Chapter 5
‘There you are,’ Charlie sighed as Hannah stumbled back into the kitchen.
She’d told her friend she was nipping to the loo about twenty minutes ago, but – even before she was waylaid by Clive – had been met with an unexpected queue for the ladies.
‘Everything OK?’ Charlie asked. ‘I started to worry some crisis had arisen.’
It has, Hannah thought. A crisis has arisen. A massive one.
What the hell was Jude doing here?
How in holy fuck had this happened?
It seemed her extreme reluctance to oversee any university-related events in this city had been warranted – although the aversion had been about wanting to avoid memories, not actual people.
Even at her most cautious, Hannah would never have swerved a job on the basis she might actually bump into Jude. The prospect had seemed so remote, it was risible.
Not seeming to notice that Hannah hadn’t answered her question, Charlie went on: ‘FY to your I, there’s a hot doctor floating around out there and you need to witness the fitness.
Six foot two at least, messy dark blond hair, Clark Kent glasses, great arms .
. . I felt a bit faint just looking at him – which is definitely grounds for booking an urgent appointment, don’t you think? ’
Hannah’s heart thundered in her chest. Of course Charlie had noticed him. And why wouldn’t she? She was right: he looked ridiculously good. Broader and sturdier than he’d been four years ago, his skin kissed golden by the Australian sun.
She’d instructed herself not to look at him too closely, but her eyes had refused to co-operate, sweeping over features she still knew as well as her own: a strong jaw, shadowed with stubble; a straight, proud nose and thick, expressive brows; grey eyes flecked with many shades of blue and framed by thick, dark lashes she’d envied since the first day they’d met.
‘Hannah, are you listening to me?’ Charlie demanded, frowning.
‘I . . . yes.’ Hannah swallowed hard. ‘Absolutely. I am listening.’
‘You’re not. And you look like you’ve just seen a puppy get run over.’ Charlie flung a tea towel over her right shoulder and crossed the kitchen to examine Hannah properly. ‘What’s wrong?’ she said, her eyes suddenly full of concern.
‘The, erm . . . the hot doctor,’ Hannah said, her voice thick and shaky, ‘isn’t a doctor. Not a medical one, anyway. He’s a . . . hot mathematician, in fact. I know him. Knew him.’
Charlie looked briefly nonplussed before her eyes widened in disbelief. ‘Oh, hell no,’ she breathed, puzzle pieces slotting into place. ‘Not the ex-best-boyfriend? The one who’s supposed to be in Australia?’
‘The same,’ Hannah confirmed, swaying slightly and wondering if she was going to be sick.
‘Jesus,’ Charlie said, placing her hands on Hannah’s shoulders and pushing her down until her backside hit the nearest available seat. ‘Breathe,’ she said, ‘that’s it. Good. In and out.’
When Hannah no longer seemed in immediate danger of keeling over, Charlie said: ‘I don’t want to stress you out again, but . . . what the chuff is he doing here?’
‘It turns out he’s one of the speakers,’ Hannah said wretchedly.
‘But I thought this event was medical. For GPs, hospital folk . . .?’ Charlie riffled through the cardboard box that Hannah had already filled with spare delegate packs and goody bags.
She pulled out a glossy A5 booklet that set out the programme for the day and urgently flipped through its pages.
‘Shit. We had it all wrong,’ she said after a moment.
‘This event’s about medical technology – stuff that gets used by doctors. Equipment. Software.’
All Hannah could do was shrug.
Charlie ran her finger down the booklet’s final page, then turned it so Hannah could see.
Jude’s name was right there, next to a paragraph of jargon-heavy blurb about the LogicLabs product he was here to present.
Hannah winced and looked away without reading it, and Charlie cast the programme aside.
‘What I don’t understand,’ she said, sounding pained, ‘is that this must have crossed your desk at some point. Didn’t you organise all the printing, like you usually do? And what about the talk he’s giving? Did you not see his name anywhere in the packs of slides you were sent?’
‘No,’ Hannah moaned, clutching her head in her hands.
‘Obviously not. It was all sent through to me about six weeks ago and I was snowed under . . . It was before Livi came back from uni, so I was on my own juggling prep for three different weddings. Everything came via Clive, and I didn’t read it – I just forwarded it all on to the audiovisual team and told them to shout with any problems.’
