Ginger knew that Carla had simply seized upon the opportunity presented to her because she was angry that Ginger was being promoted. But why did Will have to go along with it? There were ways to get publicity without going on a date with another woman. He could have said: ‘Sorry, I’m dating Ginger Reilly.’ But he hadn’t. He’d been ready to jettison Ginger for publicity, and who knew if the ‘date’ with Ginger had just been publicity too ...? She might never know. But she no longer cared. Ginger had had it with men.
Will sent flowers to the office, a giant bouquet of pink flowers that made the delivery person almost stagger in carrying them.
There was also a note.
Please answer my calls. I am so sorry. I’ll get out of it. She is work – you were never work, Ginger, never. I’ll wait and hope you phone. I won’t give up.
Will.
She crumpled the note into the bin and sent a simple text:Go with Carla. Publicity comes first. Stay away from me. It’s over.
Who needed a man, anyway?
The Caraval table was by far the noisiest at the Press Awards. The media group had taken out four wildly expensive tables and the staff were making full use of the free bar.
Ginger was excited despite the pain in her heart. Her friends were thrilled that she was nominated for best feature writer of the year. She’d never expected to be up for an award, had thought that Carla had just been taunting her, but it turned out to be true. Totally unexpected as far as she was concerned, but true.
She didn’t have a hope in hell of winning, particularly when someone as experienced as Carla Mattheson was up for it as well. When she thought nobody was looking, she ran her finger over the names of the people who’d been nominated. She never let her finger touch Carla’s name, as if mere contact with that name would contaminate her. Carla contaminated everything.
‘I hope that ho Mattheson doesn’t win,’ said Paula, settling herself down beside Ginger, when the MC had finally insisted for the fourth time that people had to come in from the bar and sit down because the awards were going to begin, and that the bar would close if they didn’t all shift it.
‘You know she will,’ said Ginger glumly, not bothering to correct Paula for her use of the word ‘ho’. She’d spotted Carla clinging on to Will and her heart had felt like the proverbial stone. If he looked good in gym gear, he looked utterly delicious in an evening jacket.
And not hers, she reminded herself. Stupid Ginger – again pining for someone who would never be hers. It astonished her how much it still hurt. Nothing had ever hurt so much.
They’d become friends all that time in the gym, she realised. They’d laughed and joked as he trained her. He’d been a part of her life as a friend and she’d fallen in love with him. Deeply, heart-wrenchingly. How was it that her heart ached in a way that no squat could ever make her thighs ache?
‘You should win,’ said Paula.
‘Oh come on, this is my first time being nominated, nobody wins on their first time,’ Ginger said, and then followed it up with the lie she’d been telling herself all evening: ‘This is fun, I’m having fun.’
‘Me too,’ said Paula, casting dark glances over at a guy from the sports department who was gorgeous, and clearly fancied her right back. In honour of this event, Paula was dressed in a knock-off version of a Hervé Léger bandage dress which was moulded to her body like a second skin. Paula had bought an incredible Victoria’s Secret push-up bra to help with the cleavage department.
Ginger knewshedidn’t need any help in the cleavage department, but she was still pretty pleased with her appearance. Thanks to the personal training, she looked different, incredibly different. Nobody was ever going to call her skinny, but she was standing up for bigger, curvier girls in the best way possible. Her sister-in-law, Zoe, had helped her pick out the dress and she wore the amethyst silky sheath with pride. It was strapless, therefore wildly dangerous.
‘Try this,’ Zoe had said in the shop, when Ginger was in the changing room flinging evening dresses on and off with great abandon.
‘Are you nuts?’ said Ginger, looking at the sheath dress. ‘I have boobs, Zoe, big boobs. When you have anything in that department, you cannot go strapless, because this dress would be down around my ankles in about four minutes, and this is not the sort of event where I can let that happen. I am up for an award.’ She did not mention that the man she’d once been crazy about was going to be there with a woman she hated.
‘I promise you that will not happen,’ said Zoe. ‘You just need the right strapless bra.’
‘You’re crazy; I can’t wear this. Look at it, it’s a sixteen and I can’t fit into a sixteen.’
‘Try it, it’s got an inner control panel.’
‘Designed by NASA?’
Only because she wanted to please Zoe and because she thought it might be interesting to see if she could actually fit into the dress, Ginger had squeezed into it. ‘I can’t do the zip up the whole way,’ she said.
Zoe popped her head into the changing room. ‘Ginger, you look incredible!’
‘I look like I’m about to go out on the game,’ said Ginger, grinning. Before she’d toned up, she could not have fitted into this. She liked feeling fit and Will – oh, Will – had been right about fitness making a person feel strong and healthy. She had to join another gym. She obviously hadn’t been back to his.
‘You look extremely sexy andsoignée,’ said Zoe.
‘I can’t quite close the zip,’ said Ginger, ‘and I don’t know what sort of bra is going to hold my breasts up in this, but it better be industrial grade.’
‘Don’t worry, leave it with me. Lulu insists that undergarments are the key to all. There will be no wardrobe malfunctions.’
