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  I froze. My scalp tingled and unwanted images flashed through my mind.

  “You fucking bitch.” Nate grabbing me by my hair and pulling me across the kitchen; my feet sliding from under me as I scrambled to keep up with him to ease the tearing pain on my scalp; me whimpering – a pathetic high-pitched sound, which only made Nate pull harder until …

  “Mia, Mia!” Max’s urgent voice cut into my mind, pulling me out of the scene. I could still hear that whimpering, and after a moment I realised it was coming from me. It cut off as I pressed my lips together, breathing hard through my nose and forcing my body to calm down. Max was back across the sofa now, looking at me like I was an unexploded bomb. My hands went up to my face to push the hair that had fallen into my eyes behind my ears. They were shaking, and after a moment I realised I was shaking too. And I was cold again. So very, very cold.

  “Mia? I’m not sure what … Are you … are you okay?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice hoarse. He moved towards me and I flinched back into the arm of the sofa, causing him to rear back with his palms up like I had a contagious disease.

  “Did I … did I hurt you?” Max’s horrified expression made me want to sink down onto my knees and sob in frustration. What was wrong with me? “I don’t understand what … If I hurt you then–”

  “No,” I cut him off. “No, Max. You did nothing wrong. I kissed you and … listen, it’s me that’s in the wrong, not you. Can we …” I broke off and swallowed, squeezing my eyes shut as humiliation crawl up my spine. “Can we just forget that this happened?”

  He frowned and his hand went up to rub the back of his neck before pulling through his thick hair and down to the stubble on his face.

  “Mia, you freaked out. I’ve never seen owt like it. I … I’ve got to be honest it scared the shit out of me.”

  “I promise it won’t happen again,” I told him, my tone now almost fierce. I meant every word. What was I doing kissing my boss and then having a panic attack in his office? Didn’t I have enough problems without adding inappropriate behaviour at work into the mix?

  “Listen,” I stood up then backed away from the sofa to find my shoes, which I’d kicked off under Max’s desk earlier. “You don’t need me to finish the rest of the presentation. I’ll just get going and–”

  “I’ll call you a taxi,” Max said, his composure back and his bossiness along with it.

  “No,” I said, a little too sharply. He narrowed his eyes at me.

  “It’s late Mia. I’ve had two beers so I can’t drive you, but we can share a taxi.”

  Seeing as there was no place for Max to actually take me to, that was not going to happen.

  “You need to finish the presentation.”

  “I’m not letting you go home by yourself at this hour.” His mouth was set in a stubborn line and his hands were on his hips.

  “You are not taking me anywhere,” I said, my voice going as cold as I could make it. “It would make me feel very uncomfortable if you took me home. I’m sure that you want to maintain our professional relationship as much as I do. I should think that after this,” I swept my hand out to the sofa, “the last thing you would want to do is make me feel uncomfortable.”

  He blinked for a moment then recoiled from me like I’d slapped him. His expression hardened, and I told myself that was good – better that than concern for my safety and uncomfortable questions.

  “Fine,” he snapped, his face shutting down all expression to leave a blank mask where his unsettled expression had been before. “I wouldn’t want to make you feel any more uncomfortable than I already have.”

  I gave him a stiff nod and with jerky movements grabbed my backpack off the floor. Pausing at the door I looked behind me to see Max going back to his desk and settling in his chair again. His jaw was clenched tight.

  “Max, I–” I started then stopped when he looked up and scowled at me.

  “Enough, Mia,” he said in an angry tone then sighed. “Look, I’ve got a lot to do before tomorrow,” his tone had lost much of its anger now, replaced by a weariness that made my chest ache. “You don’t want to tell me owt that’s fine. I think it’s best if you just go home.”

  I nodded, but he’d already turned back to the computer screen. As I crossed the communal space I straightened my shoulders and blinked back the stinging I could feel behind my eyes. This was the reminder I needed that I had to be careful. I couldn’t let my guard down. The only person I could rely on was me.

  Chapter 8

  Painful and wonderful

  Mia

  “Why did they have to come?” Max grumbled to Verity. I stiffened in the backseat, but Yaz just rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him in the rear-view mirror.

  “We need help with the new BIM system,” Verity explained, again. “If something goes tits up Mia can swoop in and perform her magic.’

  “If we hadn’t updated the bloody presentation system we wouldn’t need any help.”

  “Yes, Max. We also would not have been shortlisted, would we?”

  I shrank back into the soft leather, trying to make myself as small as possible and looking out of the window to watch the countryside next to the M3 fly past. We were on the way to London to pitch for a massive eco housing project. At the last minute Verity had forced me into the car in case they ‘ballsed it up’ and needed me to ‘save their arses’. I hadn’t wanted to come any more than Max wanted me there. Panic had already set in about how I was going to get out of having, and therefore paying for, lunch once we got there. Verity had suggested they stop in at a little Italian place she knew in Covent Garden. I had been to Covent Garden, many times and had frequented way more expensive restaurants than just Verity’s little Italian. I wasn’t penniless then, far from it. But now, I didn’t have access to any of my old accounts. Nate had always managed the money, and the only account I had access to had been a joint one. After I emptied it on the day I left, I hadn’t dared access it again as he would have been able to see where I was making the transactions. Now the money I’d been relying on was dwindling. I needed to set up a new bank account but that was easier said than done when you didn’t have proof of address. I’d told Janet in accounts that I was having trouble with my bank account and she gave me part of my pay in cash. The maximum she could do was £250 and I didn’t want to waste any of that. It was so cold at the moment – I needed to try and stretch it out to stay in the small B&B I’d found until I could sort out the bloody bank account problem.