Charlie groaned, but nodded in understanding. Gus and Megan, a husband-and-wife team who ran the small AV firm Hannah typically used for corporate events, had been here first thing this morning setting up computer equipment and microphones.
Prior to today, they’d provided graphic design services for the conference programme, posters and presentations.
Hannah had sent their design files to Clive for approval roughly a fortnight ago, after a quick, cursory scan.
It wasn’t like her not to properly check content before returning it to a client, but – just this once, and confident that Meg and Gus knew what they were doing – she’d waved it through.
Partly for the sake of professional pride, but also because the truth seemed to be clawing its way up her throat, Hannah said: ‘I think . . . I know I also deliberately swerved looking at anything too closely connected to the university. I didn’t want to open the email attachments, let alone read them.
I’ve felt weird about this job since I booked it. ’
‘Why?’ Charlie asked, bewildered.
‘Because he came here. Did his PhD here after leaving Cambridge, much to the disgust of his mother,’ Hannah explained.
‘It was easier for us to see each other again after that, and things got better – went back to how they’d always been, for a while.
Until we ended up . . .’ She took a deep, steadying breath. ‘We were together, here.’
‘Oh, Hannah,’ Charlie said, shaking her head in sympathy.
‘I know this is rich coming from me, but has it ever occurred to you that your work ethic is too strong? Feeling odd about this job was a good enough reason to turn it down and commit to a day of watching Bake Off reruns in your pyjamas instead.’
Stricken though she was, Hannah laughed.
‘Did you talk to him?’ Charlie asked.
‘Sort of,’ Hannah mumbled.
‘What does that mean?’
‘We were . . . introduced,’ Hannah choked out.
‘Introduced? By who? You already know one another – and in the biblical sense!’
‘The guy who hired me to run the conference,’ Hannah said. ‘Clive. I can’t believe his name didn’t ring bells for me when he first got in touch. He’s a professor – one of Jude’s old tutors.’
‘Did you set him straight?’ Charlie said. ‘Explain no introductions were necessary?’
‘Not exactly, no.’
Hannah supposed she could have corrected Clive.
Maybe even should have. But the shock of seeing Jude again had robbed her of her usual quick-thinking composure.
She’d been lost for a way to speak the truth without speaking too much truth – without exposing the fact that Jude’s presence in the room was simultaneously a miracle and a catastrophe.
How could she find the words to smooth Clive’s misunderstanding away when the sight of Jude had flooded her chest with an anger so intense it left her breathless?
He’d once assured her they’d always be friends, even if their romantic relationship didn’t work out.
It was a promise she’d extracted from him, that she’d desperately needed, before letting herself cross the line.
But he’d lied to her. When his word was tested, he’d thrown her away as if she meant nothing.
As she’d stared him down while Clive looked on, Hannah had been silently daring Jude to confirm how little she had mattered to him – yet simultaneously willing him to show some sign that he’d missed her.
But what had she expected? Paroxysms of joy at the mere sight of her?
A desperate display of remorse? In fact, his expression had been pure shock, shot through with panic.
Hannah scrunched her eyes shut and sighed.
This was quite a way to discover that, four years later, she hadn’t fully iced out the hope that he’d come back and make things right between them.
‘He pretended not to know me,’ she said to Charlie, forcing the words out before she could swallow them and then store them somewhere they’d fester. Hannah needed the awfulness of what had just happened corroborated by someone she loved, and whose judgement she trusted.
‘He what?!’ Charlie gasped, shaking her head in confusion.
‘Shook my hand like he’d never met me before,’ Hannah said, discovering via the tremor in her voice that she was on the verge of tears.
‘That is some ice-cold, tech bro bullshit,’ Charlie said, horror-struck. ‘Has he turned into a cyborg? He must have, to be that insensitive.’
Hannah felt warmed by her friend’s outrage. It stoked her own fury, which was usually a more productive emotion than misery.
Charlie looked at her watch and made a gritted-teeth face. ‘The delegates are due to start arriving in ten minutes.’
‘It’s fine,’ Hannah said. ‘I’ll be fine. It was just . . . a lot.’
‘I’ll say,’ Charlie agreed. ‘Are you certain you’re going to be OK, though? Because if you need to get out of here, we can call Livi and I can handle—’
‘Absolutely not,’ Hannah insisted, pleased to discover she felt as resolute as she sounded. ‘I’m here to do a job. This is my business. And I’ve done nothing wrong – I’m not going to run away as if I’ve got something to be ashamed of.’