Page 76 of The Work Husband

‘Men like him don’t see women as friends.’ Ava’s voice was harsh, her eyes as cold and still as pebbles in a stream. ‘I don’t think they even see us as people.’

‘I don’t think they do either,’ I admitted. I remembered the dead birds Jamie had dumped on my desk – not because he thought I’d want them but to provoke a reaction from me. Because he could. ‘Anyway. He and I went out after work. Just as mates, I thought. I thought he was comforting me because I was upset about Sam. But on the way home afterwards, he… he tried to kiss me. Well, he did kiss me.’

‘And you didn’t want him to?’

‘It took me totally by surprise. My back was against a wall, and he was kind of holding my hair’ – Ava winced – ‘while he kissed me. That was all that happened. He didn’t hurt me – it was a misunderstanding, really. I’m fine. But Sam’s friend Jared saw us, and he told Sam, and Sam’s like, “So it wasn’t a stupid game after all.” And now it’s all over between me and Sam. I wanted you to know that it’s not because of you. It’s because of Jamie. And me, obviously.’

Ava was still looking at me. She’d been listening intently as I told my sad little story, but her eyes were somehow far away.

I was about to carry on – maybe to ask her to intervene with Sam, or to look after him, or perhaps just to thank her for her time and say I hoped she enjoyed her show. But I didn’t say anything because I heard footsteps behind me and breathed in a waft of a familiar fragrance.

It was the same violet scent Jamie always wore.

I shivered, even though there was no need for me to be afraid. I was in a public place. I was perfectly safe. Jamie hadn’t hurt me like Ava had been hurt, and I had no reason to think he ever would. But the idea that he might be here, overhearing my conversation with Ava, watching us, was deeply unsettling.

I couldn’t help looking around. Behind me was an elderly man in a smart suit and a bright yellow tie patterned with parrots. His partner was holding his hand – another man in a suit, his paired with a lilac cravat. One of them was wearing the same cologne Jamie used – it was by Le Labo, he’d told me once.

It wasn’t Jamie at all.

I turned back to Ava, giggling with relief. ‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry. You must’ve thought I’d seen a ghost. It was that smell. I thought he might be here, and it freaked me out.’

Then I realised that Ava, too, looked like she’d seen a ghost.

‘This Jamie,’ she said slowly. ‘Jamie Baldwin. Do you happen to have a picture of him anywhere?’

Picking up my phone, I realised my hands were slick with sweat. I navigated to the Devereaux Partners’ Instagram feed and found the photo Jamie had taken of him and me outside Hadleigh Hall, the sun shining on our faces, the elegant facade of the house behind us. Silently, I slid my phone across the table to Ava.

Her face was white and set as she looked at it.

‘That’s him,’ she said. ‘Perry’s friend Jamie, who was in the club with us that night. I recognised that cologne too. And… Georgia, he… he held me by my hair too. I cut it all off, afterwards.’

THIRTY-EIGHT

I was almost home when my phone rang.

I debated not answering it – I was exhausted, and all I wanted was to make myself some toast and fall into bed, possibly via a hot bath.

But then I thought it could be Sam.

Sam rarely called me; he almost always texted, unless it was some kind of emergency. But that was when we were together, speaking and seeing each other every day. When we were a couple. Now that we weren’t, the rules of engagement might have changed.

I snatched my phone out of my bag and saw with sinking disappointment that the name on the screen wasn’t Sam’s.

It was my mother’s.

She, too, rarely called me – in fact, we rarely contacted each other at all unless it was to arrange one of our occasional tense, duty-driven meet-ups. It was too early for her to make plans for Christmas – plans I’d intended to avoid by being away on holiday somewhere with Sam. Now, I wouldn’t have that excuse. My birthday was in March, so she definitely couldn’t be calling about that, and hers had passed in July, when I’d last visited her.

God. Maybe something was wrong. Perhaps she was ill or had had some kind of accident. Reluctantly, my stomach twisting with anxiety and guilt, I answered the call.

‘Gigi.’ She said my name and then nothing more, but I could hear her breathing, fast and ragged.

‘Mum? Are you all right? Has something happened?’

‘I need to see you,’ she gasped.

To see me? It was almost eight o’clock on a Wednesday evening. Not late, obviously, but by the time I’d got across London to Bayswater and then back, it would be.

‘Of course,’ I said brightly. ‘That would be lovely. Shall we make a plan for tomorrow, maybe? Or the weekend? We could have lunch together in town.’