No Other Love Page 11

  Amber nodded. Her mum, annoyingly, was right again. As they left the pub, Amber risked one quick glance over at Sophie’s table. She looked glum and downcast.

  Amber actually started to feel a little better once they were sat in a small Italian restaurant further into town.

  She realised she would never have allowed her interest in Sophie to come to the fore if she’d known she was attached.

  Sophie had lied. Again. That was the end of it.

  ‘I wonder how much money your father will lose tonight?’

  ‘It’s a penny a round. Not very much would be my bet.’

  They laughed together as the starters arrived.

  When they got back home an hour later, Amber was feeling lighter than she had for a while. The issue of Sophie was settled in her mind once and for all.

  Sophie had a girlfriend, so definitely no future there. She checked her e-mails as she did every evening to account for the time difference with New York.

  Fuck, she said to herself as she read the one marked URGENT!!!!!

  Five hours later, Amber was on a plane back to New York, leaving the twinkling lights of England, and Sophie, behind her once more.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sophie lay in a hot bubble bath, replaying the previous evening over and over in her head. The sheer serendipity of Amber and her mother appearing in the same pub she and Alison had chosen to go to was difficult to accept. It was almost as if the universe well and truly had it in for her.

  The letter she’d written in a fit of pique. Lee posting the letter in an act of efficient kindness. Her bumping into Amber in the town where she’d come to hide. Amber and her mother turning up at the pub just at precisely the wrong moment.

  A chain of events that had left her wanting to sink her head into the water and not come up for air.

  Amber could hear Alison in the bedroom getting dressed and she knew she would want an answer to the question she had posed the previous evening.

  Sophie closed her eyes as her mind drifted back.

  Once the embarrassment of encountering Amber—and of seeing her face when Alison took it upon herself to drop into the conversation that she was Sophie’s girlfriend, and had been for the best part of five years—had worn off while she and Alison ate and chatted tentatively, they had headed back to the house and, much to her horror the next morning, after two bottles of wine, they had ended up in bed together.

  It had felt wrong, even in her befuddled state, but the wine had loosened her up and after some persuasion from Alison, she had agreed. Sophie hadn’t been able to get into it though and was glad that Alison fell asleep quickly, but not before posing the question Sophie was struggling with.

  ‘So do you agree we should get back together?’ Alison had asked, snuggling closer to her when all Sophie wanted to do was get as far away from her as possible.

  Sophie had prevaricated for a few minutes, then Alison fell asleep, but not before telling Sophie she was heading back to London the next morning at eight and wanted an answer before she left.

  Sophie glanced at the clock on the wall.

  7.15 a.m.

  Forty-five minutes to decide her future path. Amber was clearly now out of the picture. The look on her face when Alison spoke was confirmation enough of that. So, she had a choice. Keep on as she was. Lonely. Bitter. Living with a camp gay man. Or get back in a relationship with Alison.

  Neither option filled her with joy.

  She needed to decide, and she needed to decide soon. Alison was now moving around in the hallway.

  An hour later, when Alison descended the stairs with her case in tow, Sophie knew the moment of truth had come. Would she be happier as she was, or with Alison? She’d been unhappy with Alison for a while, but she was miserable on her own. Even Lee’s cheery presence didn’t alter that fact.

  ‘So, big question. Have you made your mind up about us?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sophie said truthfully.

  ‘Come on, you know you’re miserable on your own and Lee can’t be much company given his propensity for going out every night. What have you got to lose? You can keep the tenancy on your place just in case, sub-let it to someone to cover the rent. It makes sense, Sophie. I’ve missed you and I know you’ve missed me.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Okay, you’ll move in with me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sophie said, ignoring the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘Yay, brilliant.’ Alison let go of her case and gave a little clap, then bounced over and sat next to Sophie on the sofa. ‘It’ll be so great, and I promise to not give you anything to nag me about, ever.’

  She leant across and gave Sophie a huge hug. Sophie reciprocated, but like the night before, she knew her heart wasn’t really in it. She had at least finally taken control of events, rather than let them control her. She had decided, at last, and she would do everything she could to make the new arrangements with Alison work.

  Fifteen minutes later, after a brief discussion that they both promised to continue with later, Alison planted a kiss on Sophie’s lips, then she was gone.

  Sophie made herself a coffee, hoping that the self-doubt that had already set in would ease, then it came to her. There was one thing she could do that would draw a line under the whole crazy event.

  One thing she had left to do.

  ***

  Sophie got out of her car and stood at the end of Amber’s drive, trying to ignore the knot in her stomach. As she walked up the gravel path, crunching in her heels, she started to feel conflicted again, but grabbed hold of those feelings and resolved to do what she had told herself she needed to do.

  This was closure.

  This was her chance to take complete control of events and finally her life.

  She knocked on the door and waited, nerves building. She sucked in a deep breath and blew out her cheeks as she exhaled.

  Amber’s father opened the door. He looked slightly puzzled for a few seconds but then recognition dawned on his face.

