Chapter Ten
CHAPTER TEN
Marla used both hands to push Bluey’s huge backside out from underneath her desk in order to make more room for her knees, then scowled at her watch. She’d told Gabe to come over after lunch. What time did the man eat? No doubt he was playing mind games, keeping her waiting as a casual demonstration of the fact that he held all the cards.
As if she wasn’t painfully aware of that already.
She could, of course, just storm over there and steal his thunder, but the idea of a rematch with Gabe’s guard dog of a receptionist didn’t hold much appeal. Anyway, what would it show him, besides the fact that he’d got under her skin? The home turf advantage was worth waiting for. She reached into her bottom drawer and pulled out a doggy treat for Bluey to apologise for banishing him to the other side of the room.
Her head snapped up as her office door creaked open, then shot down again to hide her disappointment as Dora came in, a can of polish in her hand.
‘You look as if you’ve found a penny and lost a pound,’ she said as she tipped the contents of the wastepaper basket into a black bin liner, produced from the pocket of her pinny.
Marla conjured up a smile. Or bared her teeth, in any case.
‘I’m fine, Dora. Or else I would be, if that man over there could tell the time. He’s late.’
She jerked her head towards the street. Dora’s eyes followed and settled mistily on the funeral parlour.
‘Gabriel? Oh, but he’s ever so busy, chicken.’ The dreamy smile fell off her face. ‘Is he coming over here? You really should have said, I’d have bought some Jammie Dodgers. They’re his favourites, you know.’
Thoroughly distracted, she dropped the polish into the rubbish bag by mistake, and didn’t even notice when Marla crossed the room and fished it out again.
‘Maybe I should slip over to the shop to get some?’
Marla was irritated to hear the same proprietorial tone in Dora’s voice that she’d detected in Gabe’s snotty receptionist’s the day before. What was it about him that turned women around him into territorial tigresses?
‘Only if you’ll lace them with cyanide when you get back. He’s not coming for a tea party, Dora, he’s …’
‘He’s outside the door and can hear every word you’re saying.’
Dora ruffled up her feathers like a peahen. ‘Gabriel, sit down. I’ll just pop downstairs and put the kettle on.’
‘I’ll take mine without the cyanide, if you don’t mind.’ He winked at Dora, who laughed girlishly as she left the room.
‘She’s a one-off, isn’t she?’ Gabe said, sitting down across the desk from Marla. ‘Reminds me of my gran.’
Bluey unfurled himself from beneath the window and looked Gabe square in the eye, and Marla crossed her fingers underneath the desk, hoping he’d be terrified of dogs.
‘Hey there, big guy. Aren’t you just the most beautiful thing?’
Bluey padded across and rested his huge chin on Gabe’s knee, his half-eaten dog chew still wedged in his jowls. Gabe laughed and fussed the dog’s velvet head with both hands.
Great . Another traitor. That was the last treat Bluey was going to get out of her this week.
She frowned at Gabe across the expanse of her walnut desk.
‘Just so you’re clear, all this blarney won’t work on me. You can’t charm your way around me the way you have every other man, woman and dog in Beckleberry.’ On cue, Bluey fell to the floor at Gabe’s feet.
‘I wouldn’t insult you by thinking that I could, Marla.’
‘And there you go, you’re doing it again.’
‘For Christ’s sake, I didn’t do anything.’
Marla dismissed his protestation of innocence with an acid laugh and pushed a sheet of paper across the desk.
‘This is a list of all of the weddings we have booked in for the next two months.’
His eyes scanned down the list. ‘And you’re telling me this because?’
‘Are you being deliberately obtuse?’
‘Are you?’
The challenge in his dark eyes scorched her throat sandpaper dry.
‘You sat downstairs in the kitchen a couple of weeks ago and promised to at least cooperate with us, Gabe.’
‘Yeah. That would have been before you called a public meeting to make our neighbours hate me.’
‘Our neighbours? Our neighbours? Oh, please. You don’t know these people from Adam. They’re my neighbours, and my friends, and they would support me over you any day.’
