How to Get Over Your Ex (3 page)

He took a breath. ‘Our listeners have connected with you—’

‘You mean your listeners feel sorry for me.’ Pity everywhere
she looked.

‘—and they want to see you bounce back from this
disappointment. They want to follow you on your journey.’

She ignored that awful thought and glared at him. ‘Really? You
see into each of their hearts?’

His scoff vibrated through his whole body. ‘We spend four
million pounds a year on market research. We know how many sugars they each have
in their coffee. Trust me. They want to know. You’re like...them...to them.’

‘And how is me working through my weekends in a lab going to
make good radio? Because that’s how I planned to get through this next year. Low
profile and lots of work.’

‘I’m asking you to flip that on its head. High profile and
getting back out into the sunshine. Show them how you’re bouncing back.’

Honesty made her ask in a tiny voice, ‘What if I don’t—bounce
back? What then?’

Something flooded his eyes. Was it...compassion? ‘We plan to
keep you so busy you won’t have time to wallow.’

Wallow?
Anger rushed up and
billowed under her coat. But she didn’t let it out. Not directly. ‘Busy with
what?’ she gritted.

‘Makeovers. New clothes. Access to all the top clubs... You
name it, we’ll arrange it. EROS is making it our personal business to get you
back on your feet. Total reinvention. And on your way to meeting Mr Right.’

She stared at him, aghast. ‘Mr Right?’

‘This is an opportunity to reinvent yourself and to find a new
man to love.’

She just stared. There were no words.

It was only then he seemed to hesitate. ‘I know it feels
soon.’

She blinked.

He frowned. Scowled. ‘OK, I can see that you’re not
understanding—’

‘I understand perfectly well. But I refuse. I have no interest
in reinvention.’ That wasn’t entirely true—she’d often dreamed about the sorts
of things she might have done if she’d grown up with money—but she certainly had
no interest in a manufactured man-hunt.

‘Why not?’

‘Because there’s nothing wrong with me, for a start.’
Hmm...defensive much? ‘
I’m not in a hurry to have you
tally up my apparently numerous deficiencies and broadcast them to the
world.’

He stared at her. ‘You’re not deficient, Georgia. That’s not
the point of this.’

‘Really? What is the point? Other than to tell women everywhere
that being yourself is not sufficient to catch a good man.’

Something her gran had raised her never to believe. Something
that was starting to look dangerously possible.

‘OK, look... The point of this is ratings. That’s all the
network cares about. This promotion was mine and it went arse-up and so it’s my
mess to tidy. I just thought that we could spin it so that you can get something
decent out of it. Something meaningful.’ Sincerity blazed warm and intense from
his eyes. ‘This is an opportunity, Georgia. Fully paid. To do anything you want.
For a year.’

She couldn’t even be offended at having her life so summarily
dismissed.
Arse-up
was a pretty apt description. She
sighed. ‘Why would you even care? I’m nobody to you.’

He glanced away. When he came back to her his eyes were
carefully schooled. ‘I feel a certain amount of responsibility. It was my
promotion that ended your relationship. The least I can do is help you build a
new one.’

‘
I
ended my relationship,’ she
pressed. ‘My decisions. I’m not looking to shift blame.’

‘And so...?’

‘I don’t want to find someone to replace Dan. He wasn’t just
someone I picked up out of convenience.’ Though, to her everlasting shame, she
realised that maybe he was. And she’d almost made him her husband.

‘So you’re just going to hide out here for the next twelve
months?’

Yes.

‘No. I’m going to take a year off life to just get back to who
I really am. To avoid men altogether and just remember what I liked about being
by myself.’ The idea blew across her mind like the leaves on the gravel path
ahead of them. But it felt very right. ‘It will be the year of Georgia.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘The year of Georgia?’

‘To please no one but me.’ To find herself again. And see how
she felt about herself when left alone in a room with no one else to fill the
space.

‘Well, then, think about how much you could do for yourself
with a blank cheque behind you.’

It was a seductive image. All those things she’d always wanted
to do—secretly—and never had the courage or the money to do. She could do them.
At least some of them.

‘What would you do,’ he went on, sensing the shift in his
fortune, ‘if money was no object?’

Build that time machine...
‘I don’t
know. Self-improvement, learn a language, swim the English Channel?’

That got his attention. ‘The Channel, really?’

She shrugged. ‘Well, I’d have to learn how to swim
first...’

Suddenly he was laughing. ‘The Year of Georgia. We could mix it
up. Get a couple of experts to help us out with some ideas.’ Grey eyes blazed
into hers. ‘Fifty thousand pounds, Georgia. All for you.’

