Chapter Six #3
‘You cannot leave me alone at that party, Abbey. We are work wives and we are the only single people on earth.’
Don’t remind me.
I walked out of the office on Friday afternoon feeling fantastic about the fact it was Friday afternoon, but also pleased about what Oliver had achieved that week.
This ended when I reached the lobby and saw it was absolutely bucketing down outside.
I looked in my handbag and, sure enough, there was the world’s tiniest umbrella, which had not a fucking chance of keeping me dry.
Sydney had two types of rain. The non-existent-for-up-to-six-months-drought kind and the fucking-bucketing-down- total-annual-rainfall-in-a-week kind.
This was clearly the latter. I looked out nervously before deciding I had to get home one way or another and stepped out into it in the direction of the train station.
The rain was one thing, the gale-force southerly was another, and five steps into my journey, my tiny umbrella – pink with black polka dots, RIP – blew inside out, dumping more water on me than I could possibly have imagined it could hold. I looked at it and dumped it in the bin beside me. Fuck it.
A honk of a horn next to me had me raise my middle finger. Who the fuck was honking at me? Only a psychopath would have a laugh by honking the horn at a woman who was impersonating a drowned rat, for fuck’s sake.
The window on the fancy black sedan rolled down.
‘Need a lift?’ a hot English accent said to me.
Fucking fuuuccckkk.
‘C’mon, Abbey, in you get,’ Nick commanded. ‘I promise I won’t bite.’
***
The car was warm, and I awkwardly tried to get off my drenched jacket, but the thing had me in a vice-like hold. Eventually, he leaned over and joined in the battle, and together we managed to free me.
He handed me a towel from his gym bag, which I kind of grossly hoped would smell like his sweat (I know), but was equally delighted that it was clean and dry.
When our fingers grazed one another’s, our eyes flew up and locked.
Christ, the man had eyes like opals. Whatever light they were in, they gave you different things.
Today they shone amber and a grey-brown.
My mouth opened and closed as I peered into them, and I swallowed heavily.
He reached out and pushed a strand of hair in wet ringlets behind my ear.
His thumb brushed along my jaw and his eyes dropped to my lips and I leaned towards him, surrendering to this thing between us.
‘Where to, Mr Northby?’
Oh, shit, the driver. We were not alone.
Nick sat back, blinking slowly, and he gave his driver my address.
My phone vibrated in my bag and, seeing Ella’s name, I picked it up, looking out the window.
‘Mum, oh, my God, the most exciting thing ever happened.’
‘Hi, honey, are you home?’
‘Mum, I got selected. I am so excited. For the junior student exchange program. I get to go to Canada for three months.’
‘What?’
‘The junior student exchange program, Mum.’
‘Ella, I genuinely think you are too young to go to Canada by yourself for three months.’
‘Mum, the host family are doctors. I’m going. It’s only four thousand dollars. That’s only two thousand each from you and Dad, and that’s all I need for this once-in-a-lifetime experience.’
‘Four thousand dollars?’ The incredulousness in my voice arose from having savings totalling around two hundred and fifty dollars.
And, okay, old mate next to me had increased my salary by doubling it, but I was in week one of my new employment contract and it would take me an age to save that kind of money.
‘Ella, we’ll talk about this later, okay?
’ I hung up and felt my head pound. I put my hand to the back of my neck and rubbed it, feeling my wet hair against my fingers.
‘You okay?’ Nick asked.
‘Just a headache.’
He reached into his gym bag again and pulled out a bottle of water and some ibuprofen, handing them to me.
‘Thank you.’
We sat in companionable silence.
‘What high school is Ella at?’
‘St Joseph’s. It’s an excellent school and she’s bright.’
‘I, uh, I didn’t realise you were Catholic.’
‘Oh, umm, I’m not. Peter picked the school.’
‘I see. How is Iris?’
‘She’s well. I taught her how to post reviews of romance novels on . She’s busy.’
