out, so certain that I had got this right. Even if Charlie hated my guts, I knew how much he loved his job; he couldn’t stay angry with me if we won the account.

‘Hi, I’m here for the Perito’s pitch,’ I told the receptionist. I could hear muffled voices inside and felt the adrenaline coursing through my veins. ‘Tess Brookes?’

‘They’ve gone in already.’ She looked down at her sign-in book and back up at me. ‘Someone must have signed you in already.’

The adrenaline started to turn into panic. Charlie had started without me?

‘It’s just through there …’ She pointed at the big wooden door with a chicken stuck to it. ‘They only just went in; the last lot were out early and I think they want to get it over with.’

‘Always bodes well,’ I said, straightening my white silk shirt and patting down my printed trousers. ‘Thanks.’

I peered through the tiny square of glass in the conference room door to see Charlie at the front of the room, standing in front of a big screen showing my PowerPoint presentation. Huh. I pressed my ear to the wood for a moment, trying to listen in.

‘We’ve looked over the work you sent over and we’re impressed,’ someone was telling him. ‘You’ve really got a hold on our demographic.’

‘We were looking for something that would strike a chord with the younger, reluctant male cook,’ Charlie said, an easy smile on his face. ‘And we wanted something simple and visual that had a lot of impact.’

He couldn’t have looked further away from the man I’d seen on the train. He was calm, confident and in complete control of the room – without me by his side. This was an epic mistake, he didn’t need me here, I realized. And what’s more, he didn’t want me here.

‘And how would you see the roll-out?’ Another person asked. ‘Talk us through the media plan.’

The window door might have been small but it wasn’t small enough. Before I could slope back into the lift and take myself to the nearest Häagen-Dazs’ stockist, Charlie’s eyes locked onto mine. I was busted.

He stared at me. I looked back at him. His mouth hung open for a moment before setting itself tightly.

‘Charlie, the media plan?’ the voice asked again.

‘So sorry, I’m late!’ I wasn’t quite sure what possessed me but without thinking, I pushed the door open and walked straight up to the front of the room. ‘There was an accident. My taxi was in an accident. Big one. Anyway, the plan would be to launch the shorts online at first, get a viral buzz going, encouraging people to share the videos, and then launch on TV, followed by print.’

I gave them all a smile so huge I was worried I was about to swallow my own ears.

‘Right.’ A bald man whose shirt was at least three sizes too big for him stared at me with as much confusion as Charlie. ‘And who are you?’

‘Tess?’ I looked at Charlie, looked back at the men and then realized someone else was in the room. Someone else was sitting on Charlie’s side of the table. A blonde female, someone I had not expected to run into in my wildest dreams.

‘Isn’t that Tess?’ another not-so-bald man asked.

‘Tess?’ The more times I heard my own name out loud, the less it sounded like my name in the first place.

Paige stood up and laughed with forced hilarity. ‘This is our assistant, Vanessa,’ she explained, pointing at me. ‘She brought me some notes I left in the office. Isn’t that’s right, Ness?’

Speechless, I nodded and dug deep in my handbag looking for something to give to Paige. Charlie stared daggers into my back as I slipped past him and, without warning, the pain in the bottom of my foot suddenly began to scream again.

‘Ness? The notes?’ Paige’s perfectly made-up scarlet lips pouted at me as I produced a napkin from the plane that I had doodled all over on the flight.

‘Here they are,’ I said, staring at the two men on the other side of the table. ‘These are the up-to-date numbers.’

‘That’s great.’ She took the napkin and quickly shoved it underneath her notepad. ‘We’ll meet you outside, yeah?’

‘Yes.’ I tottered backwards out of the room, crashing through the doors and throwing myself into an uncomfortable black leather armchair. I took off my shoe and rubbed the sore spot on the sole of my foot, wondering how many times I would have to drive the heel into my temple before I actually died.

I waited for fifteen minutes before Very Bald and Quite Bald exited the meeting room, casting doubtful glances at me on their way out. As soon as they were safely in the lift and on their way, I forced myself out of my chair and sloped back inside.

‘What are you doing here?’ Charlie did not look especially pleased to see me.

‘I came for the pitch,’ I said, pointing at Paige. At my friend, Paige. ‘What are
you
doing here?’

‘Charlie needed someone to stand in for you at the pitch,’ she said carefully, with the look of someone who really didn’t know what was going on. ‘It was your idea.’

‘Was it?’ I asked. ‘I thought we all agreed that pretending to be someone we’re not was a bad idea in general?’

‘I was trying to help you,’ she said, holding her hands out defensively. ‘I took the pitch materials over to Charlie, like you asked, and he said he was coming out to see you Friday and then he called me last night to see if I could stand in for you because you couldn’t make it back from Milan in time. I texted you and you didn’t reply. I assumed you were otherwise engaged.’

‘Are you serious?’ I wasn’t sure which of them I was talking to.

‘What are you doing here?’ Charlie said again. ‘Shouldn’t you be in Italy with your boyfriend?’

‘Oh!’ Paige’s eyes widened. ‘In Milan? He saw?’

