Gin, Fizz & Tonic

Fresh vows

Let us draw a discreet curtain over the scene of yesterday evening's grubby ending.

I meant what I said. Zander was only supposed to come in for a couple of hours. I would sip a seemly amount of Prosecco, offer my sympathies and then send him on his way.

When I opened the door, he fell into my arms, shaking from head to toe. We didn't move for ages, the wailing continuing at full volume, until Matthew poked his head around his door and mouthed, "Everything okay?"

Only someone with a heart of stone could fail to be moved. Zander eventually agreed to come inside.

After his first glass of Prosecco, the tears dried up. After my second glass of Prosecco, I asked for further details of who'd pursued who when he and Bella slept together during our so-called relationship, noting that the outrage I'd felt when I first found out abated somewhat.

As if, deep down, I'd known all along.

The bottle of Prosecco finished, I took my revenge by sleeping with him when he suggested it—this time knowing Bella wanted him.

Yup, pathetic.

Don't hate me, please. You can't loathe me more than I despise myself. Not so much for sleeping with him, although that was bad enough, but for constantly breaking the promises I make to myself not to have anything further to do with him.

I watched him as he dressed the following morning and talked about the future. Perhaps he would go to Australia after all. Bella could swing him an interview with the bank, or there might be enough small businesses in the country whose owners didn't bother asking for references.

"Bye," I said, as he left, the words Zander, you and I will NEVER do this again unsaid but meant this time.

I didn't bother seeing him to the door. Later, when I tripped over the Gucci belt he'd left behind (who spends nearly four hundred quid on a bloody belt?), I kicked it to one side.

Too bad. He would need to live without it.

*****

Dylan lifts first one eyebrow and then the next when I tell him about Liam's offer the following day. "Goodness me. A business meeting. To see what his restaurants are like." He puts the business meeting in air quotes.

"Yes," I reply. "A business meeting. With one of my clients."

"If you insist."

Lilah, busy gluing on silver, two-inch long false nails, sneers. "Jesus, he's way, way, way out of your league. Don't get excited. He's only being polite. Or taking pity on you."

I flick two fingers at her, hurriedly turning them into a general wave of the hand when she shoots me a daggers look. Dylan waits until she leaves the office for her daily tormenting of the Stuffed!' van's staff, and parks himself on my desk.

"Ginny." He regards me solemnly. "You won't do anything that jeopardises your professional relationship with Liam, will you? I can't afford to lose a single client. The council's announced that the rent for this place is going up, and Lilah has demanded a pay rise."

I screw up my face. "What for? It can't possibly be performance-related."

He exhales a sigh. "No, but I haven't increased her salary since she started, and she's not on much money anyway. She's threatened to put the union on me, so no getting shit-faced while you're down there, okay?"

"I'm not going to get shit-faced," I declare, outraged, and his right eyebrow shoots up as far as it can when the top half of his face is immobilised by a toxin.

"Is that a promise?"

I snap the reply, irritated with him. "Yes. I don't need lectures from you on how to act professionally, Dylan."

"Okay, sorry." He holds up his hands and backs off. "I'm sure you'll have a great time and come back, all cylinders firing for his launch event."

He returns to his desk just as Lilah walks back in, sandwich bag in hand and a complaint that the Stuffed!'s guys had run out of her preferred sandwich choice (not, as one might expect, sautéed human liver, but the more mundane ham and cheese).

I sneak outside and call the Victoria Street beauty salon I frequent to schedule a full leg and underarm wax, as well as a facial.

Better safe than sorry, eh?