A tiny tap on the door disturbed them, and a second or so later Dora appeared with a tray laden with teacups and a plate stacked with Jammie Dodgers.
Gabe grinned and cast a look of lazy triumph across the desk at Marla. Hot fury bubbled in her stomach, and as soon as Dora left the room she reached for the plate and upended it into the wastepaper basket. She regretted it the instant he laughed at her.
‘Now that wasn’t very nice, was it?’
Bluey loped over to recover a stray biscuit that had rolled towards the skirting board and disappeared after Dora in search of more. Marla got up to close the door behind him, sucking in a deep breath to calm herself down. She hated the fact that Gabe had her on the ropes already. She forced a placid smile onto her face as she sat back down behind the desk; she badly needed to get this meeting back on track.
‘Look. Let’s just both say what we need to, and then you can leave.’
As placatory statements went, that one wasn’t going to win any awards, but it was as close to civil as she could muster.
‘Go on then, you first. This should be good.’
Marla was struggling. He’d discarded the jacket she’d spotted him in earlier and turned up for their meeting in rolled-back shirtsleeves, his tie loosened a little to accommodate his undone top button. It was incredibly difficult to stay professional, given the fact that she wanted to rip both his head and his shirt off at the same time.
He looks like a gigolo, Marla thought sourly.
It pained her greatly that she understood his catnip effect on women. She didn’t want to acknowledge it, and she certainly wasn’t going to let her head be turned by it, but Gabriel was on a scale all of his own when it came to beauty. No doubt he was accustomed to using it to get his own way, but he was about to get a lesson from a woman who well and truly had his number.
‘I’d appreciate it if you could schedule those dates into your diary.’
‘Why? Do you need a date?’
Gah! He was seriously pissing her off.
‘It’s no joke, Gabe. Just make sure that filthy great hearse is out of sight and try not to wheel any dead bodies across the pavement when the bride’s outside, okay?’
He picked up the list again and whistled. ‘Business seems good. Maybe you could think about calling off your hate campaign after all.’
‘Those weddings were booked long before you arrived here. It’s next year’s bookings that will suffer. And the year after that. Assuming we’re still here by then, which I very much doubt.’
She couldn’t be sure, but he looked less comfortable than he had a moment ago. Maybe a drop of compassion lurked somewhere underneath all that hair and charm.
‘And for your information, there is no hate campaign.’ His words had hit a raw nerve. ‘You make it sound petty and personal, and it’s neither of those things. It’s business, pure and simple.’
Gabe studied her in silence and then slowly folded the list of wedding dates in half.
‘Sure. Leave it with me. I’ll take care of it.’
His abrupt gear change from teasing to deadly serious left her flailing for a suitable response.
‘Gabe …’ They were distracted by a sudden, loud smash in the street below and sprang out of their seats. The front window of the funeral parlour lay shattered in a thousand pieces across the pavement, and as they watched, a visibly shaken Melanie emerged onto the street with what looked horribly like a house brick clutched in her hand.
‘What the …’ Gabe muttered as he flung Marla’s office window open. ‘Hang on, Mel! I’m coming,’ he yelled.
He turned to Marla. The incensed look of accusation in his eyes stole her breath away.
‘Not a hate campaign, eh? Well it fucking looks like one from where I’m standing.’
Marla gasped at the conclusion he’d leapt to.
‘Gabe, please! I swear, this has nothing to do with us. I would never …’ Marla couldn’t articulate past his automatic assumption of her guilt. Surely he could see that mindless vandalism wasn’t her style? He had to understand that she’d never stoop so low.
He held a hand up to silence her, his usually Jagger-esque mouth twisted into a thin line of distaste. ‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much.’
Gabe ripped up the list she’d given him earlier and hurled the pieces across the office floor.
‘You’ve just picked yourself a fight with the wrong man, Marla Jacobs.’
He stalked out of the office.
