‘Hmm.’ I swirl my tea and blow on it. ‘If you’ve got a new boyfriend, you can tell me,’ I add. ‘I think it’s great. Especially if he’s loaded. And you should go brunette permanently. It suits you.’
Mum returns to the kitchenette to retrieve her mug. ‘Jade, you’re doing my head in with this boyfriend nonsense. I’m taking my tea back to bed.’
‘Don’t be like that,’ I reply, trying to sound sympathetic and failing. ‘I’m confused about why you were wearing a wig, though.’
‘For the last time, Jade, I was here all evening, I don’t own a wig, I’m not going brunette, and I definitely don’t have aboyfriend!’ Her voice cracks.
‘All right, calm down. I guess it must have been someone who looked like you. But honestly, she was your absolute double.’
Mum’s lips tighten. ‘Good night, Jade.’ She leaves the lounge and heads back to the bedroom, closing her door with an angry clunk.
I take another bite of toast and chew thoughtfully, crumbs spilling down my top. Mum was definitely acting shady. Not sure what’s going on there, but I’m going to get to the bottom of it.
Chapter Four
Bella
My alarm goes off at 6.30, sharp and offensive. In the confused shock of waking, all I want to do is curl around the warmth of sleep. But I inhale deeply, make a grab for my phone, and send it skittering over the edge of the bedside table. When I finally wrangle it back, Reece stirs beside me, groans, and buries his head under the pillow.
I make the sensible decision to get ready before getting sucked into my messages, so I replace my phone on the bedside table, drag myself out of bed and start the routine. Shower. Hair wash. Full skincare: double cleanse, toner, SPF moisturiser. Make-up: foundation, a touch of bronzer, brows shaped into something resembling confidence. Blow-dry hair into soft, controlled waves. Olive skirt suit, white silk blouse, nothing ostentatious but with the kind of subtle tailoring that cost enough to make me wince. Gold knot earrings, slim watch, matching ring and bracelet. The act of dressing is comforting, a private ritual that soothes my jangling nerves. By the time I spritz on my Kayali vanilla perfume, I almost believe I have things under control.
I finally check my phone. Good – no notifications beyond the daily deluge of work emails and one text from Mum, a meme of a cute dog in a raincoat, along with an accidental string of emojis. No word from Dad, but he never texts in the morning. I start to reply with a thumbs-up and a heart, then erase them and write:Cute! You and Dad should get a puppy!!!!Too many exclamations, but it will do.
Twenty minutes later, I’m in the office brewing fresh coffee for the early-bird staff. Our junior negotiator, Ben, is already at his desk. He glances up and gives me a grin that’s too big for this hour. ‘Boss!’ he shouts. ‘Crushed it last week. The party was epic. Heard Reece did a speech? Sorry I missed it. Was it cringe?’
I force a laugh. ‘Thanks, Ben. It wasn’t too bad – just the right amount of cringe.’ Although Reece doesn’t work for the company, he made a short speech to introduce me to the stage. Once I was up there, I gabbled something semi-inspirational and hopefully thanked all the right people. I guess Reece may have gone a bit overboard in his introduction, but it was sweet of him to acknowledge all the hard work I put into the event, so it hurts a little to hear that people thought it was naff.
Ben is still talking animatedly about a potential client who ghosted him and the creative voicemails he left in retaliation. I nod at the right moments, but my thoughts keep spiralling back to the email from last week, and then on to the presentation looming, the reason I spent last night tossing and sweating under the duvet, imagining every way it could go wrong.
‘Hey, boss! You need a hand with the brochures for the Flinders Hill apartment?’
I flinch at Ben’s sudden proximity, and knock my coffee over. The spill is immediate and catastrophic – a dark wave across the corner of my laptop, pooling into the keyboard and dripping on to my skirt. Ben rushes off and returns wielding a fistful of paper towels, grinning like this is the highlight of his day. I want to snap,to tell him to leave it, but instead I mumble thanks and start dabbing at the mess, as if to erase both the stain and my embarrassment. After my careful routine earlier, I’ll now have to go home and change.
