CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Corey
Bloated and nauseous from the god-awful period causing me to wear a pad for the first (and hopefully only) time in my life, I slouched at Nora’s sad little desk in a ridiculously cheerful dress covered in sunflowers at nine-thirty on Friday morning.
While my stomach gurgled like a garbage disposal, I wondered if Nora’s morning coffee perked her up.
Last night, we’d stood in the street holding a plain black umbrella for half an hour while praying for a random lightning strike from a cloudless sky before her grey eyes drooped and she trudged to bed.
This morning, we’d come to the conclusion that maybe we simply needed to prove to the universe we could behave while impersonating each other, but how she remained cheerful all day without dropping the facade was a mystery.
She must have some little pills tucked away in a hidden compartment of her desk or something.
I’d dared to frown yesterday and Izzy immediately hurled questions at me as though I was dying.
‘My head is throbbing.’ Izzy fell into her chair next to me, her hand rested on her cheek.
Well, so is this vagina that doesn’t even belong to me, I wanted to tell her. Instead, I put on Nora’s gracious smile.
Freddie strode to my desk with ruffled hair. ‘Nora, I need you to come take notes at a meeting with me.’ His eye twitched.
‘Don’t you have an assistant for that?’ I clenched my teeth. Nora wasn’t his little lap dog.
‘Yes, yes. But she’s caught running errands. Zealy Insurance won’t wait for her.’
My ears pricked up like Lucky’s when the metal lid peeled from his dinner tin. ‘Zealy Insurance, did you say? Let me grab my laptop.’
How the hell was Nora planning on executing a meeting like this without my help? My throat thickened as my trembling fingers plucked items from my desk, my brain unable to focus as I tucked my laptop under my arm.
‘Why are you bringing a stapler?’ Freddie stared at the black item in my left hand.
‘Oh, right.’ I placed it back on the desk and wiped my sweaty hand on the sunflower on my hip.
If Nora didn’t read up on our packages and coax information from Paddy because she thought she could bluff her way through client meetings like this, my father will have her packing my desk within minutes.
My stomached hollowed as I realised I had no choice other than to watch my life play out, out of my control.
I shuffled Nora’s wedged shoes down the hall behind Freddie to stop myself from storming to the boardroom I knew so well.
As we got closer, I spotted my gorgeous face behind the glass door.
I’d thought Nora’s insistence on arriving early at work this morning was strange.
Now, it all made sense. I followed Freddie through the door as Nora adjusted the glasses she kept insisting on wearing.
‘Hi, Freddie is it?’ She shook Freddie’s hand with a menacing gleam in her eye.
Freddie gave his hand a little shake when she released it.
Her eyes widened for a moment before offering me her hand. ‘Hi, I’m Corey,’ she introduced herself to me in a tone I knew too well, considering it reminded me of my father’s hostility.
I grasped her hand and squeezed it tight enough to win a small yelp from her.
‘I’m Nora. It’s so nice to meet you.’ I hoped my gaze displayed my annoyance at being caught off guard.
She smirked, and I suddenly understood the fury she encased every Monday evening as she sat behind my head of blond curls.
The slight upturn of the left side of my lips, the downturn of my eyes, the fucking audacity radiating from every inch of my skin.
I’d never hated the sight of myself more than right now.
‘Shall we?’ Freddie waited for me to pass him and take a seat at the marble table I’d chosen during our renovations last year.
I opened my laptop and typed questions to ask at the end. I knew my father well enough to know he would offer the bare minimum. Luckily, I knew all the right questions to ask to ensure Dreyton got the best deal available.
‘Will Mr Flemmington be joining us?’ Mark asked, noting the absence of my father.
Nora’s boss sat across the other side of the table in a black suit that appeared to be too tight with a mediocre floral tie, beads of sweat on his hairline indicating how easily my father could take advantage of him.
Luckily for Mark, Nora’s body housed the brain of the future CEO of Zealy Insurance, meaning he wouldn’t leave this meeting with a condition-heavy contract.
‘He’s on his way,’ Dad’s assistant responded. I could never remember her name.
The twenty-three-year-old bleach blonde ass-kisser of an assistant cast one of her superior sneers at Nora, trying to show her that my father would always be the prince, and I, Corey Junior Flemmington, would always be the pauper.
