Chapter Four Bella
Chapter Four
Bella
I make the sensible decision to get ready before getting sucked into my messages, so I replace my phone on the bedside table, drag myself out of bed and start the routine.
Shower. Hair wash. Full skincare: double cleanse, toner, SPF moisturiser.
Make-up: foundation, a touch of bronzer, brows shaped into something resembling confidence.
Blow-dry hair into soft, controlled waves.
Olive skirt suit, white silk blouse, nothing ostentatious but with the kind of subtle tailoring that cost enough to make me wince.
Gold knot earrings, slim watch, matching ring and bracelet.
The act of dressing is comforting, a private ritual that soothes my jangling nerves.
By the time I spritz on my Kayali vanilla perfume, I almost believe I have things under control.
I finally check my phone. Good – no notifications beyond the daily deluge of work emails and one text from Mum, a meme of a cute dog in a raincoat, along with an accidental string of emojis.
No word from Dad, but he never texts in the morning.
I start to reply with a thumbs-up and a heart, then erase them and write: Cute!
You and Dad should get a puppy!!!! Too many exclamations, but it will do.
Twenty minutes later, I’m in the office brewing fresh coffee for the early-bird staff.
Our junior negotiator, Ben, is already at his desk.
He glances up and gives me a grin that’s too big for this hour.
‘Boss!’ he shouts. ‘Crushed it last week. The party was epic. Heard Reece did a speech? Sorry I missed it. Was it cringe?’
I force a laugh. ‘Thanks, Ben. It wasn’t too bad – just the right amount of cringe.
’ Although Reece doesn’t work for the company, he made a short speech to introduce me to the stage.
Once I was up there, I gabbled something semi-inspirational and hopefully thanked all the right people.
I guess Reece may have gone a bit overboard in his introduction, but it was sweet of him to acknowledge all the hard work I put into the event, so it hurts a little to hear that people thought it was naff.
Ben is still talking animatedly about a potential client who ghosted him and the creative voicemails he left in retaliation.
I nod at the right moments, but my thoughts keep spiralling back to the email from last week, and then on to the presentation looming, the reason I spent last night tossing and sweating under the duvet, imagining every way it could go wrong.
‘Hey, boss! You need a hand with the brochures for the Flinders Hill apartment?’
I flinch at Ben’s sudden proximity, and knock my coffee over.
The spill is immediate and catastrophic – a dark wave across the corner of my laptop, pooling into the keyboard and dripping on to my skirt.
Ben rushes off and returns wielding a fistful of paper towels, grinning like this is the highlight of his day.
I want to snap, to tell him to leave it, but instead I mumble thanks and start dabbing at the mess, as if to erase both the stain and my embarrassment.
After my careful routine earlier, I’ll now have to go home and change.
Between us, we clean up the mess. I thank him and hurry home. Reece has already left for work, leaving an unmade bed and toast crumbs in his wake. I change into a not-so-nice dark beige trouser suit, but it’s okay. I look professional, and that’s the aim.
Back in the office, I try to focus on the queries piling up in my inbox, but the simple act of checking items off my list suddenly feels insurmountable.
My mind keeps skipping ahead to the meeting, the presentation slides, the potential for mistakes.
Even as I go over it for the fifth time, triple-checking every statistic, every graph, every word, I know that I’ll go over it all again five minutes before I’m due to present.
I do not trust myself to remember anything when the pressure is on.
The morning dissolves in a blur of frantic activity and the hyper-focus that only deadlines can produce.
I field calls, answer emails, and run damage control for a client whose buyer is threatening to pull out of a sale.
Still, beneath the surface, there’s a tremor in my hands and a flutter in my stomach that no amount of herbal tea or yoga breathing can steady.
The day drags and then suddenly speeds up as I count down the minutes to my meeting.
I nip into the back office to touch up my make-up, spritz on some more perfume, and take a deep breath.
Staring myself down in the bathroom mirror, I repeat the mantra I’ve been using since uni: ‘You deserve to be here. You know what you’re doing. You are the boss.’ I try to believe it.
