The Plot Twist

Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

‘T hat’s it, I absolutely cannot stop seeing him.’

‘Yay! I’m glad you’ve seen sense, what persuaded you?’

Allie had caught Jess during her lunch break to let her in on a startling revelation; that a date with a hot man led to increased productivity the next day. It was the morning after the night before and Allie had woken up, in her own bed, alone, but still with the sensation of Will’s lips on hers, the scent of him lingering in her hair. She’d got up, and before the kettle had even boiled had opened her laptop, pulled up her new document and started typing.

‘I need him in order to write.’

‘Okaaay.’ Jess sounded unconvinced. ‘I mean, I guess I don’t really care why, just glad you’re enjoying yourself … finally.’

‘I know how to enjoy myself,’ Allie said tartly.

‘Hmm. Do you? It’s not like you were enjoying yourself with Dominic, was it?’

‘Hey!’ protested Allie, ‘I’m not with him anymore, although, incidentally he does want to meet to swap belongings.’

‘Just make sure swapping belongings doesn’t segue into swapping something more intimate,’ Jess said warningly.

‘Not going to happen, and anyway, he doesn’t really have anything of mine I’m desperate to get back, so it’s not urgent.’

‘Apart from your self-esteem.’

‘Jess!’

‘Sorry. But anyway, I’m glad you’ve decided to continue seeing Will. But maybe just enjoy yourself Allie, don’t see this as a means to an end.’

‘I’m not!’

‘You are. You’re not letting yourself enjoy this just because. You think you have to justify it because you believe that seeing him inspires you. And incidentally? You’re a damn good writer and you don’t need a man to make you that.’

‘Yeah yeah,’ Allie said somewhat sulkily, ‘I thought you’d be happy that I’d decided to go with the flow and see Will.’

‘I am. Of course, I am. But just make sure you are going with the flow, and not doing this because of some half-baked idea that you need him in order to deliver your next novel.’

‘Right, well, thanks for the advice,’ Allie said in a tone that suggested she was in no way thankful to receive anything Jess had just said. ‘I’ve got to go meet my mentor now.’

‘Ooh fancy! And Allie? I am pleased for you, you deserve this…’

Allie thanked Jess and ended the call. She quickly cast her eye over everything she had written that morning and then slid her laptop into her bag and headed out the door.

The Tube was filled with school kids out on an outing, jostling each other with their rucksacks and running their teachers ragged by the sounds of it. Allie shuffled down in her seat, hid behind her book and hoped they would all depart at South Kensington for the museums. She sighed in relief when they did, and prayed for the safety of their teachers. She spent the rest of her journey re-reading the notes she had made for Martin, worrying they weren’t half as good as her euphoric typing earlier had led her to believe, but realising that it was too late to do much about it now.

John Lewis was its usual respectable self and Allie had absolutely no trouble finding a quiet, clean table on which she laid out her laptop and allowed herself some downtime daydreaming about Will before Martin showed up.

‘Hello.’ Martin did a double take, obviously noticing the dreamy expression on her face and not quite knowing whether he was allowed to comment on it. ‘You look…’

‘Happy?’ she suggested.

‘Yes, that’s it.’ He smiled gratefully at the lifeline she had thrown him, and sat down in the chair opposite her. Martin had chosen their first meeting place, and although you couldn’t really go wrong with the John Lewis cafe, it hardly screamed ‘grand romantic gesture’, making Allie realise she was probably going to have to point this out to Martin if this was top of the list of places he planned to take his wife. Still, Allie was in charge of where to meet next so for now she’d suck up the middle England comfort of John Lewis and pump Martin for information on what had made him choose this place over everywhere else in the whole of London town.

She waited for him to settle himself, which seemed to take some time. Finally, he pulled out a notebook and pen.

Allie frowned. ‘Didn’t you bring your laptop?’

‘No,’ harrumphed Martin who went back to searching through his bag for something. He looked up, sensing the note of disapproval in her voice. ‘What?’

‘I thought you might have brought it, that’s all. I mean, we’re here to write, aren’t we?’

‘I mainly use longhand at this stage in my writing. And then I type each chapter up when I finish it.’ Martin sounded defensive.

She smiled at him in what she hoped was a reassuring manner, a smile that said – no judgement from me on your archaic habits . Martin went back to patting down the many pockets in his, yes tweed again, jacket before settling on the one just inside the left-hand side. Triumphantly he pulled out a pair of glasses and put them on. ‘Right, better, OK.’

