Just the Way You Are (20 page)

I paused. His choice of gift didn’t fill me with confidence about his plans for us but it was only fair to give him a chance.

‘Yeah, course we are. Thanks again for the bear, I-I love it.’

Jesus, I was starting to sound as timid as Claire!

‘Only the best for my lovely Miss Clements; see you tonight sexy!’

He rang off and I hung up the phone with a heavy sigh. Why was I such a miserable bitch? I was dating a lovely guy who made the effort to surprise and impress me but I still wasn’t happy. I was beginning to think I never would be.

‘How’s Lover Boy?’ asked Fran.

‘He’s fine.’ I sounded flatter than a very flat thing. ‘Figure out how to stop that bloody thing singing, will you? I’ve got to go and do this pitch.’

I walked back to the boardroom as the bear entertained the crowd with a third performance of
You Are My Sunshine.

***

I’m aware that life throws you curveballs every so often. Some test your mettle, your ability to weather the most severe storms and come out the other side. Others present you with golden opportunities to get what you’ve always wanted, and some don’t reveal their purpose until you least expect it.

It’s fair to say that I was nowhere near prepared for the curveball about to be thrown my way but I knew exactly what to do with it.

I walked into the boardroom and was horrified by what I saw. Paddy had Miranda bent over his desk and was having rather noisy sex with her. His trousers and boxers were round his ankles and her blouse had been carelessly flung on the floor.

‘Ahem!’

They broke apart immediately and scrambled to cover their modesty. Miranda’s face was flushed, some corkscrew curls were stuck to her face and she looked extremely embarrassed as she buttoned up her blouse.

‘Ava, um… what you just saw…’

I folded my arms while I waited for her explanation. No doubt she’d concoct a spectacular fairy story about why she was having sex with our boss.

‘Well it… it wasn’t what it looked like.’ Her eyes silently pleaded with me to believe her but after the hard time she’d given me for the last three years, I wasn’t planning to make it easy for her.

‘Oh yeah? What was it then, because it looked like you and Paddy were shagging!’

Both of them cringed; I revelled in their discomfort. Paddy was clueless about the way things were at the magazine and Miranda made it her mission to make everyone’s lives miserable.

She sighed, realising she’d been defeated. ‘OK, so it
is
how it looks. We thought you’d be gone longer while you dealt with your parcel and phone call. Needless to say, if word got round the office about this…’

‘You’d be in deep shit,’ I finished.

I knew the publishing group didn’t take kindly to relationships between senior members of staff. They were worried it would make the group look bad and send circulation figures plummeting.

‘Exactly, so I hope we can count on your discretion?’

I caught the upward inflection in her voice; she was asking me to keep quiet, not demanding me to.

‘I’ve got nothing to gain by blabbing to everyone, have I? However, there’s something I’d like you to do.’

‘Just name it Mar… Ava,’ said Paddy.

‘I want a fair shot at pitching. I’m not the best public speaker in the world so my delivery might be a bit jittery; just give me a chance and listen to my idea.’

Miranda looked at Paddy as if she didn’t believe I was finished.

‘Is that it?’ she asked.

I nodded. ‘Unlike some people in this office, I’m not out for all I can get from people. All I want is a chance. Deal?’

I put out my hand and Miranda shook it, with Paddy following suit. They took their seats and I prepared to pitch.

Chapter 20

The pitch went well with no projectile vomiting. Knowing I was going to be given a fair chance to present my idea made me relax a lot more. I was able to outline my idea and state who my sources were and what my angle for the article would be.

‘Well done Ava, it’s an original idea that I think will turn out well.’

Miranda sounded like the words were sticking in her throat but I didn’t care. A compliment was a compliment, wasn’t it?

Nate was waiting for me at the end of the day. He was leaning carelessly against the exterior wall with a leather jacket hanging off his shoulder. He was trying and failing to pull off the James Dean look.

‘Ready for tonight then?’ he asked, falling into step with me as I walked to my car.

‘Yeah, what have you got planned?’

He tapped his nose and winked. It really was a very annoying gesture.

‘All in good time Miss Clements, all in good time!’

