Surely it couldn’t be?
She’d never asked for his mum’s name and even if she had, he probably wouldn’t have told her. What were the chances of someone having the same surname as Jacob?
With a name like Green, extremely high!
She stared back at the unopened email.
Two minutes before she had to be up on the executive floor with Phil …
Against her better judgement, she clicked on the email.
One minute to go.
No.
Her entire body froze, the words on the screen blurring into one squiggled mess.
‘No!’ she cried out. ‘No.No.’
‘Olivia, let’s go,’ Phil barked, storming towards her like a balding pitbull.
‘I … I’m sorry.’ She looked up. ‘I can’t.’
Her hands were gripping her phone so tightly that all the blood had drained from her fingers.
‘What do you mean, you can’t?’ Her boss’s eyes ran up and down the length of her, searching for any obvious issues. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I need to leave.’ Thoughts crunched around in her head like a thousand tiny shards of glass. ‘I’m sorry, Phil.’ She straightened up and switched her computer off. ‘But I need to go. There’s been an emergency.’
‘Excuse me?’ His piggy eyes were wide with confusion. ‘You can’t! You can’t do this again.’
‘Rob can cover – he probably knows it better than meanyway.’ She grabbed her bag and flung it over her shoulder, nodding to Rob, who looked equal parts shocked and grateful.
‘You can’t go!’ her boss bellowed. ‘We need you, Olivia.’
‘I’m sorry, Phil.’ She raced towards the door. ‘But someone else needs me more.’
Olivia
‘Where are you?’ Kate asked. ‘Are you nearly there?’
The second she was out of the office doors, she’d called her friend. Not only to panic about the fact she’d left work during the middle of the day with no warning, but also to fill her in on what was happening and to ask very kindly if she could borrow her car to drive all the way to Surrey.
Olivia peered out of the window and up at the iron gates she was parked in front of.
‘I’m here, but …’
‘What?’
Olivia took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know if I can go inside.’
‘Are youserious?’
‘What if it’s weird between us?’ Olivia leant back in her seat. ‘What if he doesn’t want me there? I don’t think he even knows I’m coming.’
‘Does it matter? His mum asked you to come. You’ve driven two hours to be there. You walked out ofwork, Olivia! Can I remind you how much of a big deal that is?’Her voice quietened. ‘And besides, you know more than anyone what it’s like to be in this situation.’
Leah’s tiny face appeared before her eyes. Olivia felt her insides knot.
