After the One, Cass Lester [top romance novels .txt] 📗

for them on her phone, and now there they stood, forever smiling and radiating happiness, raising glasses of fizz to the camera.

What the hell am I going to do? she asked Josh silently. He continued to beam broadly at her, which wasn’t much help frankly, so she picked up the landline on her desk and called Tara.

The Reception of the Avalon Indulgence Spa and Conference Centre, where Tara worked, was, in Tara’s humble opinion, grotesquely pretentious. Vast, overly ornate gilt mirrors posed against garish purple-and-black flocked walls, and enormous cream leather sofas, with cheap gold fittings, lounged on a mock-marble tiled floor.

On duty, sitting behind the massive cream faux-leather covered desk, Tara heard her mobile ringing in her handbag. Technically, she wasn’t meant to take personal calls on Reception, but at this precise moment, her pimply young line manager was leaning over her shoulder scrutinising her screen minutely, or rather insultingly, to check Tara’s ability to input the most basic customer details into a bog-standard spreadsheet. So she just couldn’t resist. Not long out of university, with a smart new suit and a shiny new Business Studies degree, Tara’s boss had the leadership skills of a minor dictator, the people skills of a sociopath and the mental capacity of a bread-maker. He took himself very seriously, which was interesting in itself, because nobody else did.

Taking pleasure in flouting the petty authority he so enjoyed wielding over her, Tara picked up her bag and took her phone out with a flourish.

‘No private calls on duty,’ he said, literally wagging his finger at her.

‘Unless it’s an emergency,’ she reminded him, with a sickly-sweet smile. A glance at the screen revealed a number she didn’t know. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to take this. It’s my daughter’s school,’ she lied.

Her manager hovered nearby, blatantly trying to listen to her call, undoubtedly to check if it really was an emergency, but all he heard was Tara saying, ‘What!’, followed by ‘When?’, and then, ‘What do you mean as of now?’, and finally, ‘Don’t panic, I’m coming round straight after work.’

Chapter Two

It was just after four when Tara pitched up at the bottom of the concrete steps leading down to Charley’s garden flat.

‘Sorry, I had to pick Monnie up and find someone to take her to Brownies,’ she said, pausing in the doorway long enough to give Charley a hug. Following her friend through to the kitchen, she presented her with a Wild Fig and Vanilla scented candle, because she never arrived empty-handed, and then she fished a chilled bottle of Prosecco out of her tote bag.

‘Thanks, but I’m not exactly celebrating!’ laughed Charley.

‘So?’ Tara retorted, who had an unshakable belief in the restorative qualities of a bottle of fizz. Well, they both did. ‘Never underestimate the power of Prosecco’ was their maxim. ‘And, anyhow, you should be,’ said Tara, helping herself to the flutes from the cupboard before turning to Charley and adding, ‘You didn’t even like your job.’

‘True,’ admitted Charley, ‘but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want it.’

It was no secret Charley had only taken the job in order to move to Bristol and live with Josh. At the time it was meant to be temporary, so that she could pay her share of the mortgage and the bills until she could find something better. And then afterwards, after Josh died, Charley had stayed put because it was safe, secure.

Tara opened the bottle with a satisfying phup! and poured the wine with an even more satisfying fizzzzzz. Handing Charley a foaming glass she headed into the living room, where they both sat on the sofa, kicked off their shoes and put their feet on the coffee table in one well-rehearsed, synchronised move.

‘You were wasted there and you know it.’ Tara raised a challenging eyebrow at Charley, defying her to contradict her. ‘This is the fates telling you it’s time to move on, find something better.’

‘It’s not the moving on that worries me, it’s the moving out I’m trying to avoid,’ replied Charley. ‘There’s the slight issue of the bills, and the even bigger issue of the mortgage!’

Tara waved a dismissive hand at Charley’s problems. ‘You’ll easily find something else,’ she said, taking a slurp of her Prosecco. ‘Seriously, don’t rush into the first job that comes up, Charley. Look around.’

‘That’s easy for you to say. You’ve got good old Baz supporting you; I haven’t got a good old anyone supporting me.’

Tara looked at her over the top of her glass. It was unlike Charley to make a comment like that, she wasn’t someone who begrudged another’s good fortune, or harped on her own misfortune, for that matter. Chalking it up to Charley feeling a bit low, Tara deployed her usual rallying tactic. ‘Come on, you! Look on the bright side! You’re getting a redundancy payout, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then this is a brilliant opportunity to do something else. Something you really want to do.’

‘What, like you do?’ said Charley sarcastically, and Tara felt like walloping her with a cushion.

‘No! Actually, yes! I hate my sodding job, you know I do. But it’s mornings only, term-time, and it fits round Monnie, so I am doing what I really want to do.’

Charley raised her eyebrows.

Tara ignored the implied jibe and persisted. ‘If you could do anything you wanted, anything at all, what would you do?’

Charley watched the bubbles fizzing upwards in her drink. Anything at all? she asked herself. Well, apart from turn the clock back…

Four years ago today, had been Josh’s last birthday. It had fallen on a Saturday and she’d taken him breakfast in bed – eggs, bacon, toast, fried tomatoes, mushrooms, the full works. He’d sat up in bed all tousled-haired, and as excited as a big kid.

‘I do not deserve you, Mrs Taylor!’

Charley had clambered onto the bed and sat cross-legged next to him, and they’d shared the plateful, taking it in turns to eat off Josh’s fork. When they’d finished, he’d dumped the tray on the floor and pulled