Page 19 of Unapologetic Love Story

‘Well, I can always go next door and drop a grand on some eye cream,’ Tom retorted sardonically, but his expression was warm. ‘How’s things, Miri?’

‘Bit slow but they’ll pick up. How was the Hathaway Dinner?’

Tom arched an eyebrow. ‘How did you . . .?’

‘It was all online.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘It was fine.’

‘You never let me tag along to your fancy things.’

‘Because I don’t want to be a bad influence. Besides, you work here. You get enough fancy.’

Liberty of London had become a regular stopping point for Tom since Mirren was hired. He liked to check in on his sister and make sure she was all right. He never wanted to cramp her style, but their nervous father up in Scotland appreciated his efforts, even if it sometimes made him feel like an overprotective spy.

Mirren was still in the honeymoon phase of moving to London. She found Leicester Square charming. The M&M store’s presence didn’t cause her to break out in hives – yet. She lived in Shoreditch with three flatmates. She enjoyed the Tube. She hadn’t learned to avoid Bank Station unless absolutely necessary.

After a decade, Tom was a little more jaded. But he would let her think that London parties with the so-called elite were a good night out, rather than cynical and depressing.

Well. There had been one pleasurable thing about the Hathaway Dinner.

‘Mind you,’ Mirren added, her tone catty and looking to catch. ‘I’d hate to meet those scaffy friends of yours again.’

‘Seb and Ottie?’

Tom couldn’t feign ignorance. He knew his Cambridge brethren were not for everyone.

He knew how they looked to his sister. Yet he couldn’t explain to her what a help Seb had been during university. He’d taken pity on Tom, who lacked the shorthand so many of his classmates seemed to already possess. Seb had made those years bearable. While Ottie was someone Tom still found a little pitiful, he knew enough of her to know that, beneath the insecurity, there was a frightened girl who was terrified of being laughed at.

‘Sorry my friends aren’t as cool as yours,’ was all he said.

He’d spent years on the garden of his career. Planting the seeds, mowing the grass and tending to the greenhouse containing his next project, and it had resulted in a beautiful Eden. All of the hard work and effort had paid off, but that didn’t really make up for having no one to share any of it with at the end of each day.

‘How’s the book?’

‘Fine.’

‘What’s it all about again? Are they just reprinting your articles?’

‘Yeah, but I’m also writing about how I wrote them.’

‘How you caught the baddies, you mean?’

He snorted. ‘Kind of.’

‘Good. I’m so glad you skewered that woman who said positive vibes would cure leukaemia.’

Mirren’s words were sharp, but he heard the vulnerability beneath them and he reached out to squeeze her wrist. She looked so like their mother, neither of them needed to voice why the cancer story had felt so personal. He wanted to tell her that it was all for their family. Every takedown, every victory. It was for them and what they’d all lost.

But.

‘Call Dad,’ was all he said. ‘He wants you to have fun, and he doesn’t want to bother you. But he worries.’

She let out a noise of frustration but nodded. ‘If you’re not going to buy anything, fuck off.’

He laughed and was about to head down to menswear when he spotted her.

Raina Lewis.