In a bid to appear busy, Rachel opened up the fruit-and-vegetable copy she’d been working on the day before. She began looking for opportunities to ‘sex it up’, as requested – confident she’d conclude there were none.
Within a few minutes, though, figures began to emerge from the meeting room and conversations dwindled into silence.
All pretence of useful work abandoned, everyone in the room looked up.
Toby had made his way to the centre of the office, Florence and Isaac keeping watch from behind.
Donna, R/C’s grouchy office manager, shuffled her special orthopaedic chair slightly to the left as Toby hovered in front of her desk. She stared out into the crowd, narrow-eyed, her cerise-pink lips pursed in distaste. Rachel wondered if Donna had recently been force-fed a plate of something foul, or if the cat’s-arse face merely signalled her irritation that – just this once – she didn’t know what was going on before everybody else.
Toby signalled for attention.
‘Morning, all! Good morning! Hi. Hopefully you’ve seen from your emails by now that I’ve popped a whole-agency briefing into your calendars,’ he said in a voice loud enough to reach all four corners of the office. ‘We’ll get started in a moment or two, and wewillneed the full hour today – so if you want a glass of water or a comfort break, then now’s the time.’
Several people exchanged nervous glances. Some made for the kettle and a few headed towards the toilets. The Mountaintop suits, Rachel noted, were hanging back inside the meeting room, fiddling with laptops and phones. She assumed they’d come out when the time was right.
Rachel stayed seated, now with a clearer view of the glass meeting room. Two of the men from Mountaintop were standing, chatting quietly – one with his back to the room and the other looking out into the office.
The one Rachel could see was maybe in his fifties. His navy suit was simple but perfectly cut, and she had no doubt it was expensively made to measure.
Whoever he was talking to was younger, as far as she could tell. He was taller and trimmer, with warm brown hair just on the right side of the stylishly mussed/messy divide. Even though she couldn’t see his face, she felt sure it must be handsome. Good-looking people carried themselves a certain way, in Rachel’s experience, and she recognised the telltale stance even at a distance: easy and relaxed, but confident enough to take up space. Beautiful people rarely felt the need to shrink themselves, as she sometimes did.
Toby was using his public speaking voice again, asking everyone to return to their seats.
‘Okay. We’ll make a start now,’ he said. ‘Thanks, everyone, for coming along this morning at such short notice. I’m sure you’ve all worked out that we’re together today so I can share some great, and very important, news with you all.’
Rachel glanced beyond Toby towards the meeting room again, her eyes snagging on Mr Probably Good-Looking. He’d now turned slightly towards the crowd, and she willed him to twist his body further around so she’d have a better view.
She wasn’t listening to Toby and realised, dimly, that this was not ideal. She should pay attention, but there was a heavy thudding in her ears and a tightness in her chest. For some reason Rachel couldn’t fathom – perhaps anxiety, perhaps attraction – she was possessed by a weird determination not to shift her attention until she’d seen this man properly.
Get a grip, she told herself.
Toby was talking timescales now. Rachel forced herself, fleetingly, to look his way and then around the room at her friends and colleagues. There were wide eyes, downturned mouths and furrowed brows. Some faces were blank, as if their owners hadn’t yet joined the dots that led frommergertojobseeker’s allowance.
Rachel couldn’t concentrate. She was aware of Toby talking but was taking nothing in. Mr Almost Certainly Handsome still hadn’t moved.
She was reminded of her early days at university; whole lectures lost to staring across the hall at Jack Harper, always followed by the frantic borrowing and copying of important notes (usually Anna’s). It hit her then. The physical longing to see this man was habit. It was muscle memory.
With a jolt, Rachel understood the sharp, fluttering sensation behind her ribcage – the odd muddle of horror and impatience that had seized her almost as soon as she saw him.
He chose this moment to shift his feet, turn his head and stand, straight-backed and smiling, facing out into the crowd. Her neck was sweaty, her head felt light and her stomach was in her shoes. They were in the same room for the first time in ten years, and it was Jack’s face Rachel had been straining to see.
4
Her first instinct was to hide. She considered crouching further behind the large computer monitor that sat at the back of her desk, directly above her laptop.
Rachel could feel her face burning. Sweat was beginning to collect between her shoulder blades and she wondered if this was the start of a medical emergency.
No, she thought.I can’t let this person – the only man I have ever lovedandhated – see me for the first time in ten years, just as I’m seized by what will surely be a deeply unattractive panic attack.
She tried to take deep breaths, but quietly so that nobody nearby would notice. Maybe if she scrunched herself right down in her seat he wouldn’t spot her. Then – once he’d turned away again – she could find her line manager, feign some sort of crisis and head home.
But then what? What would happen on Monday? Would he still be here?
Even if he was back in Manchester by then, their paths were sure to cross sometime. Now they worked for the same firm, it seemed unlikely that Rachel would be able to avoid Jack altogether – even if she managed to put off this initial, excruciating encounter.
Slowly, and berating herself for her cowardice, she slouched out of his line of sight and tried to think. Not for the first time in her life, she cursed her copper-coloured hair. It made her conspicuous in a crowd, to the extent that any sudden movement might accidentally draw his eye. She wasn’t ready to face him.
She examined the awful, gnawing feeling that seemed to be eating away at her stomach lining. It was mostly made up of embarrassment, which surely wasn’t fair. If anything, he should be shame-faced at seeing her again – not the other way around.
