There was a silence at the end of the phone, followed by a long sigh. ‘Sorry, Cara, but I’ve already promised my nephew he can move in at the end of the week. I got the impression you wouldn’t be able to afford the rent any more and I’ve kept it pitifully low for the last couple of years already. I can’t afford to sub you any more.’
Fear and anger made her stomach sink and a suffocating heat race over her skin as she fully took in what he’d just said. He was such a liar. He’d been hiking the rent up year on year until she’d felt as if she was being totally fleeced, but she hadn’t wanted the hassle of moving out of her comfortable little flat so she’d sucked it up. Until she wasn’t able to any more.
‘Can’t you tell your nephew that your current tenant has changed her mind?’ Even as she said it she knew what his answer was going to be.
‘No. I can’t. You had your chance to renew. I couldn’t wait any longer and my nephew was having trouble finding somewhere suitable to live. It’s a cut-throat rental market in London at the moment.’
That was something she was about to find out herself, she felt sure of it.
‘Do you have anywhere else available to rent at the moment?’ she asked, desperately grasping for some glimmer of a solution.
‘No. Sorry.’
He didn’t sound sorry, she noted with another sting of anger.
‘You’ve got till the end of the week, then I want you out,’ he continued. ‘Make sure the place is in a good state when you leave or I’ll have to withhold your damage deposit.’ And, with that, he put the phone down on her.
It took a few minutes of hanging her head between her knees for the dizziness to abate and for her erratic heartbeat to return to normal.
Okay, this was just a setback. She could handle it.
Just because it would be hard to find a decent flat to rent in London at short notice didn’t mean she wouldn’t find somewhere else. She’d have to be proactive though and make sure to put all her feelers out, then respond quickly to any leads.
That could prove tricky now that she was working so closely with Max and she was going to have to be very careful not to mess up on the job, because it looked as though she was going to need things to work out there more than ever now.
* * *
The rest of the week flew by for Max, with Cara turning up exactly when she said she would and working diligently and efficiently through the tasks he gave her.
Whilst it was useful having her around to take care of some of the more mundane jobs that he’d been ignoring for far too long, he also found her presence was disrupting his ability to lose himself in his work, which he’d come to rely on in order to get through the fiercely busy days.
She was just so jolly all the time.
And she was making the place smell different. Every morning when he came downstairs for his breakfast he noticed her light floral perfume in the air. It was as though she was beginning to permeate the walls of his house and even the furniture with her scent.
It made him uncomfortable.
He knew he’d been rude during their first lunch together when Cara had asked him about the house and that he’d been unforthcoming about anything of a personal nature ever since—preferring to spend his lunchtimes in companionable silence—but he was concerned that any questions about himself would inevitably lead on to him having to talk about Jemima.
Work was supposed to be sanctuary from thinking about what had happened and he really didn’t want to discuss it with Cara.
He also didn’t want them to become too sociable because it would only make it harder for him to let her go after the promised month of employment.
Clearly she was very good at her job, so he had no concerns about her finding another position quickly after her time was up, but it might still prove awkward when it came down to saying no to full-time employment if they were on friendly terms. He suspected Cara’s story about taking voluntary redundancy wasn’t entirely based on truth and that she and Poppy had cooked up the story to play on his sympathy in order to get him to agree to take her on. While he was fine with allowing his errant friend to push him into a temporary arrangement to appease her mollycoddling nature, he wasn’t going to allow her to bully him into keeping Cara on full-time.
He didn’t need her.
After waking late on Friday morning and having to let an ebullient Cara in whilst still not yet ready to face the day, he had to rush his shower and hustle down to the kitchen with a pounding headache from not sleeping well the night before. Opening the fridge, he found that Cara had stocked it with all sorts of alien-looking food—things he would never have picked out himself. He knew he was bad at getting round to food shopping, but Cara’s choices were clearly suggesting he wasn’t looking after himself properly. There were superfoods galore in there.
He slammed the fridge door shut in disgust.
The damn woman was taking over the place.
Cara was in the hallway when he came out of the kitchen a few minutes later with a cup of coffee so strong he could have stood his spoon up in it. She waved a cheery hello, then gestured to a vase of brightly coloured flowers that she’d put onto the hall table, giving him a jaunty smile as if to say, That’s better, right? which really set his teeth on edge. How was it possible for her to be so damn happy all the time? Did the woman live with her head permanently in the clouds?
They’d never had fresh flowers in the house when Jemima was alive because she’d suffered with bad hay fever from the pollen, and he was just about to tell Cara that when he caught himself and clamped his mouth shut. It wasn’t a discussion he wanted to have this morning, with a head that felt as if it was about to explode. The very last thing he needed right now was Cara’s fervent pity.
‘I thought it would be nice to have a bit of colour in here,’ she said brightly, oblivious to his displeasure. ‘I walked past the most amazing florist’s on my way over here and I just couldn’t resist popping in. Flowers are so good for lifting your mood.’
‘That’s fine,’ he said through gritted teeth, hoping she wasn’t going to be this chipper all day. He didn’t think his head could stand it.
‘I’ll just grab myself a cup of tea, then I’ll be in,’ she said.
Only managing to summon a grunt in response, he walked into the morning room that he’d turned into an office. He’d chosen it because it was away from the distractions of the street and in the odd moment of pause he found that staring out into the neatly laid garden soothed him. There was a particular brightly coloured bird that came back day after day and hopped about on the lawn, looking for worms, which captivated him. It wasn’t there today, though.
After going through his ever-growing inbox and dealing with the quick and easy things, he opened up his diary to check what was going on that day. He had a conference call starting in ten minutes that would probably last till lunchtime, which meant he’d need to brief Cara now about what he wanted her to get on with.
Where was she, anyway?
She’d only been going to make herself a hot drink. Surely she must have done that by now?
Getting up from his chair with a sigh of irritation, he walked through to the kitchen to find her. The last thing he needed was to have to chase his PA down. It was going to be a demanding day which required some intense concentration and he needed her to be on the ball and ready to knuckle down.
She was leaning against the table with her back to the door when he walked into the kitchen, her head cocked to one side as if she was fascinated by something on the other side of the room.
He frowned at her back, wondering what in the heck could be so absorbing, until