He laughed quietly and it might have been the first genuine smile I had seen on him all week.
‘You should do that more often.’
‘What’s that?’ he said, quirking an eyebrow at me.
‘Smile.’
‘You haven’t RSVP’d to the launch party.’
‘I wasn’t planning on going.’
‘You have to.’ His voice sounded strained. ‘For work,’ he added.
‘I have Ella next week and I don’t have anything to wear for your black-tie dress code.’
‘You have Ella this week and I’m certain you have something to wear, or Kate does.’
It was annoying he knew my schedule with Ella.
‘Abbey, if you need … you know … money …’ He leaned forward, his eyes and voice imploring.
‘Nick. Stop.’
‘I’m just trying to—’
‘Just here will be fine,’ I said to his driver.
We were at the top of my street. I needed to get out of this car.
‘I do not need to be rescued, Nick. Thank you for the lift.’ I climbed out and shut the door firmly behind me.
And ran down the street to my house. Why were people trying to fix things for me?
Why did they assume I couldn’t sort out my own dramas? It was infuriating.
I stood in the rain, digging through my handbag for my bloody house keys and saw them in an actual pocket, astonished that at some point that day I had put them in an easy-to-find place (where I would never look) and not in the central compartment I was digging around in.
When I looked up, he was in front of me.
‘Can Holiday Nick talk to Holiday Abbey just for a second?’
The water was dripping down his face, making his hair dark and shiny, reminding me of that first night we met. It felt like a lifetime ago.
I shook my head. ‘If Holiday Nick arrives, I won’t want him to leave me. And Holiday Abbey, well, the problem there … is that she is just me. Just Abbey … So no. Not even for a second.’ I put my hand into the hollow of his chest where it fit. And then I went inside, leaving him in the rain.
Nick
This work situation with Abbey was going to kill me. I’d told Ollie I would step away after Friday night’s party. I promised myself I would not get personal with her. I almost kissed her in the bloody car.
People who make vows never to fall in love again should avoid spending enormous amounts of time with Abbey Parker. Abbey was … she was pretty fucking wonderful.
At work, she was just … fantastic. On Tuesday, she was absolutely flattened underneath the pile.
She seemed to be the company ‘community brain’ and they would ask her for things instead of thinking for themselves.
I watched her carefully, waiting to see how she would react, keeping hold of anything I needed from her myself.
I did this so as not to add to her day, though I could tell this irritated her or she read something else into it because she took the time to shove passive-aggressive tea at me.
I watched, impressed, as she politely managed items off her desk.
The freeloaders left with simple instructions and a smile, and I was astonished.
She practically ran the place, giving Oliver and me the space we needed to focus on the takeover and changing the things he wanted to change.
I wanted nothing but to be close to her, to study her carefully.
She still had not RSVP’d to the party, which was bloody well driving me crazy.
I was thinking about her non-stop and I was doing ludicrous, and I mean, absolutely barking shit all over the place.
For example, on Monday I rang her child’s school principal and made an anonymous, eight-thousand-dollar donation, to ensure that Ella and some other fucking child I do not even know can go live with Canadian doctors for three months, without cost to Abbey.
That, sadly, was not the limit of my madness.
Worried the lack of RSVP was actually about a dress, I was forced on Thursday to wander around a Sydney department store to pick out something for her.
Thankfully, the staff were extremely helpful, and the store was searched for a colleague who was Abbey’s approximate height and weight.
And Amelia from the kitchen department was extremely patient as she tried on every gown in the bloody store until I found it.
I then, awkwardly, had to get her sister involved.
I knocked on their door on Thursday afternoon, when I knew Abbey was safely ensconced at her desk in the office, and Kate answered it with a coffee in her hand. Her hair was up in a messy bun and her activewear told me she’d been to the gym.
‘Is Abbey okay?’
‘Yes. I’m so sorry to come uninvited. I, uh, I need your help.’
