Chapter 18 Six Months Later
Six Months Later
What a wonderful Christmas present for YorkMart – it had just slid into fourth place in the supermarket leader board behind the three massive boys in the industry, which was cause for a big celebration.
Every worker in the company was to get a new year bonus in their wage packet as a token of appreciation.
YorkMart was back to its prime. And Tam Remington was on her way back to hers.
After the champagne bottles had been emptied in the boardroom, Jack asked Tam if he could snatch a few words with her, in his office, away from everyone.
He’d been kind, these past months. Told her if she ever needed time off, or anything at all, she just had to ask, and while she hadn’t taken him up on that she appreciated it and knew he meant it.
He’d left her to plough her energies where they needed to go, he’d left her to heal and mend, but she’d always felt that he was there hovering nearby, in case she needed more from him than reports about industrial growth.
They took the lift down to the first floor.
She didn’t mind them these days, not since Jack had had a new system put in.
Things Jack had a hand in tended to run without a hitch.
Plus she had lost her anxious air, the tenseness she’d carried in her bones.
She hadn’t realised it was present until it wasn’t any more.
She hadn’t needed to use her inhaler in months. Six months, to be exact.
Thirteen, twelve, eleven . . . The lift made a smooth descent, then stopped abruptly and the emergency lights came on.
Jack and Tam looked at each other.
‘I don’t believe it,’ she said. And she laughed. She laughed like she hadn’t laughed in a long while and it was a sobering thought how long that was.
Work had been her salvation these past weeks.
Work and Anna. Natasha no longer spoke to her, and Tam wasn’t sure if that was such a bad thing.
It might not even have been a friendship in the true sense of the word, now she looked back – more like an attempt to fill a lonely void in her life that a pal should occupy.
Today marked exactly six months to the date since Tam had turned on her heel and walked back down the aisle, a bride unwed.
Things might have been very different if she had worn the ‘right’ gown, if she hadn’t wanted to have a little of the day for herself.
It hadn’t been a lot to ask, but it still turned out to be too much.
If she’d worn the Abominable Snowman dress, been less Tam, she would be married now, living in Harris’s flat with all her bright accoutrements packed away in boxes probably never to see the light of day again.
And more and more of Tam Remington would have found its way into those boxes, stuck forever in the shadows.
She had wondered whether the old Tam had insisted she stick to her guns on her dress in order to provoke the scene in the church that made her rise up in magnificent rebellion.
Madness to think of herself rescuing herself, of course . . . but still she wondered.
Only her father had been in touch since; he’d rung to tell her what a disgrace she was, upsetting everyone’s day like that.
And the expense. Did she realise how it looked?
She had put the phone down on him. Davina had fired off a stiff note to demand that the engagement ring be returned as it was her grandmother’s, but it had already been on its way back to her.
‘Are you okay?’ Jack asked.
‘I’m fine,’ said Tam. ‘I know it must be a blip with the power rather than the maintenance—’
‘I didn’t mean just about being stuck in the lift,’ said Jack. ‘I mean you.’
Even in the darkened space, the emergency light glowing softly, his energy beamed like a torch, a warm nourishing light.
A man who encouraged others to shine. Who wanted her to shine.
He had given her free rein to embark on a dedicated pastoral programme.
Colleagues with any worries outside of work were assisted; help and resources were on hand for those who needed them, especially when family problems or aged parent problems called for pliancy – because without the ability to bend, things tended to break. She, above everyone, knew that.
‘I’m good,’ she said. She smiled at him with her full Ruby Woo lips, the same colour as her shoes, which shouldn’t have gone with her bright-green suit, but somehow it all worked because inner and outer confidence had a tendency to weave magic.
She had a new set of friends outside of work, because she and Anna had met some great women in the ‘Fun Fit Chicks’ classes they’d signed up for.
They were the sort of women any self-respecting bride would welcome on her hen night, ‘Agadoo’-ing around a dance floor, wearing T-shirts with her face on them.
Hopefully one day, anyway. They were kind and fun and glorious.
In such a short space of time, Tam was finally surrounded by the sort of people she would have picked as family if she’d had a choice.
‘I’m good, really,’ she said, because that look on his face said he really wanted to believe that was the truth. ‘And I have you to partly thank for that.’
She didn’t say she also had him partly to curse for messing up her head and changing her life out of all recognition. Though, if it had been a curse, it was certainly one of the better kinds.
‘You know, Tam, while I have you to myself, we couldn’t have turned the company around if you hadn’t stepped in, running your covert operations and really setting us up for success when you did.
I want you to know that when I move on, I will do everything I possibly can to make sure that you are running the place. ’
Her breath caught. ‘You’re moving on?’
His soft eyes met hers and he smirked. ‘No, but it was nice to see the fear in your face that I might be.’
She smiled. She smiled a lot these days and it was often to do with being around Jack. And she sometimes liked to daydream that Jack’s perma-smile was something to do with her. Fat chance.
‘You are meant for the top seat, Tam. I have every faith in you.’
‘I know, I’m exceptional,’ she said, doing her best to play it cool, which was pretty difficult with her heart bouncing around inside her like an excited puppy’s.
‘You are much more than that,’ Jack said. ‘Do you remember the last time we were trapped in a lift?’
She could hardly forget it. He had awoken something inside of her that day. Someone. Herself.
‘I had to keep asking you questions to distract you.’
‘Yes, I—’
The lift suddenly bucked hard and Jack reached out to steady her, hold her.
Just like last time. But unlike last time she made no attempt to move away, and he didn’t seem to be in a rush to let go either.
They stood there in the semi-dark, still, hardly daring to breathe and break the moment.
She felt his mouth against her hair and she inhaled his scent as he pressed her ever so slightly closer, then closer still, his arms tightening with slow deliberate deliciousness.
She hoped those lift doors would stay closed all Christmas.
‘Miss Remington . . .’ He whispered her name in her ear, and she thought it was a good job he had a firm grip on her because her legs felt awfully crumbly. ‘If we ever get out of here, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you about your future. Are you free for lunch? Or dinner? Or both?’
She lifted her head, this rejuvenated version of Tam Remington who was always pretty exceptional, although it had taken the kindness and insight of the man who sounded like a pizza to make her start realising it again.
She had no need to waste her words. She simply leaned in, and he tasted the answer on her full, gloriously unsubtle Ruby Woo lips.