- -
- 100%
- +
Voice echoing down the hallway of her small cottage in suburban Abbotsford, Lucinda took off her jacket and scarf, not bothering to disentangle either from the handle of her bag as she dumped the lot in a heap on the hall table.
“In the kitchen!” called Catriona, Lucinda’s big sister, housemate and godsend.
Lucinda sniffed the air in the hope there might be a little leftover dinner she could snaffle and caught a whiff of chicken and potato wedges—the good ones she’d found on sale. She hoped Cat had added a little chopped carrot for colour and health. Maybe some baby spinach leaves.
Then she sighed as she kicked off her heels and padded down the hall.
Cat was in the kitchen, one foot tucked up against the other knee, chomping down on a piece of buttery toast.
Her sister had inherited their dad’s lanky genes. Lucinda was shorter and curvier, like their mum. She grabbed a carrot stick in lieu of the toast.
Thinking of her parents gave Lucinda a sad little clutch behind her sternum, as it always did, even though it was over ten years since the crash that had taken them.
Then she looked past her sister to the small room beyond. Her heart swelled, her lungs tightened and her head cleared of any and all things that had seemed so important only a moment before.
For there sat Sonny. Her beautiful boy. Hunched over a book at the tiny round table tucked into the nook beside the small kitchen, distractedly polishing off the last potato wedge. His plate was wiped clean bar a few spinach stems. Go Cat!
“Hey, sweet pea!” Lucinda called.
Sonny looked up from the adventures of Captain Underpants, hair the same dark brown as Lucinda’s hanging into his eyes. A blink later, his face broke into a smile filled with gappy baby teeth, one wobbly. “Hey, Mum!”
She edged around the bench and pressed back Sonny’s hair to give him a kiss on the forehead, making a mental note to book in a haircut. She caught scents of sweat and sunshine. “Good day?”
“Yup.”
“What’s the newsy news?” she asked as she headed into the kitchen.
Cat tilted her head towards the microwave, where a plate sat covered in a little mound of cheap, easy goodness. Lucinda nodded her thanks then plonked onto a chair tucked under the kitchen bench.
Sonny looked off to the side, searching his data banks for whatever snippet he’d tucked away, knowing she’d ask. “Mr Fish, the fighting fish that lives in the library, is missing.”
“Missing, you say? That is news.”
Sonny nodded. “Jacob K and I went to the library at lunchtime and saw the tank was empty. Jacob K asked if it was dead. Mrs Seedsman said, ‘Many believe they know what happens when a creature is no longer with us, but nobody knows for sure’.”
“Did she, now?” Lucinda looked to Cat who was biting back a laugh. “Quite the progressive, Mrs Seedsman.”
“I like her hair. It has purple bits on the ends.”
“Then I like Mrs Seedsman’s hair too.”
Happy with that, Sonny gave her another flash of his gorgeous smile before easing back into his book.
Lucinda turned to Cat. “Jacob K?”
“New kid,” said Cat. “Sonny was put in charge of him.”
“Of course he was. He’s the best. Anything else?”
Cat finished rinsing the plates and popping them in the dishwasher, before reaching for a glass of wine she’d clearly had airing in wait for Lucinda to get home and take over Sonny duties.
“All good. Came home chatty. Didn’t touch his sandwich again.”
Lucinda sighed. Once he was down, she’d be online searching for lunchbox ideas for kids who refused to eat sandwiches, as heaven forbid Sonny eat something she could prepare and freeze in advance.
She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Bath time, kiddo.”
“Okay,” said Sonny, not moving from his book.
Lucinda considered that her five-minute warning, knowing by now she’d have to ask at least three more times before he actually moved. It gave her time to unwind and settle into the different pace and sounds at home compared to the office.
Time to shed her work persona—proactive, sophisticated, tough, respected—put on her Mum skin—reactive, threadbare, fingers crossed she was making all the right choices, and a massive soft touch when it came to her boy—and remember that, whatever worries she dealt with at work, they always came second to this.
And always would.