Marla stood rooted to the spot in shock, both by the thuggish vandalism and Gabe’s instant assumption. Quite why Gabe’s opinion of her mattered so much wasn’t something she was prepared to give any headspace to. Sour fear unfurled slowly in her belly. Did this have anything to do with their campaign? Had she been the indirect cause of this? Jesus, she hoped not.
She watched Gabe run across the pavement to Melanie; unable to drag her eyes away as he eased the brick from her fingers and wrapped his arms around her slender body. Heavy footsteps echoed up the old wooden staircase towards the office. Marla shivered, and turned away from the window. Jonny appeared, his face a sickly shade of green, beneath his usual tan.
‘Er, Marla? There’s something I really need to talk to you about.’
Marla’s horror spiralled as she listened to Jonny’s heartfelt explanation of how his well-intentioned online petition had grown to leviathan proportions. It had gone viral, and it now appeared that he’d lost any kind of control over it. His over-zealous pleas had been taken as a call to arms, and he’d been troubled over the last week by emails landing in their in-box threatening to ‘make sure that Gabriel Ryan never opened for business’. It was pretty obvious that the incident on the street this afternoon was linked, but what the hell were they going to do about it? And worse, what might come next? Sure, she wanted the funeral parlour gone. But not like this. Not because of a dirty hate campaign in her name. If this got out, her professional reputation would be in tatters, but it was the possibility that someone might get hurt that filled her with shame.
She wasn’t even aware that she was crying until Jonny put his mug down and handed her a tissue.
Half an hour later, Marla picked her way over the broken glass on the pavement, feeling gaudy and mildly ridiculous in her sky-blue vintage tea-dress and patent red heels. The Dorothy-esque qualities of her outfit had appealed when she’d dressed that sunny morning, but right now she felt more akin to the cowardly lion. Jonny’s revelations had robbed her of any rights to indignation or the moral high ground, leaving her with apologies to make and humble pie to eat.
She sucked down a deep breath and pushed the funeral parlour door open.
Unsurprisingly, Gabe’s receptionist didn’t throw down the red carpet to herald her arrival. In fact, given the outraged look in her pink-rimmed eyes when she looked up, Marla could only count herself lucky that Melanie didn’t throw the jug of flowers from the reception desk at her instead. As it was, the younger woman pulled herself up to her full height and stared Marla down across the desk.
‘I need to speak to Gabe,’ Marla said quietly.
A sound somewhere between a laugh and a cry of outrage twisted from the other girl’s throat as she folded her arms across her chest. ‘I don’t think so, somehow.’
‘Look … I really am sorry about all of this …’ Marla cast an uncertain glance behind her at the shattered window. She really wanted to tell this to Gabe himself, not his hostile receptionist.
‘Please. Ask him if he’ll see me?’
‘He won’t. Just get out.’
Irritation prickled hot beneath Marla’s skin. Despite the other woman’s tearful face and her right to her anger, she detected an element of self-satisfaction in Melanie’s over-bright eyes. However shaken up she was, she was drawing an element of pleasure from Marla’s fall from grace.
‘I’ve asked real nicely,’ Marla said, stepping closer and laying her shaking palms on the desk. ‘If Gabe won’t listen to me, he needs to send me away himself.’
A flash of pure hatred lit Melanie’s eyes as she mirrored Marla’s stance and leaned in.
‘And I’ve asked you real nice to get the hell out of here.’ She mimicked Marla’s American accent with a sneer.
‘What’s going on here, ladies?’
They both flinched and looked towards the door behind reception, where Gabe leaned against the doorframe with a deep frown over his unhappy eyes.
‘She threatened me, Gabe,’ Melanie said, traces of panic in her plaintive voice.
‘I did no such thing!’ Anger made Marla’s voice louder than she’d intended. Gabe crossed to stand shoulder to shoulder with Melanie. ‘What do you want, Marla?’
Marla looked from Gabe to Melanie. From pure misery to crocodile tears. She really didn’t want to have to explain Jonny’s actions in front of Miss Snark.