I mumbled something about seeing him later and climbed in my car before the conversation continued much longer. I felt like a horrible witch; Nate was trying to impress me and show me a good time and I was being an ungrateful cow.

When I got home, I felt an uncontrollable urge to open the shortbread tin one last time. I’d stuffed it back at the bottom of my wardrobe after deciding to give up on Mr Writer but I needed his words now more than ever. It had been weeks since his last letter and openly acknowledging that I wasn’t going to look for him any more had left a gaping void in my heart that nothing could fill.

I reached into my wardrobe and yanked the shortbread tin free. All I wanted was to look at the letters one last time before I put him out of my mind for good. Tonight marked the first second date I’d had in well over a year; that had to mean something. On paper, Nate was the perfect guy. Maybe it was a little bit different in practice but everyone had their flaws, didn’t they? Embarking on a relationship with him wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

I selected a letter from the middle of the pile and opened it. The realisation that this would be the last time I’d read the letters hit me like a train. I wanted time to slow down to a crawl so I could savour every word on the page.

Dear Ava

We have so many choices to make in life: who to be friends with, who to trust and who not to trust, what we want to be when we grow up. The list is pretty much endless. The only choice taken out of our hands is who we fall in love with. I’ve thought about it long and hard and if I had any control over the matter, I’d choose you every time. I can’t imagine anyone making me feel the way you do. Even though we’re not together as a couple, my heart belongs to you and I don’t want it back any time soon.

I can’t remember the exact moment I fell in love with you. That happened far too long ago now. I do remember how I felt though; it was like waking up and seeing something amazing right under my nose. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before but sometimes it takes a while to see what’s right in front of you. They say you know when you’ve met The One and I’m a firm believer of this. When I fell in love with you, I knew it was something special. That’ll probably make you wonder why the hell I didn’t do something about it, but believe me I had my reasons.

I’ve got some news for you: in the next couple of letters, I’m going to arrange to meet up with you. If you’d still like to of course, I really hope you do. Look at the bottom of the next letter for details and if you want to come meet me, I promise I’ll be there. Who knows, it could be the start of something amazing. Keep smiling, beautiful.

Love always

?

My heart felt like it was caught in a vice and being slowly crushed. I remembered the events that had happened a couple of weeks after getting this letter. They were in super-sharp high definition at the front of my mind…

***

Six years earlier

Where is he?

He said he’d be here at four o’clock.

As sheets of rain fell around me, soaking me to my skin, I wondered whether I’d made a dreadful mistake. After all, what self-respecting twenty-year-old went to meet a complete stranger by herself?

Me, apparently.

Who would allow herself to be taken in by some beautiful love letters and fall for someone who might not even be real?

Yup, me again.

Stupid, gullible Ava Clements.

I’d been standing outside Heaton Hall, a beautiful structure nestled in the middle of Heaton Park, for twenty lonely and very wet minutes; the excitement that had been fizzing around in my stomach was completely gone.

Why hasn’t he turned up?

More importantly, why on earth had I ever believed he would?

I dug my hands deep into my jeans pockets and felt the piece of paper that had brought me here. It was smooth and crisp beneath my fingers but I couldn’t bring myself to look at it. No good could ever come from looking at it again.

I spun on my heel and, with a heavy heart, began to make my way home.

I’d never felt so humiliated in my life. That day had marked the start of six years of radio silence from Mr Writer, until last month. At the time, I’d assumed he’d changed his mind about me, that maybe I wasn’t as special to him as he’d made out. Now, of course, I knew different. It had been his self-doubt that had stopped him from turning up; he thought he hadn’t been enough for me. Yet I was no closer to finding the person behind the letters than I’d been six years ago. Sure, I’d eliminated a couple of people but I was still stuck on square one. Yes, I thought, it was time to accept that my efforts to find him had failed.

Nate was bang on time picking me up, as he’d been on our first date. A little part of me sank when I saw the sleek white Audi pull up outside my building. Gwen had swanned off out earlier, claiming she was meeting a “friend”. Of course I knew she was off to see Max and felt annoyed that she didn’t just admit it. She’d been quick enough to tell me she was in love with him and hadn’t wasted any time in making her move on him. I didn’t know why I was so annoyed, but even thinking about it made me want to smash a lamp or something.