‘Did you want to get something?’ Allie asked, gesticulating at the extensively stocked cafe counter.

He frowned at her from behind his spectacles. ‘How about we make a start, and then I’ll go get us something when we need a break?’

This sounded reasonable. Business-like. To the point. Exactly as Allie had hoped. Their relationship as writing mentors was entirely professional. No need for Martin to know the real reason she was dreamily smiling to herself when he arrived. No need for him to know anything about her private life at all. It was completely irrelevant to their writing that Allie kept having to suppress a ridiculous smile. That her thoughts kept wandering back to Will. Memories of his lips, his arms, his…

‘Allie?’ Martin sounded concerned. ‘Are you OK?’ He peered at her, his face creasing in frown lines.

‘Sorry, right.’ Allie tried to focus, to peel her mind away from the hotness that was Will, to wipe the goofy grin off her face every time she thought about… It was tough, but necessary. She needed to concentrate if she was ever going to get this next book written.

‘Why don’t I start?’ she suggested. ‘I’ve been thinking about your book and I’ve made some notes. Do you want to take a look at this…’ She swiveled her laptop round so that Martin could see the screen and nervously held her breath. He peered at it, his eyes squinting slightly. He began patting his pockets again. There was a long pause before he produced a second pair of glasses, carefully took the first pair off, and put the new pair on. ‘There, right, now I can read it.’

Allie did a massive internal sigh. It wasn’t Martin’s fault that he was older and had bad eyesight, and she shouldn’t hold it against him, because before long it would be her carrying around several pairs of glasses, not knowing which pocket she kept which pair in. Although hopefully she wouldn’t be wearing tweed. She made a mental note to add ‘wearing tweed’ to the regularly updated list of reasons which gave her and Jess permission to shoot each other.

‘What is this?’ Martin asked, taking his glasses off and looking up at Allie. For a moment Allie was thrown off balance by his eyes, she hadn’t noticed before how intense they were when they were focused on something. Especially when that something was herself. And there was something familiar in them, almost as if Allie had looked into these eyes before. Except not quite these eyes. There was something… but Allie couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.

‘It’s a chapter breakdown of your next book,’ she said, tearing her eyes away from his and looking back at her laptop. ‘Well, at least it’s the first ten chapters. I haven’t quite worked out how and when the detective finds the second body. It’s a work in progress.’ She shrugged and turned the laptop back towards her.

‘It’s amazing Allie, I’m impressed.’ Martin was cleaning one of his pairs of glasses, Allie couldn’t tell which. ‘Are you sure you’ve never written crime or thrillers before?’

‘Far as I know,’ laughed Allie. ‘I don’t think Waterstones would shelve any of my novels anywhere other than the romance section.’

Martin smiled at her, his eyes disappearing underneath his overly shaggy eyebrows. Allie couldn’t help staring and wondering if they had always been this shaggy, and if not, how quickly growth like that creeps up on you and what Angie thought of them. And at what point in a marriage it became acceptable to request that the other party start trimming their facial hair. Her hand went unthinkingly to her own face, feeling for random stray hairs.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to use this yourself?’ Martin asked with concern. ‘It’s really good, you know.’

Allie thought for a moment. It could be fun to write something different, publish it under a different name. But she knew where her heart lay and it wasn’t at the bottom of a shallow unmarked grave, it was in the pink-tinged section of romance, or at least it would be, once she had managed to revive it. ‘No, it’s the start of an outline that’s all. Just a collection of initial thoughts. If I ran with it I’d probably end up with the detective falling in love with the killer and that would be sick and wrong.’

‘But not without precedence,’ mused Martin.

‘Yeah, but my romances don’t tend to involve murder.’ Allie bit her lip, thinking back to how much she had actually felt like murdering Dominic over the past couple of years and deciding not to share that thought with Martin. ‘I was intrigued to see what I came up with but I don’t think it’s quite my style. And anyway, we had a deal.’

Martin looked a little awkward and made a move to stand. ‘Shall I get us tea?’

Allie regarded him. She was almost entirely convinced that this cup of tea would come with a side order of ‘I’m sorry, the dog ate my homework’, but, despite having had a surfeit of tea already that day, she agreed and watched Martin amble slowly over to the counter.