‘Can I please speak to you?’ she said, keeping her gaze only on Gabe.
He looked at her in silence.
‘ Please ?’ she said softly.
‘I already told her you wouldn’t see her, Gabe,’ Melanie almost whispered, laying a hand on Gabe’s forearm. ‘That’s when she got aggressive.’
The urge to get truly aggressive right there and then burned in Marla’s gut, but she held her silence and Gabe’s gaze, hoping he’d be reasonable.
‘You’ve got five minutes,’ he said eventually.
Melanie pursed her lips and looked at her watch as if about to start the stop clock.
‘Can we at least speak in private?’ Marla asked, hating how small her voice sounded.
Melanie shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’
Mild surprise registered in Gabe’s eyes before they slid from Marla to his receptionist.
‘Give us five, please Mel? I’m sure you could do with a cuppa anyway.’
She shook her dark head, resolute. ‘I’m fine.’
Gabe touched her shoulder. ‘Take a break, Melanie.’
His voice held a quiet authority that brooked no argument, and Marla watched as Melanie struggled hard to hold on to her professional veneer.
‘Fine.’ She smiled through gritted teeth. ‘I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.’ She flicked a last accusatory glance at Marla as she turned away, and then down at her watch again, leaving Marla in no doubt that she’d be back from that tea break in exactly five minutes and not a second more. She better start talking.
Gabe clicked the door closed behind Melanie and then turned back around.
‘Well?’
Marla glanced at her ruby shoes, wishing again for that elusive courage.
‘I’d like to pay for the damage to the window.’
‘Even though it’s not even your fault?’ Gabe said, and his cool eyes told her that he was in no doubt that she was the guilty party.
‘Gabe, I would never behave like that. Not intentionally, anyway.’
‘Oh, hang on. No, don’t tell me. You did it unintentionally,’ he said, with a humourless laugh. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’
‘I didn’t do it at all, Gabe,’ she said. ‘But I know now that it might have been connected to the chapel, somehow, and if it was, I’m truly very sorry.’
Faced down by Gabe’s impenetrable expression, she haltingly explained about Jonny’s online campaign, ever aware that Melanie would be back soon.
‘So, what do you expect of me, Marla?’ He assessed her coolly. ‘A pat on the back for telling the truth? You pay for the damage and we forget all about it? It’s criminal bloody damage.’
Marla sighed heavily. He would be well within his rights to call the police.
‘Just get the hell out of here,’ he sighed with a resigned air of disappointment. ‘I don’t want your money, and I won’t be calling the police.’ Marla closed her eyes and breathed out. ‘And don’t kid yourself that I’m doing it for you, or Jonny. I’m doing it for me, and for my business. The last fucking thing I need is to turn this into a sideshow in the paper.’
They both looked out towards the street as Dora, who had started to sweep up the glass, suddenly began squawking.
‘Get out of it! You should be ashamed of yourself!’
They stepped nearer to the window at the exact moment the photographer from The Herald pointed his camera towards them and flashed it in their eyes. Melanie burst through from the back at the sound of raised voices, as outside Dora started poking the broom at the hastily retreating backside of the photographer.
Gabe rounded on Marla, his eyes blazing. ‘Everything is a fucking opportunity to further your petty campaign, isn’t it? You come over here with your pretty apology, knowing all the time that that lowlife was on his way to splash this all over the front page. Bravo, Marla. You really are a piece of fucking work.’
Words failed her. For the second time that day, Gabe had been all too quick to automatically assume the worst of her, and it wounded her more deeply than she could have expected. Melanie strutted to the door and yanked it open, jerking her head, her venomous eyes making her message clear in no uncertain terms. Get out before I throw you out. In the absence of the necessary magic to tap her ruby heels together and disappear, Marla dipped her head and left the parlour. Even Dora emanated disapproval, shaking her head slowly as she stoutly swept the glass from the pavement without meeting Marla’s eye.
By the time Marla reached the relative safety of the chapel, she needed another good cry and a large gin.