  ‘Oh, hello. Sophie isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Hi, Mr Downing. I wondered was Amber in? I just wanted a quick word.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sophie, but Amber got an e-mail last night. Something about one of her top clients refusing to do… whatever it is they do,’ he said with a shrug, ‘so she had to go straight back to New York.’

  ‘She’s gone?’

  Joseph nodded

  ‘Last night?’

  Joseph nodded again.

  ‘Oh,’ Sophie managed to say, but although her words were meagre, her brain was working overtime. Amber had gone. Without saying goodbye?

  That was it. She was out of her life for good. That was the closure she was looking for, but not like that. Sophie wanted to be the one that said goodbye. She wanted to draw a line under things, but now she couldn’t. Now she had to go and get on with her life and try to salvage whatever she could from the mess she’d made of it.

  With Alison.

  That thought tightened her stomach again, but it was what she had decided, what she’d promised to Alison.

  Sophie straightened her back and pulled back her shoulders.

  Then that’s what I have to do.

  As she walked back down the driveway to her car, Sophie’s mind had gone blank, unable to process that she might never see Amber again. It had only been for a few days, but she’d felt the connection that had been broken all those years ago.

  Now it was over.

  Now it was Alison.

  The knot in her stomach tightened again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  When Amber walked through the glass door into her office, the first thing she saw was her business partner, Nadine, waving frantically at her while she talked on a phone she had tucked between her cheek and her shoulder. Amber waved and headed for her office.

  She dumped her bag and slipped off the thin jacket she was wearing to ward off the chill of an autumnal New York day. She glanced out of her window at
the sun-dappled russet, green, and yellow foliage that largely hid the ground of Central Park from view. They had chosen the location for the views as well as the prestige of having a downtown address on their letterheads.

  It had turned out to have been a wise decision. Who knew musicians and artists would be so swayed by the view and address? It had been at least partially responsible for the success they had made of the PR and talent agency she and Nadine had built from the ground up.

  Their impressive client list had ensured that invitations to the best and swankiest parties in the city were theirs purely for the asking.

  Amber avoided them as a rule, often finding the thinnest of reasons not to go. Nadine loved them, so the firm had a presence there anyway, so rather than getting glammed up and hobnobbing with the A-list, she’d more often be found curled on her sofa with a good book.

  On the odd occasion when a client was insistent, or paid well enough, she would dress up, feigning enthusiasm, but would always leave the event before the night was too old.

  Amber turned away from the view, headed out of her office, and stepped into Nadine’s.

  ‘I need that here by five this evening.’ Nadine waved Amber in and pointed at the seat on the other side of the desk. ‘No, I said five. Six is not five. Six is an hour late. I need it by five, you understand?’ She listened to whoever was on the other end of the phone in silence. Then she said, ‘Thank you,’ and put down the phone while at the same time letting out a whoosh of air.

  ‘Trouble?’ Amber asked.

  ‘Caterers. They promised sample dishes for the launch on Friday would be here today, then called earlier to say they wouldn’t be here until tomorrow. You know how I hate that, right?’

  ‘Under-promise. Over-achieve, right?’

  ‘That’s the one. It’s worked well for us so far. Who’d have thought two young British women could do all this?’ She held her arm up in the air as if to demonstrate the size of their empire.

  ‘Who’d have thought? Listen, I came back as quickly as I could. What’s going on with JazzQ?’

  ‘She says that without you here, no launch, no party, no mingling, no nothing. She trusts you, Amber. You signed her up and it’s you she wants to deal with. I have no problem with that obviously, as long as you’re okay with the after party and what have you. I know how much you dislike them, and that she’s being a right royal pain in the arse about it all.’

  Amber laughed. ‘It’s fine. I’ve done what I needed to do back in England. My dad is on the mend. There was nothing else keeping me there,’ she said, although deep down, she knew she was lying. Amber certainly might have stayed a little longer if the Sophie situation could have been less complicated.

  Right then, she was torn between wishing she hadn’t shut the door quite so firmly, and being annoyed that Sophie hadn’t just been straight with her, acknowledged that she was gay and that she had a girlfriend. A strikingly good-looking girlfriend, Amber had to admit, but Alison had somehow set her on edge. There was just something about her that had jarred when they were introduced. Something about the way she had immediately laid claim to Sophie. At a guess, and without knowing the woman, she would have said there was something controlling about her.

  Either way, it didn’t matter now. Amber was back where she considered to be home, Sophie was in the past, and she needed to look after the future which right then involved calming down and massaging the ego of an artist who could make her and Nadine a whole lot of money if everything went to plan. It was annoying that she was throwing a strop right at the beginning of their contract, but it was nothing she hadn’t handled before with some of the more sensitive souls who were on their books.

  ‘What time’s she coming in?’

  Nadine glanced at her watch. ‘Should be here in about fifteen minutes or so, at least that’s what her manager said when I spoke to him. Mind you, that would be a first wouldn’t it, an artist turning up on time for a meeting?’

  Amber shared the laugh with Nadine although she did have a very good point. Part and parcel of dealing with creative types, she’d quickly learnt when she got into the business, was that timekeeping never seemed to rate very highly on the artists’ list of priorities.