Nora obliviously nodded along, her cheer leaching out of my ever-pessimistic body language.
‘Can we get you anything in the meantime? Tea, coffee? Water’s on the table of course.’ Nora blabbered with excessive hand gestures.
I tried to convey for her to calm down through subtle eye gestures, but she was either too excited or too nervous to notice. It was almost sweet to see her in her element.
‘I’ll take a flat white, thanks.’ I turned to Paddy who jotted everything down on his paper, just like I knew he would.
He was so close, yet this secret kept him so far away. Nora was yet to smile or share a look with him, and the possibility of him realising something was off gnawed at me.
‘Sugar?’ he asked.
‘Nah, I’m sweet enough.’
His pencil stopped scratching the lined notepad as he stared at me over the rim of his green glasses. ‘That’s what my boss says, too.’ He jabbed his thumb at Nora, a grin on his face as though he couldn’t believe he’d met another person brave enough to make that cheesy joke.
‘Sounds like he has good taste.’ Pleased with my double pun, I waited for a congratulations that wasn’t coming.
Instead, Freddie glared at me while Paddy moved on, scribbling down drink orders in the shirt I’d given him for his birthday last year. According to the shop assistant, pastel yellow would complement his brown hair and tanned skin. Observing him, she was right.
God, I missed him more than I’d realised.
There was a monumental urge to grip his shoulders and beg him to help me figure this out.
I missed his motivational talks, his understanding when my mood sent me yelling through the office, his warnings that kept me from blowing my pay cheque on a hitman to end my father.
Nora better be treating my best friend well during my absence.
‘I’ll take a chai latte,’ Freddie’s voice shook.
He clasped his trembling fingers together and rested his back against the mesh chair. This guy was so out of his league.
Mark lifted the white porcelain mug to his lips as my father walked through the door five minutes late.
How I wished I was still me so I could berate him the way he did if I arrived even a minute later than planned.
Each step that brought him closer to the table formed a pit in my stomach; heavier and heavier.
Not even the fear of spending eternity in Nora’s body weighed me down the way his presence did.
This small break from his constant comments about my failures reminded me how nice it was to make choices based on nothing more than my own wants, and I realised how deep I’d fallen into this pretend life.
I didn’t even know if I’d ever reach the top of this endless pit if I finally decided to pursue illustration.
I mean, could I really go back to this crushing weight when I returned to my body?
‘Mr Flemmington.’ Mark’s coffee spluttered from his mouth back into his mug as he spoke.
My dad put on the smile he used in every meeting to charm clients into thinking he could be a trusted business partner. He basically invented the saying looks can be deceiving.
‘Mr Bolkin.’ My dad grabbed Mark’s hand in a bone-crushing handshake.
Dominance and all that shit.
‘Please, call me Mark.’
Mark sat back in his chair and eyed his assistant to make sure she wrote everything down.
Nora took a seat next to the head of the table, waiting for my father to start offering the worst plan he had available.
Her straightened shoulders and eager eyes crushed my chest with admiration.
She looked like she belonged there, determined and utterly pure.
‘You’ve probably had a look at our website already,’ my father began.
Mark nodded along, trying to drag his eager eyebrows down despite his terrible poker face.
‘Your company is important to us, so I want to offer you an even better deal.’
I could recite this speech in my sleep. Five per cent discount with an eye-watering excess that would still leave my father’s bank account laughing with each deposit it received.
Annual payments received a few hundred dollars off compared to the pricier monthly instalments, only to ensure we earned interest on the lump payment.
Those few hundred dollars in savings barely made a dent compared to the thieving amount my father charged.
Freddie used his legal brain to ask for a copy of the contract, reading over it as my father charmed Mark with more offers and complimentary pens.
The more my father spoke, the wider Nora’s eyes became. Even she recognised the deal as nothing more than a profit for Zealy Insurance.
She jumped from her seat. ‘That is—’
I also jumped to stop Nora from finishing her sentence. ‘Such an interesting offer.’
Her gaze froze on me, lips parted. Freddie cleared his throat, and when I shifted my gaze from Nora, I cowered under the glare of every pair of eyes in the room. Especially Mark’s.
‘Could I get a glass of water?’ I tugged at the neckline of the sunflower dress.
‘Of course,’ said Nora.