She took a deep breath and once again contemplated whether this agreement with Martin was really going to be worth it or whether she should just call the whole thing off. What was she actually going to get out of this? She had just handed over a partial synopsis to Martin and all she had got in return was the promise of a cup of (admittedly high-quality, well-steeped) John Lewis tea. This didn’t look like a fair trade by any metric. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so quick to show Martin what she had written. Maybe she should have asked him what he had done for her book first. She looked back to her right, watching Martin as he stood in line. He wasn’t a bad man, she knew that, she was sure if she told him she was calling the whole thing off he wouldn’t even consider using her plot. He had integrity, she knew that. But if she did call it off, where did it leave her in terms of her own book? Things seemed to be going great with Will, and she was starting to write again, and not just murder outlines… but what if things with Will ended? What if her passion for him stopped translating into passion on the page? No, she decided, she’d stay the course a little longer. See what Martin came up with, because she had a deadline to meet and very few other options available to her.

She sighed, looking away from Martin and over to her left where a mother was busily berating her two children for eating their sandwiches with their fingers. Allie rolled her eyes, feeling sorry for the kids. They were dressed as if they were actually in the John Lewis ad, not just sat in the cafe – starched shirts and dresses that looked uncomfortable for grown-ups to wear, let alone kids. Allie held back a laugh and watched with interest as the mother unfolded actual linen napkins and tucked them over the laps of her progeny. The children didn’t look startled or concerned, as if this kind of event happened to them every day.

‘Are you seeing this?’ Martin put a mug of tea in front of her and gesticulated with his elbow to the events that Allie was observing.

‘Uh-huh,’ said Allie, unable to drag her eyes away from the two exquisitely dressed tweens, now expertly eating sandwiches with their cutlery. ‘As far as I can make out, they’re called Marmaduke and Artemis,’ she hissed under her breath.

Martin rolled his eyes and sat down heavily. ‘Are you sure they’re not cats?’

He said this rather more loudly than Allie would have liked. ‘Shhh!’ She winced.

‘We used to bring our two here when they were little.’ Allie’s gaze flitted quickly away from their neighboring table and back at Martin.

‘Aha! So that’s why you chose this place.’

Martin nodded.

‘I was wondering.’

‘You don’t approve?’

‘No, it’s not that,’ Allie paused ‘It’s just … don’t take this the wrong way, but it hardly screams romance.’

‘You don’t think so?’ Martin deadpanned, raising an eyebrow. ‘Oh fine, no, maybe it’s not romantic to everyone but it reminds me of Angie and that’s romantic enough for me,’ he said gruffly.

Allie felt her heart constrict and decided to cut him some slack. Maybe this was the chance to get him to talk more about Angie, get him to express some emotion. She snuck a look at him, wondering when she could safely start questioning him, but in the end she didn’t need to do a thing, Martin started without needing a prompt.

‘Angie loved bringing the kids here at Christmas. We’d go see the Christmas lights, maybe a show. Bring them here for high tea afterwards.’ He raised his voice. ‘Never made them use cutlery to eat sandwiches though.’ He shot their neighbour a withering look.

Allie waited for him to continue, but he fell silent, looking around the busy cafe, a wistful and slightly sad expression now on his face.

‘So,’ she nudged gently. ‘How are things going with Angie?’

Martin looked down at the floor which was suddenly extremely interesting to him. ‘Have you talked to her yet?’ Allie pressed. ‘About your book? About things with your daughter?’

‘Not exactly.’ Martin raised his eyes to meet Allie’s and had the grace to look sheepish. ‘But I did buy her flowers.’

‘Well, that’s a start, I suppose.’ Allie was not impressed and replied in an icy tone that suggested that if this was the start then they might as well skip the rest of the winning-the-wife back part and move straight on to a decree nisi.

‘I used to do it all the time, buy her flowers, I mean.’ Martin was starting to sound like a man who had just been served those divorce papers, and despite her irritation Allie’s heart went out to him. It was so obvious that he adored Angie, but that he had completely forgotten how to show her that.

‘So why did you stop?’

Martin shrugged. ‘I guess it just didn’t seem necessary after a while. She made some comment about it being an extravagance and I took her at her word.’

‘And you never bought her flowers again?’ Allie was aghast. ‘Never?’

‘Well, I mean I’m sure I did…’ Martin tailed off indicating that actually he was pretty sure that he didn’t.

‘Wow, I mean, Martin, it’s nice you listened to your wife. But I’m guessing she didn’t mean never buy me flowers again . What did she say when you gave her the flowers the other day?’

‘She said they were lovely and then went out to her pottery class. She’s learning how to use a wheel at the moment. Very tricky, apparently.’

