Playing by the Rules: The feel-good heart-warming and uplifting romance perfect for Valentine’s Day

Playing by the Rules: The feel-good heart-warming and uplifting romance perfect for Valentine’s Day Rosa Temple On the 3rd of August, I died. Well, not literally, but it felt like my life was over. Melodramatic? Me? Just a teensy bit…When workshy socialite Magenta Bright learns that inheritance comes with one horrific condition, she mentally kisses goodbye to the money. Get a job and keep it for a year? Not likely.Na?ve CEO Anthony Shearman is persuaded to hire her as his PA, and Magenta decides to stick it out, if only because of her sexy boss. But between the bitchy receptionist, Anthony’s beautiful fianc?e and not having a clue how to be a career girl, Magenta barely makes it to the end of her first day.So, just 364 to go then… On the 3rd of August, I died. Well, not literally, but it felt like my life was over. Melodramatic? Me? Just a teensy bit… When work-shy socialite Magenta Bright learns that inheritance comes with one horrific condition, she mentally kisses the money goodbye. Get a job and keep it for a year? Not likely. Na?ve CEO Anthony Shearman is persuaded to hire her as his PA, and Magenta decides to stick it out, if only because of her sexy boss. But between the bitchy receptionist, Anthony’s beautiful fianc?e and not having a clue how to be a career girl, Magenta barely makes it to the end of her first day. So, just 364 to go then… Playing by the Rules Rosa Temple Contents Cover (#u69a923e5-fd59-5f63-8bc6-112371be4390) Blurb (#u09cb6c42-3904-5967-abea-301b50aeecfb) Title Page (#uab3129f4-f213-5c47-a60f-058b2e5f5b7f) Author Bio (#u6a8ba487-f773-5cd8-9bb9-315103427f70) Part 1 (#ulink_b809bc20-4e4e-55f9-a5d4-f307fa3f9d03) Chapter 1 (#ulink_9b27b683-6c09-514f-8d07-e94ae5183ca8) Chapter 2 (#ulink_24626174-d6c7-5c25-821f-1f3ab10cde15) Chapter 3 (#ulink_9b18c467-9853-5eff-b820-31cf70341314) Chapter 4 (#ulink_7fda4773-94a0-5968-bcc7-513b50f1cba9) Chapter 5 (#ulink_eb6e5064-32ff-5560-9dc6-5c0f1e16692e) Chapter 6 (#ulink_ba7ae11e-ca7c-509d-bcd4-d957722eeaa4) Chapter 7 (#ulink_ea3c979b-59e6-54d8-b8d3-e75010856511) Chapter 8 (#ulink_fd70ce02-7282-52ef-a5cf-74bbbe14f3f3) Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo) Part 2 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo) Part 3 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo) Part 4 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo) Endpages (#litres_trial_promo) Copyright (#litres_trial_promo) ROSA TEMPLE is the pseudonym of writer, Fran Clark. A ghost-writer of romance novels, Fran was awarded a Distinction in her Creative Writing MA from Brunel University in 2014. To date, Fran has penned three publications as Rosa Temple; Sleeping With Your Best Friend, Natalie’s Getting Married and Single by Christmas. A mother of two, Fran is married to a musician and lives in London. She spends her days creating characters and story lines while drinking herbal tea and eating chocolate biscuits. PART 1 (#ulink_b0e59490-3966-587d-b9f9-6869a2239cd8) THE LAST DAYS OF SUMMER Chapter 1 (#ulink_09944b06-1a93-5656-b859-02df79d7821b) On the 3rd of August 2015, I died. I was in the London offices of solicitors Bartholomew and Tooke, along with my family: Mother, Father and my three sisters. It was no ordinary death. After losing control of all my bodily functions, my eyes rolled back in my head and I stopped breathing altogether. I crashed to the floor and heard the high-toned, continuous beep of a heart monitor and imagined the great big flatline across the screen, confirming the inevitable. I was dead. But I wasn’t attached to a machine; there was no beep and no flatline. In fact, I wasn’t actually dead. But I could easily have been. One minute the incredibly handsome (for a sixty-year-old) Mr Bartholomew was reading Nana Clementine’s last will and testament, saying I’d just inherited ?250,000 and in the next breath he was saying that I couldn’t actually have it. In a matter of seconds, I’d gone from exhilarated at having landed a vast sum of money for doing absolutely nothing and then back to being flat broke and desperate. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved and adored Nana Clementine and couldn’t have been more heartbroken when we lost her, but she was far too astute for a ninety-year-old for my liking. You see, if there was one member of my family who knew me well, it was Nana Clementine – and that’s why the will reading hadn’t gone to plan. Nana had come to England from Ireland as a six-year-old with wild flaxen hair and rosy cheeks. She came from strong, Northern Irish stock and a family who knew how to work hard and get ahead. Her father, Damon Burns, also knew that if his beautiful Clementine was ever going to do well in England and be able to rub shoulders with English gentry, she’d have to get rid of the thick accent and smooth out that hair. Damon Burns signed Clementine up for elocution lessons and had the Queen’s English drummed into her until she could pass for a member of the royal family. Damon worked as a handyman in a women’s underwear factory and his wife was a seamstress in said factory. Damon worked an additional two jobs so that their only daughter could go to private school. He didn’t stop working until he and his wife eventually bought out the underwear factory and, in years to come, thanks to some astute business sense from the Irish couple, the small factory became one of the largest women’s lingerie designers and wholesalers in Europe. When Nana Clementine took over the company at age twenty-one, she made it a global success. Unlike Nana Clementine and her Irish family, I hated to work. A fact she was fully aware of. But yet here she was, and from beyond the grave I might add, trying to drum some of those hard-nosed, working-class family values into me. In her will she had left her estate to Mother, her only child, and to each of her granddaughters she’d left a tidy sum of ?250,000. My sisters – Amber, Indigo and Ebony – all got away scot-free with their stash but there was a proviso attached to my payout. As Mr Bartholomew put it: ‘Magenta Clementine Bright will take possession of her inheritance at age forty-five; but at any age prior to her forty-fifth birthday, she may take possession of the inheritance if she has been in continuous employment for the same employer for exactly 365 days.’ The mention of waiting to get hold of the money until age forty-five had caused the failure of my bodily functions; that is, I felt faint and I needed to wee. I was twenty-eight for crying out loud. The words ‘continuous employment’ had caused my eyes to roll back in my head. The loss of breath occurred straight after he’d said, ‘same employer’, and I’d crashed to the floor as if dead when I heard him say, ‘365 days’. By 365 days Mr Bartholomew meant a year. A whole year of work. Since I was twenty-three and had left university, the longest I’d held down a job was two months. In between jobs there’d been months of unemployment – not a good look for any curriculum vitae. Five years of living precariously doesn’t look good for anyone but I’d been consistent in the type of job I’d had. I’d always been a PA of some description. I can’t organise myself for shit but I’m brilliant at organising other people. Well for two months at a time, it would appear. ‘Magenta, get off the floor,’ my mother said as I lay prostrate on the Persian rug in Mr Bartholomew’s office, which smelled of Shake ’N’ Vac. ‘Ignore her,’ Mother said to the solicitor. ‘Just carry on.’ My sisters sniggered. Mr Bartholomew cleared his throat. ‘Any monies owed will be authorised for payment and all contracts to transfer properties to the beneficiaries will be drawn up. You’ll have to allow several months for completion of the transfers, especially the foreign ones, but it will all be in hand.’ My family made a combined sound as they prepared to leave the office, shuffling in their seats and gathering their jackets and handbags. Just to give you a little background about my family. My mother and father were divorced. My two older sisters, Amber and Indigo, were both married and worked for one of the family businesses: the lingerie company, now owned by Mother. My younger sister, Ebony, was single like me but unlike me, she had a career outside the realms of the family empire and was doing very well indeed. The four of us girls looked pretty much alike, but in varying dress sizes. We had all acquired the same sandy brown complexion – a combination of my Jamaican father and Irish mother’s genes – black-brown hair of varying wave texture and very posh accents after having attended the same private boarding school as Mother and Nana Clementine. The school was supposed to have made us well-balanced, well-educated, ambitious young ladies. For my sisters that had worked well – for me, not so much. Nana Clementine had wanted my mother – her only child, Scarlett – to marry well. Mother had been worth a considerable amount of money since before she was conceived so, of course, nothing but an appropriate suitor would do. Fortunately for Nana Clementine, Mother met Father, the son of a rich and influential businessman, at Oxford University. As a young man, my father, Carl Bright, was destined to inherit a large amount of land and two thriving guest houses in his native Jamaica, which he later developed into a chain of hotels in various islands in the Caribbean – the second of our family businesses. Father was as posh as Mother because of his upbringing: prep school, Eton, Oxford – the whole shebang. Father sounded a bit like Trevor McDonald reading News At Ten but he broke into his Jamaican vernacular when he was upset or angry. We heard a lot of Jamaican patois in the lead-up to their acrimonious divorce, five years ago. ‘Mavis will see you out,’ said Mr Bartholomew as they all left, most of them having to step over me to get to the door. Completely ignoring my dire situation, none of them cared that I might choke down there with all the Shake ’N’ Vac I’d inhaled. ‘You’ll have to get up now, Magenta. I have a meeting in ten minutes.’ I heard Mr Bartholomew tapping documents into a neat pile on his desk. ‘How can I get up?’ I asked from the floor. ‘You just signed my death warrant. I have to work for a full year before I get to spend a penny of my inheritance.’ I proceeded to rise from the dead; that is, I sat up and tried to arrange my big hair into the smooth, presentable style I’d arrived with. I blinked large, hazel eyes at Mr Bartholomew but he was sorting out files and papers and missed my ‘with-these-eyes-I-can-get-anything’ look, which worked like magic on Father when I was a little girl. ‘Mr Bartholomew, isn’t there anything you can do?’ I was on my knees and peering at him from the other side of his desk. ‘Do you understand what it means to hold down a job for a whole year?’ ‘I’ve been a solicitor for thirty years.’ He got up and dropped a file into one of the wire trays on his desk, walked to the mirror on the far wall and began straightening his tie. I followed him, put my arms around him from behind and fixed his tie. ‘I mean a year for a normal person,’ I said. His hairline was receding and his suit was terrible but he was still handsome. ‘You don’t understand,’ I went on. ‘Nana loved me the most. There’s no way she’d give Amber, Indigo and Ebony all that money for nothing and make me work for mine.’ He unwound himself from my vice-like grip on his shoulders. ‘I don’t have the power to alter your grandmother’s will, Magenta. You know that.’ He put papers into a thin case, fastened it and held his hand towards the door where Mavis had just come in to hurry her boss along. My shoulders slumped down like they used to when I was thirteen and someone in my family had ruined my life. I picked up my Herm?s Vintage Tote and left the office just ahead of Mr Bartholomew. We walked out onto Lancaster Gate together and he waved his hand in the air to hail a taxi. I stopped to watch him get into the back seat and wondered for a moment if he had any jobs going back at Bartholomew and Tooke. Realising very quickly I hadn’t exactly led with my best foot forward and there was no way he’d ever employ me, I waved at him. He waved back and I gave him the thumbs up sign. He gave me a puzzled look as the taxi shot off. I was left holding the tote bag in front of my legs with both hands, rocking backwards and forwards on my Manolo Blahniks and wishing I’d asked if I could use his toilet before we’d left. Chapter 2 (#ulink_5cf02205-2dc6-5b39-a580-a3eb9b722f04) Back at my Holland Park flat I stood on the balcony outside the bedroom window. It was probably the hottest day of August and the heat made my head ache. The traffic trundled past at street level, three floors below, each of the drivers oblivious to my recent run of bad luck and the horrendous fate that awaited me if I gave in to Nana Clementine’s crazy condition and actually worked … for a whole year. All of a sudden my head began to spin. My life was falling to pieces around me. Mother had already lived up to her threat and had stopped giving me money for rent and clothes whenever I was out of work. ‘It’s the only way you’ll learn to stand on your own two feet, Magenta,’ she’d told me over breakfast one morning when I’d come to borrow ?2000 for the rent arrears. ‘If you don’t learn to look after your finances you’ll have to come back home and live with me and get a job alongside your older sisters.’ She’d seen the look of terror in my eyes. Mother had retired as CEO to the lingerie business and my older sisters both held high positions within it. Amber was head of marketing and Indigo was the business lawyer for the firm. Ebony had gone straight from university into a job as an assistant buyer for Harrods and hadn’t looked back. ‘But, Mother,’ I’d pleaded. ‘I’m not business-minded; I’m an artist. I’d never last in the dizzying heights of high finance and corporate management.’ ‘Magenta,’ Mother had sighed. ‘You haven’t produced a single piece of art since you left art school. Why don’t you at least try to finish your degree? You were very good, you know?’ Mother was right. I was good at art but I was hardly the best. I realised a long time ago that in order to succeed one had to be competitive. And I wasn’t. There didn’t seem to be a competitive bone in my body. My sisters had been direct products of my parents’ ambitious natures. Their power-mad gene was missing from my DNA. I leaned on the rail of the balcony and sighed. I was an artist who no longer owned a sketch pad and who didn’t have an HB pencil to her name. My talents lay elsewhere as I kept trying to tell everyone. I was an expert in where to get the best cosmopolitan in town, how to dress well and how to get invited to all the good parties in London, Paris, New York and at least four other cities in the world. With those credentials how was I ever going to get a job that lasted a year and what on earth did working for a year actually feel like? I went back inside and put on some music. Before flopping onto the large red sofa in the middle of my spacious living room I grabbed the phone and called my younger sister, Ebony. Ebony was the most serious of us all and the most sensible. She was three years younger than me but seemed to have at least thirty years of common sense built into her anatomy and I admired her for that. ‘I was expecting your call,’ she said when she picked up. ‘Can you talk? Where are you?’ I said. I was upside down on the sofa, thick hair almost touching the wooden floorboards and feet crossed over the headrest. I could see I was due a pedicure. ‘You sound like you’re on the move.’ ‘I am,’ said Ebony and I pictured her in the power suit she’d been wearing earlier today. A dark red skirt and jacket with a brilliant white shirt underneath. She wore an amber brooch on the collar of her jacket, one of the treasures Nana Clementine had given to her. Each time we went to see Nana in her sickbed she would point a long, thin finger at her jewellery box and present us with some precious gem or ring or bracelet. I had a box full of Nana Clementine treasures and there had been times, desperate ones of course, when I’d thought about taking them to the pawnshop on Notting Hill Gate. ‘I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes,’ said Ebony. ‘I’m just getting into the car but I think I have the solution to your financial predicament.’ I sat up quickly, the blood rushing away from my head, and I swooned. ‘Oh, Ebony, you’re a sweetheart,’ I breathed. ‘Are you sure about this?’ ‘Sure about what, Magenta?’ I heard her car start up. ‘Well you’re going to loan me some cash, right?’ I said casually. Because, after all, what’s the point in having a favourite sister if she didn’t give you money when you needed it? ‘Better than that,’ said Ebony. ‘I’m going to put you onto someone who can give you a job.’ Ebony had started driving. I could hear traffic from her end but I had suddenly lost the ability to focus on the David Hockney lithograph on the wall opposite me. Its vibrant colour scheme was nothing but a blur before my eyes. ‘Magenta, are you still there?’ Ebony shouted. ‘I am, but for a moment I thought you said you might have found me a job.’ ‘Welcome to the world of the grown-ups, Magenta. My neighbour’s son is taking over from him and is hiring. Just yesterday Arthur told me that his son, Anthony, is interviewing for a new PA. I called Arthur a second ago and he called Anthony. You need to see Anthony tomorrow morning at ten-thirty at his office in Mayfair.’ It was all happening too fast. An interview? A job? Who the hell was Anthony and why would he hire me? ‘Look you’ve been a PA before, Magenta. It’s more or less in the bag. Anthony won’t know what he’s looking for in a PA because he’s new to the game. You just have to go and convince him that you’re the one for the job. You know how to do that.’ ‘I don’t. I haven’t got a clue.’ ‘Yes, you have. You know exactly how to manipulate people. How else could you get Mother and Father to keep you in the lifestyle you lead without having to lift a finger?’ ‘That’s not manipulation, Ebony, that’s a mother and father’s genuine love for their daughter.’ ‘They’ve spoilt you and you know it. Now get off that sofa of yours and get practising your interview technique. I’ll text the details.’ ‘But I …’ With a click the line was dead and Ebony had probably zipped off in her sports car without a single thought as to how having to go for an interview would affect me. It wasn’t until a little while later, when I was mixing an emergency margarita, that I realised I didn’t even know what the company I would be interviewing for actually did. A text came through from Ebony with the details of the job interview and I was none the wiser. My interview was with Anthony Shearman. The company was called A Shearman Leather Designs. I supposed the ‘A’ stood for Arthur, Ebony’s neighbour, and quite fitting that his son, Anthony, another ‘A’, was taking over. The office was in Mayfair, classy, so that was fine but as for leather designs, well, that could be anything. Hopefully Ebony hadn’t lined me up for a job in anything kinky and the leather might mean shoes and handbags – two of my favourite words. I’d never heard the name Shearman in top fashion so they obviously weren’t a designer label, but with an office in Mayfair they must be doing well. I decided to Google ‘A Shearman Leather Designs’. I opened my laptop on the coffee table and sat on the floor, my back against the sofa, a second margarita beside the laptop. I saw that Arthur Shearman inherited the company from Arthur Shearman Senior, long since deceased. They started as cobblers of men’s shoes in the West End of London and branched out into boot making, wallets, briefcases and men’s leather gloves. In fact, every conceivable leather item a well-to-do city gent could require, A Shearman made and sold it. They also owned a small factory in East London. Arthur Junior was recently retired and his thirty-three-year-old son, Anthony, was to take the helm. It looked as if most of their sales were online. There was a picture of Arthur Shearman shaking hands with his son at a party. His son was tall and looked pleasant enough. In fact, when I zoomed in on the picture, Anthony Shearman wasn’t bad-looking at all. I could work very happily alongside those looks for a year, I thought to myself as I zoomed in even closer, very happily indeed. I left the laptop open next to most of my margarita on the coffee table and leapt up. I padded across to my bedroom and threw open the doors to my walk-in wardrobe. I was on a mission. By ten-thirty the next morning I needed to land a new job and maybe a new boyfriend. I had to look the part. I stepped inside my wardrobe and emerged with the perfect ensemble about two hours later. Chapter 3 (#ulink_1522be0f-6c7a-54a5-b729-a32e9111938c) The first thing I saw of Anthony Shearman was his backside. He was on his knees, torso under the large desk by the window, scrabbling around for something he must have dropped. It was a lovely sight considering the dreadful journey I’d had into Mayfair. I rarely travelled on the tube and never at that time of morning. It was far too busy for me. People barged and pushed on the crowded platform until I was squeezed into a packed carriage, hanging on for dear life, a woman’s handbag pressed against my designer summer coat and a man’s copy of Metro inches from my nose. At A Shearman Leather Designs the receptionist, a sullen-looking woman in her early thirties, looked me up and down as if I was in the wrong place. ‘I’ve got an appointment with Anthony Shearman,’ I said. She tightened her lips and put on her glasses. Obviously the Stella McCartney dress and tailored coat had worked. I hadn’t been too sure about the shoes, though. I had made several last-minute changes but another would have made me late and Ebony would have marched to my house and killed me in cold blood if I messed this up. ‘This is A Shearman Leather Designs?’ I asked when the receptionist said nothing. From upstairs, I heard a great big crash; someone or something had landed with a bump but the receptionist didn’t flinch. Instead, she moved her eyes towards the staircase just outside her reception office and pointed a finger in the direction of the noise. ‘Upstairs,’ was all she said before lowering her gaze to her desk. At the top of the stairs was a door bearing a gold plaque with the name: ‘A Shearman’ engraved on it. I knocked confidently and heard a muffled, ‘Er, come in,’ from inside. I opened the door like an actress making a dramatic entrance onto the stage. My smile was wide and bright, my eyes flashed open with excitement and that’s when I noticed there was no one in the room. Looking down I saw a chair had been knocked over in front of the desk, from under which a bottom was emerging. ‘Mr Shearman?’ I asked. The bottom moved towards me. It was covered in navy slacks, was quite tight and athletic-looking, and had a back pocket. ‘I’m so sorry,’ Anthony said as he got to his feet. ‘I lost my muffin. Cassandra brought it in earlier. I forgot it was there and went to take it out to the kitchen. I don’t like them you see? Muffins. So I was going to the kitchen for a doughnut. I suppose the muffin didn’t want to go back so it rolled off and …’ At this point, Anthony Shearman pushed his glasses up his slender nose and we both looked down at the crumbling muffin on the plate he held up to his chest. ‘I could get the doughnut for you, Mr Shearman,’ I said, full of purpose and as if being a waitress had been my calling in life. ‘Could you?’ he said, looking every bit the angelic schoolboy with his tie neatly knotted around a strong neck. His shirt was immaculately ironed and there was not a hair out of place. His hair was dark, not too short, just at a length that showed the beginnings of a wave. He looked at me for a long moment, dark lashes blinking around large brown eyes that developed fine lines at the side as he began to smile. ‘Maybe I should just ignore the muffin and get down to the interview, Miss, um …’ ‘Bright. Magenta Bright.’ I put out my hand and quickly grabbed his for a vigorous shake bordering on a standing arm wrestle. I needed to make a good impression and when I saw his smile grow that bit wider I knew I was onto something. ‘Take a seat, Miss Bright.’ He picked up the overturned chair opposite his desk and presented it to me. ‘May I call you Magenta?’ ‘Absolutely.’ I was grinning broadly and felt assured, which might have had something to do with Ebony’s early morning alarm call at six a.m. when she woke me from a deep sleep. ‘You should be up and preparing,’ she’d said and proceeded to pep talk me through my interview technique after having grilled me about what I was wearing. Smile. Look enthusiastic. Be confident. Strong handshake. And for goodness’ sake try to sound like you know what you’re talking about. All of Ebony’s guidance stuck with me on the journey over to Mayfair. The offices of A Shearman Leather Designs were old but stylish. The ceilings were high. There were tasteful plants here and there, dark wood furniture and stark white walls with expensive prints hanging from them. The large, sash windows in Anthony’s office sported open blinds and looked across to a small hotel. Anthony went to sit in his high-backed, leather chair, still holding the muffin. He looked at it briefly before placing it onto his large, oak desk that contained nothing more than a telephone, a few letters in a wire rack and a half-drunk cup of coffee. He put his elbows on the desk and folded his hands under his chin. Expensive watch. No wedding ring. He looked young for his thirty-three years. He was not as good-looking as the photo online but there was a strong sexual appeal going on that I was sure he wasn’t even aware of. He looked like a complete innocent and the next time he opened his mouth I could tell he was greener than the lining of the designer jacket hanging over the back of his chair. This job was mine. ‘Could you tell me a little about yourself?’ Anthony asked. ‘Or maybe I should tell you a bit about the company.’ He droned on for a full five minutes but I kept alert and focused on him, nodding in all the right places. ‘And so,’ he was saying when I began to listen properly and stopped fantasising about his sumptuous lips, ‘Dad said the first thing for me to do was to hire a PA. To be honest with you I don’t really know what a PA does. Maybe you could tell me how you’d go about being my PA?’ Was this guy for real? During his blah, blah speech about his father and him and the company, I gathered that he’d agreed to take over because there was no one else to do so. His father had flown out to Anthony’s apartment in a small seaside town in southern Italy and had practically press-ganged him into taking over the running of A Shearman Leather Designs. Anthony’s older brother, a top-ranking physician, was by no means interested and as a vegan, he wanted nothing to do with leather. Anthony, meanwhile, had happily been painting landscapes and portraits for five years and teaching sculpture at the local college while Father dear was keeping him in oil pastels and canvasses. Sound familiar? On the plane back from Italy his father had tried to fill him in about the family business and how to run it and insisted it would make him and Anthony’s mother so proud. The short version, from what I could tell, was that Anthony wasn’t cut out for business, he was an artist not a businessman – and he was also a bigger flake than me. I began to try to convince Anthony that I was the best person for the job. I told him about my work as a PA to the CEO of an entertainment agency, the PA to an art dealer in Paris, the PA to the head of a charity-run organisation that protected endangered giraffes and the PA to an entrepreneur who made food packaging. In my very flowery interpretation of these jobs and how wonderful I’d been at them, not once did I mention that I was fired from every post I held. (Except as the PA to the entrepreneur; he had wandering eyes and wandering hands and I’d hit him over the head with a waste paper basket and run out screaming to the first cocktail bar I came to and called my best friend, Anya, to come and buy me a drink.) ‘You certainly seem well qualified,’ said Anthony leaning back in his chair and pushing his glasses up his nose. ‘I need someone who can help me keep on top of things. Dad was here for a few weeks, showing me the ropes as it were. Hopefully you’ll pick up on what’s what. Of course there’s Cassandra downstairs who is a secretary as well as a very efficient receptionist. She was with Dad before me. And we have a finance and wages department that I haven’t quite got to grips with but I think they handle marketing and sales. Not too sure what’s happening there but I’m sure you’d fit in very nicely here, Magenta.’ ‘You mean I have the job?’ ‘Well, I suppose so. If you want it that is. I gather your sister is my dad’s neighbour and she spoke so highly of you, it convinced me that with you as my PA I might just be able to do this job after all.’ He gave a weak laugh. His teeth were perfect: straight, brilliant white and with that slight overbite I can hardly resist in man. I liked his smile, I’d warmed to him instantly and now I had a job. And in 365 days I’d be a quarter of a million pounds better off. Where did I sign? I reached over and sealed the deal with a handshake before he could change his mind. We rose to our feet, still holding hands across the desk. ‘You won’t regret this, Anthony. I’ll be the best PA there is.’ ‘Can you start right away?’ he asked. ‘Well straight away on Monday, if that’s all right?’ I said with a winning smile. I needed a few days to psych myself up. Employment was a major step after all. ‘Monday is great. I’ll see you at nine,’ said Anthony. We finally released each other’s hands and for some reason I gave him a thumbs up. Anthony Shearman had me all of a fluster. I questioned whether I could survive the 365 days without falling for him; but by the time he saw me to the door of the building, it was too late. I already had. Chapter 4 (#ulink_1d42fec7-b281-5cc9-83af-98c4b012626e) A celebration was in order. I called my BFF, Anya Stankovic, and arranged to meet her at a fashionable restaurant and bar in town. Anya was back in London after a shoot in Milan and she was my girl when it came to getting slaughtered in the middle of the day. Anya and I had been friends since art school. I had gone to study fashion and Anya was a fine art painter. We’d met in the canteen one afternoon and, after discovering that we were both skiving from our respective lectures, became instant friends. It was when my department put on a fashion show and I asked Anya to be my model, that a fashion industry executive told her she should take modelling seriously. Anya jumped at the chance of having a photo shoot and meeting an agent. Her career as a fine artist would never have worked out anyway. She spent most of her days in the Student Union Bar and very few hours with her easel and brushes. Anya’s popularity as a model came at a time when the Eastern European look was all the rage. Her fine features, determined green eyes and slender body got her to the front page of Vogue in just two years of starting as a model. She’d arrived from Serbia as a skinny fifteen-year-old with a strong accent and perfect English. She still pronounced the W at the front of words as a V, which men found irresistible. We looked like polar opposites of each other: Anya with her pale skin and mine sandy brown, she with the bone-straight, dark hair and mine wild and wavy. She was tall and fragile-looking. I was tall, too, but full in the bust and butt region. Anya rarely smiled and I could never stop grinning or laughing about something or other. But we’d clicked the first time we met and while Anya had gone on to be a raging success in her career, I, quite obviously, had failed. I didn’t finish my art degree and I didn’t understand the meaning of the word career as each of my sisters had pointed out to me in turn. Yes, Anya and I were complete opposites. ‘Vot is this job you have?’ Anya asked as she breezed into the restaurant, causing every head to turn as she approached the table. She kissed me on each cheek, rather systematically, and I pulled her in for a squeeze. I held out the drink I’d ordered for her and she held the stem between long, slim fingers as she sat opposite me. ‘I’m the PA for Anthony Shearman of A Shearman Leather Designs.’ I lifted my drink and we both took a sip. ‘Congratulations,’ said Anya. ‘I hope he isn’t some boob-grabbing boss like the last time.’ ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘Anthony is a sweetie. He’s Clark Kent in these super sexy glasses.’ ‘Oh and I guess you’re dying to rip off his shirt and reveal the S on his chest.’ ‘You could say that. But I can’t get involved. I need to keep my job for a year, not fall in love.’ Of course Anya had no idea about the conditions of the will so, after ordering a second cocktail, I told her everything. She barely raised an eyebrow during my tale of hardship and hard work. ‘So, you think you can do this, Madge?’ she asked. This was only going to be the greatest challenge of my life. ‘Look, I’m twenty-eight,’ I said. ‘I can’t go on living off my parents and eating out on your credit card for the rest of my life.’ ‘Vye not?’ she asked. ‘I have a lot of money and I get so many gifts: dresses, bags, shoes, hotel rooms. I can share vith you.’ ‘I haven’t done anything to earn it, Anya. You’ve worked hard since you were eighteen. You look after your body. You eat weird food and you lived like a pauper for a year in Paris. You made sacrifices and you made it to the top. I’ve got nothing to show for myself.’ ‘Rubbish. You have your flat, your car.’ ‘I could never have had those without my parents’ money. Besides, I had to give the car back – failure to pay the loan, remember? And I’m in rent arrears. Any second now I could be served with an eviction notice. I don’t actually own a thing. You’ve got three places to live. If I get flung out for non-payment of rent I have to move in with my mother – or worse, my father. You know he’ll never stop lecturing me. He’ll have me working for him and he’ll drive me completely nuts.’ ‘You know you can alvays move in vith me if you needed to. Besides …’ ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘Vorking for a year isn’t so bad if it means you can practically retire at tventy-nine ven you come into your inheritance.’ I stopped with my cocktail glass halfway to my lips. ‘But you know what, Anya?’ I’d had an epiphany. ‘That inheritance could be the making of me. I wouldn’t carry on as I have been. If I get hold of that money before I’m forty-five, I swear I’ll make something of myself. I’d use the money for something – something worthwhile.’ Anya smiled a thin smile. ‘Don’t you believe me?’ I asked her. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe you, darling. It’s just that you’ve had lots of schemes in the past that didn’t really take off. I mean, there vos the time you vonted to be a stylist. I introduced you to a number of celebrities. You turned up late for everything and you made Matt Damon look like Coco the Clown.’ ‘Silk trousers were in that year.’ ‘Not for a man vith his physique. And vot about the time you tried to be a singer?’ ‘Oh, that. Look I know I’m no Beyonc? but you’d be amazed at what they can do in the studio. They can touch up your vocals and make you sound really good.’ ‘But, Madge, no amount of touching up could save you. It vos awful.’ ‘Okay, don’t go on about it.’ I sighed. The catalogue of disasters that was my life wasn’t entirely my fault. Practically everything that happened to me since my brief but tempestuous relationship with Hugo seemed doomed to fail. Nothing had really gone right since him. I don’t suppose my family and friends accepted that Hugo was to blame for all the catastrophes that went to make up the Magenta Bright existence. And anyway, as it had been ten years since he left, they must all have assumed I’d moved on. In many ways I had, but memories of Hugo were never far from my mind. I was eighteen when I met him. He was ten years older than me. I was about to start art college and had gone out for a drink with friends. Hugo was on the opposite side of a wide bar in a loud pub where live music was blaring from the stage. The bar itself was being propped up by fashionable, yet totally inebriated folk from neighbouring Notting Hill. Hugo looked shiny and perfect in a sea of shabby chic and Gothic black. He wore a creased T-shirt and his skin was olive-coloured. His eyes were almond-shaped and I could tell they were blue, even from across the room. From the moment we glimpsed each other we never looked away. Hugo pushed through the crowd, still keeping eye contact, and joined me at the bar. I had a twenty-pound note in my hand and was about to buy a round of drinks. ‘Can I get that one?’ he’d asked me. His lips were close to my ear and I could feel my skin begin to burn with excitement. I desperately needed the loo but there was no way I was going to walk away from him. ‘Actually I was about to buy a round of drinks for my friends,’ I’d replied, looking straight into his eyes. They were blue. ‘I can dump my friends in a matter of seconds,’ he’d said, nodding over to the other side of the bar. ‘How quickly could you ditch yours so we can get out of here?’ Without a word, I put the money back into my purse, closed it, shoved the purse into my bag and left the pub with Hugo following close behind me, his hand on the small of my back. A million thoughts came into my head before we reached the door. Gorgeous. Spontaneous. Sexy. Tall. Gorgeous. Serial killer? But by the time we’d walked the entire length of Portobello Road, light rain falling and flattening his spiky hair to his temples and making mine look like an enormous 1980s’ afro, I was in love with Hugo. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Anya. ‘I was only making a joke.’ Anya looked at the waitress who’d been waiting patiently for us to order. ‘I’m hungry,’ she said turning to me. ‘I could eat. Could you eat?’ ‘I suppose I should have something to soak up the booze,’ I said sipping my mojito. The waitress was poised with a pen above her notepad. Anya, reaching for the girl’s writing arm, clasped hold of it. ‘Tell the chef I vont a rare steak, steamed rice and seasoned vegetables and please bring me an empty side plate vith it.’ Anya turned to me and raised an eyebrow. Anya always did this. She never ordered anything from the actual menu. She was such a diva she could order anything anywhere and the restaurant felt obliged to comply. They all knew Anya Stankovic: supermodel, once connected to Matthew McConaughey, dated the drummer from Maroon Five and poster girl for Clinique. ‘I’ll have the same,’ I said looking at the waitress who was close to tears. She was obviously as terrified of the head chef as she was of Anya. ‘But without the empty side plate.’ ‘Er, yes, straight away,’ the poor girl said. Anya removed her long fingers from the girl’s arm and let her go. ‘So,’ said Anya, who knew that my faraway look from a second ago was all to do with Hugo and not my failed singing career. She made it her business never to mention Hugo because she knew it was raw, even ten years later. ‘Tell me about your Clark Kent boss. Are you sure there is no chance you and he might …?’ ‘No, no way. I shouldn’t let myself fancy him because I have an agenda – I have to last a year and not ruin everything by falling in love with the boss. I’ll have to do my damnedest to make sure I suppress my libido where he’s concerned, though,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I’ve stayed out of love for ages so far; I’m sure I’ve got this.’ ‘Vell,’ said Anya. ‘You might not be in love, but I am.’ I took a sharp intake of breath. Again, like the polar opposite to me, Anya never did love. While I’d had my heart broken big time, Anya would have her way with a man and ditch him at the nearest kerb, where he’d fall and graze not only his chin but his pride, too. Now that I was the one who wanted to avoid commitment here was Anya looking dreamy-eyed. ‘Who the hell is this man?’ I asked. ‘It is a man, right?’ ‘Of course it’s a man. A very big man.’ ‘Lucky you.’ ‘Not big like that,’ she said batting her hand in the air. ‘Big as in important, accomplished, vell-to-do.’ ‘Who is he? Come on, spill. Maybe I can live vicariously through you.’ ‘No. I shouldn’t have said anything,’ Anya said, hurriedly, and for the first time in my life I thought I saw her blush. ‘Well you brought it up, Anya. You obviously want to talk about it. I mean, for goodness’ sake, you’ve never said you were in love, no matter how involved you were with someone.’ ‘Look, it’s early days. I don’t vont to jinx it. Do you mind?’ Our food arrived at that very moment. The waitress was fussing around us. All the while my mind was working overtime, Anya just looked calmly at her plate. She usually told me everything and I wondered why she didn’t this time. In my head the only reason I could imagine Anya not wanting to say who this mystery man was, was because he must be married. What was she playing at? No matter who we dated, we never went for married men. It just wasn’t our thing. Had Anya changed so much in this last year? A year when she’d been away from home for the most part for work. I’d missed her a lot but she’d kept me up to date with texts and long chats from her bath. While away, Anya had even been offered a part in a Hollywood film, which she was still considering. Anya had it all. Why would she want a married man? If he was married then it could only be love – the real thing. But I wished she could just tell me who it was and put me out of my misery. She wasn’t budging and changed the subject as soon as the waitress left the table. She began telling me about the present she’d brought back from her travels for me. She never failed to buy me a souvenir, no matter how trivial or overly expensive. This time she kept insisting that my present was a surprise. In the usual Anya way, she started cutting up her food and putting a small portion of everything onto the empty side plate. She pushed the larger plate away and began to eat the amount she’d set aside on the side plate. ‘Vot?’ she said to me with those staring, feline eyes of hers. ‘I’m twenty-eight and a model. How else can I keep my teenage vaistline if I don’t compromise?’ She put a tiny morsel of steak into her mouth and began to chew for about a minute before swallowing. ‘It’s not the food, Anya,’ I told her. ‘It’s the other thing. I’m dying to know who this man is.’ She waved me away with her fork. ‘Dying? Vye do you have to be so melodramatic, Madge?’ She cut the tip off an asparagus tip and chased it with her fork. ‘Look, before you go painting me as the drama queen around here,’ I said trying to suppress my annoyance. ‘Please just tell me you’re not breaking up a marriage.’ Anya gently put down her cutlery. ‘Madge, I am not anyone’s mistress. Now eat up and let’s go and see the present I brought back for you before I change my mind.’ We finished our meal in silence. Anya paid and we caught a taxi to her house in Hampstead. The taxi’s wheels crunched along the gravelled drive and dropped us in front of Anya’s impressively large, six-bedroom house and she led me towards her double garage. Anya’s house had been renovated by a top architect and the interior was designed by the same person who designed Gwyneth Paltrow’s UK residence. I had no idea why she’d held on to such a large place in London. She’d originally bought it for her parents and they’d refused to live in it since a big falling out with their daughter several years ago. Anya had appeared semi-naked in what I thought was a very tasteful spread in a top Italian fashion publication. You could hardly make out her nipples but her mother, who came across as if she had dinner with the Pope once a week, practically disowned her daughter when Anya was nineteen. Anya’s mother refused to talk to her until she took up a respectable career. It broke my heart as it had Anya’s, though she never let it show. Since then Anya had become an honorary member of my family, and Mother adored her. Anya clicked the remote on her key fob and the garage doors began to open. Inside was her sporty Audi something or other and beside it a new and shiny, red Ferrari 458 convertible. ‘You’ve got a new car,’ I exclaimed. ‘Correction. You have a new car. I had it shipped back for you.’ I rushed over and started stroking the paintwork. ‘This is too much, Anya. You can’t go on spending all this money on me. It’s ridiculous.’ ‘I didn’t spend a penny. Vell, only shipping costs. I drove it in an advertisement and the company said I should keep it. Who am I to argue? Especially ven I have a best friend whose dying ambition is to drive a red flashy sports car.’ I clasped my hands together with glee and started hopping up and down. I wriggled my fingers at Anya to bring her in for a hug. Anya, never good at showing affection, stood like an ironing board as I wrapped my arms around her thin frame and tried to swing her around. ‘I have the key.’ Her voice was muffled through my hair as I continued to hug her to me. ‘But it’s inside.’ I pulled away and looked deeply into Anya’s eyes. ‘It’s a fantastic present, darling. But I am worried about you. I hope you can talk to me about this man one day. You know? If you need to. I’m happy you’re in love and I want it to work out. Honestly I do.’ Her green eyes looked as though they might start to become glassy so I turned towards the house and linked her arm because I knew she wouldn’t want me to see her getting emotional. ‘Let’s go in,’ I said. ‘These are my last few days of freedom until my job starts on Monday morning. I’m sure you’ve got lots to tell me about your trip.’ Anya’s thin smile returned. She patted my hand. That would have to do as her gesture of gratitude for not probing her any further about the mystery man. Chapter 5 (#ulink_048c3aca-7363-5e2c-8bce-fd644b8b6fdc) At nine o’clock on Monday morning I was outside the two-storey office building of A Shearman Leather Designs. I’d seen Cassandra, the sullen receptionist, unlock the door and step inside as I approached so I’d run to catch her up. Her response was to ignore my friendly, ‘Hi there,’ from a few doors down and to close the door in my face when I caught her up. ‘Wait, it’s me, Magenta. I work here now,’ I said, pushing open the heavy door with its frosted glass panels. Cassandra turned and looked me up and down the way she had done a few days previously and strode across the marble hallway into reception. I followed, all smiles. She grunted and pulled the silk scarf from her neck and dumped it and her handbag onto the reception desk. ‘Er, Anthony told me nine o’clock,’ I blathered on regardless. ‘He did tell you he’d hired me?’ ‘I gathered as much. I suppose he did the best he could.’ She looked down at my Jimmy Choos. I’d wondered if I’d gone for too high a heel when I got dressed earlier but the Emilia Wickstead day dress I’d bought the week before in her Sloane Street boutique just cried out for height. Maybe I’d overdone it. I towered over the stocky Cassandra and her neat, red bob. On closer inspection I saw that her skin was flawless. Her fringe was cut to perfection and her thick-framed glasses gave her a superior air. But one look at her thin lips, pursed as tightly as they were, and I knew I wasn’t going to be her favourite colleague by a long mile. What was her deal anyway? Had she wanted the job as PA? Who could tell? All I knew was that this woman didn’t like me and 365 days of having to work was going to be even tougher if I had to look at that miserable face for all of them. I felt as if I’d walked into a war zone, ill-equipped and unprepared to do battle with a pro like Cassandra. ‘Should I just go to my office?’ I said, sounding far too wet behind the ears. Cassandra pounced. ‘Well you won’t be much good standing there, will you?’ ‘It’s just that Anthony didn’t show me where –’ Cassandra dragged herself out of her seat and brushed past me and out of the door. Again I followed her. She heaved her shoulders up and down with a loud tut that echoed in the wide space of the hallway. I trotted up the stairs behind Cassandra and followed very closely. So close in fact that when she stopped outside the door of an office on the top floor, I bumped into her. ‘Sorry,’ I said. She tutted again, opened the door and stood back to let me in. The office faced the front of the building. It was fairly large but couldn’t really be considered plush. The chair wasn’t as fancy as the one in Anthony’s office, or in reception come to that, but the desk was large and so highly polished I could see my reflection when I put my bag onto it. Other than a desk tidy and filing tray (empty) the room was quite bare and screamed out for a revamp. Obviously the last PA had no taste and I’d have to address that as my first task. I made a mental note to order in some plants for the windowsill, perhaps a couple of black and white prints for the wall and the wooden floor could possibly do with a rug of some sort. I was very sure I’d seen just the thing last time I was browsing in John Lewis for a vase. Oh and flowers – the office needed them. ‘Who’s your florist?’ I asked Cassandra. She looked at me blankly and went to leave. ‘Just a minute,’ I called to her. She stopped, not bothering to face me. ‘Have I done something to annoy you?’ I said to the back of her smooth bob. Cassandra turned around slowly. I expected her face to be bright red and angry but instead she arched an eyebrow above her glasses and stared hard at me. ‘For your information, I did everything for the old Mr Shearman. I worked as his secretary and PA for fifteen years. It was my first job after leaving school at eighteen. I’ve worked all of my adult life – hard. I know what hard work is. I didn’t come here with a silver spoon in my mouth, a rich mummy and daddy and a sister who more or less called in every favour she could to get me here. No. Like I said, I worked hard. Mr Shearman never had a worry or a care and he has no idea what he’s letting himself in for allowing that dolt of a son of his to try to take over. He doesn’t know a leather belt from a briefcase or a sales report from a marketing budget.’ ‘But you do, I suppose?’ Immediately Cassandra parroted what I said in a pseudo-posh accent. ‘Is that how I sound to you?’ I said crossing my arms. ‘Well pardon my middle-class upbringing. It doesn’t define me. You don’t know if I’m a hard worker.’ I wasn’t. ‘And you don’t know if I had help getting this job.’ I did. ‘In fact, you know nothing about me so don’t be so quick to judge.’ ‘All I know is that someone who comes to work dressed as if she’s just walked out of a designer clothes shop doesn’t need a job as a PA.’ I opened my mouth to respond but Cassandra had walked out and I could hear her stomping her way downstairs followed by a loud bang of something or other landing on her desk. Maybe her boxing gloves. But I wasn’t about to take this lying down, not without a cappuccino anyway, so I stormed down after her. Cassandra whipped her head over to stare at me as soon as my first Jimmy Choo toe touched the reception floor. Her eyes bulged through her glasses at me. I faltered. ‘Um, I wondered where you kept the coffee things,’ I said in a soft voice. She pointed a finger, with a nail that could do with a good manicure, towards a door down the corridor and I followed her glare towards it. I was seething as I entered what turned out to be a small kitchen. Round one had gone to Cassandra but she wasn’t getting away with treating me like that for the rest of my time here. She was judging me by my cover: posh accent, designer clothes. But I had to show her there was more to me than that. I mean, there was – wasn’t there? So I hadn’t worked my fingers to the bone exactly but then again I’d never had to. Was that my fault? Carrying a cup of coffee past reception and up to my new office, I decided to keep my head down and keep out of Cassandra’s way for a while. Maybe in time she might come to like me. Maybe she wouldn’t but I had to show her that I wasn’t as bad as she made me out to be. By ten o’clock I had gone and introduced myself to the other office staff. Taking up two large offices at the back of the building was the finance and wages departments – a total of three other people who double and tripled up on whatever else needed to get done. I gathered that as well as being receptionist, general secretary and the old Mr Shearman’s PA, Cassandra also dealt with human resources and the office supplies. By ten-thirty I had moved my desk around to be sideways on to the window, straightened out some files on a shelf, opened and closed the drawers of a tall filing cabinet in the corner and painted my fingernails Devil Red. There was no sign of Anthony and I’d been in and out of his office only to find it empty each time. There was a computer on a side table in my room and I’d managed to log into it and get the website for Ikea to see if I could source some reasonably priced office furnishings. I thought Cassandra would baulk at me considering Harrods so I’d already made the company a saving. It got to eleven-thirty and I noticed online that Harvey Nichols were doing Mind Wellness Smoothies in their fifth-floor restaurant and wondered if I could take a long lunch break and meet Anya there. All of a sudden I heard a bit of a commotion on the ground floor. I went over to my door and leaned over the banister to listen. I heard Anthony’s voice. At last. I popped back into the office and got my compact mirror out. I scrunched my waves into life again, flicked up my eyelashes with my finger before rubbing it over my teeth to bring out the shine of the recent whitening job. Then I began to look into various poses I should assume for when Anthony first saw me at work. I picked up a notepad and pencil and stood in front of my desk ready to take notes. No. I didn’t know shorthand and my spelling was atrocious. I sat at my desk with my chin on my hands, elbows on the table. No. I’d look like I was bored. I went over to the computer to look as if I’d been trying to get to grips with the systems but the computer screen had frozen on the lingerie section of Harvey Nichols website so I quickly hit ‘Ctrl Alt Delete’ to leave the program. Next, I ran over to the filing cabinet and started looking through files but I broke a fingernail and slammed the drawer shut. Maybe I should start by asking Anthony if he wanted coffee or tea. Perfect. You couldn’t get a better icebreaker for starting a strong PA/boss relationship. I sat on the edge of my seat waiting for Anthony to walk up the stairs and when that didn’t happen I began to panic. Maybe Cassandra was holding him by the lapels and convincing him that I should be fired. No way was I going to let that uptight secretary lose me my job before the day was through. I went downstairs and as I did I heard laughter. It was a woman’s laugh and I was convinced that Cassandra didn’t know how to laugh. Someone else was downstairs with Anthony so I skipped into reception merrily to find out who. ‘Ah, Magenta,’ Anthony said turning to me with a smile. ‘You’re here.’ I tried not to look puzzled by that comment but I was. ‘You did say Monday didn’t you, Anthony?’ I said with a smile. All of a sudden my gaze was drawn away from Anthony and fell on the person whose laugh I’d heard from upstairs. I tried not to gasp at her beauty, but the woman who was now gripping Anthony’s arm was truly beautiful. She was tall and had a delicate poise. She was classy but in a down-to-earth sort of way. She wore a long summer dress with a low front and her tanned breasts were perfectly formed – not too big and not too small and needing no support from a bra whatsoever. A quick glance at Cassandra and I could see she was smirking at my open mouth. Cassandra must have clocked that I had a crush on Anthony and she had obviously been waiting for the day I’d come to find out that Anthony was taken. And not only taken but well and truly so, judging by the enormous stone on the platinum ring on the third finger of the beautiful woman’s left hand. Anthony was engaged. I tried not to let my shoulders sag. I knew from the off that falling for him would have been a no-no anyway … but still. ‘Yes, I think I did say Monday,’ Anthony said. ‘I’m sorry, I forgot about our weekend in Tuscany.’ As he said this, the woman gripping his arm gripped even tighter and smiled a gooey smile that spoke volumes. ‘Should I not have come today then?’ I asked trying to ignore the evils this woman was giving me and the slimy grin plastered on Cassandra’s face. ‘I’ll be in tomorrow,’ said Anthony with a reassuring nod. ‘And we can officially start then.’ ‘Silly, Ant,’ said the beautiful woman as she smooshed her right boob closer to Anthony’s body. ‘Oh, Magenta, may I introduce Inez, my fianc?e?’ said Anthony. I walked over with an extended hand to shake hers. She took an agonisingly long time to detach herself from Anthony before reaching out her hand as I stood there like a prize plum. Her hand was slim and very cool, despite the hot August morning in central London. ‘I hope you can keep Ant organised,’ she said, barely looking at me. ‘He can be a bit of a scatterbrain. But he’s my scatterbrain.’ Emphasis on the ‘my’. She squeezed his cheek between her finger and thumb then tiptoed up to kiss the pink mark she’d left there. ‘But one day this place will be an empire and he’ll be in charge of it all. Won’t you, Ant?’ Anthony nodded, embarrassed, and tried to step away from Inez whose boob closed in even tighter than before. ‘Magenta, you must forgive me for calling you in here a day early,’ said Anthony, red-faced. ‘Yes, as you can tell I am a bit of a scatterbrain but as long as you’re not, we’ll do just fine.’ I noticed Inez look at me from top to toe in a quick sweep. She seemed to decide I was no threat to her Mediterranean beauty and dismissed me by turning her back on me, gathering Anthony by his arm again and walking him out of reception. ‘See you tomorrow,’ Cassandra called as they went to leave. ‘Yes, see you,’ I repeated, waving as if I was seeing them off at a train platform. Anthony gave us a quick ‘See you’ over his shoulder and Inez whipped him out of the building and away. I turned to look at Cassandra who was looking down at her desk and shaking her head. ‘What?’ I said. ‘What is it now?’ ‘Oh nothing,’ she said, moving papers around on her desk. ‘No come on, out with it.’ I stood my ground, hands on hips. ‘Well I was just comparing the starry-eyed look you gave Anthony when he showed you out last week after your interview. You had no idea he and his fianc?e were about to spend a weekend at their cottage hideaway in Italy. Funny.’ ‘You could have reminded him that he wasn’t going to be here until Tuesday when you heard him say Monday to me.’ ‘What and miss all the fun? Besides, you’re the PA. You’re supposed to know everything about him.’ I didn’t answer. I stormed up the stairs to Anthony’s office and sat at his desk. I started looking around for anything that might give away what my boss was likely to be doing for the week to come. He obviously had no idea. I knew at the interview Anthony wasn’t cut out for the job he’d taken on so I’d have to get him ready. Because let’s face it, if Anthony failed, I’d have to find a new job and start all over again from day one. I found a desk diary and began to read through it. Next, I looked at all the paperwork on his desk and switched on his computer. There were no passwords to worry about and instead of surfing the web for fashion shows and designer outlet sales, as I had been earlier, I went into the reports and files and tried to get myself acquainted with the ins and outs of the company I hoped to help run for the next year. At about two o’clock in the afternoon Cassandra came up to Anthony’s office. ‘Still here?’ she said. ‘Looks like it.’ I didn’t look up. ‘I’m off to lunch. Can I get you anything?’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll grab something later if I feel hungry. I’m too busy to stop.’ I ignored Cassandra and she hovered by the door for a while. ‘Right then,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you in an hour. The door will be locked but no one comes by unless it was prearranged.’ ‘Oh like Anthony’s twelve o’clock tomorrow with Niles Benson?’ I said, looking at Anthony’s online diary, which Cassandra was bound to have set up. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said. ‘After lunch do you think you could get me up to speed on this Niles person?’ I said. I finally looked up from the screen. Cassandra nodded and gave me a half scowl half smile before slipping out of the door. I discovered a telephone number for the former boss of A Shearman Leather Designs, Arthur Shearman, and gave him a call. ‘Mr Shearman, you don’t know me. I’m Magenta Bright, Anthony’s new PA. I believe you’re my sister’s neighbour.’ I sounded official but with an air of friendly charm, like any badass PA. ‘Only just,’ he said. ‘You caught me about to telephone the removal company. My wife and I are leaving for the new house in Wiltshire.’ ‘A lovely part of the country,’ I said. ‘Congratulations on the new job by the way. I thought Anthony needed someone at his side – an extra bit of help as it were. Cassandra has so many other responsibilities, I didn’t want to stop the smooth flow of things. As for your sister, Ebony, I do bump into her once in a while. She’s quite the dynamo. And I know your other sisters are businesswomen.’ Please don’t confuse me with them. ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘So I knew Anthony would be in good hands.’ God help us. ‘Well,’ Arthur Shearman continued, ‘I’ve your sister to thank for referring you to us. But, er … is there a problem?’ ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘It’s just that Anthony is back from his weekend away tomorrow and I thought it might be a good idea for me to have spoken to the man who has been running the operation for the last thirty years or so.’ ‘You’ve gathered, then, that my son is somewhat of a novice.’ I didn’t want to tell him that I thought his son would find himself lost in a two-foot by two-foot maze if he didn’t lay breadcrumbs to find his way home. ‘A little, I suppose,’ I said. ‘But if I’m going to be an efficient PA then I thought I should talk to the expert.’ Arthur Shearman sounded chuffed and babbled on about the everyday business while I listened carefully and made as many notes as I could. I asked him what he knew about Niles Benson. ‘Anthony has a meeting with him tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Oh dear,’ said Arthur Shearman. ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked. ‘That Niles Benson is a sticky character,’ he said. ‘I wonder what he’s up to. He knows I had no interest in anything he had to offer. Looks like he waited until I left and wormed his way into a meeting with my son. Do you think I should stay in London and come to the meeting?’ ‘Not at all. I’ll pass on your concerns to Anthony. You relax, enjoy your retirement and leave this to me.’ I hung up the phone, put my feet up on Anthony’s desk and smiled to myself. I’ve got this, I thought. I’d show them all. By the time Cassandra returned from lunch I was more or less coming to grips with Anthony’s job and, consequently, mine. Day one – done. I just had 364 to go. Chapter 6 (#ulink_7e6a433e-43a1-54f4-ad1e-68e301ce3cae) Cassandra had been good enough to hand over a spare set of keys for the office before I left on Monday afternoon – reluctantly, I should say, but she handed them over all the same. So the next morning I arrived bright and early carrying two bunches of flowers and a couple of vases from home. I decorated both mine and Anthony’s office with the flowers and went out to buy some biscuits for Anthony’s twelve o’clock. One of the few things I’d learned as a PA was that whenever there was a meeting, there should be tea and there should be biscuits. At a couple of the previous offices I’d had a subordinate who could rustle up a tea tray for me. But as I was not sure Cassandra would take it too well if I asked her to make the tea, I decided I’d do it myself. I’d bought bad biscuits because Arthur Shearman didn’t like Niles Benson and rule number one in meetings etiquette was to give your worst clients bad biscuits because it was a sure way to keep them at arm’s length. Garibaldi biscuits it was and I hoped the raisins would stick in Niles Benson’s teeth. Anthony surprised me with his arrival before I’d finished tidying his desk. He wasn’t wearing his glasses and he squinted in my direction. ‘Those look nice,’ said Anthony loosening his tie and coming quite close to where I was standing. He looked nice and relaxed but had a faint hint of a frown line on his forehead. He smelled of freshly showered body and expensive cologne. I wondered how he stayed so fresh after braving the London tube network. Maybe he lived nearby. I assumed he lived with Inez. All those things I had yet to discover. ‘I thought I’d brighten the place up for your meeting,’ I said backing away from Anthony so that my nose didn’t end up on his neck. His cologne was tantalisingly strong and his neck … I swallowed hard. Did she, Inez, buy the cologne for him? Focus, Magenta. ‘My meeting?’ Anthony looked confused and the frown line in his brow deepened a millimetre or two. ‘Yes, Anthony,’ I said, picking up the new desk diary I’d bought in Tiger and thought would make me look efficient if I walked around with it. I’d also bought a matching notebook and had made a note to find out how to claim the expense back from petty cash. ‘It’s with Niles Benson.’ ‘Oh him,’ said Anthony. ‘I think my father arranged it.’ Strange. Didn’t Arthur Shearman tell me yesterday that Niles Benson was trouble? Something wasn’t adding up. ‘I did a bit of background on Mr Benson,’ I said. ‘For my own benefit,’ I added, quickly. ‘I see he has a rival company in Bristol and they’re doing pretty well. Factories in China and outlets in Italy, Japan and Sweden.’ ‘You have been busy.’ Anthony smiled widely but followed the smile with a frown. ‘I don’t suppose you did a background on why we’re having a meeting did you?’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I thought you would know. I thought you … Actually, Anthony, would you like me to cancel this appointment?’ ‘You can’t do that.’ Cassandra’s voice from the doorway startled us both. ‘I mean, Bristol is quite a few miles away. He must already be on the train, or driving.’ I looked at Anthony who was frowning again. ‘Cassandra’s right, Magenta,’ he said. ‘I should hear him out. I mean he’s on his way and everything.’ Cassandra looked at me, smugly, but I was becoming worried about this meeting. Anthony hadn’t arranged it and I was positive Arthur Shearman hadn’t either. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I suppose once you’ve heard what he’s here for things will start to fall into place.’ I looked at Cassandra and the open door to Anthony’s office with one eyebrow raised. ‘Was there anything else?’ ‘Um, I just came up to ask Anthony if he wanted his coffee now,’ she mumbled. ‘Yes, he would,’ I said before Anthony could catch his breath. ‘And I have mine black with no sugar.’ Cassandra’s eyes bulged to just enough for me to see how pissed off she was but her voice was sweet when she replied. ‘Coming right up,’ she said, fake smiling her way out of the room. ‘I don’t know what I would have done without Cassandra these past couple of weeks,’ Anthony said. He huffed on the lenses of his glasses, rubbed them with his tie and slid them on. ‘She’s a godsend. If I didn’t need a secretary come receptionist I would have asked her to be my PA.’ ‘But you’ve got me now,’ I added, quickly. ‘Of course I have.’ Anthony pulled at his tie and tugged at his shirt collar. As gorgeous and as debonair as he looked in that Hugo Boss suit, formalwear was obviously not his favourite attire. And not surprisingly, if his real talent lay in painting pictures. Again I wondered why he’d agreed to take over for his father. Perhaps, like me, he didn’t really have a choice. Perhaps his father, who had sounded like an absolute sweetheart on the phone, was really a tyrant who forced Anthony here, threatening to write him out of his will if he didn’t come. Maybe he’d been struggling as an artist and needed to pay some bills. Maybe he was still paying off that expensive engagement ring I’d seen Inez wearing. Anthony sat staring at the neat piles of letters and other papers I’d straightened out on his desk. Then he scratched his head and looked at me and smiled. He tapped the metal tray on his desk and looked at the letters again. Then he picked up a pen and stared at the phone. Was he expecting a call? When he scratched his head a second time, blew a puff of air up his face and frowned, I knew exactly what was wrong. Anthony didn’t have a clue where to start. Apart from wrestling with chocolate chip muffins, interviewing me and looking gorgeous, as CEO of the family business this man had no idea which end was up. ‘Should we begin by looking at the letters?’ I asked. Anthony raised a finger. ‘That’s a good idea.’ He picked up a few of them. ‘Only thing is, I did read through them last week but I’m not sure how to deal with them.’ I sat on the corner of his desk and crossed my legs. He leaned back and appeared to be looking at my legs when Cassandra came in with the coffee. Her face turned bright red and she put a cup of coffee down in front of Anthony. ‘Are you having yours in your office?’ she asked, looking at my legs and the great wax job I’d had. ‘No, I’ll be in here with Anthony for most of the morning, Cassandra, so you can direct any calls for Anthony to his line until I say otherwise.’ ‘Fine,’ she said and let my coffee land on the table with a thump. I watched her until she left the room and then took the letters out of Anthony’s hand. Our skin touched for a brief moment and sent a telltale signal to my lower tummy. I squirmed. I’d need cold showers every morning for the next 363 days; I knew that. ‘I hope you don’t mind, Anthony, but I looked at these yesterday. Most of them can be delegated. You know? To your staff along the corridor? They need to see these. All you need to do with post in the future is make sure someone else is doing something about it.’ ‘Really? That’s it?’ ‘That’s it.’ I smiled, jumping off the desk and shaking out the letters. ‘In fact, why don’t I have Cassandra direct all the post to me from now on? I’ve already made acquaintance with the other staff and they all seem to know their stuff. I’ll redirect everything for you, if you like.’ ‘That would be great, Magenta. And what should I do?’ I stood and looked at this little boy lost and all of a sudden his Hugo Boss suit swamped the body of a ten-year-old Anthony with mud on his face and a plaster on his forehead. ‘We’ll figure that out as we go, Anthony. In the meantime you do whatever you need to do to prepare for the meeting. I’ll let you know when Niles Benson arrives.’ I scooped up my coffee cup and went to plonk the post on my desk. Why Cassandra hadn’t already redirected the post instead of dumping it on Anthony, I had no idea. I didn’t trust that woman as far as I could throw her. I went down to reception to have words and found her several centimetres too close to a tall, strikingly smart-looking man in a dark suit. He looked to be in his late thirties. He smiled at me when he noticed me walk in and angled his large frame away from Cassandra and towards me. ‘Oh, Magenta,’ she said. ‘I was just about to buzz you. This is Niles Benson.’ So that’s what a Niles Benson looked like. ‘Thanks, Cassandra, I’ll take it from here.’ I walked over, confidently, and outstretched my hand. One thing Nana Clementine had taught me was always to look confident even when you’re falling to pieces on the inside. I knew Anthony was most likely going to look like a complete amateur compared to Niles Benson so someone here had to look as if they knew what they were doing. ‘I’m Magenta Bright, Anthony Shearman’s PA.’ It rolled nicely off the tongue and I straightened my shoulders with pride. Niles Benson’s long-fingered hands wrapped around mine. I was surprised by the familiar way he pulled me towards him, still holding my hand and breathing aftershave over me as he said, ‘Pleasure.’ His eyes swept up and down my body. They were piercingly dark and his lashes deliciously long. I wasn’t about to fall for his flirtatious moves as Cassandra may have done. ‘This way,’ I said, trying to unravel my fingers. He followed me up the stairs and I could feel those eyes piercing their way to my underwear as he watched my buttocks progressing up the stairs. Being of mixed parentage, I had managed to acquire a black girl’s bum that a guy I met in New York once told me would never disappear. I had given up asking if my bum looked big in anything I tried on a long time ago. I stopped suddenly on the stairs and Niles Benson’s face nearly made contact with my bottom. ‘I’ll tell Anthony you’re here,’ I said. ‘Please just take a seat in my office.’ On the landing I gestured to my open door. Once Niles was inside I jumped as if I’d just got an electric shock and ran to Anthony’s office. I burst in and found Anthony, jacket off, feet on the windowsill behind his desk and sketching the view from his window. ‘Cool,’ I said looking over his shoulder at the pencilled replica of the hotel and sky outside. ‘You’re really talented at this.’ ‘Thanks,’ he said with pink cheeks, spinning back round to face me. ‘It relaxes me. I thought it would help me prepare for the meeting I know nothing about with a man I’ve never heard of.’ ‘Well I hope it’s worked, because he’s here. In my office. If you’re ready I’ll send him in.’ ‘He’s early,’ said Anthony, putting his jacket back on. I rushed over and helped fix his tie. He sighed and I felt a lovely wave of coffee breath float by me. ‘Don’t worry, Anthony. You’ve got this. Would you like me to sit in?’ Not that I’d know what to say. ‘Er, perhaps I should learn how to handle a meeting on my own. I’m sure that’s what my dad would do.’ Anthony looked at me questioningly and I was sure that if I’d told him not to worry, carry on sketching, I’ll take the meeting, he would have let me deal with Niles. ‘I’ll show him in,’ I said. When Niles entered Anthony’s office and they shook hands, I saw the ten-year-old Anthony again. His jacket sleeves were so long he had to roll them up to shake hands and he tripped on the extra long trousers of his suit as he tried to climb back into his high leather chair. I offered Niles a coffee, which he declined. Closing the door behind me I shook my head, knowing that Anthony was probably about to make a complete idiot of himself. I had my office door open and heard Niles about to leave half an hour after he’d arrived. I popped out into the hallway to offer to see Niles to the door and saw that the colour had drained out of Anthony’s face while Niles was strutting like a peacock. Niles almost bowed to me as he left the building and gave me a look I couldn’t fathom – a certain smugness wrapped in fake charm, perhaps. I legged it back upstairs to find out what he’d come for and ignored Cassandra calling after me. Anthony was at the window when I arrived, opening it wide and loosening his tie. ‘Everything all right, Anthony?’ I asked. He turned slowly to me, still looking pale. ‘Magenta, I need you to arrange a meeting with the finance department with me for tomorrow morning. I need to look at our sales figures and … well I need to know what’s going on with this company.’ He crashed down onto his chair. ‘Is … is something wrong?’ I said, walking up to his desk. ‘Well if what Benson has just told me is true, this company is on the verge of going bankrupt and he’s just offered to buy us out.’ I leaned my knuckles onto the desk and mouthed: Oh my God! in slow motion. ‘I know,’ said Anthony. ‘Dad said we had hit a bump but he never told me it was an iceberg and that we were sinking.’ ‘It can’t be true. I spoke to your dad for ages, yesterday. He didn’t say a word.’ ‘You did? Did he call to check up on me?’ ‘No, nothing like that. I just needed to fill some time so I thought I’d pick his brain a bit.’ Anthony pursed his lips and then exhaled with a sigh. ‘I think he’s testing me, Magenta. He wants to see if I can get us back in shape. That man has spent his life trying to make me as business-minded as he was and his father before him, especially since my older brother, Michael, went into medicine. He should have taken over the company but he was adamant he didn’t want to follow in Dad’s footsteps. So that just left me – the pushover. Dad knows I won’t want to let the family business down and now he’s landed me right in it.’ ‘Perhaps this Benson guy is bluffing,’ I reasoned with him. ‘Maybe he sees you’re new at this and he’s chancing his luck.’ ‘I hope you’re right. Look, Magenta, organise that meeting for nine tomorrow morning. I need to get my father on the phone.’ I backed out of the room slowly, taking in Anthony’s drooping shoulders and the solemn way he tapped in his father’s number on his mobile phone. I closed the door behind me and went about organising the meeting. When I spoke to the finance section they sounded rather as if they were expecting this day to come. It wasn’t looking good for the company and it wasn’t looking good for me. I’d managed two days. Two. And already it looked as if I’d be out of another job before a month was up. But I refused to let my ideal job be taken away from me. I wasn’t sure what I would do to avoid the inevitable but I would try. In many ways, it wasn’t just about me. Anthony also had something to prove and I wanted to be the one to help him prove it. Chapter 7 (#ulink_435bda54-0c4e-5960-af25-92249402431d) That same evening I was expected to attend a family dinner. Mother, in her wisdom, had decided to throw the dinner in honour of me finding a job so quickly. She’d called that morning when I had just jumped out of the shower, slippery wet with water and Nivea Body Oil, and running a few minutes later than I wanted to be for work. With the timing of a super sleuth, Mother knew just when to catch me on the hop and to surprise me with arrangements I wasn’t quick enough to wriggle out of. ‘The whole family?’ I’d said pulling up a thong that got held up around my thighs because I wasn’t quite dry yet. ‘Yes, the whole family. It’s the only day everyone could make it,’ she said. ‘But if the dinner is in my honour don’t you think you should have checked with me first?’ ‘Don’t be difficult, Magenta; I’m trying to be nice.’ ‘So is Father coming?’ There was a deafening silence on the other end of the line. Mother had several types of silence ranging from the: I’m not happy with this conversation so I need a way to end it silence, to the: Are you too stupid to work that one out for yourself? silence. This silence said: I told you before, Magenta, I don’t want to talk about your father. ‘If it’s for the whole family then Father should be there too,’ I persisted. ‘Well of course he’s invited.’ Meaning: your father’s number was deleted from my address book years ago; I got one of your sisters to call him. ‘I’m not sure if he’ll show up. You know what he’s like.’ Meaning, this divorce was all his fault and I don’t see why I should have him in my house. My parents had argued bitterly for years before they finally divorced. After the divorce my mother went on to become a vegan who did yoga three times a day and my father gained a stone and took up with an African woman twenty years his junior and who claimed to be a princess in her country. Whenever I saw either of my parents on their own I could tell, quite easily, that they were both miserable and missed each other terribly. Their competitive natures meant they could never agree on anything. My father worked hard on his property management and hotel business and my mother threw herself into the lingerie company. She resented any advice from Father about her work and vice versa. But my secret wish was that they could just get over themselves, admit they were still in love and live happily ever after. Dinner with both of them at the same table was going to be interesting to say the least and dinner with the whole family would be yet another opportunity for them to tell me what a mess my life was. At least I had a job and I could be spared the constant questions about when I was going to find one. But there was every chance they’d gang up on me about other issues in my life they couldn’t get their heads around, like the amount I spent on clothes and shoes and the number of parties I went to in the space of a week. For that reason I needed to bring backup to defuse and deflect their accusations about my lifestyle choices. ‘Fine, Mother. I’ll see you at seven,’ I said. ‘Oh, and Anya is back so I’ll bring her.’ She was the best backup I had. Luckily Anya was free that evening. I refused to enter the house until Anya’s taxi arrived and she met me at the top of the road so we could walk in together. Mother still lived in the family home, a massive house in the suburbs of St John’s Wood with eight bedrooms, six bathrooms and grounds all around. Visiting Mother was like escaping to the country while still being in London – but without the sheep. I’d always loved our house. It was where I’d grown up and I was glad Mother stayed when Father left. Our house was the heart of everything I’d known and everything I did as a young girl. Nana Clementine had her own extension and that was where I’d spent a lot of my adolescent years, sitting in Nana Clementine’s sitting room and listening to her stories of when she was a young girl. Nana was the person I told all my problems to back then and she was the one with all the answers. ‘You look different,’ Anya said to me as we entered the gates to the driveway of the house. ‘I’m a working girl now; of course I’m different. I’m mature and I pay taxes. Well I will if I last long enough to get a wage slip.’ I laughed but the truth of that statement was too close for comfort. ‘It isn’t that.’ Anya eyed me suspiciously as we made our way to the door. I searched my bag for the key with Anya’s eyes penetrating me and was relieved when Mother flung open the front door. ‘Anya!’ Mother cried and threw her arms around my best friend. Anya patted my mother’s back and pulled a face at me. Mother always acted as though Anya had just learned the news that her parents had both died in a car crash even though they both lived quite happily in Surrey with a Shiatsu and a cat. Because Anya and her parents were estranged, Mother always felt the need to compensate for this loss in Anya’s life, while Anya seemed to be coping with it fine from what I could see. Anya shoved the enormous bouquet she’d brought for Mother up in between them to force Mother off her and to back up a bit. ‘These are just beautiful,’ said Mother. ‘Come in, come in. Tell me all about your latest shoot. I bet it was exciting. One day you must be the pin-up for one of our new lines.’ Mother said this to Anya every time she saw her. True, Mother could afford Anya’s rates but the fact was that Anya was more than a little flat-chested. It would have been awkward for her to model anything from a lingerie company without needing some stuffing of the bra area. Anya and I grinned at each other as Mother led us to the sitting room. My two elder sisters had arrived, without their husbands in tow. Amber’s two children spent their day with the au pair and Indigo refused to have children. A choice she’d made when I turned two and, from what she saw of me, decided that children were not for her. I still didn’t get what she meant. I’d seen pictures of me at age two and I was adorable. I decided to make cocktails for everyone while Mother fussed over Anya. My sisters both talked business. Ebony arrived shortly afterwards and started downing the long cocktail I handed her like it was the last glass of water in the desert. ‘Tough day?’ I asked her. She held out a finger and didn’t answer until the last drop. ‘Something like that,’ she replied and gestured for me to make a refill. ‘Ebony, you work too hard,’ Mother said with concern in her voice. ‘You’ll make yourself ill.’ ‘Only following in your footsteps and you did just fine,’ Ebony said and slumped onto a sofa. ‘Let’s go through.’ Mother headed for the dining room. ‘But Father isn’t –’ I began. ‘He’s late,’ Mother snapped and we all trailed after her in silence. My sisters rarely spoke about one parent in front of the other; it was usually a recipe for disaster. I, on the other hand, did the exact opposite, telling Father what Mother might be up to and vice versa in the hope they would start having regrets about being apart. Just as we all sat at the dining table and just as the caterers began to serve starters, the doorbell sounded. I noticed Mother’s shoulders rise with tension in her white, silk top. We all looked at each other. It was always hard to gauge what might happen when Mother and Father were under the same roof, but the fact that he’d bothered to show up was a good thing in my opinion. ‘I’ll get it!’ I said in a happy voice. Secretly I was hoping that a happy occasion, such as me getting a job, might instigate the start of the reunion between them I’d been longing for. At the front door I had to do a double take. Father hadn’t come on his own. He was with her. Suma, the African princess. What the f –. But I couldn’t finish the thought because Suma hugged me in a tight embrace so that her face was plastered against my chest and her African headdress was thrust up my nose. ‘Congratulations on your new job, Magenta,’ Father said and pulled the clamp-like Suma away from me. He handed me a present. ‘Oh, you didn’t have to do this.’ I reached up to kiss him and looked down at the neat packaging. ‘It’s a necklace!’ Suma exclaimed clapping her hands together. ‘Carl and I chose it together. Where is everyone?’ She had already started walking along the hallway, peering around doors, and when she heard the chatter coming from the dining room she marched her way through. I looked at Father. He shook his head. ‘I tried to put her off,’ he said under his breath. ‘You brought her here?’ My eyes bulged. ‘She insisted. She’s only ever met you all briefly and she loves you girls and wanted to get to know you better.’ ‘But here?’ I said in a loud whisper, grabbing his hand and heading for the dining room before Suma could attack anyone else with her headgear. Suma was pinching Ebony’s cheek when we got to the dining room. Ebony’s cheek was pink and Mother’s face and neck were like her name – scarlet red. ‘This was supposed to be family only,’ Mother said looking daggers at Father. ‘Not you, Anya dear.’ She reached to pat Anya’s hand. ‘But you know what I mean, Carl.’ ‘Scarlett, don’t make this any more awkward than it needs to be,’ Father said as he sat down and pulled Suma’s hand away to stop her from stroking Ebony’s hair. ‘You girls are all so beautiful,’ Suma gushed. ‘I wonder what our children will look like, Carl.’ Suma picked up a water glass and started to drink, not noticing the deathly silence that had hit the room. At age forty-two, Suma was childless and obviously had plans to rectify the situation but I was quite certain that at sixty-two, there was no way Father wanted to travel that road again. One look at him confirmed that. Beads of sweat sprung to his brow and he hastily got the caterers to serve him and Suma up a starter each. I didn’t dare look at Mother but I did cast an eye at all my sisters after Suma dropped the ‘children’ bomb. Amber had just put food into her mouth, which promptly fell out because she forgot to close it. Indigo had leaned her chin on her hand, elbow on the table and gawped at Father. Ebony was trying not to either laugh or cry – I couldn’t tell which – and Anya was taking some of her starter off her plate and putting it onto her bread dish. I lifted my wine glass. ‘To me,’ I said loudly. ‘To my new job. To my wonderful little sister for sorting out the job for me and to Anya for shipping me over a Ferrari.’ They all raised their glasses and the clink of crystal never sounded more like tumbleweed rolling down a deserted street. I drank the whole glass in one hit. Mother just stared into hers. ‘You are very lucky, Magenta,’ said Suma. ‘To have a little sister who is doing so much better than you and can help you out in such a situation. I mean, a quarter of a million pounds is a lot of money.’ ‘Yes, I realise that,’ I said, looking at Father. ‘Magenta is a talented artist you know?’ he said turning to Suma. ‘If she wanted to she could go far with her art.’ We all knew that was bullshit but I was thankful to Father for trying to make me appear less of a hopeless case in Suma’s eyes. ‘But you don’t want your younger sister to surpass you,’ Suma continued, tucking into the starter and not pausing to finish her mouthful before blundering on. ‘You know, both your older sisters are married and you should be next but at this rate your little sister will beat you to it.’ ‘I have no intention of getting married,’ Ebony piped up. ‘But do you have a boyfriend, Magenta?’ Suma persisted. ‘Ever been in love?’ How could I answer that at this strained dinner table? I’d need a week to tell Suma the story. I simply smiled, shrugged my shoulders and stabbed at a prawn. My mind went back to the night I met Hugo. That first long walk with him was a revelation. At eighteen, I didn’t know what a soulmate was but I knew Hugo was mine. I discovered he was a musician. He played the drums. His band was doing fairly well on the indie circuit. I had always had a weakness for men in bands but that wasn’t the reason I went back to his place and made love to him that very night. No, there was something else, something more, and I thought I would find it in the unmade bed in his warm bedroom, the sheets falling onto the floor, my arms and legs wrapped around Hugo’s body. We slept with our bodies in a neat knot all night and in the morning I discovered a million and one missed calls and texts from the friends I’d been out with the night before. They wanted to know if I was still alive, kidnapped, savaged by wolves or abducted by aliens. Either way, could I fucking well call or text back. I couldn’t wait to tell them I had been entranced by a tall stranger with broad shoulders, a slim face, a scraggy goatee and spiky hair. After a morning of hungry sex I texted them furiously from his bathroom and told them all I was in love. I didn’t leave Hugo’s flat for three days. ‘This food is great, Mother.’ I turned to her and tilted my empty plate to her the way I did when I was little girl and wanted to be excused from the table. ‘Why did you call in caterers?’ Suma shouted across the table to Mother. ‘Can’t you cook?’ ‘And can’t you mind your own bloody business?’ Mother shouted back. ‘No, I didn’t mean … I was only asking …’ Suma flapped. ‘Scarlett,’ Father put in. ‘Suma didn’t mean anything by it.’ And within seconds an all-out row ensued across the dinner table between Mother and Father. Suma was reduced to tears. Amber and Indigo kept on sipping wine and chatting, Ebony left the room and Anya stared hard at me. It should have been a dinner in my honour but it turned out to be an ugly slanging match. The caterers did their best to collect the starters and serve the main course while an all-out war of words was in full flow. After a while Amber implied that Father should have more decorum and not bring uninvited guests to dinner. Indigo implied that Mother should rise above it and be more welcoming. Suma dried her tears with a napkin and tried to stop her lip from trembling as she continued to apologise for trying to be honest. Ebony came back into the room to get her wine. ‘You people have lost the plot,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a call to make.’ She was on her mobile and out of the door again in seconds. Finally, there was a lull on the battlefield. ‘I’m in love,’ Anya suddenly said and stood up. ‘You see what you’ve done?’ Mother said to Father. ‘This poor girl has lost her parents and now she’s having a nervous breakdown.’ Mother patted Anya’s hand again. ‘It’s not my fault she’s having a nervous breakdown,’ said Father. Just then Suma burst into tears again. ‘I should go,’ said Anya. ‘I’ll go with you,’ I said and we both made our escape. Out on the street, it was still light at eight-thirty and I was still hungry. ‘Can we go to the pub around the corner?’ I asked Anya. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’ And with all that in my wake, all I could wish for was that Anthony’s meeting with the finance department would be nothing like the scene that just took place in my mother’s dining room. Chapter 8 (#ulink_6038f03c-a970-5ca3-9e05-ce9da548649a) I switched on the breakfast news for a weather check the following morning as I got ready for work. The bright and sunny August morning I’d woken up to the day before had been replaced by one that was cloudy and threatening rain. I kept missing the weather report as I flitted in and out of the room, half listening to the daily dramas being unleashed both at home and abroad: the wildfire being controlled in California, the explosions at a port in China, Sam Smith licking his waxwork double at Madame Tussauds in San Francisco and, front-page news at home, the politician about to be ousted from government. Despite the greyish morning, I chose my lucky open-toe shoes, in an attempt to ward off the impending drama at the office. Maybe the finance department would report to Anthony that, yes, the company was sunk and that my job would be gone in the blink of an eye and I’d never see Anthony again. I smarted at the possibility of Mother throwing a commiseration party, only this time I’d keep my big mouth shut and not insist that Father be there. Anthony was already in his office when I arrived. The meeting was at nine o’clock and I arrived at eight-thirty to do PA type things like make sure the coffee was brewed. I’d bought pastries on the way in to soften what might be a hard blow for Anthony, making sure there was a good supply of doughnuts as I remembered he liked those and not muffins. ‘Magenta, you’re brilliant,’ Anthony said from the doorway of the kitchen. ‘Just doing my job,’ I said. ‘Well let’s hope that after the meeting we both still have jobs.’ ‘We will,’ I said trying to hide the doubt in my voice. ‘Would you like to sit in?’ he asked. ‘If you’d like me to, sure.’ Over his shoulder I noticed the other members of staff arrive. They were grim-faced. I looked at the plate of pastries I’d taken time to arrange and hoped to goodness that along with the open-toe shoes, they’d do their magic and keep me in a job. A little while later I walked into Anthony’s office with my tray of refreshments, straining under the weight of cups, a coffee pot and enough baked goods to anchor a small boat. In a room that seemed ominously grey and heavy with bad news, Anthony, who had taken off his jacket, sprang to his feet to help me. ‘Please, Magenta. Let me.’ He put the tray down on his desk. I eyed up Graham and Thelma from finance and crossed my fingers in my head but the financial forecast didn’t sound good when Thelma, a thickset, fifty-something with wiry hair, talked Anthony through the sales figures and projections. Anthony nodded a lot and looked at me once in a while and I tried to smile and look encouraging. I’d looked at some of these reports on my first day but the numbers that had looked pretty neat in boxed-off rows on a spreadsheet took on a different light once Thelma explained their significance. ‘So,’ Anthony said when Thelma had finished. ‘From what I can see and by what you’re saying, this company could go under in about six months?’ Thelma blushed and nodded. ‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘we did warn Arthur about this last year but your father was, what shall I say, very optimistic and he wouldn’t take our advice.’ ‘Which was?’ said Anthony. ‘Either he sold up or downsized.’ ‘But wouldn’t that mean cutting jobs?’ Anthony’s frown grew ever deeper as the meeting progressed. ‘It would.’ Thelma shuffled in her chair. ‘And I think that was the part Arthur didn’t want to face.’ Anthony slumped in his chair and rubbed his forehead. ‘So he retired and left it to me. As if I’d be any better.’ His voice was quiet and my heart went out to him. I raised my hand and wriggled in my seat. ‘Do … do you want to go to the toilet, Magenta?’ Anthony asked after I’d waved my hand for a few seconds. ‘No. Not at all,’ I said though it was partly true. ‘It’s just that I have this idea. It’s not a solid idea; it’s just something I’ve seen in a film. Well more than one actually.’ ‘Look, we really need to focus on this,’ Graham said. ‘We can always talk films later.’ He tutted. ‘No, no, no,’ I insisted, looking at Anthony. ‘You see, whenever there’s a crisis at Head Office, someone from the company always flies out to where the workers are to make cuts and then they discover that there was a way to turn things around after all and everyone ends up keeping their jobs.’ ‘Was Ren?e Zellweger in that?’ Thelma asked. ‘Maybe,’ I said and turned back to Anthony. ‘Why don’t you fly out and look at the factory and maybe something will come to you.’ ‘Good idea,’ Anthony said. ‘But the factory is in East London so I think we could take a cab.’ ‘We?’ I said. ‘Well you’re my PA. Set it all up, Magenta, and let’s go. We don’t have time to lose.’ Anthony’s little boy lost turned into little boy who’d just hit the neighbour’s apple tree with his catapult and came up with toffee apples. Sadly, Graham and Thelma left the office shaking their heads as if they thought we were just as delusional as Arthur Shearman. Thankfully they took the cloud of doom and gloom with them. Meanwhile, Anthony and I grinned at each other with what was probably na?ve enthusiasm. I kept on giving Anthony encouraging smiles and he tried not to let his smile slip. In the back of my mind I had a vision in which we’d take a trip to the factory, meet the workers and quickly realise there was no happy ending. All was lost. This was closely followed by a vision of me trying to sell heather outside a tube station in last season’s shoes and a Burberry scarf (any season) around my shoulders. Just two days later Anthony and I sat in the back of a taxi on the way to the factory of A Shearman Leather Designs. The building was old, on two floors and set in an industrial estate that housed various other factories, lorries, bare-chested men and the smell of steak and ale pies. ‘This is it,’ said Anthony. ‘Fingers crossed there’ll be something we can salvage from this … this …’ He looked at the factory with a frown and I couldn’t hide the one on my brow because the factory looked close to collapsing. I took a deep breath. ‘Come on, Anthony. We can do this,’ I said and started marching eagerly towards the open door. Just inside it was a man with ancient lines on his face. I say ancient because his face looked more than old and I was sure each line could tell a story. He sat at a desk in a small and dim corridor, reading a newspaper. His reading glasses sat at an angle on the tip of a rather bulbous nose and he squinted to see in the faint light. Anthony cleared his throat. ‘If you’re looking for Go-Karting Kings,’ the man said without looking up, ‘they packed up and moved out Kent way.’ He licked his thumb and turned a page in his newspaper. I was wearing Prada. Did I look like I wanted to jump in a go-kart? I stepped forward and introduced myself. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/rosa-temple/playing-by-the-rules-the-feel-good-heart-warming-and-uplifting/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.