He pauses and looks up at me, and again I get this feeling like he's annoyed with me. Eventually he sighs like he’s pushed it all back down.
“I’ve had to, there isn’t much time to get everything done. You said you wanted me for this job. Why didn’t you make contact sooner?” His voice is sharp, accusatory.
“Would you have said yes?” I snap back, and I see his eyes darken slightly. Of course he wouldn’t. We stare at each other for a minute, neither of us looking away. Immy’s words come back to me.“Maybe if you’d learned to communicate with each otherthings might have been different.”I drop my eyes first. I don’t want to lie to Charley. If I want us to have anything like our old friendship again, I need to make the first move.
“I was afraid,” I say and his eyes soften slightly. He drops his hands to the desk.
“What of?”
“That you’d say no.”
CHAPTER NINE
CHARLEY
I work hard for the next couple of hours, mostly making a huge plan and to-do list of our priorities. Project planning is what attracted me into event planning in the first place, and I realise how much that had been missing in my previous role. When I’d joined them I’d thought it would be a great opportunity and I’d be able to work my way up to events manager, but I’d got sidelined into venues so slowly I barely even noticed.
But in this job I’m using parts of my brain that had become dull and dormant, and it feels good to exercise it, though I know the pressure is on due to the timeline. I let out a sigh and Gabriel’s words come back to me.Afraid. What has Gabriel Barclay-Sinclair, born as heir to one of the largest estates in Oxfordshire, privately educated and wanting for nothing got to be afraid of? I mean, I would have said no, at least initially. In fact I did until Miles pushed me too far. But he didn’t even try. It’s curious. I was going to question him about it but his phone rang—therewas a problem at one of the tenant farms so he needed to dash off.
At some point we need to talk about what happened that night, at his eighteenth birthday party. It’s clear he never married Celeste, so I’m curious to know what happened there, but also, he hurt me deeply. There’s still a pain in my chest every time I think about it. Time didn’t ease it and coming back here is bringing it to the forefront. It’s probably seeing Gabriel again that’s causing it, which was one of the reasons for my reluctance to take the job. But at the same time I’m already comfortable here, with him. It feels like coming home.
I turn my attention back to my list, and set about creating an advert for a bar manager and sending it off to a recruitment site. They’ll publish it and give the applicants a first look-over, only forwarding me ones that are actually suitable for the job. Then I turn to the problem of marketing. The company Gabriel’s been using isn’t bad at making the promotional material. The website is fresh and inviting and the media kit for digital and print promotion are alright. But that seems to be where it comes undone. There is no promotion. I take a quick look at the possibility of getting an advert in the next issue ofCountry Life Magazinebut we’ve missed the deadline. I’m just pondering other options when there’s a knock at the door. I call for them to come in, and Gabriel pokes his head round the door.
“I brought lunch,” he says, brandishing a couple of brown paper bags. I check the time—it’s well past noon and I am hungry. I didn’t even think about lunch when I left Pete’s this morning.
“Thanks, I appreciate it. Give me a second and I’ll be there.” He disappears off to the staffroom, and I make sure I have everything saved before closing my laptop and joining him. I’mglad of the break. I gratefully accept the coffee he’s made and attack my sandwich.
“We still need to address marketing,” I say once the first pangs of hunger have been satisfied with a few mouthfuls of sandwich.
“You can do it. I have faith in you,” he replies and I snort. Getting this place renovated from an old disused stable block into this modern centre while also keeping the original features and feel must have been no small task. But he seems to be at a loss how to run it. I’m not sure how he can be so focussed on his vision and yet also so shortsighted.
“Is that how it works for you? Putting people in charge and letting them get on with it, just giving them motivational talks every so often.”
“Yes,” he says with the old Gabriel smile that’s without guile or arrogance. The one he used to give me when I called him out on his privileged bullshit. Somehow that soothes the ache in my chest a little. “It’s good business sense. Now, finding the right people, that’s the hard part.” His eyes linger on me for a minute and I get a glimpse of what he was alluding to before.
“Am I the right person? Is that what you meant earlier?”
“You’ve always been the right person, Charley,” he says, his voice gravelly with a hint of something that makes me believe he’s not just talking about the job.
“I have five tenant farms, not to mention the land we farm as the estate. I have the house, the woodland, the horses, and the stud. I didn’t factor any of that in when I wanted to create this place, and it’s taken much longer than I anticipated.” His eyes darken a little and his mouth becomes pinched. I remember that he had all the responsibility dumped on his shoulders when hewas eighteen and his father passed away suddenly leaving him to manage everything.
“I’m sorry about your father,” I say. I know it’s late, nearly ten years too late, but I mean it.
“Thank you. It wasn’t easy. I hadn’t thought I was going to inherit for a long time. We’d even talked about making the estate into a trust, so technically I’d only inherit the title. It was a shock to us all when it happened. I dropped out of uni and then repeated the first year. We had to sell three farms and the villa in Spain just to pay the tax bill. ” He sighs as if the memory is still painful. I want to reach out and touch him, a gesture that used to be second nature to us. I swallow down the feeling.
“But you still managed your dream,” I say and his smile returns. “Thanks for lunch but I ought to get back. I have a lot to do.” I scrunch up the sandwich bag and drain my coffee.
“If you can spare me a bit more time first, I’d like to show you the cottage, and then you can move in whenever you want to.”
I agree. I’m keen to see the cottages. I remember them being run-down and in need of renovation, much like the old stables. I climb into the UTV he has parked outside.
“We have several of these if you want to use them.” He pats the dashboard of the UTV as we drive along the track. “I know it’s walkable, but it does make getting round the estate a lot quicker.”
He’s not wrong. It’s probably a ten minute walk up to the cottages, and even further to the main house. Though I think I’d like to walk sometimes.
“They look . . . different,” I say as he stops in front of the row of cottages. He flashes me a grin. They’re all Cotswold stone, typical for this part of the country. They all look like they’ve had new roofs and windows, and there are plant pots just beginning to bloom with colour where there used to be brown weeds and thistles.
He points out which one is Andrés and Simon’s, with Kirsty and Alexa next door.
