Unperfect Read online

  “Fire you?”

  She took another step away. Why was she always running away from me? I tried to tamp down my annoyance. She still had that awful look on her face – it was making my chest feel too tight.

  “Mia, for Christ’s sake will youº”

  “I wouldn’t blame you,” she went on. “I know how long that model took to make. I know how important that presentation was.”

  “Mia–”

  “I won’t make a fuss. I won’t – ”

  “Listen!” I snapped, slicing my hand through the air to make my point.

  That’s when it happened.

  Mia tracked the movement of my hand and the fear in her expression was so stark it almost took my breath away. Her own hands came up to shield her face and she ducked down, making a terrible, almost animalistic sound. She started to back up from us with short, rapid steps but collided with a man passing behind her, lost her balance, and went down to the floor. Instinctively I approached her to help her up, but she scrambled backwards away from my outstretched hand, despite the fact there were people all around us, some of whom had stopped to stare at the scene we were making. I took a step back and held my hands up in a gesture of surrender.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Mia,” I said, shock at her reaction giving the words a harsh tone and causing Mia to flinch again. Verity advanced towards her whilst I hung back and rubbed my hands over my face.

  “Let’s get you up now, darling,” Verity said. She sounded shaken which was almost unheard of when it came to Verity. As she helped Mia to her feet a small crowd formed around the three of us.

  “There’s nowt to see here, you nosy bastads,” I raised my voice to be heard over the low murmur of theirs. “Go on. Bugger off.” Mia, who was standing now, ducked her head and tucked her hair behind her ears, her face flooding with colour.

  “Let’s get some lunch,” Verity said, putting an arm around Mia and guiding her towards the exit. “There’s a place next door that looks pretty decent.”

  It was nearly two o’clock so the lunch rush was thinning but we still had to wait for a few minutes at the bar for a table at the Italian restaurant next to the office building. Verity texted Yaz to let her know where we were, and then there were a couple of minutes of oppressive silence. I broke it by clearing my throat.

  “Mia,” I said, making a huge effort to soften my tone. “What happened? Did you think I was going to … to hit you?’

  Her eyes flicked to mine and away again at lightening speed. “N-no of course not,” she said, a very slight shake to her voice. I sighed.

  “I’m sorry but the way you … I mean, you shielded your face from me. You fell on your arse you were so panicked.”

  She shook her head. “I wasn’t panicked,” she lied, her eyes staring out of the window now. “I … j-just fell. I lost my balance.”

  “You did not lose your balance,” I said, letting frustration seep into my tone. “You were proper scared.”

  “No. I told you – I fell.” She met my eyes this time, her mouth setting into a stubborn line.

  “I would never hit anyone. Well, okay I did clout Tommy Barnet in Year 11, but the bugger started it and he was twice my size at the time. Listen, I’m not even bothered about the tea spillage. I-”

  “What?” She was staring at me now and her mouth had fallen open in shock. “But I–”

  “You saved my arse in there, Mia,” I told her. “If it hadn’t been for you I wouldn’t have been able to give the virtual tour.” I started to lean forward in my chair, but paused when she shrank back from me in hers. “Even if I were upset about the tea I wouldn’t have said owt to you. It was a mistake. It’s not like you picked it up and threw it over t’model out of spite. Accidents happen. If those dullards let an accident affect their decision about using us then the buggers can shove their eco village up their arses.”

  “You’re not angry?” she asked, pure disbelief threaded through her words.

  “No, I’m not angry,” I said. “I promise, Mia. And I would never hurt you.’

  “I didn’t–”

  “I’d like to know why you thought I was going to though.”

  She looked away from me again and her mouth clamped shut again.

  “Okay, darling,” Verity put in, laying her hand over Mia’s on the bar and shooting me a warning look. “You don’t have to tell us anything now. Let’s all have a nice lunch and we can discuss it later, right?”

  Mia shifted on her feet and blinked at the menu board in front of her. Even more colour left her face. “Why don’t I just go back and wait in conference building. Or … or I can just wait right outside, on the pavement. I can-”

  “Wait on the pavement?” I asked in confusion. “Are you serious?”

