She’d reminded herself that today was going to be a good day as she flicked the lights on and straightened displays, but the moment she’d pressed her palms to the front desk and waited for her racing heartbeat to settle, she knew it would be another terrible day.
The door swung open at eight-thirty and Nina slipped inside. She was as punctual as ever, but her expression shifted the moment she saw Billie.
“Morning, Miss Brown.”
“Nina.”
She stopped in the middle of the shop and studied Billie. She wouldn’t usually do something like that, but her lips were pressed together in concern rather than irritation. “You’re early…again.”
Billie adjusted her cuffs. “There’s work to be done.”
“There’salwayswork to be done, but I don’t think that’s why you’re here earlier and earlier every day.”
Billie paused and looked up at the woman whodaredto question anything she chose to do. “I didn’t realise my arrival time required justification.”
Nina set her bag down behind the counter. “It doesn’t. I’m just noticing things lately.”
“Well don’t. Do the job I pay you to do and notice the stock levels instead.”
Nina didn’t move from behind the counter. “You haven’t been yourself recently.”
Billie’s spine stiffened. “And who exactly do you think I am?”
Nina swallowed this time, searching Billie’s face. “Someone who used to walk in here with purpose. Lately you look like you’ve run out of it.”
Billie’s throat constricted. She briefly considered whether Nina was the right person to discuss Debra with, but decided against it. Nina had no right to her personal life, just as Billie had no right to hers. “This conversation is pointlessandinappropriate.”
Nina took a cautious step closer. “Miss Brown, you don’t have to pretend. Whatever happened?—”
“Enough!” Billie’s voice cut through the room, controlled but trembling beneath the surface. “Stick to your role.”
Nina held her gaze, unflinching for the first time since she’d joined Brown & Co. “This isn’t about roles.”
“Then what is it about?”
“Her.” Nina cleared her throat. “You haven’t been right since Ms Allen stopped coming in.”
“That’s not up for discussion and Icannotfor the life of me understand why you think it is.Nothinghas changed here. Nothingwillchange here. You do your job, you leave at the end of the day, and you stay out of my personal life.”
“She mattered, whoever she was to you.”
Billie felt the ground shift, just slightly, but enough that she gripped the counter to steady herself. “You’re mistaken. There is nothing?—”
“You can lie to me if you want, but I watch you every day and you’re heartbroken. I can see it in your eyes.”
Billie’s jaw clenched so hard that it ached. She turned away, her fingertips digging into the papers on the front desk until they crumpled. “I don’t do heartbreak.”
Nina didn’t argue. She simply stepped back and lifted a hand, giving Billie the smallest degree of dignity by not watching her fall apart. “I’ll be in the back. Call me if you need anything.”
When Nina left the main area, the silence rushed back in again. Billie pressed her palms flat against the counter and bowed her head. She wouldn’t cry, shenevercried, but breathing felt like something she had to remember how to do lately, and all she could see—all she’d seen for fourteen days—was Debra standing on that pavement, trying not to cry herself.
She’d told Debra to forget about her, and she’d treated her final fitting like the end of a transaction, but deep down, every part of Billie had wanted the opposite. And now she stood there, surrounded by silence that didn’t comfort her anymore, wondering how the hell she had gotten herself into this mess.
She thought distance would fix her, but it hadn’t. It had just left her feeling hollow…while she lay in bed at night wishing she was in the comfort of Debra’s home, holding her on the couch. Because that was how Debra made people feel. Safe in their ownskin. She was the kind of woman who deserved to be held at night, and Billie desperately wished she could have been that person for her.
This is a mess.
She lifted a hand to her forehead and breathed through the headache beginning to settle behind her eyes. She’d broken things before, but this? God, this felt as though she was actively breaking herself.