Between us, we clean up the mess. I thank him and hurry home. Reece has already left for work, leaving an unmade bed and toast crumbs in his wake. I change into a not-so-nice dark beige trouser suit, but it’s okay. I look professional, and that’s the aim.
Back in the office, I try to focus on the queries piling up in my inbox, but the simple act of checking items off my list suddenly feels insurmountable. My mind keeps skipping ahead to the meeting, the presentation slides, the potential for mistakes. Even as I go over it for the fifth time, triple-checking every statistic, every graph, every word, I know that I’ll go over it all again five minutes before I’m due to present. I do not trust myself to remember anything when the pressure is on.
The morning dissolves in a blur of frantic activity and the hyper-focus that only deadlines can produce. I field calls, answer emails, and run damage control for a client whose buyer is threatening to pull out of a sale. Still, beneath the surface, there’s a tremor in my hands and a flutter in my stomach that no amount of herbal tea or yoga breathing can steady.
The day drags and then suddenly speeds up as I count down the minutes to my meeting. I nip into the back office to touch up my make-up, spritz on some more perfume, and take a deep breath. Staring myself down in the bathroom mirror, I repeat the mantra I’ve been using since uni: ‘You deserve to be here. You know what you’re doing. You are the boss.’ I try to believe it.
The investors’ meeting is being held in the lounge bar of the Swan Hotel at the other end of the High Street. The room retains a faint, lingering smell of roast dinners, which does nothing to ease the faint nausea in my gut. There are three of them, all dressedsmartly in suits. We make brief small talk before I launch into my presentation, clicking through each slide with what I hope is measured assurance, my voice steady even as my heart ricochets off my ribcage. The questions are tough, but anticipated; the interruptions sharp but not unexpected. At one point, I catch the lead investor, a woman named Harriet Brewer, watching me with a half-smile, chin propped on her knuckles, and I wonder if she’s thinking how professional I am or if she can see through the shell to the real mess underneath.
The presentation – including questions – stretches to almost an hour. At the conclusion, there’s a moment of silence, then a few nods and smiles. ‘Impressive,’ Harriet says aloud, and the air changes, relaxes. ‘We’ll be in touch.’ I thank them, collect my things, and leave before my voice can betray me.
I come out of the meeting hardly believing it went so well. My heart thumps with a thrill I’m not used to because it seemed like they might actually be interested in partnering up. My mind races with ideas of what might be, and I’m tingling with nervous excitement.
I walk home along the High Street in a daze, barely registering the coastal breeze or the traffic. Instead, savouring the pink-gold sunset, the faint smell of salt and vinegar from the chippy on the corner, the kaleidoscope of voices and laughter spilling from the pubs and the open doors of corner shops.
My building is a dignified old Georgian block, four storeys and perfectly proportioned, with white-painted sashes and the kind of symmetrical beauty that makes you believe in order. I let myself in and climb to the third floor, rather than waiting for the lift, then fumble the keys at the door, adrenaline still leaching from my system.
Inside, I drop my bag, kick off my shoes, and make a beeline for the kettle. Tea, at times like this, is more ritual than beverage;the act of boiling the water and letting the teabag steep is its own kind of meditation. I sit on the window seat, mug cradled against my chest, and watch the world below. Lymington is a tourist town, as well as a working town. Families push prams over the cobbles; teenagers in identical hoodies share a vape, passing it between them; an ancient woman in a tartan jacket walks a pug in a polka-dot dog coat.
I let my head fall back against the window and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to savour today’s success. I remember the first time I ever closed a sale, the taste of pure terror when I realised how much was riding on one signature. My dad hugged me, uncharacteristically soft, and told me, ‘Congratulations. It never gets easier, by the way.’ He was absolutely right. But today it feels like I’ve been shown a beacon of hope.
The buzzer goes, and I’m brought back to the present.
A few minutes later, Reece appears in the doorway, still in his work suit, all charm and cologne, holding a paper bag. ‘You okay, babe? How did it go?’
