CHAPTER FIVE
‘He was one hundred per cent following you, Raina!’
Raina rolled her eyes as she lay on Pepper’s four-poster bed. Her long hair was fanned out against the silk pillows as she accepted a mint chocolate truffle from her best friend.
‘His sister works there.’
‘A likely story,’ Pepper said, darting over to her windows as if she expected to see Tom Branimir parked up outside her Notting Hill house. ‘He doesn’t have human siblings; he was hatched. This isn’t the nineties, Rai. Obsessive behaviours aren’t romantic any more.’
‘He’s hustling for a story,’ Raina said frankly.
‘That’s all. No romance even hinted at. I told you – he’s a shark.
He can smell chum. So I’m going to give him a story.
Not mine, of course. Not the real one, anyway.
I’ll give him the story of the perfectly bland and well-behaved podcast host. He’ll get so bored and underwhelmed he’ll be gone in a week. ’
Pepper hopped onto the foot of the bed and unwrapped a chocolate for herself. ‘I like that tone of voice.’
‘Tom Branimir,’ Raina said, smiling with careful triumph, ‘is about to get an education.’
Pepper laughed but then squeezed her friend on the ankle. ‘Don’t fall in love with him.’
Raina raised both eyebrows and examined Pepper with a bemused expression. ‘Why would you say a stupid thing like that? A genuinely stupid thing! And you know I don’t like using that word.’
Pepper was the helpless one between the two of them.
Always had been. She fell in love quickly and fell out of it even quicker.
Her affairs were fast and full of flames.
Tears, torment and screaming were to be expected, and Raina had spent many hours with her friend, holding the tissue box and snatching the phone out of her hand.
It was how they’d met. Raina had been hired to clean for Pepper, replacing her usual housekeeper.
Pepper had been involved in a loud and quickly escalating argument with her then-boyfriend, Teddy.
Raina had been scrubbing the toilet when she heard the sudden sound of screams and aggressive male shouting.
She’d barged into the bedroom, brandishing a wet toilet brush like a mace.
She happily beat Teddy with it until he fled the house.
As his jaguar took off down the street, and out of Pepper’s life, the two women had stared at one another.
Pepper, worked up and tear-stained, and Raina, still holding the toilet brush.
They instantly fell about laughing. It had been an inseparable friendship ever since.
Raina’s house in Barnes belonged to Pepper’s parents, one of their many London properties. Raina had insisted upon paying rent, but Pepper would only accept a tenth of the actual price.
Three years on, Pepper had fallen in love many times. Raina had not.
She’d gone through one painful breakup, and that was quite enough. The last straw had been when he’d invited only his friends to her birthday dinner, the friends that openly hated her. She was ignored all night and had left alone without anyone noticing.
‘I’m not going to fall in love with him, Pep.’
‘Good. Because he is one hundred per cent just using you.’
‘I know. I’m not being naive about this.’
‘I don’t know,’ Pepper mused, scratching Raina’s big toe. ‘I saw the way you two were looking at each other at the V you won’t even know I’m there.’
‘I know, because you won’t be.’
Raina heard him sigh on the other end of the phone and her societally programmed need to be polite infiltrated her senses. She fished her little pocket diary out of her bag and flipped it open.
‘All I’m doing this week is prepping for the next episode of Track,’ she said. ‘If you want to come and watch me type . . .’
‘I do.’
She resisted the urge to curse. ‘Seriously?’
‘Sure. I can ask you questions while you prep.’
‘Well, hold on—’
‘Where’s your office?’
Pepper suddenly lurched towards Raina to grab the phone. ‘She’s not telling you where she lives, you reprobate.’
‘Hello, Miss Cousins.’
‘I swear on McQueen, if you are trying to set my friend up,’ Pepper hissed down the line with pernicious intensity, ‘I’ll run you out of this city.’
‘I believe it.’
Raina snatched her phone back and gave Pepper a warning look. ‘Why don’t we meet on neutral territory? You said you’re in Fulham – do you know the White Horse in SW6?’
‘It’s my local.’