The investors’ meeting is being held in the lounge bar of the Swan Hotel at the other end of the High Street.
The room retains a faint, lingering smell of roast dinners, which does nothing to ease the faint nausea in my gut.
There are three of them, all dressed smartly in suits.
We make brief small talk before I launch into my presentation, clicking through each slide with what I hope is measured assurance, my voice steady even as my heart ricochets off my ribcage.
The questions are tough, but anticipated; the interruptions sharp but not unexpected.
At one point, I catch the lead investor, a woman named Harriet Brewer, watching me with a half-smile, chin propped on her knuckles, and I wonder if she’s thinking how professional I am or if she can see through the shell to the real mess underneath.
The presentation – including questions – stretches to almost an hour.
At the conclusion, there’s a moment of silence, then a few nods and smiles.
‘Impressive,’ Harriet says aloud, and the air changes, relaxes.
‘We’ll be in touch.’ I thank them, collect my things, and leave before my voice can betray me.
I come out of the meeting hardly believing it went so well. My heart thumps with a thrill I’m not used to because it seemed like they might actually be interested in partnering up. My mind races with ideas of what might be, and I’m tingling with nervous excitement.
I walk home along the High Street in a daze, barely registering the coastal breeze or the traffic.
Instead, savouring the pink-gold sunset, the faint smell of salt and vinegar from the chippy on the corner, the kaleidoscope of voices and laughter spilling from the pubs and the open doors of corner shops.
My building is a dignified old Georgian block, four storeys and perfectly proportioned, with white-painted sashes and the kind of symmetrical beauty that makes you believe in order.
I let myself in and climb to the third floor, rather than waiting for the lift, then fumble the keys at the door, adrenaline still leaching from my system.
Inside, I drop my bag, kick off my shoes, and make a beeline for the kettle.
Tea, at times like this, is more ritual than beverage; the act of boiling the water and letting the teabag steep is its own kind of meditation.
I sit on the window seat, mug cradled against my chest, and watch the world below.
Lymington is a tourist town, as well as a working town.
Families push prams over the cobbles; teenagers in identical hoodies share a vape, passing it between them; an ancient woman in a tartan jacket walks a pug in a polka-dot dog coat.
I let my head fall back against the window and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to savour today’s success.
I remember the first time I ever closed a sale, the taste of pure terror when I realised how much was riding on one signature.
My dad hugged me, uncharacteristically soft, and told me, ‘Congratulations. It never gets easier, by the way.’ He was absolutely right.
But today it feels like I’ve been shown a beacon of hope.
The buzzer goes, and I’m brought back to the present.
A few minutes later, Reece appears in the doorway, still in his work suit, all charm and cologne, holding a paper bag. ‘You okay, babe? How did it go?’
Although Reece and I have been together for three and a half years, we still have our own places, and neither of us has brought up the subject of moving in together.
I’m glad about it. I may be nearly thirty, but I have no desire to settle down, get married, and have kids.
Not for a long time yet, if ever. Hopefully, Reece feels the same.
Sometimes he comes here, sometimes I go to his – but I don’t love his cold, overly contemporary apartment – and sometimes we don’t see each other for days. It works.
Tonight he’s bought dinner – something expensive and difficult to pronounce, from the fancy deli by the quay – and he hands over the bag with a flourish. ‘Well? How was it?’
I nod slowly, not wanting to sound too enthusiastic in case I jinx it. ‘Yeah, it was fine. I think they might be interested.’
He whoops and spins me around, nearly sending the groceries flying.
‘It’s not definite!’ I cry, laughing at his over-the-top antics and setting down the takeaway on the coffee table.
We pour champagne (saved for just such occasions), and in the brightly lit room, we toast. Reece gets tipsy almost immediately, and his jokes become worse as the night draws on, but his enthusiasm is infectious.
For a while, the tension that’s been wound around my shoulders for weeks, knotted up in between my ribs, loosens its grip, and I’m swept away in the relief of not having failed, in the giddy afterglow of not having been found out.
Still, underneath it all, there’s a pulse of fear that never quite quiets.
