A Part of Me

CHAPTER 8

‘ER, HOUSTON? WE have a problem.’

The delicate issue of cohabitation was always going to have to be tackled at some point. This morning, that time had come. With my back to most of the office, I couldn’t see Sadie without swivelling my chair, so for nearly three hours, I hadn’t, locked in position like a stiff neck. Sadie had proven Phil wrong and had made it past the eleven-thirty benchmark, the time by which Phil had bet a fiver that Sadie would’ve cried off sick again.

Hannah was admiring a crisp five-pound note, Blu-tacked to her monitor. It was a momentous occasion that saw Phil lose a bet. One small step for Hannah, but a giant leap for office junior-kind.

Phil’s chair squeaked again. Hers hadn’t stopped swivelling all morning. It wasn’t yet noon and so far, her hawkish monitoring of Sadie’s end of the office had produced a near constant commentary of whispers and tuts.

‘Ame!’ she muttered for the umpteenth time. I carried on with the lighting plan the contractors were patiently waiting on. I didn’t need to know what Sadie was doing now. ‘It’s work-related, I promise. You really need to deal with this before Adrian does.’

That wasn’t necessarily good to hear either. ‘Don’t tell me the shop-fitters are working from superseded drawings again?’ Someone was in trouble if they were. I skipped around the workstation to Phil’s desk. Open on the screen was Phil’s cc’d copy of the email I’d sent to Rohan Bywater.

‘What about it?’ I asked. Phil gave me a few more seconds to work out what the problem was. ‘I had to give him your details, Phil, because I can’t work with him! The guy’s a big kid. Please be the point of contact on this if he takes us on?’

Phil pursed her lips as if about to whistle through them. ‘Er, I don’t think he’s going to take us on, Ame.’

Off the back of Phil’s expression, I tried to remember the figure I’d ended up quoting him. ‘I gave him a second option on the fees.’ I shrugged. It wasn’t like I’d priced him out of using Cyan completely.

‘The fees? Amy! I didn’t get as far as the attachments! I’ve just scrolled down the email to get to them and, and …’ Phil actually appeared lost for words. ‘Are you mad?’ She jabbed a pen at her monitor. ‘Read,’ she instructed. I skimmed over the email I’d hastily sent the night before, mumbling through the text.

Dear Mr Bywater,

Further to our earlier conversation, please find the attached fee proposal outlining our costs for the interior redesign of Briddleton Mill House, areas as specified on the accompanying plan. We have drafted two fee options for your consideration, as attached.

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact my colleague, Philippa Penrose, on the above number.

Best Regards,

Amy Alwood

It was only a little buck-passing. It usually took a lot more to get Phil’s knickers in a twist. ‘I don’t see the problem? It’s polite, professional …’ I joked.

Phil had that rarest of gifts, the ability to bestow a full-bodied smile that held absolutely no warmth to it. ‘Scroll down the page, Miss Polite Professional,’ she instructed.

I exhaled and began scrolling through the screen. Beneath my message, a large blank space stretched out several lines further down the screen. I carried on moving down through the whiteness, until that name appeared again.

Bywater,

I’d love to see someone kick your arse with your own peg leg.

A whoosh of breath rushed into my lungs. It wasn’t unlike a scene from Indiana Jones when someone opens the crypt and the air gets sucked away before all hell breaks loose. ‘Oh shit! Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!’

Phil sat open-mouthed. ‘You got that right. Why the hell did you write that on the end of a client’s email?’

I stared panic-stricken at the screen, willing the words in front of me to change. They didn’t. Well, that was that then. I slapped a hand against my stupid forehead. ‘Adrian is going to hit the roof. He’s going to sack me. I’ve just given him the perfect excuse to get rid—’

‘Calm down,’ Phil soothed. ‘You didn’t copy Adrian in on it. You’re just gonna have to call this guy up, quick, and, er …’

‘And what, Phil? Apologise for insulting him? Or for being so professionally inept that I didn’t check my own email before hitting SEND?’ I slumped into the free chair beside Phil, covering my face with my hands. ‘I must have pressed the return button, instead of delete. I moved the words out of view,’ I said shakily. I began to tap the heels of my hands against my forehead. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid!’

*

My desk phone began ringing out behind us. We all ignored it. All morning I’d wished for something, anything, to take my mind off Sadie sitting a few yards further down the office, flanked by her own team of whispering chair-swivellers. Now I had it. I was going to lose my job. I’d managed to pluck up the guts to come back here, and now I was going to have to explain to Anna anyway that I’d been sacked for abusing a guy with only one leg.

The ringing at my phone cut out, promptly replaced by a tinnier ringing at Hannah’s desk.

‘Hannah speaking?’ Hannah turned in her chair to face me. ‘Yep, she’s just talking to Phil.’ Hannah’s eyes widened. ‘Hang on a sec.’ She covered over the mouthpiece. ‘Ally’s got Mr Bywater on the reception phone. He’s asking to be put through to you.’

I stood bolt upright. ‘Now?’ I yelped.

‘Uh-oh.’ Phil grimaced.

Hannah was drawn back to her phone. ‘Oh … okay.’ She covered the mouthpiece again. ‘She’s putting him through now!’ she whispered, thrusting the receiver at arm’s length towards me with an apologetic frown. My arms were flapping hysterically, ferociously pointing a finger at Hannah, pleading with her to take the call. What do I say? Hannah mouthed, but it was too late. ‘Er, hello, Mr Bywater …’

My silent gesticulations continued as Hannah trod water for me. She quickly caught the gist of all the arm-flapping. I was out of the office. No, I was out of the office ill. I’d call him back.

