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“No I don’t,” he gritted out, looking distraught. “I don’t know what it’s like.”
“The thing is, Hugo, it wasn’t right, and it wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault, and the fact that people knew what you were going through isn’t because you failed in some way. You were silently crying out for help, yet you wouldn’t accept it from anyone, but that’s the way it goes. My mum was the same. My dad was a bastard, and she didn’t ask anyone for help until it was too late and he snapped. She did her best because she didn’t want me to grow up without a dad and thought leaving would be failure. She didn’t accept until years later that it wasn’t her fault, and she wasn’t a failure. She was a success, a massive, bloody brilliant success. And look at you. Look at you, Hugo.”
“What?” he whispered. He’d pulled away from me and was avoiding my gaze. I gently took his hands in mine.
“You’re amazing,” I said. “You’re managing to eat—all kinds of things. You’re brilliant at your job. And people adore you. And you have me. How lucky am I? I get to be with you. I get to go sleep in that incredible, comfy bed you created—do you have any idea how amazing it is to crawl into that bed knowing you’re right there beside me? I get to wake up with you in my arms, and I get to hug you and kiss you and spend time with you. You make me happy. You really do. We talk and we laugh and we…we are…we’re just us. I’ve never ever had this with anyone. You have no idea how amazing it is to have you in my life.”
I shook my head because now? Now I was out of words and the only question left to answer was the one he’d meant in the first place.
“I knew when you clearly hated my cheesecake but still tried to eat it. I knew when you left because my heart broke. Then you came back, and I promised myself I would try harder, that I would be everything you needed me to be. I just fell in love with you, and it made no sense. I can’t explain it. But you made me…you just…you’re mine, and I’m yours and, I don’t know. I met you and I knew.”
“Can we go to bed now?” he asked softly.
“Absolutely.”
“Thank you.”
Then he put his hands around my face, rose up on his toes and gently kissed me.
Hugo
Aday later, I went back to work feeling like a different person, and not in a good way. Ben’s words played on my mind like waterboarding torture, despite us having spent the entire Sunday together. We’d had a great weekend, quietly existing in the same space, cooking small meals and talking about nothing. The heaviness still hung in the air, and I couldn’t shift it. The fact that everyone had known, seen right through me, and I didn’t like it. Honestly, I was embarrassed as anything and wanted to hide instead of showing my face. Which, of course, I couldn’t sinceI was, as always, right there on the centre stage at work, manning my desk like a conductor of an orchestra, waving at the doormen, my phone constantly squeezed between my cheek and my shoulder, rubbish all over the floor instead of in the bin. I’d lost control and I couldn’t even stop long enough to fix it.
“Babe.”
Mabel flanked my shoulder, a bunch of papers in their hand.
“Two things. Conference luncheon has been expanded by bloody twenty-five people. Twenty-five, Hugo! Are they having a laugh? We don’t have the space, but we can’t say no, and it’s Ben’s day off, so Paul and Bertrand are in charge in there, and I think Paul’s having a heart attack of some kind over courgettes. Anyway, I’m having tables set up here in the lobby, and we’ll be serving lunch to half of bloody London, right here. I’m getting four more waiters in, but I’ll need you to keep an eye for me. You cool with that?”
“Cool,” I said as Mabel almost tripped over, trying to negotiate my rubbish. Insane. I was insane, and for the first time ever…
I looked down and wondered what the hell I was playing at.
“Secondly, babe?” They grabbed my arm, made me look at them, all gorgeous perfection. Mabel was stressed. We all were. Bloody hotel, bloody people and bloody lunches driving us all mad.
“It’s all good, Mabs,” I tried, but they just shook their head.
“You’re coming with me tonight. Meeting. Eight o clock. I’m picking you up in an Uber and we’re going. Domestic violence group. There’s no need for you to even open your mouth there, but you’re coming. I need to go. You need to go. Nothing is going to get better until we do.”
“Okay,” I whispered, no strength to argue. Besides, I knew they were right. It was time to grab this bloody life by the horns and start living it—for myself and for Ben too. Bloody Ben. I’d woken up with his chest hair in my face, and I’d lived to tell the tale. How he’d lost his top in the middle of the night was beyond me, but everything had been good. Weirdly good. I’d left him to sleep and come to work, where the anger and tightness in my chest was slowly easing even though working here wasn’t child’s play.
“Hugo!” Stewart, our head doorman, appeared in front of me, a droplet of sweat running down from under his hat. All the other doormen stuck with comfortable shoes and their basic suits, but Stewart was old school. Top hat, gloves, the works. He took himself far too seriously at times. “Tour bus just pulled up outside. We only have Tom on security, and he’s shitting himself.”
“Tour bus?” I scratched my head. Oh, fuck. “That’s tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow. Yes. Obviously not. Bloody Dieter from Blitz is out there on the pavement, and there will be mayhem in a minute.”
“Shit.” I grabbed my radio and set off for reception. We needed security out here now. I was pretty sure Dieter from Blitz had booked a suite of some kind and nothing, I meannothingwould be clean since we weren’t expecting the band to turn up until tomorrow. Someone had majorly fucked up.
“Finn,” I huffed into the radio as the man himself burst out into reception from the back. I gave him the quickest situation report ever.
“Shit,” he grunted.
I nodded. “That’s what I said.”
“Right, Hugo. Time to turn on the charm. Get the band in the lift. Take them to the rooftop bar—hopefully, it’s still empty—and give them whatever they want. Where the fuck is Claire?”
He shouted into his radio, and I shouted into mine, because where the fuckwasClaire and what the hell was Reuben playing at, taking a selfie with the entire Blitz band? There were two girls screaming their heads off behind them and we still had no security on the door, apart from this Tom, who was working his first ever shift. Fuck.
