Chapter 47
‘Had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner…’
Dom and Tania’s flat was already heaving. It was full of people I half-recognised, chatting loudly over cocktails.
Alice and I arrived late. Dylan had double-parked and been shouted at by a neighbour, and we’d left him negotiating a tiny side street in search of an alternative landing spot.
I was still brushing plaster dust off my jeans when Tania swept us inside with a flurry of French air kisses and handed us glasses of something fizzy and ice-cold. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. You needed a night off.’
I smiled, but only just. I’d spent the entire week arguing with the planning office about window openings and waking up to the caravan walls dripping with condensation. A party in Dom and Tania’s flat felt like crossing into a parallel universe.
We headed through to the sitting room where beautifully dressed people were mingling and laughing over champagne and canapés. And then I saw him.
Lachlan.
Standing near the terrace with a glass of whisky in his hand, talking to Dom.
Of course he was here.
‘You didn’t tell me your architect would be here,’ said Alice.
‘I didn’t know he would be.’
Dom spotted us and came over, pulling Alice into a one-armed hug and giving me his usual once-over. ‘Flo, you’ve got drywall in your hair. Respect.’
‘It’s lime plaster,’ I muttered, brushing it away. ‘High-end finishes.’
Dom laughed and wandered off.
Alice steered us towards the drinks table, then leaned in. ‘So, what’s the vibe here? Polite disdain? Undercurrent of longing?’ she said, nodding in Lachlan’s direction.
‘He’s just the architect,’ I said, topping up my glass from the bottle in the ice bucket.
She gave me a sideways glance. ‘You know, even Ollie’s nursery is talking about the pub reopening.’
I blinked. ‘He’s a toddler.’
‘And plugged into the village grapevine. The nursery manager told me the other day that her partner’s cousin used to drink at The Black Horse and they’re all hoping it’s not going to turn into some gastro nightmare with aioli on everything.’
I laughed. ‘Too late.’
Alice grinned. ‘You joke, but seriously, people are invested. There’s talk on the community bulletin board.’
‘Oh God.’
‘Relax. The pub’s not even open and it’s pulling people together. Dylan said the local builder’s merchant wants to sponsor the beer mats.’
I choked on my champagne. ‘You’re joking.’
‘I wish I was. They want their logo on the back. It’s “synergistic branding”.’
‘No way.’
Alice smiled. ‘Okay I’m with you on that one, but that’s what pubs do. They connect people. You’re rebuilding more than just bricks, Flo.’
I looked down into my glass where the tiny bubbles were making their way up to the surface. ‘Feels like pressure,’ I murmured.
‘It’s not. It’s momentum.’
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Lachlan still talking to Dom, gesturing with that signature economy of movement even in conversation.
It took an hour of circling the room before Lachlan and I inevitably found ourselves on the same patch of rug.
‘Florence Elliot.’
‘Lachlan.’
‘I didn’t realise you’d be here.’
‘I was ordered out of the pub for the evening.’
‘The stable rework – you saw my notes?’
‘I saw them.’
‘And?’
‘I’m thinking on them.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
I didn’t say anything more. Mostly because I didn’t trust myself not to tell him exactly where he could stuff his axial flows.
A beat later, he shifted, just slightly closer. ‘You always this charming off-site?’
‘Only when cornered at parties.’
He looked like he was about to say something else, but I cut him off. ‘You know,’ I said, ‘in case there’s any doubt, I know what I’m doing.’
His brows lifted. ‘I never said you didn’t.’
‘You didn’t have to. I heard you outside.’
A pause.
‘Ah. The phone call.’
‘The acoustics are excellent in the courtyard. You should work that into your notes.’
He winced, just slightly. ‘I shouldn’t have phrased it that way.’
‘But you did.’
He gave a short nod. ‘Point taken.’ He looked at me again, longer this time. Like he was recalibrating. ‘You’re hard to predict.’
‘That’s because I don’t perform to type.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘You don’t.’
There was a flicker, just a half-second, where something shifted behind his eyes. And then, as if he’d made a decision and instantly regretted it, he said, ‘Look. I know we’ve been… contentious.’
‘Is that the architectural term?’
He ignored me. ‘Come into town next week and we can have dinner? Just to talk, off-site, off-spreadsheet. A reset.’
I blinked. Stared. Set my glass down with unnecessary care on the table beside us. ‘You want to have dinner?’
‘Yes.’
‘With me?’
He didn’t blink. ‘Yes, as an olive branch.’
‘No, you mean it as damage control. You don’t offer olive branches to people you think are “lacking in capability”.’
He exhaled, clearly frustrated. ‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘But you said it loudly enough that I heard it coming in through the window.’
There was a pause.
I took a step back. ‘Look, Lachlan. You don’t get to undermine me at work and then ask me to dinner. That’s not how I operate.’
He held my gaze. ‘I misjudged. That’s on me.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, tight. ‘It is.’
Another pause. Not the easy kind.
Then Alice reappeared, coat already on, scarf looped neatly. ‘Sorry we’ve got to move the car. Dylan’s already down there. Okay?’
‘More than.’ I walked away without looking back.
Outside, the cold hit my cheeks like a slap. Dylan was waiting, engine running. Alice slid into the front. I got in the back and leaned my head against Ollie’s empty car seat.
Behind us, through the polished windows of Dom and Tania’s flat, I caught a glimpse of Lachlan, staring down into his whisky like it had started asking difficult questions. Let it. He was the one who’d called me overreaching.