Allie had absolutely zero interest in pottery wheels and whether they were tricky or not, although she did file that hobby of Angie’s, just in case she could use it at a later date in her quest to help Martin win Angie back. But right at this moment, she was more concerned that neither of them would ever get to that stage. How did two married people in love get to the point where flowers were no longer bought, kind words no longer exchanged? It made her wonder whether she hadn’t got the whole thing right in the first place and that romance was dead and there was no such thing as happy-ever-afters.

She was just about to pack her things up, tell Martin he could stuff their plan and that she was keeping her serial killer for herself when an image of Jake Matthew’s cold, dead eyes flashed into her mind and she realised she was screwed. And not in the desirable, sexy way, but in the totally well and truly fucked, having to hand back the advance, losing her job and her house kind of way. She had to keep going, this was going to be a challenge, sure, but she had known that the first time she had locked eyes on Martin’s tweed elbow patched jacket. No, she needed to see this through. And not just for her, Angie deserved better.

Allie took a deep breath, deciding now was the moment to level with him. If she was going to do this, he needed to pull his weight or it would end in disaster, for all of them, and especially for Allie’s writing career. ‘Look Martin, I don’t want to cast judgement.’ He raised his eyebrows at her. ‘Yes alright, I don’t want to, but I’m going to do it anyway. I’ve written you an outline, I’ve put some real effort into this. And so far you’ve bought your wife flowers and arranged to meet me in the cafe you used to take your children to. You should bring her here. You should tell her that you miss her, remind her of the good memories, of Christmas when your kids were little, all those warm fuzzy things!’

‘I’m working on it!’ protested Martin.

‘Well, work a bit harder, OK?’ Allie demanded. ‘Because in case you had forgotten, we’re both on a book deadline, and I, for one, need some stronger inspiration.’

They stared at each other in a somewhat hostile manner. ‘I’m taking her out to dinner later this week,’ Martin eventually said.

‘Good, and it had better be somewhere special.’ Allie sulkily played with a teaspoon and once again wondered why on earth she had agreed to do this.

‘It’s our son’s restaurant.’

‘Nice. I didn’t realise he ran a restaurant.’

‘Well, his business partner mainly runs that side of things. He’s more involved in the… Oh my word, what is she making them wear?’

Allie looked to the side and saw West London Mummy shovelling her children into matching velvet overcoats, buttoning them up aggressively as the children stared into the middle distance and pulled on white gloves.

‘It’s boiling in here. They’ll expire!’ He looked aghast at Allie. ‘Surely that’s child abuse?’

Allie pulled a face. ‘At the very least, we’re looking at years of therapy. After which one of them will undoubtedly turn into a goth, rejecting everything their mother ever forced them to wear.’

Martin laughed, causing the mother in question to turn and look at him, tutting loudly at the interruption his outburst had caused in attending to her children’s attire. His face loosened up, the tension in the atmosphere from their previous tetchy exchange vanishing. Allie grinned at him, preferring to have this version of Martin, and not the morose defensive version from earlier.

‘You know, no matter what you do with your kids, no matter how much you give them, spend time with them, there will always be something they blame you for.’

Allie nodded vigorously. ‘I still hold it against my mum that she never bought me a Sylvanian Family caravan.’

‘I don’t even know what that is.’

‘What?’ Allie looked horrified. ‘Your daughter never had Sylvanians? No wonder she hates you.’

‘She doesn’t hate me,’ Martin explained patiently, ‘she just … gets frustrated when I refuse to give her things.’

‘Like Sylvanians.’ Allie was finding it hard to give up this topic. ‘How old is she?’

‘Thirty.’

‘What do you remember her begging you for at Christmas?’

Martin scrunched up his face. ‘To be honest the same stuff that she still does: clothes, shoes, money.’

Allie felt her eye twitch. What eight-year-old put clothes and shoes above cute fluffy woodland animals?

‘Gigi was always…’

‘Gigi?’

‘Gigi, my daughter. It’s what everyone calls her.’

Allie waited, wondering what horrors Martin might be about to reveal about Gigi next, but he didn’t. ‘Let’s not get onto Gigi. It’s a complicated subject and as we have established, the source of one of the major tensions in my marriage.’

‘Sounds like a good reason to discuss her,’ Allie said, experiencing an unusual degree of interest in someone who she was quite sure she would loathe. ‘I mean, if she’s a source of conflict, maybe you need to resolve that before you can move forward with Angie?’

Martin ran a hand down his face. ‘We’ve been trying to fix the problem that is Gigi for years. To be honest, I think it’s high time I accepted what Angie has been saying about her for a long while, she needs to get on with her life and stop expecting us to mend her mistakes.’