‘Fine. I’ll see you on Friday at two.’
‘You’ll really be there?’
‘With rings on my fingers, and bells on my toes, Alice.’
She hung up the phone before he could say another thing.
‘You worked at the White Horse,’ said Pepper, smirking. ‘Hardly neutral territory.’
‘I told you, Pep,’ Raina said, smiling sweetly as she lay back against the pillows. ‘He’s going to get an education. And I don’t have to be fair about it.’
‘Mirren says you’ve got a girl!’
Tom jolted back from the screen of his phone. His father’s cheerful face smiled back at him, unashamed of his blunt greeting. ‘What, Da?’
‘Your sister says you were buying flowers for a woman.’
‘Wretched traitor,’ Tom muttered. ‘She’s someone I’m profiling for work.’
‘And you’re buying her flowers?’
‘No. Well, yeah . . . I offered to. You know, as a gesture of good faith.’
Nothing to do with the sway of her hips or her green eyes or the way she looked at him like he was an unwanted dinner guest. No self-respecting man would let an infuriating woman like that infiltrate his day-to-day and stop him from threading two sensible thoughts together, let alone buy her flowers.
‘Did you buy flowers for the man with the camper-van? Or that wellness woman?’
‘God, no,’ Tom murmured. ‘No, this is . . . this is different.’
Jem Branimir smiled at his son in a teasing, calculated manner. Tom grimaced and fidgeted, hoping the internet connection would waver and cause the image of him on his father’s screen to blur, thereby concealing his discomfort.
‘How’s the garden?’ he asked, changing the subject.
His father’s entire demeanour changed, the man instantly transported and redirected to his favourite subject.
His council house in Scotland was small, but the garden had become the pride of his life since retirement.
He spent all of his pension on seed, soil and garden gnomes.
He sent so many updates to the family group chat it wasn’t really necessary for Tom to ask after the garden.
He already knew the rhubarb was coming in well and that the birds were swarming the new feeder.
Tom listened calmly for a few minutes before Jem finally finished his reporting of the horticultural comings and goings. He still longed for a greenhouse but wasn’t sure there was enough room.
Tom knew it came down to cost more than anything, but he’d learned his father was too proud to accept anything from him.
‘So, who’s this girl then?’
Tom groaned. ‘Go back to worrying about Mirren.’
‘I worry about you too, son.’
‘I’m great.’
‘All you do is work. Which is grand! I can never really follow what it is you write, it goes over my head. Too smart. But it’s been years since what’s-her-name.’
What’s-her-name was Fern. She hadn’t impressed Tom’s family, or even Tom in the end.
A slightly sheltered woman he knew from university.
Their two-year relationship had ended when she fell in love with her personal trainer and Tom had been secretly relieved.
His father had never met Mandy, the girlfriend that came after.
She’d ended things because Tom was working too much, and he hadn’t felt the desire to fight her on the decision.
It had been one-night stands since then, and even those had dried up since his career had escalated.
‘When are you coming up to visit?’
The question was lovingly demanded of Tom. He exhaled and pinched his nose. ‘I don’t know.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
‘I don’t know, Da. Everything is busy at the minute.’
Jem harrumphed but dropped the subject. He leaned in, squinting to examine Tom’s face through the screen. Tom frowned. ‘What?’
‘Is that gel in your hair?’
Tom’s hand flew to his hair, a little self-consciously. ‘Yeah. Why?’
‘And you’ve shaved?’
‘Da, what?’
‘It’s Friday, you always look slovenly on a Friday. You push through the work week and then you crash at the end of it.’
Tom had to laugh at his father’s use of the word ‘slovenly’, but he shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. ‘I’ve got a meeting.’
His father’s eyes sparked. ‘With the lady from Mirren’s work?’
Tom reached out to end the call. ‘I’ll catch up with you later.’
He could still hear the man cackling as he hung up. He sat on the edge of his bed for a few moments, still and unsure. He’d tried to shake off thoughts of Raina but it had proved impossible. He thought about her all the time; he couldn’t make himself stop.