“Charley was my friend when I was a kid... my best friend. He arrived in the village one summer and we met. After that we were inseparable on every holiday I was home from school. I taught him how to ride horses, how to play polo, and he listened to my dreams about how I wanted my own polo club when I was older. We’d spend hours discussing it. He was supposed to be here with me, sharing it.”
“What happened?” Andrés voice pulls me from my reverie. I hadn’t realised I’d fallen silent.
“I messed it up. I ruined everything.” A lump forms in my throat. That night isn’t something I want to discuss. Even ten years later it hurts. “Then I went back to school. By the time I came back, Charley had changed. He said we couldn’t be friends. That summer my father died and I had to take on running the estate as well as studying at university. I always thought there’d be time to make amends but I was kept busy. When I was finally able to breathe, Charley had moved away. I’d lost my chance.”
I lapse into silence again, my mind flitting back to thoughts of Charley, and the sadness I’d pushed away years ago starts to rise again. Confronting this feeling is partly why I’ve found it so hard to take the next step.
“So why haven’t you called him? Apologised to him and explained what you want? What’s the worst that can happen? He says no?”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Gabriel. You’re the lord of wherever, you own half this county.” He gestures to the countryside outside the car window. He’s not wrong, though maybe not half. Ru’s family owns a lot too. But I know what he’s getting at. “Money talks. No one refuses you.”
“You haven’t met Charley,” I say blithely, a brief smile forming on my lips. That’s the reason we became friends: he was unimpressed by my family, title, or wealth. He was never obsequious, he was just Charley. No, notjust, Charley was never that.
“I never will if you don’t call him.” Andrés logic seems simple, but it’s not really, so I don’t answer.
“Are you sure you two were just friends?” he asks after a few more miles of silence. “Because it feels like there was more to it than that.”
“Yes,” I say bluntly, cutting off any further conversation. Just friends. Any other thoughts were buried a long time ago and I’m not about to drag them back out. Not ever.
CHAPTER TWO
CHARLEY
“Charley, can you email me the figures for the first quarter by the end of the day?” Miles’s voice disturbs my concentration. I’m working on the content for a new portfolio for our latest venue as marketing needs it by the end of the week.
“Today?” I look up at where my boss is looming over my desk, and the urge to recoil from him is strong. He doesn’t usually need the report until the end of the month after the quarter, so I had it scheduled for next week. It’s only the first week of April and I haven’t started it yet.
“That’s what I said.” His face twists into a cruel sneer. I thought he was handsome once. Many think he is, but now when I look at him I can only see his rotten core and not the good looking facade he hides behind. I gulp. It’ll take hours to compile the information from the different venues. Normally I plan two days for it.
“Of course,” I say through gritted teeth. There’s no way I’m going to fail, and even if I have to stay here until midnight, he will get the report today.
“Good.” If there’s any sincerity in the brief smile he gives me, it’s the pleasure he takes from the knowledge that he’s dumped a ton of work on me. I’m pretty sure there’s no management meeting he needs them for urgently. This isn’t the first time he’s done something like this, but recently it’s been getting worse. I save my work on the new venue and open up the sales reports. I’ve got a long day ahead of me.
I work as quickly as I can, while still making sure there are no errors. My desk phone suddenly rings, making me jump. I stare at it for a minute. We all have work mobile phones so the desk phone hardly ever rings . . . unless it’s someone who doesn’t know my number and has gone through reception. It can’t be important, then, so I ignore it. Reception can take a message and I can pick it up later. The phone stops and I breathe a sigh of relief, which is short-lived as it starts ringing again almost immediately. I snatch up the receiver and answer.
“There’s a guy who wants to talk to you,” Sandra, one of the receptionists, tells me.
“I’m really busy right now. Can you take a message?”
“I tried that when you didn’t answer but he was really insistant.”
“Who is it?” She seemingly takes that as my consent, and I hear a click as she puts him through, no doubt just pleased to pass him over. Fuck. I’ll have to have a word with her later. “Hello?”
“Charley?” My heart stops as a familiar voice says my name.
“Gabriel?” My voice is a hoarse whisper. Time stops still and I can’t feel my arms or legs, or even the rest of my body. The hubbub of the rest of the office fades away and all I can hear is his voice.
“I’m sorry to call you out of the blue like this, and I had to find out from Pete where you worked, but . . . look, can I see you?”
“What?” My brain is scrambling with a thousand questions trying to make sense of what’s happening.
“Can we meet up?”
“Why? When?”
“As soon as possible. I’m in Manchester today. I’ll tell you why then.”
