‘Pierre!’ cried Pippa. ‘You can’t fire Lexie!’
‘I can do whatever I want, Pippa, and unless you want to join her, I suggest you have a plausible soundbite ready for the interview you’re about to give to that bunch of braying journalists who are waiting outside for our comments! Come!’
Pippa performed an accomplished impression of a gobsmacked goldfish as she hesitated, her gaze flicking from Pierre to Lexie and back to Pierre.
‘I…’
‘It’s okay, Pippa, go on. I’ll catch up with you later.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Pippa, loyally, giving Pierre the daggers but not brave enough to continue her objections. Lexie knew her friend couldn’t afford to lose her job – she struggled to keep up with the rent on her tiny studio flat in Hammersmith and returning home to Cardiff wasn’t an option since her mother had remarried.
‘Sure.’
‘Okay, I’ll call you.’
With tears prickling at the corners of her eyes, Lexie watched Pippa reluctantly follow Pierre back to the set where she was swallowed up in a hive of activity as the swimming baths was returned to its daytime persona ready to receive its water-loving patrons the following morning – a requirement that had been written into the contract with a huge contingency fee if it wasn’t.
A flash of yellow told her that Jack Farnham was on the prowl and the last thing she wanted was for him to collar her for a comment – she knew he would be delighted if she crumbled into a snivelling wreck right before his eyes. Suddenly, all she could think about was getting out of there as quickly as she could. She was desperate to talk to Elliot, to hear his words of solace as she relayed what had happened. She grabbed her mobile from her handbag and made her way to the fire exit, gasping when the cool night air hit her squarely in the face.
The last hour still felt surreal, like the whole catastrophe was happening to someone else and she was simply watching the drama unfold from a comfortable seat in the stalls. She shook her head to try to dispel the weird sensation as she dialled Elliot’s number. When he didn’t answer, she decided against leaving a voicemail. In fact, she decided that the fact she had been fired from her job three weeks before their wedding was probably better delivered in person.
She hailed a cab, surprised to find that the one that stopped was driven by a guy even more morose than she was, barely even acknowledging her when she gave him the address of the apartment she shared with Elliot in Wimbledon. It had started to rain and the swish of the wipers on the windscreen had a hypnotic, calming effect on her nerves. The vice-like grip at her temples eased slightly and one question zapped into her mind.
Who had substituted the confetti for a bucket filled with ice-cold water?
Before she could come up with a list of suspects, the taxi screeched to a halt and the driver twisted in his seat, barked out an exorbitant figure and held out his hand. Lexie handed over two twenties and jumped out onto the pavement, landing in the middle of a deep puddle. Cursing the rain, she shot under the canopy of the Italian restaurant across the road from her building, hugging her arms to her chest to ward off a sudden bout of trembling.
She was about to make a dash for her front door when she heard a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’ strike up from within the restaurant. She peered through the large plate glass window to see a waiter carrying a huge cake, complete with not just candles but a forest of sparklers, towards a corner table, his colleague carrying a silver ice bucket with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and two glasses. As Lexie watched on, a very attractive blonde woman dressed in that season’s Stella McCartney exclaimed with delight, before blowing out the candles and closing her eyes to make a wish. When the birthday girl threw her arms around the man who had clearly arranged the surprise, planting a passionate kiss on his waiting lips, a grenade exploded in Lexie’s heart and her whole world tilted on its axis for the second time that day.
Elliot.
No, she was wrong. It couldn’t be. She’d had a huge shock and now she was hallucinating. She shook her head, droplets of rain flicking from her hair onto her cheeks, then refocused on the happy scene in the restaurant. The couple were now enjoying the Champagne, their forearms linked through each other’s as they sipped the frothy elixir, the woman beaming with unbridled happiness. But it wasn’t the woman Lexie was interested in. She narrowed her eyes and pressed her nose against the window, totally oblivious to the indignant stares she was getting from the couple sitting at the table just inside the glass.
Then she saw it – the irrefutable evidence.
The gold Rolex Elliot’s father had bought for him when he landed his first job at one of the Big Four accountancy firms in the city after graduating from LSE. Her first thought was to storm into the restaurant and demand an explanation, but as she approached the door she was shoved out of the way by a passing group of Japanese tourists eager to escape the downpour and she was overcome by a wave of nausea – throwing up in front of a restaurant full of diners would just about put the icing on the catastrophe cake!
Lexie couldn’t hold back her emotions any longer and tears trickled down her cheeks, mingling with the raindrops. She had started to tremble uncontrollably and passers-by were looking at her strangely; some giving her a wide berth, others stopping to ask if she was okay. She needed to get out of there, out of the rain, so she could assimilate every bad thing that had happened to her in the space of two hours.
Was this a dream?
A nightmare more like, brought on by the unrelenting stress she had been under in the weeks leading up to the fashion show and her wedding. Her wedding! Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! How could Elliot do this to her?
She stumbled across the road, fumbled for her keys and climbed the stairs to her flat, closing the door behind her and attaching the chain for good measure. Even before she had time to sit down and think about what on earth was going on, she knew one thing – she couldn’t forgive Elliot. It was the end of their relationship. The surge of pain that sliced through her body was almost overwhelming, and she collapsed down onto her white leather sofa, curled into a ball and sobbed for her lost love. When she couldn’t shed another tear, she pushed herself up from the seat, made her way to the bathroom and splashed water on her face, achieving a modicum of calm.
She took out her phone and fingered the screen. She knew that Elliot expected her to be at the after-show party, so she had some time to decide what she was going to do before he arrived there, professing his apologies to Pierre and Pippa for being late, blaming it on his work commitments.
Oh, God, what was she going to do? She needed to talk to someone – and there was only one person she could trust to offer sage advice.
Freya. Talented wedding dress designer, leader of the local yummy mummy network, and all-round optimist. Her best friend could always be relied upon to fill her day with sunshine and the chance to practice her Lego-wrangling skills with her goddaughter, five-year-old Chloe, Cornwall’s most avid unicorn enthusiast
‘Darling! I didn’t expect to hear from you until tomorrow! How was the show? I want every last, marvellous detail, but first you haaaaave to tell me about the wedding dress. If I’m ever going to be Cornwall’s answer to Vera Wang, I’ve got to have my eye on the next big thing!’
‘I…’
The sound of her best friend’s voice, the soft west country burr that usually made her smile and think of home, caused a tsunami of emotions to break away from the tightly secured guy ropes. She couldn’t continue and burst into huge racking sobs.