Let’s go and find him and let him know we’ll run interference for the rest of the night. Give the poor guy a chance to enjoy himself without Shrek stomping on his toes.’ The pair’s laughter faded as the door closed behind them.
Shocked and humiliated, Jess tried to focus on the task of pulling up her tights, and not on the burn at the back of her eyes. How was it possible people knew she fancied Tristan when she’d gone out of her way to keep it to herself? Perhaps she wasn’t as discreet as she’d believed and the whole office was laughing at her behind her back. Horrified at the thought, Jess yanked at the thin nylon of her tights, manging to rip a big hole in the left thigh which immediately zoomed down to her ankle in a ladder. ‘Damn it!’
Vision swimming with tears, Jess kicked off her heels and yanked off the ruined tights. The pale, mottled skin of her legs looked shockingly white in the harsh overhead lighting. Now what was she going to do? She couldn’t go back out there flashing her dead-fish coloured legs, for God’s sake! Despair gave way to hope as she recalled the baskets of supplies on the counter tops. Leaving her heels on the floor of the cubicle, she padded barefoot across the thickly piled carpet and began to rummage. She came up with two pairs of tights, both of them size small. In desperation more than hope, she took one pair back into the cubicle but couldn’t get them much more than over her knees before the fibres stretched so thin and tight she knew it was no good.
Feeling wretchedly sorry for herself, Jess tried to push her naked toes into the narrow confines of her heels. Her feet had swollen after so many hours in the unfamiliar shoes, and that combined with the lack of any barrier between her bare skin and the leather made it almost impossible to get them back on. A couple of steps was all it took for her to know she’d rub a blister if she tried to wear them like that. Why was everything going wrong for her, tonight of all nights? A hot tear coursed over her cheek, and Jess stumbled over to the mirror to grab at a handful of tissues. No amount of deep breathing, cheek pressing, and dabbing could stem the trickles. She wasn’t exactly crying, but her eyes wouldn’t stop leaking and the salt of her tears made her contacts start to itch.
Between rapid blinks, she managed to get the right one out, only to drop it. Its slide down the plug hole was the last straw. ‘Sod it.’ Removing the other one, Jess flicked it into the sink and turned on the tap to flush it after its mate. Her ruined tights were balled up and chucked into the waste basket, the hated heels pried off and shoved into her backpack along with her evening bag. Retrieving her glasses, Jess popped them on and met her gaze in the mirror. A sense of calm descended as she reached up to tug and pull at the myriad pins holding her up-do in place. Curls tumbled around her shoulders only to be gathered up in one of the spare scrunchies she kept in the front pocket of her rucksack.
Securing her hair in a rough ponytail at her nape, Jess then pulled out a knitted bobble hat and tugged it down over her ears. Coat on and zipped to the neck, feet and calves snug in her furry boots, she cast one last glance in the mirror as she slung her backpack over her shoulder. She should’ve stayed at home tonight. It was clear she didn’t fit in here, and the idea of spending another second around people who thought so little of her they made up cruel nicknames behind her back was more than she could stomach. It turned out she wasn’t a blue velvet dress kind of girl, after all. And, she thought as she reached for the door handle, that was just fine with her.
Thanks to a points failure, it took Jess ages to get home and by the time she slotted her key into the front door all she wanted was to crawl into her pyjamas and curl up in bed with a mug of hot chocolate. Before she could turn the key, the door was yanked open and she was confronted with the sight of Steve, her brother’s best friend, red-eyed, his face an agonised mask. ‘Oh, Jess,’ he said, dragging her into his arms. ‘He’s gone. Marcus is gone.’
No. No, no, no, no, no. It couldn’t be, he couldn’t be, not her darling big brother. After everything they’d been through with him the past couple of years. The endless worry, the thousands of pounds her parents had spent on rehab. A scream echoed down the stairs, inhumane, animalistic, a sound no human throat should be capable of making. As the waves of grief smashed into her, Jess clung to Steve, his strong arms the only thing that kept her from being swept away.
Present Day – the first week of September
Charlie Tanner, Tristan’s boss since he’d left university and the cofounder of a very successful events and PR firm he’d set up with his business – and life – partner Tim Beaman, took a sip of the wine poured by the waiter. Though Tristan had invited him to lunch and was footing the bill, he had left it to the older man to select the wine. Already feeling nervous about the news he was going to deliver, he could only hope the sop of a decent vintage would go some way to ease the news he was pretty sure Charlie wasn’t going to want to hear. Charlie raised his glass towards the light spilling in from the window, turned his glass a couple of times as he studied the ruby-red hue of the liquid in his glass before finally giving the waiter a nod. With the ritual of the wine selection over, he turned his hawk-like gaze to Tristan. ‘So, when are you coming back to us?’
Okay, so they were cutting straight to the chase. Tristan smiled his thanks at the waiter then reached for his own glass, more to give himself time to word the answer than any real desire for a drink. Both Charlie and Tim had been incredibly understanding when Tristan had taken a twelve-month unpaid sabbatical in order to return home to help his brother, Arthur, and sister, Igraine, manage their ancestral home following their father’s death the previous autumn. Though he’d been happy to do everything he could to support Arthur, Tristan was grateful that being the youngest of the triplets meant the family title and all its burdens and responsibilities had not fallen on his shoulders.
During the bleak winter months when it’d seemed to do nothing but either rain, snow or some hideous combination of the two, Tristan had missed his busy life in London. Once the bluebells that had given the family castle its pretty nickname had started blooming and the hard work the three of them had invested started to pay off however, Tristan had found his thoughts straying less and less to the smart apartment he rented in Battersea and his job as a marketing executive in the city. ‘Yes, well that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,’ he said to Charlie with an apologetic wince.
‘Oh, balls. Don’t tell me we’re going to be losing both of you? When you invited me to lunch, I assumed you wanted to get up to speed on our current projects in preparation for your return.’ Charlie cast him a gloomy look then took a large swig of the rather fine burgundy. ‘Well, you know what they say about assuming things …’
It cut Tristan deeper than he’d expected to be letting the man opposite him down. Charlie had been an inspiration to him from the first day he’d started working at the events management and public relations firm. Both Charlie and Tim, chose to encourage rather than control their staff, giving them room to take chances as long as any failures were learning experiences.
Feeling wretched, Tristan braced his forearms on the edge of the table and met the older man’s gaze. ‘I’m really sorry. I should have given you a warning, I suppose, but I wanted to talk to you face to face and explain. After everything you’ve done for me, it seemed rude to put it in an email.’ Twisting his glass between his fingers, he studied the rich wine as though he could find the answers he owed his boss in its opaque surface. ‘If I’d thought for one moment I would find myself in this position then I would have resigned outright rather than requesting a sabbatical.’ He glanced up to find Charlie studying him over the steepled tips of his fingers.
‘What changed?’ There was no censure in this question, only genuine curiosity.
‘I fell in love.’ When Charlie quirked a brow, he laughed. ‘Not like that. As a second son, I always knew
