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

funnily enough, wasn’t anywhere near as reassuring a statement as Nisha meant it to be.

A few days later, Charley sat at the kitchen table, drawing up the list of Prosecco goodies to buy for the night. She supposed she could just base it on last year’s list, which she could pretty much remember, and simply multiply everything by ten, like Nisha had said. Except that she always bought one or two more expensive items, like a reed diffuser or a cushion with a Prosecco slogan on it, to raise the standard on the stall, as it were, and the thought of lashing out on ten of the higher-priced items seemed way riskier than just buying a couple.

She was pondering this with Pam, when Tara arrived unannounced, in the middle of the afternoon, bearing a bottle of fizz.

‘To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?’ asked Charley, taking the bottle through to the kitchen.

‘I’ve handed in my notice!’ Tara dropped her bombshell, utterly flabbergasting Pam and Charley, before calmly helping herself to the glasses from the kitchen cupboards.

‘Woohoo, that’s fantastic news!’ exclaimed Charley, once she’d recovered.

Tara had already popped the cork from the fizz and was pouring it.

‘What happened?’ Pam put her hand out for the foaming flute Tara held out to her.

‘Yes, what made you finally quit?’ demanded Charley.

‘It was the bunting,’ replied Tara evenly.

‘The bunting?’ repeated Charley, before exchanging an incredulous look with Pam.

‘Yup. After thirteen months and two weeks of putting up with working for that moron of a manager, no, make that a major-moron of a micro-manager, it was when he refused to lend us some bunting for the Prosecco Night that I finally flipped.’ She took a slug of her drink, and then continued. ‘He was just so sodding pompous and petty about it!’

And she proceeded to relate the conversation to them, adopting a ridiculously haughty, nasal tone to voice the words of her manager. A tone which Charley judged, having met him, as surprisingly accurate. ‘He said to me, “I can’t possibly authorise the lending of Avalon equipment to a private function off the premises. Any resulting health-and-safety issue would compromise our corporate responsibility and invalidate our liability insurance.” Honestly, he was so full of himself I thought he was going to spontaneously combust.

‘“It’s a string of bunting, for crying out loud,” I told him. “It’s not like I’m asking to borrow a tanning machine or a massage couch.” So then he got on his high horse and said, “It’s the principle that matters, and it’s completely against company policy.” So I said, “In that case, I quit!” Which wiped the smug look off his face, I can tell you. But then he sneered at me, literally sneered, and drawled in that nauseating voice of his, “You’re leaving because I won’t let you borrow some bunting?”

‘And I thought, no, I’m leaving because you are a complete and utter prat with the empathetic capacity of an egg cup, and the mental ability of a dung beetle, and if I have to spend any more time working with you I will strangle you, slowly, with your own ridiculous ‘university’ tie. And, because you don’t bloody well deserve me!’

Charley laughed out loud. ‘So, did you tell him that?’ she asked. She wouldn’t have put it past Tara for a second.

‘No. I decided to leave that until my very last day. It’ll be my parting shot. Something to look forward to!’

‘Have you told Baz?’ Pam wanted to know.

‘Yes, I called him immediately.’

‘What did he say?’

‘About bloody time,’ replied Tara, and Charley burst out laughing.

‘Congratulations!’ Pam raised her glass.

‘Yes, congratulations!’ echoed Charley, as all three of them clinked glasses.

‘So, what are you going to do now?’ asked Pam, once they’d drifted into the living room to settle on the sofa in a line, all three of them kicking off their shoes and putting their feet on the coffee table in one, well-rehearsed, synchronised move, with Charley in the middle.

‘Well…’ Tara paused for effect, before announcing grandly, ‘I’ve decided to work with Charley, in the shop!’

Charley’s glass paused in mid-sip. She loved Tara to death, but she wasn’t at all sure about actually working with her. How would that pan out? Tara could be pretty forceful. You could probably measure her on the Beaufort scale and, like a full-on gale, it was hard to stand up to her.

Fortunately, the bigger issue wasn’t whether she wanted Tara working with her, but whether she could afford it. Sharing the profits hadn’t been factored into her business plan, which justified her saying, ‘I’d love it, you know I would, but I’m just not sure the shop is going to make that much money.’

‘Oh, I don’t need any wages,’ Tara said, waving a careless hand and dismissing any objections, in her usual way. ‘I’m not doing it for the money… I’m doing it for fun.’

Ah, thought Charley, momentarily at a loss as to how to turn Tara’s offer down without offending her. She took another slurp of her drink to buy her some thinking time and, as the fizz frothed in her mouth, the brief image of them larking around in the shop together flicked into her mind. It was undoubtedly more appealing than the thought of being stuck in the shop on her own all the time. And then she remembered that it was Ricky telling her how hard it was to run a shop on your own that had put her off renting the shop initially. So she decided to ignore her reservations and said, ‘Well, it’d definitely be a laugh!’

Tara took it as a yes, and the two of them clinked glasses to seal the deal.

‘I’ve got to work my notice. A month. Oh, deep joy,’ Tara said flatly. ‘But is there anything I can be doing to help now? I’ve farmed Monnie out to a mate’s on a playdate this afternoon. I’m all yours until supper time.’

‘In that case, actually, yes,’ said Charley, putting down her glass on the coffee table. ‘You