‘So, you should tell Angie that,’ Allie said insistently, ‘tell her you’ve realised she was right. We all like to be told we’re right!’

Martin smiled wanly. ‘Yes, I’ve noticed that. The trouble is, if we start discussing Gigi, and all that entails, I will have to come clean about the money I’ve given her.’ Martin rubbed his face again.

Allie pulled a face. ‘I feel like we need to be in an establishment that serves alcohol to deal with this.’

‘Yes, that sounds like the story of parenting Gigi. They do those little bottles of wine here?’ Martin looked hopeful.

‘I was thinking we needed something stronger.’

They sat in silence for a moment.

‘I’ve got an idea.’ Martin paused for a second. ‘I actually don’t know why I didn’t suggest we meet there.’ Allie could feel her mouth twitch into a smile, sensing the note of excitement that had crept into Martin’s voice. ‘How long have you got?’ he asked.

‘Honestly?’ said Allie, ‘I have nothing else on for the rest of the day, other than to go home and probably not write. I’m in your hands, especially if they’re going to lead me to something I can use in my book.’

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Allie found herself gawping at the beautiful central courtyard of the Wallace Collection.

‘I can’t believe you’ve never been here before.’ Martin was staring at her as if she had sprouted an extra head. ‘How long have you lived in London?’

‘Long enough to know far more rooftop bars than I bet you’ve ever been in.’

‘I doubt it. Remember, I was going to publishing parties when you were still in nappies. Back in the days when they had the budget to spend on them.’

‘Fair point, best I’ve ever had is warm wine in a bookshop. Oh, apart from the summer party of course.’

‘Of course. Good food at the last one, wasn’t it?’ Martin gave her a curious look and Allie wondered whether he had noticed the vibe between her and Will during their brief conversation in the alley behind the museum.

‘It was OK,’ she said noncommittally. ‘But this?’ She pointed to her gin julep, which she was dangerously close to finishing already. ‘This is just delicious.’

‘I’m glad you like it.’ Martin looked pleased with himself. ‘But I still can’t believe you’ve never been here before, you heathen.’

Allie grinned at him. Strangely she didn’t mind being insulted by Martin, it was a whole lot better than him being buttoned up and morose. He’d relaxed, his whole being seemed completely different to the miserable, tense creature he had arrived as that afternoon. And she liked the transformation, she even liked the way he was teasing her. It was a strange sort of friendship they had begun to create.

‘OK,’ she leaned back in her chair, reluctantly putting her drink down, ‘tell me what this place makes you think of?’ To Allie it made her think of Brideshead, of dances and cocktail parties, the likes of which she would never be invited to.

‘Meeting Angie here, before we had kids? She would sneak off for an extra long lunch break, and I wasn’t yet published, so I’d be at home trying to write. I’d find her in one of the galleries, staring at one of her favourite paintings. And then we’d spend a glorious hour together, giggling at the nudes, making up stories about the painters, feeling superior to everyone else in only the way that the young and in love can. You know that point when you still believe that no one else has ever felt this way before, that it will last forever and that you’re the luckiest couple in the world to have found each other? It was all the inspiration I needed to go home and then write something amazingly grisly for the afternoon.’ He grinned at Allie. ‘Hang on, what are you doing?’

Allie’s eyes had misted over at Martin’s words and she had leaned forward and grabbed her laptop from out of her bag. ‘Do you mind? I thought I’d take some notes.’

Martin looked confused, thrown off his stride. ‘I guess not. Are you actually going to use some of this?’

‘I’m not sure yet. But honestly, Martin, it’s amazing listening to you talk about Angie. I love the history you share, the memories.’

Martin smiled and looked around the courtyard. To Allie he immediately looked as if he had been transported back three decades and was sat waiting for Angie to appear, to inspire and delight him.

‘You should bring her here, you know.’

‘I know I should.’ He took his glasses off and put them down on the table. ‘It’s hard though. When you haven’t done something like that in so long. I worry she’ll think I’m being soppy.’ He looked away from Allie, down at his hands, ‘I worry that she’ll say no.’ He paused and then looked up. ‘I worry about what she’ll say when I tell her about the money.’

Allie puffed her cheeks out and exhaled. ‘Ugh. I feel for you, Martin. At least I don’t have anyone else to worry about in this whole mess. But you know it will be worse if you don’t tell her? She’s going to find out eventually.’

‘Not if we get these books written!’

