Chapter 22
I t was coming up on two o’clock when Ricardo and I finished our meeting with the client and their cost consultant at the client’s offices. It had been a five-hour meeting to agree final accounts on completed streams of works. Even though they may have certified us before on every item, they took their time reassessing everything – and unfortunately, they were within their rights to do so.
Once it had become apparent that the meeting would run past midday, I’d hoped they’d provide some lunch. But apart from coffee and tea, there wasn’t anything else on offer. My stomach acknowledged the sad news with unprofessionally loud noises.
After leaving the tall office building – which itself could have benefitted from a serious makeover – Ricardo and I hurried to the nearest Greggs to grab a sandwich and a soft drink before collecting our vehicles. When he took out his wallet, I told him to put it away. As the place was packed with city workers, we decided to opt for takeaway.
Ricardo was a master of looking puzzled, always dramatically arching his neatly trimmed thick eyebrows, pursing his short lips, and moving them from side to side while occasionally heaving a sigh. But putting his emotions on display to trigger a reaction didn’t serve him well during business meetings. While the others in the office always took the bait and rushed to ask him what was wrong, myself and Ritha usually sat back and pretended not to notice his formidable acting skills. This time, however, once we left the shop, I decided to play along and put him out of his misery, ‘Come on – what’s bothering you? ’
As always, he was silent for a minute and scratched his head, as if deciding whether to share what was on his mind. But, after a slow inhale, he gave in.
‘Why did you let the client speak to you like that?’ he asked, sounding slightly more upset than I’d have liked, but it was part of the show. ‘I mean he was clearly wrong,’ he went on. ‘We have all the instructions for the works we carried out. We hadn’t overclaimed on anything, yet you agreed to some deductions.’
Today, in his navy double-breasted suit, his dark hair fluffed up and his hands on his hips, Ricardo looked like a model from a fashion advert – he reminded me of the version of him I’d met eighteen months ago, when he’d joined me on this contract. Back then, he’d been the type of surveyor who religiously followed the saying ‘dress for the job you want to have, not the job you currently hold’. However, wearing one’s best suit wasn’t practical when climbing up muddy scaffolds to measure a roof or walk through a dusty building to count the light fittings installed. He soon learned this himself and started to scale down his attire to smart casual – and smooth down his voluminous hair to fit under a hard hat.
‘You need to look at the bigger picture,’ I said calmly. ‘They agreed to most things, and we’re still making a decent profit margin on these works. And they’re now thinking about extending the contract beyond next year. It’s not the right time to upset them. Sometimes you have to be wrong to be right.’
He considered this for a minute, then his expression slowly eased.
My relationship with him had been somewhat rocky. Ricardo used to directly report to Elsa and sometimes still found it hard to treat me as his boss. I’d brought him along to this meeting to demonstrate there was a good reason I was his senior and that he still had a lot to learn. His face told me he understood that now. Perhaps he’d finally start respecting me.
I was so hungry that I ate the sandwich as soon as I sat in the car – something I wouldn’t normally do, as all I could think about was that the inside would need cleaning later .
Ricardo had already driven off to work. We’d arrived by separate cars as we’d both come straight from home; it had made no sense to go to the office first and risk being late because of the unpredictable morning traffic. Punctuality had to be taken seriously when it came to business meeting. This was another thing Ricardo had to learn as he was always late for work – and without a good reason. But perhaps now he was a father (of twins!), he’d start acting more responsibly.
*
When I entered the kitchen, Jenny was cutting herself a piece of the cake left on the side with a note saying, ‘Help yourself.’
‘Hey, that looks delicious,’ I said to her. ‘What cake is it?’
‘Some Spanish bake,’ she replied, then headed back upstairs with her plate and a mug of tea.
A few people in the office liked to eat at their desks – I wasn’t one of them.
I made myself a coffee and, still feeling famished, decided to grab a piece of cake. I wasn’t much of a pudding-eater and hated to think that a slice might exceed the calories I normally burned off at the gym. But it smelled too good to resist.
I’d just settled at a table with my plate and was about to take a bite when the door was flung open, and I heard Adam’s worried voice.
‘Evelyn, stop. You can’t eat that.’
I looked up. ‘What? Are you the calorie police now?’
He still stood in the doorway, holding the heavy door open. His face was flushed, and he wore light jeans with a hi-vis vest over a white polo shirt, indicating he’d just arrived back from site.
It was still scorching outside, but shorts weren’t allowed at work. It must have been awful for the operatives to be working up on roofs in this heat. Unfortunately, however, there was no way around that.
‘You need to be careful. It has almonds in it, and you’re allergic,’ Adam said in a softer voice .
‘How on earth would you know that?’
He let the door shut behind him and approached my table before he replied, ‘On my first day here, you guys were celebrating Diane’s birthday. She got a carrot cake, and when she offered you a piece, you declined it, saying you’re allergic to nuts.’
‘Right, but how do you remember that? That was, like, nine months ago.’
He smiled sheepishly. ‘Guess I have a good memory… Not as good as yours though.’
‘Well, thanks,’ I told him, putting down the fork and pushing away the plate.
‘It was true then.’
‘Did you think I’d lied about it?’
He shrugged. ‘At the time, I thought perhaps you just didn’t want to eat in front of the others – some women are weird like that…’
‘Not me. Anyway, now that we’ve discussed that, haven’t you got something to do?’
He smiled again but with more confidence now. ‘You’re still not my boss.’
‘No, it was a polite way of saying piss off.’
‘That’s quite rude,’ he said, but his cheerful expression hadn’t changed.
‘I tried the nice way, but you didn’t get the hint.’
‘Tiring, right?’ he asked.
I sighed. ‘Yes, you are.’