  “Er …” she trailed off as she looked back out of the window.

  “We’re all eating lunch together,” I told her. “I’ll not be left with just V and my mad sister.” Is this why she was so thin? Did she not eat? The waitress came then to show us to the table. I reached to usher Mia forwards but her flinch had me backing away again.

  In general women did not make a habit of flinching away from me. However much of a grumpy sod I could be, I had the opposite problem with them. They were the ones trying to convince me to eat with them. They were the ones I had to push away. Even down the pub with Heath they targeted me. Heath’s a handsome bastard but it’s always the broody ones they seem to want to sort out. Who knew being an awkward fucker could be so attractive to the opposite sex? It had been even worse since Rebecca left me. As my grumpy bastard level ramped up, so too did their persistence.

  At the corporate events and dinners I had to go to for work it was almost painful. Cocktail-dress-wearing, champagne-emboldened women seemed to cut me off at every turn. One waited outside the gents for me the other month and tried to snog me, right there in the corridor.

  “This is not a choice,” I told Mia, hardening my tone. When I thought back over the last four weeks I couldn’t recall a single time I’d seen Mia eat anything substantial other than that Chinese in my office. Yesterday she just had a slice of plain bread with a cup of tea for lunch. I had just assumed she was fussy. “You’re eating lunch here and that’s it.’

  “I can’t,” she told me.

  “Why not?”

  “I, er … listen this is embarrassing but I forgot my wallet, so …”

  “You don’t need your wallet,” Verity put in. “This’ll be on us. It’s business. Right, Max?”

  “Yes of course,” I said, frowning down at Mia in confusion. “You don’t have to worry about your wallet or anything else, okay?”

  Mia’s shoulders drooped and relief flooded her features. My eyes dropped to her waist. I knew she wore a money belt under her clothes. I’d seen her tucking change into it and caught flashes of it over the last three weeks. She didn’t go anywhere without it and I very much doubted she would have come all the way to London without it either. I was surprised she hadn’t dragged her backpack along as well.

  We were shown through to a four-seater table and I watched Mia manoeuvre herself so that she wasn’t sitting next to me. This suited me fine as it meant I was opposite her instead and could study her across the table. Yaz, never one to turn down a free meal, made it in time to order, looking between us all as she sat down and being her normal unhelpful self.

  “Woah, tense atmos in here, peeps. Do we all need to do some emergency yoga? I’m sure they won’t mind clearing a space for us in the back.”

  After reassuring the waitress that we would not all be lying on the floor of her busy restaurant doing some spontaneous breathing exercises, we were finally able to order. It was no surprise to me that Mia went for the cheapest option on the menu, but at least it was pasta and not a side salad.

  “Steak dinners aren’t really the vibe your environmentally conscious architecture firm is going for,” Yaz informed me after I ordered a fillet.

  By the time she started asking the waitr
ess if the halloumi salad was ethically sourced I was on the verge of chucking her out of the window.

  “Well, I think we all did jolly well in there,” Verity said after the wine had arrived. “Everyone looked frightfully impressed with the whole damn thing, I must say. Good show, Max – and well saved, Mia.” V raised her glass up to toast and everyone else followed suit apart from Mia.

  “Mia, do you want something else to drink?” I asked, ignoring V.

  “What?”

  “You don’t have a drink. Do you not like wine?”

  “I … no.”

  “You can have whatever you want.”

  “What about a gin and tonic?” V asked her. “They’ve got that fancy smancy flavoured stuff. Go on, we’ll both get one.”

  Mia smiled for the first time that day. It was closed-mouthed and edged with anxiety, but it was a smile. And for some reason I was furious it wasn’t directed at me.

  Chapter 10

  Amelia?

  Mia

  I should have just accepted the wine. What was wrong with me? But my memories of red wine were so poisonous I don’t think I could have forced myself to drink it. My mind flashed back to the last time I thought I’d had a choice of anything in a restaurant. We’d been at one of the best in London. Way more expensive than this place. Nate and I were eating with some of his clients.

  “I’m fine thanks,” I told the waiter, my hand going over the top of my glass to stop the red wine from being poured in.

