have been just as bad, and he was immensely grateful to Cara for her forethought and care.
She really was excellent at her job.
In fact, after receiving compliments from clients about how responsive and professional she’d been when they’d contacted her with enquiries and complications to be dealt with, he was beginning to realise that he’d actually been very fortunate to secure her services. He felt sure, if she wanted to, she could walk into a job with a much better salary with her eyes shut.
Which made him wonder again why she hadn’t.
Whatever the reason, the idea of losing her excellent skill base now made him uneasy. Even though he’d been certain he’d want to let her go at the end of the trial month, he was now beginning to think that that would be a huge mistake.
He had some serious thinking to do.
If he was honest, he reflected on Thursday evening, sitting alone in the hotel’s busy restaurant, having time and space away from Cara and the house had been a relief. He’d been glad of the opportunity to get his head together after their confrontation. She was the first person, outside his close circle of friends, that he’d talked to in any detail about what had happened to Jemima and it had changed the atmosphere between them. To Cara’s credit, she hadn’t trotted out platitudes to try and make him feel better and he was grateful to her for that, but he felt a little awkward about how much of himself he’d exposed.
Conversely, though, it also felt as though a weight that he’d not noticed carrying had been lifted from his shoulders. Not just because he’d finally told Cara about Jem—which he’d begun to feel weirdly seedy about, as if he was keeping a dirty secret from her—but also because it had got to the point where he’d become irrationally superstitious about clearing out the room, as though all his memories of Jemima would be wiped away if he touched it. Which, of course, they hadn’t been—she was still firmly embedded there in his head and his heart. So, even though he’d been angry and upset with Cara at the time, in retrospect, it had been a healthy thing for that decision to be wrenched out of his hands.
It felt as though he’d taken a step further into the light.
Cara was out when he arrived back at Friday lunchtime, still buzzed with elation from keeping the client, so he went to unpack his bags upstairs, return a few phone calls and take a shower before coming back down.
Walking into the kitchen, he spotted her standing by the sink with her back to him, washing a mug. He stopped to watch her for a moment, smiling as he realised she was singing softly to herself, her slim hips swaying in time to the rhythm of the song. She had a beautiful voice, lyrical and sweet, and a strange, intense warmth wound through him as he stood there listening to her. It had been a long time since anyone had sung in this house and there was something so pure and uplifting about it a shiver ran down his spine, inexplicably chased by a deep pull of longing.
Though not for Cara, surely? But for a time when his life had fewer sharp edges. A simpler time. A happier one.
Shaking himself out of this unsettling observation, he moved quickly into the room so she wouldn’t think he’d been standing there spying on her.
‘Hi, Cara.’
She jumped and gasped, spinning round to face him, her hand pressed to her chest. She looked fresh and well rested, but there was a wary expression in her eyes.
‘Max! I didn’t hear you come in.’
‘I was upstairs, taking a shower and returning some urgent calls. I got back about an hour ago.’
She nodded, her professional face quickly restored. ‘How was Manchester?’
‘Good. We got them back on board. How have things been here?’
‘That’s great! Things have been fine here. It’s certainly been very quiet without you.’
By ‘quiet’ he suspected she actually meant less fraught with angry outbursts.
There was an uncomfortable silence while she fussed about with the tea towel, hooking it carefully over the handle of the cooker door and smoothing it until it lay perfectly straight.
Tearing his eyes away from the rather disconcerting sight of her stroking her hands slowly up and down the offending article, he walked over to where the kettle sat on the work surface and flicked it on to boil. He was unsettled to find that things still felt awkward between them when they were face to face—not that he should be surprised that they were. Their last non-work conversation had been a pretty heavy one, after all.
Evidently he needed to make more of an effort to be friendly now if he was going to be in with a chance of persuading her to stay after the month’s trial was up.
The thought of going back to being alone in this house certainly wasn’t a comforting one any more. If he was honest, it had been heartening to know that Cara would be here when he got back. Now that the black hole of Jemima’s room had been destroyed and he’d fully opened the door to Cara, the loneliness he’d previously managed to keep at bay had walked right in.
Turning to face her again, he leant back against the counter and crossed his arms.
‘I wanted to talk to you about the quality of the work you’ve been producing.’
Her face seemed to pale and he realised he could have phrased that better. He’d never been good at letting his colleagues know when he was pleased with their work—or Jemima when he was proud of something she’d achieved, he realised with a stab of pain—but after Cara had given it to him straight about how it affected her, he was determined to get better at it.
‘What I mean is—I’m really impressed with the way you’ve handled the work here this week while I’ve been away,’ he amended.
‘Oh! Good. Thank you.’ The pride in her wobbly smile made his breath catch.
He nodded and gave a little cough to release the peculiar tension in his throat, turning back to the counter to grab a mug for his drink and give them both a moment to regroup. There was a brightly coloured card propped up next to the mug tree and he picked it up as a distraction while he waited for the kettle to finish boiling and glanced at what was written inside.
‘You didn’t tell me it was your birthday,’ he said, turning to face her again, feeling an unsettling mixture of surprise and dismay at her not mentioning something as important as that to him.
Colour rushed to her cheeks. ‘Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to leave that lying around.’ She walked over and took the card from his hand, leaning against the worktop next to him and enveloping him in her familiar floral scent. She tapped the corner of the card gently against her palm and he watched, hypnotised by the action. ‘It was on Wednesday. As you were away I didn’t think it was worth mentioning.’ She looked up at him from under her lashes. ‘Don’t worry—I didn’t have a wild house party here while you were away, only a couple of friends over for dinner and we made sure to tidy up afterwards.’
Fighting a strange disquiet, he flapped a dismissive hand at her. ‘Cara, it’s okay for you to keep some of your things in the communal areas and have friends over for your birthday, for God’s sake. I don’t expect the place to be pristine the whole time.’
‘Still. I meant to put this up in my room with the others.’
Despite
