Looking up she saw Jon filling the doorway. “No, me,” she replied seriously.
“Can I come in?” he asked her.
“Of course, it is your building.” She immediately regretted that it had sounded so petulant and argumentative.
“That’s really not helpful, Steph, can I come in?” he repeated.
“Yes, sorry,” she said smiling.
“Thank you.” He took the seat opposite her at the desk. “You look a little less red than earlier.”
Steph laughed and asked, “And blotchy?”
“That too.” He offered her a small smile.
“Thank you for the flowers, all of the white ones, the cowardly yellow and the blotchy red ones.”
“You are welcome and I am glad to see that my flowers are the only ones in attendance,” he said seriously.
“I had no idea that those flowers were off Chris and I did panic this morning when I had more yellow roses,” she admitted.
“I know, Steph, but I still don’t like Dr Smarmy.” His face contorted, reaffirming his feelings that his terse tone had indicated.
“I do wish you wouldn’t call him that. He is a nice man, he really is,” she insisted.
“Yeah, I’m sure he gives every relative the hand holding, knee touching, floral arrangement treatment,” he snapped, his mood shifting again to one of irritation.
Steph could see what Jon had meant earlier about gaining some normality because every comment either of them made was becoming some bone of contention.
“You are so fucking judgemental and you really have no right to be. He is a nice man and I was very glad of his support after we . . .” She stopped dead now.
“You are kidding! Tell me that you did not go running off to him. I can’t think why I don’t like him when he thinks it’s okay to touch you, tosupportyou at the hospital and now to offer a shoulder to cry on, assuming that it was only a shoulder he offered,” spat Jon venomously.
“It wasn’t like that,” she protested. “I didn’t know where to go, where I could go where you wouldn’t turn up so I went to visit my dad, but they wouldn’t let me see him and Chris was working and made me a cup of tea and fed me Jammie Dodgers if you must know.”
“And what precisely did you tell him?” Jon spoke with more of an even tone now, accepting some responsibility for her being in the position of needing somewhere to go.
“Nothing really, just that we had fallen out and that you had lied to me, then I felt disloyal, but I did agree to meet him later. I felt I owed him that after he had been so kind,” she said quietly.
“Do you think I am ever going to let you meet him?” he asked annoyed again.
“No, although I am not a child and you do not have a veto on who I see,” she said, taking a very deep breath, then continued, “But I had already decided against meeting and I have called him to say as much. Doyoustill want to meet later?”
“Of course. Now, I was going to ask you where you’d gone that first night as I couldn’t track you down and you were ignoring my texts, calls and messages, but I know the answer to that now. So, if we’re meeting tonight to talk everything else through can we talk business now?” he asked changing tack.
“Of course.” She pulled a couple of files from her desk.
“Did you look over the Richards’ file?”
“Yes and I have done a little bit of digging, but I could do with another day or two to put it all together,” she admitted.
“I’ll get Andrea to call Rosie and schedule a meeting before we meet with Isaac. How did your meeting with Sophie go?”
His smile annoyed her. “Marvellous. I invited Sonia and the accountant to join us, but unfortunately they arrived on time and your friend Soph was very late so I removed her from the deal,” Steph announced proudly.
“You didn’t?” cried Jon disbelievingly.
“I did. And she was almost as surprised by that as you appear to be.” Steph allowed herself a short laugh.