Allie fixed him with a stare. ‘Martin, stuff like this always comes out. You have to tell her. It’s best she hears from you and not from Gigi or anyone else. Hang on, does anyone else know?’ Martin shook his head. ‘Not your son?’

‘Liam? No. I mean, he knows Gigi is a problem, and I suspect he realises that me and Angie aren’t getting along as well as we used to. But he’s busy. Running his business. Living his life.’

‘Does he have a family? Is he married?’ Allie asked.

‘No, he’s been single for a while. Had a couple of bad experiences, I think. Not that he told us much about it, but he seems to have closed himself off from meeting someone. Which is something else for me and Angie to worry about.’

Allie bristled. ‘You know, it might sound crazy to you, Martin, but people can be happily single. Perfectly fulfilled. Happy on their own.’

‘Who are you trying to persuade?’ Martin asked dryly. ‘You or me?’

Allie harrumphed. ‘I’m just saying that maybe he’s concentrating on running his business at the moment, making that a success.’ She tried not to dwell on the fact that the disaster zone that was her personal life was not resulting in a stellar professional outlook right now. ‘Maybe he’s OK being single. I mean I am,’ she said somewhat defensively.

‘Are you?’ Martin queried.

‘Yes!’ protested Allie, ‘I’m definitely better off without my ex.’

‘No, that’s not what I meant. I meant are you single.’

Allie peered at Martin. ‘Weird and somewhat personal question, Martin.’

Martin rolled his eyes and pointed at her laptop. ‘I couldn’t help noticing the other document you had up on there just now. Looks like you’ve started writing again… Looked like it might be personal too…’

Allie flushed a bright crimson remembering some of the notes she had been hastily scribbling that morning and berated herself for not minimising the page before she had let Martin look at her laptop. ‘It’s just, just some notes I’ve been writing, not personal no…’ she floundered. ‘I mean, well, look, there is this guy I like. But it’s nothing really … just, well … it’s kind of inspiring.’

Martin bit back a smile.

‘What?!’ she protested.

‘Nothing, nothing. It’s nice, that’s all. And great that you’ve met someone who’s inspiring you to write again. I’d hate to think you were totally reliant on my outdated version of romance for your book.’

‘You don’t think it’s bad?’

‘Bad? Why would it be bad?’

‘I just thought, maybe I’m using him. To inspire me?’

Martin looked at her curiously. ‘Are you single? Is he single? Are you both consenting adults? Then it’s fine.’

Allie felt surprisingly reassured by Martin’s pragmatic approach. He was right, she and Will were both consenting adults. She liked him, she thought he liked her. She needed to stop overthinking things, enjoy it and get some words written.

‘Anyway, I won’t embarrass you any more. Sounds like Liam might have started seeing someone as well. Yesterday I asked him if he wanted to meet for a pint and he said he was busy. I got the impression he was meeting a girl. Sorry,’ Martin stopped himself, ‘a young lady.’

Allie stifled a giggle. She could just imagine Martin describing his son’s girlfriend as a ‘lovely young lady’. And she wondered what the young lady would make of Martin, of his tweed jackets and lost glasses. If it were her she would be in awe of such an amazing writer, even if he was at the end of his career. But she knew that not everyone was as fascinated by writers as she was. She sighed, thinking how lucky this girl was and that she might not even realise it.

‘Well I’m pleased for him if he has met someone. Maybe that will give you and Angie one less thing to worry about. But on that note, we need to work out what you’re going to spend the next few days doing about your marriage, how you’re going to fix it and if you’re going to give me enough material to write my next book.’

‘Alright. So what should I do?’

‘You said you’re taking her to your son’s restaurant?’ Martin nodded. ‘Is that special enough?’ Allie squinted at him. ‘You’re not getting this for free?’

‘No, not at all!’ Martin protested. ‘Honestly. Liam is barely involved in the restaurant side.’ Allie continued to give Martin a hard stare. ‘Cross my heart,’ he said, which made Allie laugh.

‘OK,’ she replied still chuckling. ‘But make sure there’s champagne.’

‘Angie doesn’t like champagne.’

‘Martin!’ snapped Allie. ‘You know what I mean. Make sure it’s special.’ Martin nodded meekly. ‘And then report back to me, OK? I’ll think of somewhere fabulous and inspirational for our next meeting.’

‘I’m not sure whether you’re using this young man you’re seeing, but sometimes I feel like you’re just using me,’ Martin said, back to his morose self.

Allie clicked her fingers and pointed at her laptop. ‘I am. And you’re using me. Get used to it. I’m emailing this over to you now so stop whinging.’