A half-hour later, Sonny was bathed and dressed, his hair a little wet from being washed, his pyjamas soft from the two nights they’d already been worn. She could get another night out of them. He only had one other pair that fit. The joys of owning a growing boy.
Once he’d given Cat a goodnight hug, Sonny ran back into his room.
Lucinda carried him the last few metres, just because she could. It might not be an option for much longer. At eight years of age, the kid’s feet were nearly dragging on the floor.
Once Sonny was settled, Lucinda tucked herself up on his bed, making sure not to block his bedside lamp so he had enough light to read. They took turns reading and listening. When she dozed off for the second time, Lucinda gently closed the book and went through the rest of the night-time routine: butterfly kiss, nose-tip kiss and kiss on both cheeks, followed by a seven-second cuddle.
Special toys were found and tucked into their respective nightly positions—Dashy the Dog behind Sonny’s neck, Punky the Penguin behind his knees. Blankets were moved up to the chin, star-shaped night-light put on low.
This was the time of day when she felt so lucky to have this all to herself—this routine, this sweetness, this boy. Her heart filled her chest. She loved the kid so much.
Though give it ten more minutes and if he called her name needing a drink, or a trip to the toilet, she’d wish with all that same heart that she had a partner to shoulder the load.
Such were the swings and roundabouts of single motherhood.
Lucinda made it to the door before turning to blow one last kiss. “Goodnight, little man.”
“Night, Mum.”
“Love you.”
Yawn. Then, “Love you more.”
She went to close the door before she was stopped by a, “Hey, Mum?”
“Yeah, buddy.”
“Did Angus ring you today?”
Lucinda narrowed her eyes. “We work about three metres from one another all day long. We can wave from where we sit. So why would he…? The ringtone!”
Sonny tucked his sheet up to his nose to smother his laughter.
“Did you have a hand in that, little man?”
“Angus messaged last night to ask me how. Cat had let me use the tablet to research planets for homework,” he added quickly. “Not playing games.”
“Hmm. You are a rascal.”
Sonny grinned. The sweetest, most good-natured kid in the world, he was the least rascally kid ever. He made better choices than she ever would.
She was working on improving that score.
“Goodnight, little man.”
“Goodnight, Mum.”
She closed the door then notched it open just a sliver before padding back to the kitchen to stare inside the fridge in hope of healthy inspiration.
All the while thinking about Sonny. And Angus.
She knew they not so secretly messaged one another. She’d been the one to set up the private account when Sonny had worn her down with begging. And only after Angus had insisted it was fine with him so long as Lucinda had full access to the conversations.
Not that she checked much these days. It was mostly links to “try not to laugh” videos. But it had all started after a less innocent incident a few years back.
Sonny had woken up feeling sick one day, and none of Lucinda’s usual methods of cajoling, encouraging and downright bribery had convinced him to get ready for kindergarten. So, with a huge, unwieldy backlist of things to do waiting for her at work, she’d taken Sonny to the office with her for the first time.
Angus—completely up to date on every small thing—had shocked the living heck out of Lucinda when he’d offered to let Sonny hang with him in his office. After a good two and a half seconds of consideration she’d handed over Sonny’s tablet—a necessary evil of modern parenting—and left the men to their own devices.
Less than an hour in, over a mid-morning fruit snack, Angus had wangled from Sonny the real reason behind the “sore tummy”. The kindy group had spent time that week making Father’s Day cards.
Sonny—being Sonny—had put up his hand to ask his teacher what to do if he didn’t have a father to give a card to.
Lucinda had made it her life’s mission to make sure Sonny understood that, whether a child had a mum and a dad, or two mums or two dads, grandparents, siblings or a mum and a super-cool aunt, every type of family could be as rich with love as any other.
Unfortunately, other kids had pretty set opinions on what a “family” ought to look like and had made it their mission that day to make sure Sonny knew it too.
When Angus had pulled her aside that afternoon, while Sonny had been learning how to use the photocopier with one of the guys in accounts, Lucinda had felt sideswiped. Not only that Sonny had gone through such an ordeal but that he’d spilled to Angus. And not her.
Angus had taken her by both hands—something he’d never done before that day—had sat her down, made sure she was looking him in the eye and explained that he’d told Sonny how he’d grown up without a dad too.
