The hallway was narrow; the bedrooms coming off it, the two walls completely blocking out the rest of the house. There were family photos dotted, pictures mostly of Ella growing up. The house still smelled faintly like paint, and I stopped at Abbey’s bedroom and stood in the doorway, taking in her decorative efforts. It was instantly recognisable as the resort room. Even the curtains, even the gentle breeze coming in her window. It was peaceful and calm, and it smelled like her perfume over the paint. A black-and-white photo of a beach graced the wall next to a floor-length mirror. A pair of her work shoes were neatly beside it. I’ve never looked at a room and wanted to go lie down on a bed more.
Kate cleared her throat. ‘Did you just come here to stare at her room, ’cause that’s pretty fucking weird.’
I gave a sharp laugh, but heat came to my face because I had been standing in that doorway for a long time. I had been thinking how on the holiday, her tinkly laugh would echo through my suite, bringing an instant smile to my face and I could almost hear it as I stood there.
Kate walked me through to the kitchen. ‘Is this a coffee or something stronger discussion?’
I blew a snort out of my nose and then raised my eyebrows. ‘Something stronger.’
She nodded and pulled out a bottle of gin and without asking poured me a healthy one with tonic, surprising me by adding a sprig of rosemary from a pot on the windowsill.
‘What’s in the bag?’ she asked.
I appreciated her directness for once.
‘You might think I’m behaving badly or maybe inappropriately. I’m not certain what I think about it myself, really. I, uh, don’t usually … um, but …’ I paused, taking a gulp of the drink. It was bloody strong. While I recovered from the first sip, I practised what I was trying to say, as it seemed I was having difficulty trying to string together a coherent sentence.
She drank too, but waited silently for me to continue, a tactic I used often in business.
‘We are having a launch party tomorrow night,’ I started. ‘Abbey said she wouldn’t come. It seemed to be about a dress, so I thought I would attempt to, uh, you know, rectify that.’
‘You bought her a dress?’
I drank again. ‘And shoes, just in case that was an issue, too.’
‘I see.’
‘You do?’
‘Maybe better than you,’ she said into her glass. ‘Well, let’s look at it.’
I got unusually very nervous. I hooked the bag over the door frame and opened it carefully, pulling out the dress and then removing the dust bag to leave it hanging on the door. I picked up my gin and downed it, while Kate stepped forward inspecting it.
‘It’s a good dress,’ she said, still looking at it. ‘Abbey will look beautiful in it.’ Her eyes travelled sideways to give me an assessing stare.
‘I can give you the, er, receipt in case it doesn’t fit, or she hates it.’
Kate nodded.
‘Will you help me by talking her into going?’
‘Her not buying a dress, that would have cost her significantly less than you have spent on this, Nick,isabout money, but not in the way you might think. She’s a single mum and every cent she earns is accounted for because her arsehole ex-husband gives her the minimum of what he has to and anything else Ella needs is onher. Abbey denies herself many things to provide for her daughter.
‘That is why you accusing her of taking money from that company, which has given her fuck all for over twenty years, is so upsetting. And that is outside of what happened between the two of you on that holiday. When you add that in, your behaviour, Nick, is pretty fucking hard to forgive.’
I forced myself to meet her eyes while she laid that exacting judgement upon me. Nothing that she had said was untrue.
She walked back around the kitchen bench and reached for my glass, which I handed her. She poured another two huge gins and handed me one. We both leaned back against the wooden counter, staring at the gown in the doorway.
‘But fuck me, Nick. This is a nice dress.’
She clinked my glass, and we drank. And I found my first friend in Sydney. Kate Cavendish – gatekeeper, lioness and all-round queen – and I, on a Thursday afternoon, over two gin and tonics and a designer dress, formed an alliance to get Abbey Parker to a ball.
Chapter Seven
Abbey
Another week, another awkward-as-fuck, good-cop-bad-cop exec meeting, with Nick grilling everyone and Oliver soothing. I somehow managed to restrain myself from rolling my eyes. From what I’d seen of Ollie in his first week, he didn’t need this kind of nannying.