I nodded and pressed my lips together tightly, confused and annoyed and guilty and weirdly hungry.

‘I came for the pitch, like I said I would,’ I told him, as he started packing up his things. ‘And Paige, I didn’t get your text because I broke my phone throwing it at an Italian airport security wanker. Long story.’

‘Why bother?’ Charlie shoved his notebooks and pens deep into the beautiful leather man-bag I had bought him two Christmases ago, two bright red spots blossoming on his cheeks. ‘Surely you don’t think we’re still going to work together on this?’

‘I don’t know.’ I folded my arms across myself. ‘I came because it’s important to you. We both worked hard on it and I didn’t want to see it fall apart.’

‘Yeah, it looked like you were working hard,’ he said, jabbing at the air between us with a pen. Paige began to shuffle slowly towards the door. ‘You let me think you were nipping off to Italy to do your little art project and all the time, you were shagging somebody else.’

‘I was not all the time shagging someone else,’ I replied, not quite sure how to defend myself. ‘Yes, I met Nick in Hawaii but I came home and I didn’t think I’d ever see him again, and then he showed up in Milan. But I didn’t plan it and didn’t want to talk to you about it on the phone, so—’

There. The truth. That was a novel concept.

Charlie slung his back across his shoulder. ‘Oh, fuck off.’

Albeit not a popular one.

‘If it helps,’ Paige piped up from the doorway, ‘it’s the truth. I was in Hawaii with them. But she really thought he wasn’t interested when she got with you.’

‘Thanks, Paige,’ I said, rubbing my hand across my forehead. It was like having a blonde Amy. ‘Very helpful.’

‘No, yeah, that’s great, I’m really happy to be the back-up,’ he said, sticking his hands in his pockets. ‘Has he dumped you again? Is that why you’re really back?’

‘That’s not why I’m back,’ I said.

‘So he
has
dumped you again,’ Charlie said, throwing an empty laugh in for good measure. ‘Clever bloke. Too good-looking for you anyway.’

I wasn’t used to Charlie being cruel. Angry, yes, upset on occasion and, very rarely, downright dickish but this was awful. Finally something I didn’t know about Charlie: when he truly was hurt, he could be vicious.

‘I came to help,’ I said, recalling Al’s advice and wishing I’d taken it sooner. He was still raw; it was my fault and I needed to back away and give him some space. ‘But you didn’t need me.’

‘No, I don’t need you,’ he said, throwing his satchel around onto his back. ‘In fact, I’ve got all your shit in my flat. You can go and get it and clear it out if you want, otherwise I’ll put it back on the street where I found it.’

‘How have you got my stuff?’ Had I missed something? ‘Why was it on the street?’

‘I have it because Vanessa called me to say she was giving it away to tramps if I didn’t come and get it,’ he explained. ‘And like a twat, I went. She tried it on again, actually. I didn’t bother but maybe I should have. She knows her way around a bed, that girl. Better than some people.’

I couldn’t move. If he’d slapped me round the face, it couldn’t have hurt more.

‘Let’s get you out of here.’ Paige reached over and grabbed my arm, and pulled me out of the boardroom, leaving Charlie standing staring at me, holding tightly to his man-bag.

Given how much had gone on in the week since I’d last seen her, it didn’t take a terribly long time to catch Paige up on my adventures. Typically, she asked for a lot of detail on the outfits Kekipi and I had bought and just exactly how much discount he was good for on the streets of Milan but for the most part, she stayed schtum and drank her wine while I talked.

‘I took today off so I could help Charlie out,’ she said, topping off her drink and settling back in the sun. We had found a pub round the corner from the office that had the tiniest balcony in the world but since it was half eleven on a Monday, there wasn’t a lot of competition for our table. ‘I haven’t heard anything about the Artie–Al drama. The girls on the fashion desk will be all over it, I’m sure.’

‘I feel so bad for him.’ I gingerly pressed a finger against my bruised cheekbone, half wanting to take the make-up off for extra sympathy from the attractive waiter and half never wanting anything with a penis to so much as look at me ever again. ‘Imagine your kid being such a shit.’

‘Rich people are beyond help,’ she replied. ‘Rich people and apparently everyone you have ever had sex with, ever.’

‘I do not have a good track record,’ I agreed, chucking back a handful of peanuts. ‘I’m thinking about retiring my vag and becoming a nun. Can they drink? Because if they can drink, it might not be so bad.’

‘I’m googling it,’ she said, flipping down the screen of her fancy phone as she spoke. ‘What are you going do now?’

‘Drink this.’ I pointed at the very full glass of wine in front of me and then began pulling the pins out my bun. ‘Call my agent. Find somewhere to sleep that isn’t the street. Take it from there?’

‘You’re welcome to my sofa.’ Paige held up her phone in triumph. ‘And the good news is, nuns can drink. So, there’s an option for you.’

‘And I really do like Italy,’ I said, mulling it over. ‘And black and white have always been good colours for me.’

She rested her elbows on the table and leaned her chin into her hands. ‘What are you going to do about Charlie?’