She’d learned more about his childhood and his motivations for why he worked so hard in that one conversation than she had in all the time they’d known one another. And, when Angus had assured her that his imperfect mother’s love had been his north star, the guiding light that had kept him on the right path, she’d been hard pressed not to sob.
Things had changed between them that day.
In trusting Angus with her son, she’d given him the impetus to step out from behind the figurative wall from behind which he engaged with the world, leading to a moment between them that had been honest, raw and real. And the tiny, innocent glint of a crush she’d happily harboured had erupted, splintering off into a thousand replicas, spiralling uncontrollably into all directions like fireworks, too much, too many for her to have a hope of reining back in.
While Angus, with his vintage chess set and killer AFL handball skills, fast became Sonny’s hero. The strongest—maybe the only—male influence in his young life.
She’d never told Angus that Sonny had come home from kindy that week with a card made out to him. It was another of those “minor details” she figured best to keep to herself.
She heard the water cooler talk. She wasn’t alone in her crush. Every girl in the office was right there with her. Only, they talked about how infamously uncatchable he was. That he dated widely. And never for long. They called him the Lone Wolfe. If he knew how quickly Sonny had become attached to him it would have sent him back behind that wall.
As things stood, their friendship had grown. Evolved. Stretched. Become something important to them both. It was good. Just as it was.
Lucinda realised she was still holding open the fridge door. She let the door close, but not before taking out a small tub of chocolate custard.
Tossing the lid of the custard into the bin, Lucinda nabbed a spoon from the drying rack by the sink and went to find Cat in her usual spot, watching Netflix while typing away madly at the laptop balanced on a cushion on her lap.
A freelance journalist, Cat’s life was a case of produce or starve. But it also meant that when Lucinda’s husband had left, deciding marriage and parenthood was all too hard—while Lucinda had been cooking dinner and holding their toddler in her arms, no less—Cat had moved in the next day, more than filling the space Joe had left behind. Making Lucinda realise how little she’d asked of him. How little space she’d taken up herself.
Sonny had been thirteen months old. Earlier that day he’d walked for the first time.
That was nearly seven years ago now.
And it had taken that long for the regular routine, the comfort of home and the warm hum of work success to make room for other hopes and dreams that had begun to flicker at the corner of her mind’s eye.
With a sigh, Lucinda sank into the lounge room chair.
“So,” said Cat, tap-tap-tap. “Did you tell him?”
And, just like that, Lucinda’s contented little bubble burst. “Hmm?”
“Angus. Did you finally tell him about this weekend?”
Lucinda wriggled on her seat, trying to get comfortable. “Yep.”
Cat’s fingers stopped tapping. “Really? Did you say the words, ‘Mr Wolfe, sir, I am taking next weekend off because my man-friend, the estimable heart surgeon Dr Jameson Bancroft-Smythe, and I are going away to a fancy resort for some grown up time’?”
Lucinda’s silence spoke volumes.
Cat snapped her laptop shut. “Seriously?”
“I said I was taking the weekend off. The reason why is none of his business.”
Cat’s nostrils flared. “You forced Angus to stay here, sleeping in your bed while you bunked in with Sonny after he had dental surgery, because the dentist said there was a chance of bleeding overnight. The two of you obsessively text one another through every new episode of that stupid Warlock school show. You both spend way too much time coming up with wilder and-or weirder gifts for one another, just because. Not to mention whatever went down at that crazy office Christmas party a couple of years back. You and I both know the lines are very much blurred between your boss’s business and your own.”
Lucinda’s throat had gone dry at the mention of the office Christmas party. Cat must have been really agitated as she knew better than to bring it up. The events of that night had miraculously remained classified, locked in a vault ever since.
Moving on after a surreptitious swallow, Lucinda said, “What exactly do you want me to say?”
“I want you to admit to me why you didn’t you tell him about Jameson. You didn’t have a problem telling me all about it. If you and Angus are as tight as you claim to be, why not tell him?”
