‘Trust,’ he repeated with a roll of his eyes, ‘is a luxury I can no longer rely on.’
‘Do you have a plan?’
‘Hah!’He exploded with a raucous laugh which had the effect of making Bon-Bon raise his head where he’d been curled up in his basket throughout the conversation. ‘You’re one tenacious lady, aren’t you?’
‘You should see me when I’m out of first gear,’ Venetia said with a smile.
‘I look forward to it,’ he said, matching her smile with one ofhis, ‘but in answer to your question, the only plan I have is to pay off those who are owed money, sell the hotel while making a loss, then slink away with my pride and reputation shot to pieces.’
‘Slinking away be dammned!’ Venetia snapped. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong, so let’s not have any cloying self-pity.’
‘Not even a little?’ he said.
‘Absolutely not.’
‘I had a feeling you might say that.’
Chapter Thirty
‘Sorry I was so long,’ said Cassie, shutting the door behind her and putting her umbrella in the umbrella stand, having already shaken it outside. ‘But the queue at the post office was a mile long. Only one counter open, of course, because obviously it was lunchtime and the most popular time for anyone in town to want to use its services. And then,’ she continued, while shrugging off her wet coat, ‘it’s as if after all the good weather we’ve had before now people have forgotten how to walk in a straight line when it’s raining. You wouldn’t believe the number of times I was pushed into the gutter.’
‘You should have waited until the rain eased.’
‘What, and not have anything to complain about, where’s the fun in that? You know I can’t function unless I have something to moan about.’
Nina laughed. ‘That’s why I hired you.’
‘And I love you for it, my darling! It’s great fun being your part-time office junior, it’s a lot more interesting than being on my own doing my website work.’
‘I don’t think Jakob ever saw himself as the office junior,’ remarked Nina.
‘No,’ said Cassie with a sly grin, ‘I’m sure he didn’t.’
Nina tutted. ‘Any more comments like that and I’ll have to fire you.’
‘And I’ll report you to HR for unfair dismissal.’
‘Good luck with that!’
Their exchange reminded Nina of a similar exchange with Jakob; it had been the day he’d suggested they go for a drink together after work. How long ago that hot July summer’s evening at the Anchor now seemed. And how misguided. For if she hadn’t said yes to him, she would never have agreed to his subsequent suggestion that he be her plus-one for the wedding and everything that followed. One simple error of judgement on her part and look what it had set in motion – Hilary had experienced a total meltdown, Keith had left her, and Jakob had handed in his notice.
The last she’d heard from Jakob was that he was in Oslo and he was sorry to let her down by leaving the way he did, but he was sure she would agree with him that it was for the best, all things considered. He’d added a postscript to his email along the lines that his parents were keen for him to join the family firm, just as they’d always expected him to.‘Perhaps it is time for me to be the dutiful son’, he’d written.
Nina had emailed back saying that she wished him well in whatever he decided to do. She said nothing about missing him in the gallery, or that some of the regular customers often asked after him, as well as some of her fellow shop owners in St Anne’s Court who had been used to seeing him around. She supposed that if Jakob really was going to be thedutiful sonhe would sell his house in Cambridge, there would be no reason to keep it on if he was to be permanently living back in Oslo. She was embarrassed to admit it, but she had checked Rightmove once or twice to see if the property had gone on the market.
‘What would you like me to do next?’ asked Cassie, breaking into her thoughts. ‘What about those invoices in your in-tray, shall I deal with those upstairs?’
‘That would be great. Thank you. I have a backlog of emails todeal with, but first I have a shipment to Canada to sort out. Then I need to decide on a date for the next exhibition in the run-up to Christmas.’
Cassie groaned. ‘Oh please, don’t start talking about Christmas, it’s surely much too soon, we haven’t even had Halloween yet.’
‘Hardly too early. I’ve already organised the gallery Christmas card at the printers, I did that in August.’
With Cassie now in the upstairs office, Nina settled herself at her desk to do the necessary paperwork for the charming Helen Allingham watercolour that would soon be on its way to Toronto. The couple who had bought it had been on holiday touring around the UK and had instantly fallen in love with the painting. It was another favourite of hers and Nina would be sorry to see it go, but business was business. Letting things go was much easier in her work life than it was in her personal life, but she was making progress with the latter.
Following her visit to see Hilary three weeks ago, when she had informed her mother-in-law that she would not be using the embryos stored at the clinic, she had finally decided what should happen to them. A family conference on FaceTime with her parents and brother and sister-in-law had helped chase away what remained of her indecision. They completely appreciated the moral dilemma in which she found herself and could see it from the many perspectives involved, and gave her the space and time to air all her doubts and what-if scenarios. Her parents had never once applied any pressure for her to provide them with any more grandchildren, but then as her brother had once joked, his own children were quite enough for any grandparent to deal with.
She could have chosen the ultimate altruistic option and donated the embryos to be used by other couples desperate to have a child, but selfishly Nina didn’t want to spend the rest of her life wondering if there was a child of hers, and Hugh’s, out therein the world. A child who might one day want to know Nina. She couldn’t bear to live with that uncertainty, the not knowing. And what if that child accused Nina of not wanting them, of her having given the child away like an unwanted parcel?
