“It gets serious, you could be her step-dad. You break up, it could fuck her up.”
It wouldn’t be a sock I threw at him, it’d be something with a lot more weight.
“We’ve been on one date.”
“And you’ve walked in with this huge grin on your face like you’ve already been up all night shagging. I’m just being practical, mate. You get serious and she’ll get a lot more fucked up than you. You want to do that to her?”
“You know what? That’s her choice to make. Do I think we can handle it if it doesn’t work out – you know what? Yeah, I do. Her daughter – I’ll follow her lead on that. Georgia’s her mum; she’ll do what she thinks best. And she’s smart, Shay. She’s been fucked over by someone she worked with once before, big style, so I guess she won’t make the same mistake again. And I’m nowhere near the dick he was. I’d never do what he did.” Now it wasn’t Shay I wanted to hit hard with something, it was the arsehole who’d never bothered with his daughter.
“What happened?”
“She worked with Rose’s dad. When he found out she was pregnant he wanted nothing to do with her or the baby. Turned out, he was already engaged.”
“Fuck.”
“I don’t get anyone who wouldn’t want to know their kid.”
“That’s because you’re a fairly balanced human being with no deep rooted issues, apart from having shit taste in long term girlfriends. Did I tell you I saw Cassie the other day?”
I groaned. I really hoped that by ‘I saw Cassie’ Shay didn’t mean he’d slept with her. “No. Where?”
I braced myself.
“In Ate Days a Week, that sandwich place near the hospital that does the huge baguettes. She was queuing up. I don’t think she recognised me.”
That was okay then.
“Don’t you want to know how she looked?”
About two years ago, I’d have been desperate to know. Now I couldn’t give a shit.
“No.”
Shay nodded. “Good. You text Georgia yet to say what a great night you’ve had?”
I hadn’t, but I was going to send something. “Not yet.”
“Isn’t that what you’re meant to do?”
“What do you know about dating?”
Shay shook his head. “You’d be surprised. More than you think.”
Chapter Sixteen
Georgia
“What transactions between Hartford Jewellers and Harrop Trading were you aware of?”
I could tell through the slight shortness of Seph’s words that he was losing patience with David Hartford.
We’d been in this meeting for four hours without a break yet. Seph had suggested stopping to at least get some food about two hours ago, but David had been adamant that he needed to press on as quickly as possible, because ‘he didn’t have all day’. But that basically meant he wanted all the time to dictate what he told us to put as bad a light on his brother as possible.
“None of them.”
Seph shook his head. “This one you have to be aware of. Your signature is on the paperwork for the property that was sold. If you’re telling me that it wasn’t you, then it’s fraud and we should involve the police.”
David shook his head. “I don’t want the police involved. I want to sort this out as quickly as possible.”
