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Chapter Six

‘What?’ Surely, she’d told him this before?

‘I knew you had a plan, but I…’ He looked like she’d hit him. ‘But what happens if you fall in love before that? Or you don’t find the right person at the right time?’

She clicked her phone shut. As if that would happen.

‘It will be fine, I’ll make sure I don’t fall in love before then, it’s just a matter of will power. I haven’t been in love, so I can’t see why it should change this year. And I’ll find the right person. I have a list. I’ve told you, it is a matter of planning for these things.’

Why was Gee looking at her like that? As if she’d not only mis-shelved his books but she’d changed all the faders and knobs on his production board in the studio.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘Nothing,’ he said quietly.

She picked up the remote control.

‘Ready?’ she asked.

‘Erm… okay,’ Gee said.

As the frozen face of Austen Wentworth sprang to life, she could feel Gee staring at her for a few moments. She stopped herself from turning to see why, her shoulders tense till eventually she felt him turn to watch the screen.

***

‘No, Mum, I’m doing Christmas at home this year. I told you back in March. You said that you were okay if we shared the day with Dad and Janice. You know, because Boopsie is with her dad.’ Emma carried on typing on her laptop, with her headphones plugged into her phone as she spoke to her mum.

‘But… Derek and I have just decided that we want to do the Alps this year.’ Her mum sounded on the edge of tears.

Emma closed her eyes briefly. Lord give her strength. She knew it was rude to feel this way if your mum was on the verge of crying but her mum’s default setting was tears. If they showed the Dog’s Trust advert on the telly, if she didn’t get her own way, or even if they were down to the last inch of milk. Permanently lachrymose. As a child it had been like living with a leaky tap.

And this supposed trip to the Alps for Christmas wasn’t anything but hot air, Emma knew. She wondered what programme her mum had been watching to get the idea. She still woke up in a cold sweat thinking about one of the few times her mum had actually followed through on a plan, well, half a plan. They’d flown to India for Christmas when she was ten, and her mum had forgotten the small issue of a visa. Only for Emma though – her mum and dad had been fine.

And people wondered why she was overly pernickety with plans. When you’ve spent Christmas Day on your own on the floor of an airport immigration office because your parents decided to do a bit of sightseeing while they waited for you to be deported, you double and triple checked everything.

And stopped believing in Father Christmas.

She was probably worrying without reason, it wasn’t as if they would have booked anything. The India trip was a mere blip in broken promises. With hindsight, she realised it must have been their last-ditch attempt at staying together. By the following Christmas she had two houses to spend the big day at, but neither were a home.

Now she had a home, they would all be sat around the dining room table on Christmas Day no matter what Mum said. She knew after everything they had done, or rather, not done, she should cut them loose like they had her. She’d made her own home and living her perfect version of life meant that you didn’t ditch your family. Just because they’d done that to her didn’t mean she should do it to them.

And if that meant an uncomfortable Christmas Day, then so be it. She could get through anything if she had a plan. If she choreographed her time with Mum and Dad and their partners then they were less likely to crash into her life unexpectedly and bring her carefully constructed world tumbling down. At least she could avoid her stepsister, Boopsie, this year. She was sure that Gee was one step away from getting a restraining order for her.

‘But Ems…’ Mum was whining wetly.

A calendar alert pinged up.

Her meeting with her boss, actually her boss’s boss, Malcolm McKee, the head of Mega! Management.

She could feel her heart racing. Ever since the meeting had gone in her diary two days ago she had tried to keep her cool. It had to be good news. It had to be.

You didn’t get called into McKee’s office for anything but one of two things: a step jump in your career, or alternatively a drop kick of your job and reputation onto the street.

‘Sorry Mum, I have a meeting,’ she interrupted.

‘But we still haven’t decided on…’ her mum wailed.

‘I’ll call you back on Sunday as usual and we can talk through the Alps trip,’ she promised, not even bothering to cross her fingers while telling the lie. Because it wasn’t a complete fabrication. They would discuss it, with Emma telling her how much organising and money it took to plan the kind of trip her mum had in mind. It would take merely minutes to get her mum to come around to her way of thinking. And they would all be having Christmas at hers, exactly the way she had planned it back in the spring.

Sometimes she wondered why people didn’t just go along with her in the first place. It wasted so much energy when they always ended up doing it anyway.

‘Bye Mum.’ She absentmindedly blew a kiss, clicked off the call and pulled out her headphones.

‘Are you ready?’ Jamie swung his chair round, as if he’d been poised, waiting for her to get off the phone.

She took a deep breath. ‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ she said.

This was it, the big career move. The one she was sure was due to happen in December, according to the plan, but was now being brought forward a few months. That was good. Admittedly it meant she’d spend the weekend re-doing her Gantt charts to make all the key milestones re-align but who cared.

‘Wish me luck?’ she said as she pushed her chair away from the desk and stood up.

‘You don’t need it, you are going to kill it.’ The shiny worshipful look in Jamie’s eyes was intoxicating.

‘Every little helps though,’ she said. Jamie didn’t need to know that her stomach was roiling and her knees felt weak.

‘Good luck,’ he said as she walked through the door and into her future.

Emma smoothed down her top as she pressed the button to call the lift. She didn’t stop to check her reflection in the glass doors that opened to the lift area, or look when she got into the lift.

Why should she?

Her jeans weren’t from Top Shop but an expensive brand with a bit more Lycra in them to give a good fit. Her black top draped perfectly and her Golden Goose trainers, which had cost an arm and a leg and only those in the know would notice, looked perfect. Okay, so they weren’t the embellished and patched ones that had called to her soul from the Gucci Instagram account. She was happy to spend money on clothes but that was excessive.

Stop thinking about shoes, she thought, why did McKee want to see her?

The lift doors slid open to the executive floor.

Emma cringed slightly as her shoes squeaked on the highly polished marble floor.

A small drop of sweat trickled down her back, and her fingers twitched.

No, she couldn’t pull her shirt back. Cool, calm, in control. That is what she needed to exude.

Thank god, here was the carpet.

The squeaking of her shoes was muffled now as she reached the CEO’s boardroom. His PA, Perrie, was waiting outside.

‘Hey, Emma. He’ll be another minute.’ Those were the most words that Perrie had ever said to her.

Should she make small talk? Find out what this was all about?

She shifted her weight from foot to foot. Maybe she should have dressed more corporately for the meeting? But no, she’d done her research, she was perfectly presented for what she did and what she wanted to become.

Why was she doubting herself? She’d earned this.

Perrie was staring at her phone, occasionally stabbing at it with talons that were decorated with incredibly elaborate art.

Emma looked at them admiringly. She believed in looking your best but the time commitment for that kind of work was excessive and you couldn’t multitask when it was happening.

There was a quiet ping from the bejewelled case clasped in Perrie’s hand.

‘You can go in,’ Perrie said without making eye contact and wandered back to her desk.