  “Just give it a chance,” Nate said, his hand coming up to grip my wrist. I winced as it felt like my bones were being compressed together and I pulled my hand back.

  “Pour,” Nate said to the waiter. Then, “Drink it,” to me after the waiter had moved on. I knew better than to not follow that order.

  “Amelia’s still getting used to this sort of thing,” he’d told his clients, chuckling at my expense. “It was more chip butties and beer back home, wasn’t it darling?”

  I’d laughed then, trying to pretend I was sharing the joke rather than being the butt of it. Then I’d forced the wine down my throat and suffered the migraine it induced later that night. Anything not to embarrass him in front of his clients. Anything not to make him angry. Anything to be perfect.

  “Are you sure you want that, Mia?” Max asked me, snapping me out of my thoughts.

  “What?”

  “A gin and tonic – you can have a soft drink if you like. Don’t let Verity bully you into drinking if you don’t want to. She’s just chuffed she won the coin toss and doesn’t have to drive back.”

  He was staring across the table, his too-intelligent green eyes focused like laser beams on me, like my answer was important. Like it mattered. His attention felt terrifying, oppressive, but wonderful all at the same time.

  “It’s fine,” I said, managing a small smile. Some of the tension around his mouth relaxed at my smile. Deep, deep down in the pit of my stomach I felt something uncoil.

  We talked about the presentation.

  Yaz poached a large chunk of Max’s steak.

  “I thought you were vegan,” Max protested.

  “I’m a flexatarian, you idiot.”

  “A flexi-whaty-what?”

  “A flexitarian. I don’t choose to order meat or animal products for environmental reasons, but if it’s already dead and presented to me I won’t let it go to waste.”

  “My steak was not presented to you. Neither was it going to waste. I was about to eat the blooming thing!”

  “Don’t you care about my iron and B12 levels?”

  “No. But even if I did, I’d tell you to order your own chuffing steak.”

  “You can have some of my halloumi,” she told him, and he eyed her plate with deep suspicion. I was beginning to recognise that Max’s bark was much worse than his bite. I mean, Yaz stole his food right from under his nose, and apart from an eye roll and some dry comments on flexatarianism he tolerated it.

  When my food came I forgot myself. I forgot that I was in a restaurant, that I didn’t know these people very well. I even forgot the fear of discovery, just for a moment. Because it was the second hot meal I’d had in over two months. The smell of cheese and garlic from the carbonara clicked my mind into survival mode and I fell on it like a starving animal, blocking out everything and everyone around me as I ate. When I was finished I sat back in my chair and brought my napkin to my mouth.

  “Okay there, Bear Grllys,” Yaz joked. “I guess you were hungry, huh?”

  My face flooded with heat and I ducked my head.

  “I, er … I have a high metabolism,” I muttered.

  “But you don’t eat much around the office,” Max said. I glanced up at him and he was staring at me, his head cocked to the side, as though he was trying to work something out.

  “Amelia? It is you!” I turned automatically and stiffened in my seat as I locked eyes with Adrian Luther. “What have you done to your hair?” There was a long beat of silence as I struggled to work out how to play this. In the end I decided bluffing my way through it was the only choice. I’d only met Adrian a handful of times, since he’d only become Nate’s partner in the business relatively recently. And I’d looked vastly different back then. I cursed the fact I’d allowed Verity to put make-up on my face earlier. Nothing was worth the potential of discovery.

  “I’m sorry do I know you?” I blinked up at him and tried to keep the fear from my voice.

  “What? Yes of course you do. It’s Adrian. I saw you just a few months ago at the Christmas do. You and Nate have had a rough time of it since then, haven’t you? First Nate with the flu, and then you came down with some sort of post viral syndrome. He told me that was why you didn’t make it to the client dinner in March. Never known him take any time off before. I do hope you’re feeling better.”