Cat was no idiot. Quite the contrary. She was a shark despite the fact that, modern journalism being what it was, she wrote as many stories about Instagram celebrities as she did about human rights violations. Which was why she said, “I need to hear you say the words.”
Lucinda threw her hands in the air. “I don’t know why! Maybe I’ve enjoyed keeping this part of my life just for me. Maybe it still feels precious, fragile and not quite real, and if I say it out loud it will pop. Maybe I’m slightly concerned if Angus knows then he’ll come over here when Jameson is due to pick me up and answer the door with a shotgun in hand so Jameson knows not to mess with me. Maybe if I tell Angus he’ll ask questions, and poke holes in my logic, and convince me I’m making a huge mistake.”
Cat sighed. Dramatically. “Nobody but you can make you feel anything.”
Lucinda dropped her hands and looked indulgently at her big sister. “I know that. I do. I’m just nervous, okay? I want this weekend to go as smoothly as possible. I need it to. I’ve already put so much effort into keeping things going this far, considering how often we’ve had to cancel our plans with his work and mine. And Angus is right in the middle of this huge account, working for a man he looks up to a great deal. It felt better not distracting him with things that don’t matter.”
Cat snorted, as if she didn’t believe a word of it.
“He’s sensitive,” Lucinda attested. He really was. Highly attuned to people’s needs and wants. It was what made him so good at his work. Judging from the little bits and pieces she’d picked up over the years about his childhood, staying hyper-aware had been the only way he’d survived.
“He’s a man-child,” Cat muttered.
“Cat!”
“He has a driver, a cleaner, someone else who answers his phone. No wonder he hasn’t found his own girl to take away for a serious weekend—none of them could possibly live up to his contingent of carers. And, in that list, I include you.”
“Thank goodness for that,” Lucinda shot back. “Without my part as a cog in the Angus Wolfe wheel, we would never have been able to afford this beautiful little house in which we now sit, all cosy and warm.”
What she didn’t say to Cat was that she didn’t see herself as one of his “contingent of carers”. She was his outlet. His release. In the tough, hard-working, driven life of Angus Wolfe, she was unique.
“You really believe that, don’t you?” Cat asked. “You sell yourself short. And the great and wonderful Angus does too. He so takes you for granted. I could…” Cat stopped. Shook her head. “Tell him. Tomorrow. Or you’ll burst from holding it all in.”
Lucinda left Cat’s comment be. It wasn’t the first time Cat had tried to convince her Angus expected too much. She’d learned to agree to disagree.
She’d been an exhausted, inexperienced mother of a toddler who had no clue if she could do the job, much less commit to the hours required, when she’d interviewed to work for him. But he’d seen something in her nevertheless. Chutzpah, he’d said. A raging desire to pull herself up by the bootstraps that he understood.
He expected her to work hard, but he worked harder. And he’d never made her feel as if he took her for granted. Despite all she’d given up in order to work with him—time with her family, romantic relationships…
She shook her head and settled deeper into the chair.
“What ifs” were never worth the time spent dwelling on them. Life was good. Her family was healthy and happy. She loved her job. She had the security that came with having a roof over her head. What more could she want?
A devilish little voice whispered into her ear. Love. Intimacy. Romance. Someone who puts your needs first.
Hence the dirty weekend.
When her phone buzzed in her pocket, she found herself unsurprised to find a message from Angus.
She glanced at Cat, only to find her back typing at her ancient laptop.
The message asked if she was keen to start watching the final season of Warlock Academy on Netflix—a decade-old schlocky, supernatural teen drama they were both obsessed with. Another part of her job description—find TV shows just soapy enough to engage Angus and brain-numbing enough to let his active mind slow down so he could fall asleep at a reasonable hour.
She messaged back.
You bet.
Then she grabbed the remote, changed the channel, poked her tongue out at Cat when her sister groaned and settled in to watch teenaged witches and demons battle it out at a high school football match.
Though she kept shifting in her seat, unable to find a comfy spot.
For there was no denying that if she had to choose between her upcoming weekend away, with a handsome, eligible doctor who’d made it all too clear how much he liked her, or snuggling at home watching TV with a man who wasn’t even in the room, she’d choose the latter. Every time.