She stared at him. For an age. ‘Actually, I really just want
all of this to go away. Can fifty grand buy that?’

The compassion returned. It flickered across his eyes and then
disappeared. ‘Not literally, but there’s an extra-special level of
feeding-frenzy that the public reserves for those not wanting the attention.
Maybe fronting up to it will be a way to help end it?’

That made some sense. There was a seedy kind of fervour to the
interest of the English public specifically because she and Dan were both trying
so hard to avoid it. Maybe it tapped into the ancient predator parts of mankind,
as if they were scenting a kill.

‘You were willing to sell us your marriage before,’ he summed
up. ‘Why not sell us your recovery? How is it different?’

‘Sharing the happiest time of my life with the world would have
been infinitely different.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Is that what you thought? That marrying him
would make you happy?’

‘Of course.’ But then she stumbled. ‘Happier. You know,
still
happy.’

It sounded lame even to her own ears.

‘Clearly Bradford thought otherwise.’ Then he took a breath.
‘Why did you ask him if you weren’t certain of his answer?’

Her brow folded. ‘Because we’d been together for a year.’

‘A year in which he thought you were both just enjoying each
other’s company.’

For a moment she’d forgotten—again—how very public her proposal
was. And Dan’s decline. Three million listeners had heard every excruciating
word. She hid her shame by dropping her gaze to the path ahead of them.

‘So...what? His twelve-month expiry date was approaching?’

She lifted her eyes again. ‘It was your promotion, Mr Rush.
“Give him a leap year nudge,” you said in all your advertising.’

His eyes flicked away briefly. ‘We didn’t imagine anyone would
take us literally.’

She stared at him as a small cluster of walkers passed by. Her
friend’s illness was none of his business. Nor was Kelly’s eagerness to see a
happy ever after for two people she loved. ‘I misunderstood something someone
close to him said,’ she murmured.

Actually her mistake was in hearing what she wanted to hear.
And letting her mother’s expectations get to her. Her desperate desire to fill
the void in her life with grandchildren. And then she’d awoken to EROS’
promotion and decided it was some kind of sign.

And when she’d been shortlisted and then selected...well...

Clearly it was meant to be.

And exactly
none
of those was even
close to being a good excuse.

‘I accept full responsibility for my mistake, Mr Rush—’

‘Zander.’

‘—and I’ll need to seek some legal advice before answering you
about the contract.’

‘Of course.’ He fished a business card from his pocket and
handed it to her. ‘You’d be foolish not to.’

Which was a polite, corporate way of suggesting she’d been
pretty foolish already.

It was hard to argue.

* * *

‘I think you should do it,’ Kelly said, distracted
enough that Georgia could well imagine her stirring a pot full of alphabet
spaghetti in one hand, ironing a small school uniform with the other, and with
the phone wedged between her ear and shoulder.

A normal day in her household.

‘I thought for sure you’d tell me where he could stick his
offer,’ she said.

Kelly laughed. ‘If not for those magic words...’

Fifty thousand pounds.

‘You say magic words and I hear magic beans. I think this has
the potential to grow into something really all-consuming.’

‘So? Did you have any other plans for the next twelve
months?’

The fact it was true—and that Kelly didn’t mean to be
unkind—didn’t stop it hurting all the same. No, she had no particular plans that
twelve months of fully paid
stuff
would interrupt.
Which was a bit sad.

‘George, listen. I don’t want to bore you again with my
life-is-for-the-living speech, but I would take this in a heartbeat if someone
offered it to me.’

‘Why? There’s nothing wrong with you. You don’t need
reinvention.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with
you
.
This doesn’t have to be about that. This is an opportunity to do all the things
you’ve put aside your whole life while you’ve been working and saving so hard.
To live a little.’

‘You know why I work as hard as I do.’

‘I know. The whole “as God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry
again” thing. But you are not your mother, George. You are more financially
secure than most people your age. Isn’t there any room in your grand plan for
some fun?’

She blinked, wounded both by Kelly’s too-accurate summation of
her entire life’s purpose and by the implication of her words. ‘I’m fun.’

Kelly’s gentle laugh only scored deeper. ‘Oh, love. No, you’re
not. You’re amazing and smart and very interesting to be around, but you’re
about as much fun as Dan is. That’s what made you two so—’

Kelly sucked her careless words back in. ‘What I’m saying is,
you have nothing to lose. Take this man’s fifty grand and spoil yourself.
Consider it a consolation prize for not getting to marry my stupid brother.’

‘He’s not stupid, Kel,’ she whispered. ‘He just doesn’t love
me.’