‘No, Mr Bywater, it’s Hannah. We met yesterday. I’m afraid she’s not currently in the office, she’s … on site.’

Ill, Hannah! You should’ve said I was ill, with some horrible disease of the mind!

‘Can I take a message and get her to call you back as soon as she’s in?’ I winced at the thought of having to call him eventually. ‘Oh,’ Hannah said, contemplatively. ‘Er, okay?’ I watched her return the phone to its base.

Phil looked at me, then Hannah. ‘Well? What did he say?’

‘Nothing.’ Hannah said sheepishly. ‘He, er, he didn’t say anything.’

‘What?’ Phil demanded. ‘What the hell was he calling for then?’

Hannah began to flush. There was something she wasn’t saying. ‘What do you mean, he didn’t say anything, Hannah?’ I asked, already feeling a resurgence of Bywater-related apprehension.

Hannah looked down the office nervously. ‘Adrian started talking to him and he ended the call.’

‘Rohan Bywater is with Adrian?’ I asked, puzzled. ‘Adrian Espley?’ Hannah looked positively flustered now, darting uncertain eyes to Phil, then back to me again. The flush in her cheeks had deepened to an even cherry-red by the time she looked over to where Adrian’s hulking frame loomed into the far end of the studio. At first, I didn’t recognise the client beside him. His tan seemed not quite so deep, his shoulders bigger set inside the crisp lines of a slate-grey suit.

‘Shit, indeed,’ Phil muttered ominously.

Rohan Bywater’s dark mussed hair was no different, but teamed with stylish formal wear it came off as a deliberate trend, rather than the messy crop he’d sported yesterday. I felt as though somebody had just plunged a hand into my chest cavity and squeezed what it found lying around in there. Dropping into a crouch wasn’t a conscious move, but there I suddenly was, seeking refuge between Hannah and Phil’s legs.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Phil demanded.

I felt the colour drain from my face. ‘Hannah’s just told him I’m out of the office!’ I cringed.

‘You told me to say that!’ Hannah whispered defensively.

‘I know, I know!’

‘Yeah, don’t listen to her, Hannah. She kicks people and tells lies,’ Phil quipped. I’d have jabbed her in the leg had I not have been in the latter throes of a meltdown. ‘Holy hotbuns, Batman!’ Phil whispered excitedly. ‘He did not look like that when he was last in here.’

‘Flipping heck!’ Hannah agreed. ‘He looks better than he did on his bike too.’

I was about to succumb to a full-on panic attack. ‘Phil! What am I gonna do?’ Phil cocked an eyebrow and looked down over me. ‘Under the desk?’ She shrugged. Phil rolled her chair back a little, allowing me the option of shuffling into the alcove. For a second, I actually considered it.

‘And here they are!’ boomed Adrian, coming to a stand still between the backs of Hannah and Phil’s chairs. ‘Charlie’s Angels.’ I scrunched my eyes closed. Adrian could be like an embarrassing uncle at times. Like I needed any help with the embarrassment right now. ‘Is that you, down there, Alwood?’ he called, a forced joviality in his voice.

Phil cleared her throat. ‘You found that earring yet, Ame?’ she asked nonchalantly. I quickly pulled the stud from my lobe before wriggling backside first out of my inadequate hidey hole.

‘Found it.’ I smiled gingerly, holding the stud up in my fingers.

Hannah graduated from cherry-red to scarlet. ‘Oh … there you are, Amy!’ she tried. Phil rolled her eyes.

I tried not to look, but some part of me actually hoped there would be something of Bywater’s perpetual smile on his lips. I glanced up at him. His face was more angular when it was serious. His features statuesque and solemn, as if they should be made of marble, not flesh. I think I preferred the smile.

‘Amy, do you have a minute? In the boardroom?’ Adrian moved off towards the meeting room without my answer. Rohan Bywater watched me get to my feet. ‘Local site visit, was it?’ He nodded towards the boardroom.

‘Shall we?’ He didn’t wait for my answer either.

The look on Phil’s face said it all. See you on the other side … maybe.

Why had I even come back to work again? I mouthed a few expletives to myself and followed the two men into the boardroom.

Adrian was wrestling with the window blinds, trying to lessen the light streaming into the conference room when I walked in after them. Rohan Bywater moved beside me, the scent of his skin reaching me just before his voice did. ‘Cheer up, you look like someone’s about to get their arse kicked.’

I swept my skirt underneath myself and slipped into one of the chairs, waiting for the inevitable.

‘Right,’ Adrian started, ‘fantastic news. Mr Bywater is happy with your fee proposal, Amy – thanks for organising that so efficiently – and would like you to get started.’

What?

I checked Adrian’s expression. He always exuded elation after securing a new client. Bywater’s face was harder to read.

‘The senior design-led option,’ Bywater added. ‘That would be you, right?’

I tried not to grimace as I attempted to piece it all together. That email was beyond offensive. ‘You’re hiring me? As project leader?’

Bywater remained cool in his chair, eyes piercing against his darker features. ‘I read through your email last night. Top to bottom,’ he added carefully, ‘and I can tell I’ll be in safe hands.’ Bywater watched my hand move up towards my ear. I stopped myself and sat on it instead.

‘And you’d be right, Mr Bywater. Amy’s one of our best.’ Adrian sounded like an over-proud parent.

I tried not to squirm in my seat as Bywater fished to make eye contact. ‘I can see why you hold her in such high regard, Adrian. Professional, conscientious … I’m excited to get going,’ he said coolly.

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