She arched an imperious eyebrow at me and then stood aside.
The hallway was narrow; the bedrooms coming off it, the two walls completely blocking out the rest of the house.
There were family photos dotted, pictures mostly of Ella growing up.
The house still smelled faintly like paint, and I stopped at Abbey’s bedroom and stood in the doorway, taking in her decorative efforts.
It was instantly recognisable as the resort room.
Even the curtains, even the gentle breeze coming in her window.
It was peaceful and calm, and it smelled like her perfume over the paint.
A black-and-white photo of a beach graced the wall next to a floor-length mirror.
A pair of her work shoes were neatly beside it.
I’ve never looked at a room and wanted to go lie down on a bed more.
Kate cleared her throat. ‘Did you just come here to stare at her room, ’cause that’s pretty fucking weird.’
I gave a sharp laugh, but heat came to my face because I had been standing in that doorway for a long time. I had been thinking how on the holiday, her tinkly laugh would echo through my suite, bringing an instant smile to my face and I could almost hear it as I stood there.
Kate walked me through to the kitchen. ‘Is this a coffee or something stronger discussion?’
I blew a snort out of my nose and then raised my eyebrows. ‘Something stronger.’
She nodded and pulled out a bottle of gin and without asking poured me a healthy one with tonic, surprising me by adding a sprig of rosemary from a pot on the windowsill.
‘What’s in the bag?’ she asked.
I appreciated her directness for once.
‘You might think I’m behaving badly or maybe inappropriately.
I’m not certain what I think about it myself, really.
I, uh, don’t usually … um, but …’ I paused, taking a gulp of the drink.
It was bloody strong. While I recovered from the first sip, I practised what I was trying to say, as it seemed I was having difficulty trying to string together a coherent sentence.
She drank too, but waited silently for me to continue, a tactic I used often in business.
‘We are having a launch party tomorrow night,’ I started. ‘Abbey said she wouldn’t come. It seemed to be about a dress, so I thought I would attempt to, uh, you know, rectify that.’
‘You bought her a dress?’
I drank again. ‘And shoes, just in case that was an issue, too.’
‘I see.’
‘You do?’
‘Maybe better than you,’ she said into her glass. ‘Well, let’s look at it.’
I got unusually very nervous. I hooked the bag over the door frame and opened it carefully, pulling out the dress and then removing the dust bag to leave it hanging on the door. I picked up my gin and downed it, while Kate stepped forward inspecting it.
‘It’s a good dress,’ she said, still looking at it. ‘Abbey will look beautiful in it.’ Her eyes travelled sideways to give me an assessing stare.
‘I can give you the, er, receipt in case it doesn’t fit, or she hates it.’
Kate nodded.
‘Will you help me by talking her into going?’
‘Her not buying a dress, that would have cost her significantly less than you have spent on this, Nick, is about money, but not in the way you might think. She’s a single mum and every cent she earns is accounted for because her arsehole ex-husband gives her the minimum of what he has to and anything else Ella needs is on her.
Abbey denies herself many things to provide for her daughter.
‘That is why you accusing her of taking money from that company, which has given her fuck all for over twenty years, is so upsetting. And that is outside of what happened between the two of you on that holiday. When you add that in, your behaviour, Nick, is pretty fucking hard to forgive.’
I forced myself to meet her eyes while she laid that exacting judgement upon me. Nothing that she had said was untrue.
She walked back around the kitchen bench and reached for my glass, which I handed her. She poured another two huge gins and handed me one. We both leaned back against the wooden counter, staring at the gown in the doorway.
‘But fuck me, Nick. This is a nice dress.’
She clinked my glass, and we drank. And I found my first friend in Sydney. Kate Cavendish – gatekeeper, lioness and all-round queen – and I, on a Thursday afternoon, over two gin and tonics and a designer dress, formed an alliance to get Abbey Parker to a ball.