Perfect on Paper by Gillian Harvey (top 20 books to read txt) 📕

‘I’d better not,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a cottage pie in the freezer. I’ll just have, um, a small white wine please.’

‘I get ya,’ Will said, winking as if cottage pie was code for something far more glamorous or important.

When she emerged into the early evening air half an hour later, leaving Will to live his life as a sexy lawyer in the parallel universe that clearly existed in his favourite bar, she stumbled slightly. It wasn’t the wine, or at least she didn’t think so. But the strangeness of it all. First Friday night. Now this.

She hadn’t intended to drink anything at all – but the white wine meant that now she had to leave Claudia in the work car park. Waiting for her cab at the side of the road, she suddenly felt close to tears. When had life got so complicated? All the lies, the exhausting rehearsals. All the frickin’ taxis.

Then, just as she felt herself begin to get slightly teary, she noticed a limousine with blacked-out windows purring towards her. It pulled up to the kerb in front of her and the window descended to reveal Toby’s rather flushed face.

‘Can I give you a lift m’lady?’ he said, with a wink.

‘Toby!’ she said, although part of her was still struggling to register that this was in fact her husband. ‘What are you … why are you …?’

‘Studio hired it for a celeb who didn’t show,’ he grinned. ‘Shame to waste it. Anyway, was just going home and suddenly there you were.’

Sure, she was a feminist. But at that moment, galloping up on his steed, Toby had become her knight in shining armoured car.

And she didn’t mind one bit.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

‘Morning!’ Will stepped confidently into her office the next day – hair even more coiffed than usual – and smiled.

‘Hi,’ Clare replied. ‘Good night?’

‘Not bad,’ he replied, with a wink that was clearly meant to suggest that there may have been a bit of action from the ladies. ‘You know how it goes!’

‘Great,’ she said. ‘Have a good day.’

‘You too!’ He turned on his highly polished heel and clipped off down the corridor towards Nigel’s room.

She thought about Camberwaddle, whose surgery had apparently gone well, but who would be off the radar for a few days – that’s if his doctors managed to wrestle the mobile from his hand. Unless his desire to sue half the food industry through Will had been some sort of illness-induced madness (and it was possible), she’d now be sharing her biggest client with her newly qualified colleague.

It sounded mean, she knew it did. Will had won the business; he had every right to take on a new client, especially if a lucrative offer landed in his lap. But she was pretty sure that the next time Nigel decided to make someone partner it wasn’t going to be her.

Was she fundamentally unlikeable? she thought. Or was it her work – a steady stream of healthy income, sure, but not the most interesting area of law. Form filling, paper-pushing, and aside from the odd argument over boundaries, pretty much the same transaction over and over.

It just wasn’t sexy enough.

But why was she so intent on getting made partner in Nigel’s firm anyway? Sure, she’d earned her stripes here, had gained valuable knowledge. And Nigel had been the one who’d taken her on when she only had limited experience. But why was she still trying to get his attention when his passion for law clearly lay in another direction? She was like a schoolgirl with an inappropriate crush on a popstar. No matter how much she tried, she was going to be overlooked.

‘Bailey & Partners’ she wrote idly on her legal pad, doodling flowers around the edge of the lettering until they were almost invisible. Dare she start her own firm? Conveyancing specialists, and not a trip and fall in sight? No more seeking favour from a boss who was quite happy to add her wins to his profit margin but had no interest in the work that went into getting the money in the first place.

The phone rang. ‘The funds are in for the Smithson purchase,’ Ann said.

‘Great,’ she replied, making a note on her pad. Completion could happen tomorrow – they’d be over the moon.

‘Can I nip off early today?’ Ann asked. ‘Doctor’s appointment.’

‘Of course!’ Clare replied. ‘Everything OK, I hope?’

‘Oh, nothing serious,’ Ann replied. ‘Just a check-up.’

‘Glad to hear it.’

Once Ann had left, Clare marked the competition date in her diary and wrote a quick email to Mr Smithson. It felt good to be the bearer of good news to a client; her job might be boring, but she’d never tired of that.

Then, in the diary, she saw another scribbled appointment on tomorrow’s date that made her blood run cold. ‘Toby meeting Martha B.?’ she read. She’d meant to do something about this before, but had pushed it to the back of her mind. She’d hoped at first to be able to go – boost his status maybe. Help him. But the idea of more subterfuge felt suddenly too exhausting. He’d be OK, wouldn’t he, without her help. Things would die down.

She typed 141 into her phone to disguise her number and rang a familiar mobile.

‘Toby Bailey?’ he said, with an inflection at the end that made it sound as if he wasn’t quite sure who he was.

‘Hello, em, Toby … it’s, well, it’s Martha B.,’ she said, feeling her cheeks get hot.

‘Martha!’ he said, using the same tone, she noticed, as he did when speaking to her mother on the phone. ‘How wonderful to hear from you!’

‘Thank you. But I’m afraid I have some bad news.’

‘Bad news?’

‘Yes, I’m not going to be able to meet up for that interview after all; rehearsals are overrunning.’

‘Oh.’ His voice was flat. In the distance on the line she could hear the faint sound of chanting.

‘What’s that in the background?’

‘Oh, you know,’ he said, ‘just a few protesters.’ He laughed nervously. ‘They seem