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “But–”

  “I’m sorry, but you’ve made a mistake.” I met his eyes then and stared at him in challenge. He frowned down at me in confusion. In all honesty I felt sorry for the guy. He’d always seemed pretty decent. All Nate’s colleagues were. And it wasn’t as if they all knew the truth. Far from it. Most of them assumed that Nate and I were so in love that he couldn’t let me out of his sight when we were out together. I’d always been clamped to his side or he’d had his hand around my arm in what must have looked like an affectionate, if a little possessive, gesture. To me, his fingers biting into my skin was just another painful show of dominance, only in public. A warning to me.

  “But–”

  “Adrian, good to see you again, mate,” Max’s low voice cut in. He’d stood from his seat to his full intimidating height and extended his had to the other man. “Hope you liked the proposal.”

  “Ah, Max,” Adrian replied, shaking Max’s hand and tearing his eyes away from me. “Sorry, didn’t mean to ignore you there. It’s just I know Amelia from–”

  “I think you’ve got Mia confused with someone else,” Max said, his voice was firm.

  “Mia?” Adrian muttered, his eyebrows going up in surprise. “I … ” Max moved to block his line of sight to me and crossed his arms over his chest. Adrian let out a confused chuckle. “Right, yes. My mistake. Well anyway, have a good lunch.”

  Max

  Mia’s face was so pale she was starting to look a little green. I hadn’t missed her flinch when she heard the name Amelia. There was no doubt in my mind that that was her real name. I also didn’t miss the fear in her expression as she looked at Adrian Luther. Real fear. I knew something was going on with her. I knew there was more to her than met the eye. There was an awkward silence now – very unusual with Yaz in attendance. When Mia reached for her gin and tonic her hand was shaking. She closed her eyes and swallowed the whole thing in two gulps.

  “That was … odd,” Yaz said after letting out a nervous laugh.

  “I … I must look like someone he knows,” Mia said, giving Yaz a tight smile.

/>   “Well, he was a frightfully persistent bugger, wasn’t he,” Verity put in.

  “Apparently we’ve all got a doppelgänger out there,” Yaz said with authority she did not have. “You should be careful. If you ever meet your doppelgänger you … er, well I’m not entirely sure what happens. I think maybe you both spontaneously combust or something.”

  “Jesus. Well we’ve dodged a bullet there then haven’t we?” I said with a dry tone. “Have there been many documented cases of spontaneous combustion related to doppelgängers, Yaz?”

  “Don’t take the piss, knobhead,” Yaz muttered. Mia gave Yaz a startled look – she always seemed so surprised when people talked back to me. When I caught Mia’s eye I smiled at her and rolled my eyes. She blinked and froze for a moment before she managed a small smile back at me. At least Yaz was good for something.

  Mia spent the rest of the meal glancing around the restaurant with a hunted look on her face. When the bill came she looked so uncomfortable that I nearly said something, but I knew drawing attention to her would only make things worse. Verity paid with the company credit card. Yaz didn’t blink an eye, which seemed to help Mia relax. Maybe she had some sort of ethical hang-ups about company meals or something?

  Yaz bumbled on about nonsense most of the drive back. I put up with it because she made Mia laugh. It was only once we made it back to the office that things got weird again.

  “Get in, Mia. I’ll take you home,” I’d told her after the others had left for their cars. I knew Mia walked every day. Come to think of it I didn’t think I’d ever seen her driving a car.

  “No … don’t worry. I’m fine,” she said, backing away down the pavement.

  “It’s not fine,” I said, taking a few steps towards her as she retreated. “You’ve had a rough day, its dark and past nine at night. Let me drive you back home.”

  “No, no, no, no–,” she chanted, shaking her head as her eyes went wide. Was she still afraid of me? “Honestly, I’d prefer to walk.’

  I sighed. “You don’t live far from me anyway. It’s owt trouble.”

  “I moved,” she said abruptly. “I’m, er … in the opposite direction to you now. So …” She backed up a few more steps, bounced on the balls of her feet a couple of times and then … she ran. One minute she was there, the next minute she’d gone – disappeared into the night as if she’d never really been there in the first place. I sprinted after her but she’d left no trace. Although frustrated and annoyed, my overriding emotion was concern. I couldn’t even drive to her house to check on her if she’d moved as I didn’t have her new address. Muttering under my breath about stubborn women, I dug out my phone and sent Mia a text.