  “Fine, whatever,” Max grumbled and I tried not to take offence. I knew he didn’t want me there and I didn’t blame him. I wasn’t exactly a good representative of the company – unless too-thin, wannabe goths were now all the rage in the architecture industry.

  “And I’m hitching a lift to the big smoke, so suck it up, grumpy pants,” Yaz put in.

  “I thought you hated London,” Max muttered.

  “I do – too far from the sea. But I’m meeting up with Kira Lucas if you must know.”

  “Yeah, right,” he said. “Pull the other one.”

  “She is my friend, knob cheese.”

  Max snorted. “As if the wife of the Prime Minster would bother being mates with you.”

  “You know Kira Lucas?” I asked, my eyes going wide as I focused across the backseat at Yaz.

  “We’ve been friends for ages,” Yaz told me, giving Max a one finger salute when he snorted again. “We go to the same yoga retreats and her mum runs a Wiccan rally I go to every year. Kira and I have a lot in common actually.”

  “Right.” Max drew out the word. “Whatever you say. They’ve never actually been seen together.”

  “Bog off.”

  “Max, leave Yaz to her little fantasies,” Verity put in.

  “Hey!” Yaz said but V ignored her.

  “You’re just nervous,” she continued to Max in a patient voice.

  “I’ve never been nervous in my life,” Max scoffed and I saw Verity roll her eyes in
the rear-view mirror.

  Max might deny it, but evidence would suggest that he was a liar. He’d been pacing the floor all morning, double and then triple checking every last detail with any of the junior architects involved in the project. I’d seen him storm into Verity’s office around ten and start shouting about light wells and how they needed to redesign an entire wing of the project. Verity had let him rant away as usual.

  I’d been sweating by the time he finished his shouting and furious pacing. Aggression of any kind now seemed to make my right shoulder and ribs ache as well – some sort of weird response to the remembered trauma. Eventually, Verity managed to calm him down, convincing him that the light wells were fine and that it was too late to pull the original design. He’d grumbled all the way back to his own office. I caught the words, ‘should just pull it if it’s sub standard’ and ‘my reputation on the line’ and ‘should have never entered the bloody thing at all if it wasn’t right’.

  Over the last few weeks it had become apparent that Max was a perfectionist in the extreme and his own biggest critic. Whatever he was saying now, he was nervous about today. My presence in the situation and the tension between us after that kiss wasn’t helping either.

  We parked below the office building at our destination. Yaz shot off to meet Kira Lucas (or so she said – it was clear neither Max nor Verity believed her) and we made our way up to the offices. After an uncomfortable couple of minutes in the lift, we arrived at the top floor of the block and only had endure Max’s pacing for a short time before we were ushered through to a conference room. There was a panel of ten people sitting around the table awaiting the presentation. Verity did the introductions and most of the talking. I shrank into the background as much as possible, standing behind the tea trolley and wishing I could blend in with the stark white walls. As I scanned the room my eyes suddenly landed on a face I recognised, and my throat closed over. It was Nate’s business partner. With my luck I shouldn’t have been surprised, but London was a huge city. Did he really have to be in this meeting room in this building? I knew that there were a number of property developers interested in the project that Max and Verity were presenting, but Nate’s company had never been into eco-design before.

  I was barely recognisable as my former self, but when Adrian caught my eye there was a flicker of recognition in his expression, before a small frown of concentration formed in his forehead as if he was trying to place me. I looked down at my feet and let my hair fall forward to hide my face. But my heart was now hammering and I could feel a prickle of sweat at the back of my neck. Max had now taken over from Verity to describe the actual design. The model of the eco village was in front of him on the conference table and he was talking the group through it. He seemed to be in his element. Even though I knew nothing about architecture I could see that the vision he presented was incredible. And sustainable. Yaz had told me earlier that a zero carbon eco design on this scale was virtually unheard of.

  When he switched to the virtual tour of the buildings I could see a muscle in his jaw twitch as he tried to pull up the programme and project the images onto the wall. I linked my hands together in front of me and prayed. But, as per usual, my prayers fell on deaf ears. The man had a natural talent for buggering up any tech he came in contact with.

  “Mia,” his sharp voice brought my head up. He was scowling at me. No surprise there. “Can you sort this? Please?”

  I made myself step forward, focusing only on the computer in front of Max and trying to block out the rest of the room. I took a deep breath and let my fingers fly, sorting the programme out in seconds.