Worse, this was the first time admitting as much actually unnerved her.
Cat was right about one thing. Something had to give.
CHAPTER TWO
ANGUS LEANT BACK in his office chair, finger tapping against his lips as he looked over the impressive wall pinned with striking images, word clusters and thought clouds framing the penultimate drafts of the Remède rebranding that the graphics team had moved into his office earlier that morning.
Louis Fournier, the venerable president of the Remède cosmetics company, was just outside, leaning over Lucinda’s desk.
Angus didn’t need to see Lucinda’s face. From the way she sat forward in her chair, chin resting on her palm, chair swinging from side to side, it was clear she was flirting her heart out.
Angus felt the smile start in his throat before it even reached his mouth. Atta girl.
Fitz’s assistant—Velma—was built like a German tank with the accent to match. She was stern, efficient and ferociously protective of her charge. Fitz claimed he couldn’t be trusted with anyone more tempting under his nose all day long. Everyone knew he adored Velma as much as Velma doted on him.
Charlie’s new right hand—Kumar—was only slightly more human than Charlie. But, as work mates, they fit together like two pieces of a puzzle no one else understood.
In fact, there was not one single staff member at the Big Picture Group who was carried by someone else. Fitz for all his insouciance, was a ruthless recruiter. They ran a seriously tight ship.
And yet none of them held a candle to Lucinda.
The way she went about things was instinctive. And tenacious. She knew when to be brusque, when to be dulcet, when to be straight down the line and when to bewitch until she had even the most difficult clients eating out of her hand in a matter of minutes.
She was out there right now, wearing Remède’s Someday perfume. He’d seen it on her desk about an hour earlier. There was a story there, about her parents, both gone long before he’d met her. Lucinda kept a bottle in a drawer as a reminder of them, but she only pulled it out when Louis was on his way.
As if she felt his thoughts, Lucinda turned to look over her shoulder, the floppy frills at her collar framing her face, her long, dark hair swinging, her red lips curled into a half-smile.
The crack of the glass door created a slight distortion. He shifted slightly so he could see her whole face. It was a good face. Candid, spirited, empirically lovely and as familiar to him as his own.
A pair of small lines criss-crossed above her nose. A rare indicator of indecision.
Perhaps rare was the wrong word, for the criss-cross of lines over her nose had shown up more and more over the past weeks. Then there was that new lipstick. Darker, glossier than usual. She’d cut sugar from her coffee. Added infinitesimal pauses before each sentence. All of which, in Angus’s mind, spoke to restlessness. To a change in the air.
And he was not a man who liked change.
She lifted a single eyebrow in question. Ready?
It took him a moment to remember what he was meant to be ready for.
Louis Fournier. Remède. Saving his old friend’s business. He nodded curtly.
The criss-cross above her nose flickered off and on before she turned back to finish up with Louis.
Angus breathed out hard and rolled his shoulders.
His instinct for branding came from the ability to tap into the greater collective human subconscious. To mine people’s baser urges in order to encourage—no, demand—that they look to his clients to fulfil those needs.
Tapping into Lucinda’s baser needs to find out what was going on in her subconscious was not something he had any intention of doing.
Whatever was going on with Lucinda did not impact on her work. It would pass. Everything did. Eventually. And, if not, he’d drag it out of her when he had the Remède account off his plate.
Angus pressed out of his chair and moved to look over the mood wall one last time to make sure nothing had been missed. For nothing was ever perfect. Not for him. There were always improvements to make.
A childhood spent being told that he was a mistake by the procession of men in his mother’s life, a blight, in the way, had not been pleasant. But there was no doubt his burning need to prove them wrong was the root of his success. The reason he never stopped striving to do better, to be better, to reach for more.
Without them would he have been standing there in his huge corner office? Would he have had the gumption to land Louis Fournier as a client? As a mentor? As a friend?
He heard Lucinda’s laughter from beyond the glass wall and he turned away from the mood board. She’d pinch him if she heard him speak that way about the business. Literally. She’d growl at him to “chillax”. To appreciate all he’d accomplished. To enjoy the spoils.