I sit on the sofa next to him, feet tucked beneath my thighs, and think about how I’m going to break the news to Mum and Dad that a third party might be investing in the company.
Someone else with skin in the game. Someone who will inevitably want a say in how things are run.
It’s not that it’s bad news; it’s just not what they would expect.
I worry about their reaction to me possibly giving away a part of the business that they built up from scratch.
Will Mum do her careful frown, the one she polishes for moments of disappointment?
Will Dad pretend that he trusts my judgement, even as he interrogates every flaw in my plan?
Maybe it’s paranoia, but I can already hear the critique in their voices.
The urge to impress them is so strong it’s embarrassing; I’m nearly thirty and still desperate for approval.
But, more than that, I’m worried about whether Dad will get stressed out by the news. And I can’t afford for that to happen.
The reason I took over the company in the first place was that, four years ago, he nearly died.
It was a Thursday in September when Mum called to say the ambulance was on its way.
He’d collapsed in the hallway on the way out to a meeting, clutching the doorframe.
Triple bypass, months of rehab, the works.
It should have been a wake-up call for him, but in typical Dad fashion, he spent his first week home from the hospital fielding calls from clients, ignoring the literal ‘no stress’ mandate from his doctor.
That was when Mum put her foot down and said they were retiring, no arguments.
I already knew the business inside out, and so it felt like a no-brainer for me to take over, with their guidance for the first year. I wanted to prove to them – and to myself – that I was savvy enough to keep the machine running.
But the truth is, I’m not. Or, if I am, I’m doing it by the skin of my teeth.
I don’t want to give them a reason to worry – or worse, to step back in and try to fix it.
The idea of Dad getting sucked back into the business – grey-faced and wired on adrenaline, winding himself up for a second heart attack – makes me feel physically ill.
Mum has purposely been keeping him distracted over the past few years, with relaxing holidays and other stress-free projects and hobbies such as fishing and cooking – anything to keep his blood pressure low. So if this news triggers his stress again, how will I ever forgive myself?
I remember a time – years ago, before the heart attack – when Dad took me to a client meeting in a hotel bar.
I was supposed to just listen and learn, but halfway through, the client turned to me and asked what I thought.
I froze. Dad jumped in and said, ‘Bells will give it to you straight. That’s why we keep her around.
’ I remember the way he said it, half proud and half joking, but there was a glimmer in his eye like he actually meant it.
Maybe that’s what I’m banking on, now – that some version of that glimmer still exists, and that when I tell them the truth, they’ll at least respect me for giving it to them straight.
Reece doesn’t get my nervousness, not really.
He thinks I’m overthinking everything, that I need to ‘lean in’ and be the confident powerhouse that social media keeps telling women to be.
I want to tell him that his faith in me is a double-edged sword.
That every time he says I’m killing it, I hear the echo of my own doubts.
But instead, I just refill our glasses. Maybe he’s right, and maybe not.
All I know is that I’m terrified of letting everyone down – my parents, my staff, even Ben, who would probably just high-five me if I crashed the company into a wall.
I try to remember it’s my life, that I own the decisions and the mistakes, but it never quite sticks.
The rest of the night is a fast-forward of small joys and creeping dread – a thriller we’ve both seen, but enjoy again, the lazy sprawl of Reece’s legs across mine as he falls asleep on the sofa.
I sit awake, scrolling mindlessly through news and memes, but underneath it all, I’m already replaying the presentation, cataloguing every error, every unguarded moment, every word I wish I’d said, and didn’t say.
I wonder if anyone ever learns to stop doing this, or if it just becomes background noise, an endless audit of your own life.
Why do I always find it difficult to be happy?
Maybe because I spend too much time second-guessing myself.
Maybe because I let every sideways look or slightly delayed response get to me, cracking my resolve.
Perhaps I’ll learn one day to brush it off, or maybe I’m just wired this way.
I try to reassure myself that all that matters is I’m trying my best to make the right decisions for the company, for my parents’ legacy, and for myself.
But I can’t calm my heartbeat or adopt the casual ease that Reece seems to ooze.
Maybe one day soon, once this deal goes through, things will settle. I hope so.