  ‘Okay, well, I’m going to pop to the loo, then I’ll be good and ready for her, if by some chance she does arrive on time.’

  ‘Coffee?’ Nadine asked, nodding at the machine on a counter along one wall.

  ‘Yes. Definitely. I’ll be back in a sec. Don’t start without me, will you?’

  Nadine huffed out a laugh and headed for the counter.

  After a few minutes, Amber found herself standing in front of a mirror in the lavishly decorated bathroom, while she washed her hands using the delicately scented handwash that had taken a week of discussions to decide on.

  She needed to be on top form for this meeting but all she could think about was Sophie. And Alison. If her heart was capable of physically breaking, she honestly thought it would be in pieces by now. How she’d managed to hold herself together in the pub after seeing them together, she didn’t know. Somehow, she had managed to, but now she felt herself coming unstuck again. Just at the wrong time. She prayed for the strength to get through this meeting, then she would go home and bury herself under her quilt and finally let the tears she’d been holding in have their final release.

  ‘Amber,’ Nadine’s PA poked her head around the door, ‘Nadine sent me to find you. JazzQ and her entourage have arrived.’

  Amber blinked away the tears forming at the brim of her eyes.

  ‘Okay, I’ll be right there, Janice.’

  With a final glance at the mirror and a quick pang of regret, she dried her hands and headed into battle.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘Slow down, Soph, you know how sick you get once you start drinking on an empty stomach,’ Lee said as he knocked back the remnants of a vodka Red Bull.

  ‘Hang on,’ Sophie said, slurring her speech a little already, ‘you’ve had as many drinks as me, how come you’re not pissed already?’

  ‘Because, Soph, you weird, weird woman, I drink every night, well almost, when I’m not bloody skint anyway. I’ve a tolerance to the stuff. Do you want another?’

  Sophie nodded, even though she knew she probably shouldn’t. Lee was absolutely right in what he said, she couldn’t handle drinking on an empty stomach, but something inside her, a dull ache, refused to budge. It had been with her since Amber’s dad told her about her departure. Even back in familiar surroundings, the ache seemed to spread from her mind down to her heart.

  It worsened every time she thought about Amber, and never seeing her again.

  Since she’d been back, Alison had been a constant presence. In her inbox. WhatsApp messages. Voicemails. E-mails. She even called once but Sophie had seen her name flash up on her phone screen and had rejected the call. With the way she was feeling, it was too much for her to handle yet even more emotional baggage.

  The never-ending barrage of communication from Alison was driving her insane. All Sophie really wanted to do was have some quiet time to think, and to try to sort out the right royal mess she’d managed to work herself into with the uncalled for lies she’d told Amber.

  ‘There you go. I got you a mineral water. How’s that?’ Lee waited expectantly before sitting down, in case Sophie wanted a proper drink, but she just smiled up at him with sad eyes and thanked him. Mineral water seemed, right then, to be a sensible option.

  When Sophie returned home, she realised that she’d actually missed Lee and didn’t blame him for posting her letter to Alison, even if it had been the catalyst for the situation she now found herself in. He’d just been trying to be helpful, which was one of the qualities she loved most about him.

  When he’d asked her if she fancied a night out, the prospect of sitting alone in the flat, fending off the electronic deluge that was Alison, wasn’t something she thought she could endure alone, so she said yes.

  Maybe it had been a
mistake. The loudness and the number of people all having animated conversations around her wasn’t letting her think clearly. But at least the alcohol had dampened the pain.

  ‘So,’ Lee said as he took his seat opposite Sophie at the dark wooden table they were occupying, ‘any chance you’re going to tell me what’s happened to give you a face like that?’ Lee asked, pointing his forefinger straight at Sophie’s face. ‘You’ve barely said a word since you’ve been back and I know you’re not mad at me anymore, so if you want to talk then bloody get on with it. Get it off your chest so I can stop walking around on eggshells back at the flat.’

  Sophie held up her hands defensively. ‘All right, all right. I’ll tell you, but you have to keep it to yourself, okay? No blabbing to your gossipy friends.’

  Lee held two fingers to the side of his head. ‘Scout’s honour,’ he said.

  ‘You were in the Scouts?’

  Lee looked puzzled. ‘Oh, God no. Have you seen the uniform? And all that stuff about playing with your woggles? Yeeuch,’ he said and gave a mock shudder. ‘It’s just a saying. Come on. Spill it. What’s going on?’

  ‘Well…’ Sophie searched her memory, trying to put the whole sorry saga into some kind of logical order for the tale.

  Five minutes later, and after several interruptions from Lee with questions, she leant back in her chair and took a swig of refreshing mineral water.

  ‘So, let me get this straight in this pretty little head,’ Lee waved a hand dramatically around his head, ‘you met this Amber, who you’ve secretly been in love with since you were a teenager, although you never mentioned that to anyone,’ he arched an eyebrow in disapproval for not being told every last detail about Sophie’s past, ‘you persuaded her to go to what sounds like a truly hideous reunion, snogged her, lost her, and ended up with the woman who left you weeks ago with barely a goodbye? Have I got that right?’