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‘Are they still open?’
‘No, they closed at five.’
‘Do you need me to take you anywhere?’
‘I don’t know. Let me ring Henry and see what he wants.’
The call to her brother connected immediately.
‘Estelle? You need to get over here. Now. Dad’s gone and done something catastrophically stupid.’
‘What?’
‘He’s invited the Hunter-Savages for dinner. They’re arriving in the next five minutes.’
14
Dropping down a gear, James pressed on the accelerator pedal and the Ferrari shot forward. Swerving across the middle lane into the inside one, he undertook the morons holding him up, then back across to the outside lane of the M4 heading east.
After the councillors had refused to see reason, he wanted to get as far away from Somerset, and Estelle, as possible. He could have gone north, but instead, like a homing pigeon, got on the motorway towards London.
What on earth had Estelle been on about, accusing him of horn-dogging his way across the county? If only. It had been fifteen months since he’d last had sex and it felt like fifteen years.
His stomach tensed as he remembered the conversation Estelle had overheard. Fuck. He’d distanced himself completely from his former colleagues at Conqueror. None of them knew why he’d left, and he wanted to keep it that way. But if anyone could help him find a way back to his London life, it was the well-connected Sebastian Mayfield.
So, on the phone, he’d slipped back into the skin of an alpha City-boy. It had been a persona he’d crafted and honed since the age of eight, and the crude banter was second nature. Most of the time he didn’t think twice about it, but around his family, or women, he left it at the door like a dirty coat.
Swallowing a swell of nausea, he relived what Estelle had heard him say. Her car hadn’t been in the drive that morning, so he’d had no idea she was in the building. He knew full well he’d sounded like an arsehole. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t meant any of it or that the words had sounded bitter in his mouth. He’d said them and she’d heard them. How did he come back from that?
And if that wasn’t bad enough, Max had detonated two hate bombs that morning. The first by retrieving the CVs from the bin and giving them to Estelle. And the second by not informing either of them of the meeting with the licensing committee, then bringing the councillors in for front row seats to their argument.
Fucker.
Hands clenched around the leather steering wheel, James’s right foot itched to slam to the floor. He forced it to remain still as the average speed check signs appeared by the side of the road. Screw smart motorways. What a waste of a high-performance car.
Signalling left, he pulled onto the slip road for a service station. He needed coffee, and he needed to think.
Two hours later, James was parked up outside his London flat and no closer to a solution. Even if he walked away from the festival, and his parents, he couldn’t come back here. Until his tenants’ lease was up, he had nowhere to live, and even if he found somewhere to crash, he had no job prospects.
Flicking through the contacts on his phone, he assessed each one for potential. There was no time to retrain, so he’d need a job he could wing. Sales? That he could do. But what? And where?
And even if he stayed in Somerset and tried to save the festival, surely it was now dead in the water? James hadn’t spent much time there, but he knew how small-minded and parochial people could be. The councillors had heard him slagging off their home county. That was on par with telling them their children were ugly or deliberately running over their cat.
Getting out of the car, he started down the busy street, weaving around people shouting into their phones, breathing in the polluted air as if it were perfume, and letting the sounds of sirens soothe his frayed nerves. His stomach growled, but he couldn’t go to one of his usual haunts. He didn’t want to be seen, nor have to field questions he couldn’t give an honest answer to.
He found a pub he’d never been to before, ordered food and a beer, then sat at the back to try and work out what to do.
By mid-afternoon, every idea he’d scrawled on the back of a napkin had been crossed out. Estelle still hadn’t given him her mobile number, so he couldn’t even call her to attempt to make amends.
He fired off an email.
From: James Hunter-Savage
To: Estelle Foxbrooke
Subject: Moving forward (again)
Estelle,