  “Thank you,” he said, genuine relief and gratitude in his tone when the images came to life on the wall. I nodded and started to pull back, but as I straightened my eyes caught on Adrian directly opposite. He was staring at me – that frown still marring his forehead.

  “Amelia?” Adrian asked. I jerked and my hand made contact with a cup of tea on the conference table. Like it was in slow motion I saw it lean to the side and then topple over before I could catch it. Brown liquid split over the table and onto the model, marring the crisp white lines and flowing through the miniature atrium Max had just been describing.

  I took a step back and my hands went up to cover my mouth. I didn’t even have the wherewithal to grab a napkin from the tea trolley and mop up the mess – Verity leapt into action instead.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered from behind my hands. Everyone’s eyes swung from the mess I’d made on the table to me. Some were shocked, some were filled with amusement, Adrian’s were just curious. Max shifted back in his chair and I knew I wouldn’t be able to look him in the face, so I did what I do best – I turned on my heel and I left.

  *****

  Mia

  “Mia?” Verity’s voice echoed around the large bathroom I’d found to hide in and I squeezed my eyes shut. I was sitting on the closed toilet seat in one of the pristine cubicles trying to stem the flow of my tears. Luckily over the years I had perfected the art of silent crying. Nate could never stand the sound of my sobs. It was always worse if I let him hear me cry. “Are you in here? You don’t need to hide. Nobody’s angry with you.” She was right outside my cubicle now. When I opened my eyes I could see her heels under the door. I sighed and wiped the tears streaming down my face away with the back of my hand, then stood up on shaky legs.

  “Sorry,” I muttered as I unlocked the door and stepped out of the stall. Verity took one look at my tear-streaked and, no doubt, blotchy face and pulled me in for a hug. She was taller than me and more substantial so it felt like I was completely surrounded by her. She smelt of lavender and dry-cleaned clothes and she was warm. How long had it been since anyone had hugged me? I hadn’t seen my mum in over a year. The only physical contact I’d had with Nate was not the affectionate kind. Verity’s hug felt like it cracked something inside me. It was painful and wonderful all at the same time. More tears tracked down my cheeks as I buried my face in her neck and my body started to shake with silent sobs. It wasn’t just spilling the tea – it was the shock of seeing Adrian and the massive adrenaline rush of fear it provoked.

  A door opening brought me back to reality and I pulled back from Verity, who slowly released me. I started wiping my face with my sleeves, feeling like an idiot. Poor Verity probably just wanted to give me a quick perfunctory hug. She can’t have been expecting me to soak her suit with my tears, or cling onto her like a spider monkey reunited with its mother.

  “I ruined the presentation,” I whispered.

  “Bitch, please,” Verity said and I almost smiled – that phrase in her posh accent was hilarious. “You didn’t ruin anything,” she told me, her crisp efficiency breaking through my misery. “You saved the bloody thing by being able to start the virtual tour. We would have been scuppered without that. That frightful model can be dried out and painted easily enough.”

  I blinked at her. “You’re not angry?’

  Verity stared at me for a moment, her eyes softening. “No, Mia. I’m not angry. And no, you’re not going to lose your job.” At that reassurance I looked down at my feet and felt two more tears leave the corners of my eyes.

  “Thank you,” I muttered.

  “No time for that now,” Verity told me, ushering me to the sinks. “We’re off out for lunch to celebrate getting through the presentation without Max acting like a tit. Wash your face, darling and let’s go.”

  “Is Max–?”

  “You let me worry about Max.” I splashed my face with cold water then peered at my reflection. My eyes were red, my face blotchy, but at least there was no make-up to run. Verity’s eyes caught mine in the mirror and she made an eek face.

  “Come on Bride of Frankenstein,” she said, pulling open her huge bag and producing a smaller one, filled with makeup. “Let’s get you fixed up.”

  Five minutes later, and the woman staring back at me in mirror was from previous time. One that felt light years away. She looked thinner than be
fore, there was still a hint of dark circles under her eyes, her cheeks were hollower, her hair was darker but she was definitely that woman. For a mad moment I wanted to scrub it all off my face again, but fear of offending Verity stopped me. I closed my eyes, shutting out the reflection from my vision and turned away from the mirror.

  Chapter 9

  You’re not angry?

  Max

  “There you are,” I huffed as the girls approached. It felt like I’d been waiting out here for ages. Mia’s pale, horrified face had been tormenting me since she’d run out of the conference room. It had been another painful half hour before we could go after her and even then I couldn’t follow Verity into the Ladies, so I’d been pacing the outside for the last ten minutes. What do women do in there anyway?

  Verity was a tall woman, so as they approached she blocked my view of Mia, who was lagging behind. It was only when they were a few feet away that I caught my first glimpse of Mia’s face. Something was different. Her eyes were larger (but the whites looked red from crying), her lips more prominent, she had more colour in her cheeks.

  I took a step towards her. She shrank back from me and I frowned.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. I had to strain to hear it above the buzz of the other people walking past us.

  “Look, its fine,” I told her. “I don’t–”

  “You can …” she cleared her throat and then swallowed before she continued, “… I would understand if you wanted to fire me.”