Tomorrow morning.
Work.
She was going to have to walk into the Howard-Knight office a mere nine hours from now as though nothing had happened: as if she hadn’t just split up with the CEO’s nephew, who also happened to be the firm’s finance director and heir apparent to the top job.
As Amy brushed her teeth over Kit’s unnecessarily snazzy sink– one of those tiny glass bowl affairs that looked great but was totally impractical if you wanted to wash your face without also soaking your feet– she seethed at her own stupidity.
She kept remembering Hugh’s livid face on the drive back to London after his sky-high proposal. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to move out,’ he’d said, almost the second they got back inside the flat.
Then there was the way he’d looked at her as they sat opposite one another on his hideously expensive sectional sofa: his eyes tight and hard, his mouth a thin, resolute line. This was the shuttered, detached expression he’d worn as he informed her that saying no to marriage meant saying no to everything: that now she’d rejected him, there was nothing between them worth salvaging.
When they’d first started seeing each other, Hugh had been at pains to convince Amy that being with him wouldn’t affect her career in any way. Now, as she recalled the stiff set of his shoulders and the clinical way he’d informed her that he expected all trace of her gone from his flat by the weekend, she marvelled at her own naivety.
Given his almost Soviet-style determination to erase her from his life, it seemed vanishingly unlikely that being in the same building as him five days a week would go well. It was typically enterprising of Hugh, she had to admit, to have told her what she wanted to hear in order to achieve his desired outcome.
Working for a publishing house had always been Amy’s dream, and it had taken her years to reach her position as a senior editor of literary fiction. Now– rather like the sort of love-focused fool she usually wrinkled her nose at– she’d got in over her head and ended up messing with a man wholiterallyhad his name on a brass plaque outside the office door. She couldn’t help fearing that as far as her future career prospects were concerned, she might as well have dropped a bomb on Howard-Knight’s Baker Street HQ.
The following morning, Kit woke her with a cup of hot black coffee.
‘Time to get your game face on, Ames,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be a shit day, but once it’s done, it’s done. You and Hugh will be old news before the week’s out.’
Amy sipped from her mug and dipped her head in what she hoped passed for a nod. She appreciated Kit’s frankness and optimism, but didn’t share his confidence that the mess she was in could be cleared up in a matter of days.
In fact, the more she thought about the long-term implications of finishing with Hugh, the more anxious she felt. His good looks and family connections meant he was popular with pretty much everyone at work. By contrast, Amy knew that while she was respected among her colleagues, she was too reserved to be well liked outside her small circle of friends.
When the news that their relationship was over began to circulate, Amy suspected her status as the villain of the piece would be established all too easily. What’s more, Howard-Knight was apublishing firm– to a large extent, populated by people whose main passion in life was storytelling. Though she tended to stay out of their hushed conversations, Amy was familiar with her colleagues’ enjoyment of juicy office gossip– not to mention the power of a prevailing, if not entirely accurate, narrative.
‘I’m not sure I can cope with this,’ she moaned, plonking her coffee down on the side table next to the sofa bed and burrowing back inside her sleeping bag.
‘You have to. And you can,’ Kit told her. ‘Now neck that, get in the shower and let’s get this shitshow on the road.’
He poked the sleeping bag, making contact with Amy’s stomach, which was empty and beginning to rumble. ‘I’m not going to tell you to style this out,’ Kit said, ‘or pretend it’s not a total nightmare. But you and I both know that if you don’t go in today, it’ll only be worse tomorrow.’
Amy emitted a vaguely affirmative groan from beneath her thick cocoon.
‘Attagirl,’ Kit said. ‘Now, sort yourself out and I’ll make us something superfood-y for breakfast.’
Roughly ninety minutes later, the two of them emerged from Baker Street Tube station and began the familiar walk up Marylebone Road. The Howard-Knight office was just a few minutes’ stroll away from Regent’s Park, housed within a red-brick, five-storey town house with gigantic windows and a wrought-iron balcony.
‘Why did Idothis to myself?’ Amy whined as they approached.
Kit threw an arm around her shoulders. ‘You know I wasn’t Hugh’s biggest fan, but I don’t know any woman– or bloke for that matter– who wouldn’t have had their head turned by fancy trips to Europe, dinners at Michelin-starred restaurants and fresh flowers every Friday.’
Amy sighed and grit-grinned at him, abundantly grateful that he was on her side but didn’t feel the need to patronise her.
‘Like I said the other night,’ Kit went on, ‘even I didn’t imagine he was about to get down on one knee, and I’ve been calling him a possessive lunatic for months. None of this is ideal, but youaregoing to get through it.’
Amy leaned against him, breathing in the smell of some heady designer cologne. It was comforting and quintessentially Kit, if a tad overtly sexy for 9 a.m.
Within seconds she checked herself, ducking out of his loose embrace before they could be seen. The last thing she needed today was anyone implying she and Kit were having an affair.
They made their way up the stone steps and through the heavy double doors into the Howard-Knight reception area. Jo was perched behind the desk this morning, looking pretty and owl-like in her on-trend oversized glasses.
Kit bestowed a dazzling smile on her and earned a bashful giggle in response. On the other hand, Amy’s ‘Hi Jo,’ was greeted with a weak, silent smile.
‘She knows!’ Amy hissed as she and Kit passed through another set of doors into the stairwell. ‘Which meanseveryoneknows. Shit, balls and bollocks.’
They climbed four winding sets of stairs and arrived at the entrance for the second floor, where Amy’s team was based. Kit would leave her here before heading up another flight of stairs to his own desk in the PR and marketing department. He turned to her, placed his hands on her shoulders and whispered, ‘As the French say:courage, mon brave.’