‘No, I meant putting on this hard boss act?’
‘It’s not an act,’ I protested and got my vibrating phone out of my pocket. It was a message from my sister, reminding me we had a meet-up scheduled for Saturday morning.
‘Why are you still here? What do you want?’ I asked, putting away my phone and looking up at Adam.
Kissing him in the car park a couple of weeks ago had been a mistake, and although I’d asked him not to overthink it, he seemed to have taken it as an invitation to cross into my private space lately .
I’d been telling myself I’d have kissed the ugliest frog if they’d treated me nicely on my birthday, because it was the first time in twenty-nine years that my birthday had felt like it was about me, not Isabel. Though I wasn’t usually one to enjoy the spotlight, Adam had managed to make me feel special, even if it was only for a short while. And for that, I owed him one. At the time, a kiss had seemed a fair payment – not anymore.
He leisurely pulled out a chair and took a seat at my table. ‘Why do you always think people want something from you?’
‘Because they always do,’ I said.
‘Maybe I just want to do something for you.’
‘Like what?’
‘We still haven’t gone out for a second date. I’ll take you out on Saturday morning. I’ll pick you up, and we’ll go sightseeing. You said you hadn’t seen London yet.’
Wagging my index finger, I told him, ‘No, no, and no, and I’m not giving you my home address.’ Then I took a slow sip of my coffee.
‘You must live near Twickenham – well, you definitely have a West London postcode.’
‘How do you know that?’ I asked, almost spitting out the drink.
‘My crystal ball told me.’
‘Have you been stalking me?’
‘I have my methods.’
I considered all possible options before asking, ‘Did you trace my online orders from December? How would you be able to do that?’
It was true I’d used his card to complete the transactions, but I’d provided my own email account for the purchases. Indeed, his bank statements wouldn’t have revealed more than the amount and where it had been spent.
‘Almost – I found out you’d set up your address in my Amazon account.’
‘No way,’ I said, unable to recall receiving anything from the online retail giant after our night out .
‘Yeah, you’d logged it under my account. I thought you’d have realised it sooner. Did my DVD not turn up at yours? I accidentally sent it to your address.’
‘I rarely check my mail.’
His smug expression was beginning to annoy me. This time, I was no doubt closer to punching him than kissing him.
‘Well, can you please check?’ he asked. ‘I ordered it a month ago.’
‘Then why didn’t you say something sooner?’
‘I thought you must have chucked it in the bin.’
‘Accidents do happen,’ I said, taking another long sip of my coffee, then I lifted my fork and put a mouthful of the Spanish bake on my tongue, looking directly into his eyes.
It took him a second to realise what was going on, and when he did, all the blood vanished from his face, and he looked at me with horror.
‘What are you doing?’ he cried. ‘Are you crazy? Spit it out. Now.’
He reached for my plate, but I was quicker. I grabbed it, jumped up, and walked about the kitchen while he tried to snatch it from me. In the end, with some force, he managed to take it from me and hold the plate so high I couldn’t reach it.
‘Are you trying to kill yourself because I teased you?’
I chewed and swallowed the chunk before replying, ‘I did lie about the nuts. I simply don’t like them, but this bite was worth seeing that look on your face.’
His expression relaxed at once, and he handed me back the plate with a simper.
‘What?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘Nothing, just thinking about all the dog and cat hair that’s probably gone into that cake. You do know that it was Selena who made it? If I were a neat freak like you, I’d be rushing to throw up…’
I wanted to punch him as it now did feel like the cake wanted to say hi to me again. When Jenny told me it was a Spanish bake, I should have put two and two together but lately, I’d been missing the obvious. What was wrong with me?
‘So why not just tell everyone the truth?’ he continued. ‘That you don’t like nuts?’
‘Because people tend to ask why, and I hate explaining myself.’
‘Well, thanks, I almost had a heart attack.’
‘I’d have loved to watch that too.’
He shook his head in disapproval. ‘You really are a Cruella… But wait a minute, aren’t you trained in first aid? You have a moral and professional obligation to help people at work.’
‘Look around – no one’s here to tell if I was to turn a blind eye.’
We faced each other for a while, waiting to see who would blink first – it was him. Defeated, he turned to leave for upstairs.
‘Fine,’ I said quickly. ‘I’ll meet you tomorrow if you promise never to come near where I live.’
‘Are you being serious?’
‘Yes, but I’m busy in the morning. I can do midday.’
He contemplated my counter-offer for a second before replying, ‘Okay, that can work. I’d never dreamed you would actually say yes,’ he added with a half-smile.
‘I don’t really have a choice, do I?’ I asked. He could turn up on my doorstep anytime, but perhaps I could mitigate the risk.
‘I think you’re enjoying this.’
‘Being cornered?’
His smile widened. ‘Going out on dates with me—’
‘Hey, what’s up, guys?’ said Dean, walking casually into the kitchen carrying his hard hat under his arm.
‘Nothing,’ Adam told him. ‘We were just discussing films.’
‘Ooh, I love films,’ Dean exclaimed with childish enthusiasm. ‘Which ones?’ he asked, putting his hat on the counter and filling the kettle with water to make a tea.
‘ Indecent Proposal ,’ I said, still holding Adam’s gaze while disposing of the leftover cake in the bin.
‘Oh, I haven’t seen that one,’ commented Dean, turning on the kettle, and I heard the fridge door make a sucking noise. ‘What’s that about? ’
‘Actually, we’d moved on to 101 Dalmatian s,’ Adam jumped in, not breaking eye contact until I moved to the dishwasher and turned my back to him.
‘I’ve seen that – I loved it as a kid. But my favourite is—’
But by the time Dean shared the title of his favourite movie, I’d left the kitchen.