‘Ava, you look as gorgeous as ever,’ said Nate when I got to the car.

‘Thanks.’ I smoothed down my teal skater dress then climbed onto the seat. ‘What’s the plan for tonight then?’

He did the annoying tapping-his-nose-then-winking thing then drove off before I could ask any more questions.

We weren’t on the road very long when he parked up outside a very familiar building.

‘Why are we at Max’s?’ I asked, my nose wrinkling with confusion.

‘Well since it was just the two of us on our first date, I thought it might be fun to include your mates on this one. I got in touch with Max and asked if he fancied a little get-together round at his. He said yes, so here we are!’

Oh no.
This “get-together” was only going to lead to trouble. Max didn’t like Nate, especially after the fiasco at the Halloween wedding, so to put them in a room together for a few hours would be nothing short of disastrous.

‘You don’t look too happy,’ Nate remarked, looking a little put out that his grand idea hadn’t had the effect he’d hoped for.

‘No I am, it’s just… You know what, everything’s perfect.’ I fixed a smile to my face and got out the car, determined that tonight would be a success, no matter what.

Max, as usual, had gone all out food-wise. He’d made huge plates of chicken stir fry – my favourite – along with an utterly divine-looking chocolate cake for pudding. We exchanged awkward smiles by way of greeting and he and Nate just sort of grunted at each other. My stomach was doing all kinds of gymnastics so despite the delicious food on offer I didn’t feel much like eating it.

Gwen made her grand entrance a few minutes later, popping out rather pointedly from the bedroom. Her little face pinked up as soon as she saw me.

‘Hi chick!’ She brought me over a glass of wine, which I assumed was a peace offering.

‘So this is the “friend” you were going round to see?’ My voice was much more bitter than I’d meant it to be.

She nodded, sending little wisps of white-blonde hair over her eyes. She looked up at me from underneath her eyelashes and resembled a puppy who’d been caught peeing on the carpet.

‘Yeah, sorry I didn’t say anything it’s just…’

‘No it’s fine.’ I cut across her, desperate to avoid her wafer-thin excuses. ‘You told me you and Max were going to give things a go, so it’s cool.’

Liar.

‘Everything’s just so new at the minute Ava. It’s weird and exciting and I’ve never felt like this before. After everything that happened with Tom, I thought I was ready to pack men in altogether and join a nunnery or something. Max is… I don’t know, there’s just something amazing about him. The way he comforted me after I told him what happened with Tom was brilliant; he was so kind and gentle. I’d never thought about anything happening between us before but it just seems really natural!’

‘Good, I’m glad you’re happy,’ I replied. I looked over at Max, who shot me a sheepish sideways glance before decamping to the kitchen.

‘I am! And you’re here with Nate, so we’ve both got hunky guys for the first time ever! Well except when I was going out with Harry and you were with Dave…’

The mention of Dave’s name cast an even more awkward atmosphere over the conversation. The last thing I needed was to be reminded of him again. I mumbled some excuse about needing to find Nate then buzzed off before Gwen could reply.

He caught me by the waist on my way to the kitchen to find Max.

‘You’re the most beautiful girl here tonight,’ he whispered in my ear.

‘There’s only one other girl here!’ I chuckled and instantly regretted it when I saw how hurt he looked. Poor bloke; he’d only been trying to give me a compliment.

‘Sorry, I can be such a cow sometimes,’ I said. ‘Thank you for putting up with me!’

I planted a soft kiss on his lips, painfully aware that Max could see everything. A second later, I heard the fridge door slam and he came back to the living room.

‘Can I talk to you for a minute?’ he muttered as he walked past me. He kept on walking so as not to look too suspicious and stopped in the hall.

I followed him and folded my arms like a petulant child who wasn’t getting her own way.

‘Yes, how can I help you?’ My voice was so cold I was surprised I didn’t plunge the flat into a new Ice Age.