In the silence that followed, two little boys shrieked and
carried on in the background. ‘Well, I love you, George, and as your friend I’m
telling you to take the money and run. You won’t get a chance like this
again.’

Kelly dragged her mouth away from the phone but not well enough
to save Georgia’s ears as she bellowed at one of her boys. ‘Cal, enough!’ She
came back to their conversation. ‘I’m going to have to go. World War Three is
erupting. Let me know what you decide.’

Moments later, Georgia thumbed the disconnect button on her
mobile and dropped it onto her plump sofa.

No surprises there, really. Of course Kelly would take the
money. And the opportunity. She’d come so close to being robbed of life—and her
boys of a mother—she was fully in marrow-sucking mode. And she was right—there
really was nothing else going on in Georgia’s life that a bunch of new
activities would interrupt.

Her objections lay, not with the time commitment, but with the
implication that she was broken. Deficient.

About as much fun as Dan
. Did Kelly
know what an indictment that really was? Mr Serious?

So that was three for three in favour. Kelly and her gran both
thought it would be good for her and her mother...well, what else would a woman
incapable of managing her money or her impulses say?

Which was part of the problem. Truth be told, Georgia had
nothing against the idea of a bit of self-development of the social kind. She
wanted to be a well-rounded person and maybe she had gone a bit too hard down
the other path these past years. But the pitch of her mother’s excited squeal
was directly and strikingly proportional to her level of discomfort at the idea
of frittering away fifty thousand perfectly good pounds—no matter how free—on
meaningless, fluffy activity.

Her mother would have spent it in a week. Just as she spent
every penny they ever had. They’d bounced through seven public houses before her
gran called a halt and took a thirteen-year-old Georgia in with her.

And then it would be gone, with nothing to show for it but a
fuller wardrobe, a liver in need of detox and a sleep debt the size of
Wales.

She stretched out and pulled the well-thumbed EROS contract
into her lap. It had her lawyer’s recommendation paper-clipped to the front.

Sign, he said. And attached his invoice.

So that was four for four. Five if you counted the handsome and
persuasive Zander Rush.

And only one against.

THREE

March

Zander’s assistant made an appointment right at the end
of his day for her to sign the contract and so walking back into EROS was only
half
as intimidating as it might have been if it
were full of staff.

An oblivious night-guard had just sat down at Reception instead
of the two gossipy girls she’d met there the first time she visited, and most of
the workstations in the communal area were closed down for the evening. Georgia
clutched a printout of Zander’s new contract in her hand and quietly trailed his
assistant past the handful of people still beavering away at their desks. Most
of them didn’t raise their heads.

Maybe she was yesterday’s news already.

Or maybe public interest had just swung around to Dan, instead,
now that the calendar had flipped over to March.
Drop Dead
Dan.
Apparently, he was fielding a heap of interest from the women’s
magazines and the tabloids, all determined to find him a match more acceptable
than she. More worthy. London now thought he was too good for her. Not that
he’d
put it like that—or ever would have—but she
could read between the lines. She didn’t dare read the actual lines.

She shifted in her seat outside Zander’s office.

Behind the frosted-glass doors, an elevated voice protested
strenuously. There was a low murmur where the shouted response should have been
and then a final, higher-pitch burst. Moments later one of the two doors flung
open and a man emerged—flushed, rushed—and stormed past her. He glanced her
way.

‘A lamb to the bloody slaughter,’ he murmured, a bit too loud
to have been accidental, before storming down the corridor and into one of the
studios off to one side. She followed his entire progress.

‘Georgia.’ A smooth voice dragged her focus back to the
doors.

She straightened, stood. Reached out her hand. The tiniest of
frowns crossed Zander’s face before he enclosed her hand in his and shook it.
His fingers were as warm and lingering as last time. And still pleasingly firm.
‘I was beginning to think we’d never see you again.’

‘I had to think it over.’ And over. Looking for any reasonable
way out. And avoiding the whole thing, really.

‘And?’

She sighed. ‘And here I am.’

He stood back and signalled at his assistant, who was politely
keeping her eyes averted, but not so much that she didn’t immediately decode and
acknowledge his signal. Did that little finger-twiddle mean,
Hold my calls
?
Bring us
coffee?
Or maybe,
If she’s not out in five
minutes interrupt me with something fake but important.

Perhaps the latter if the furrows above his brow were any
indication. He didn’t look all that pleased to see her. So maybe she really had
taken too long with the contract.

‘I needed to be sure I understood what you were asking.’ Ugh,
way too defensive.

His eyes finally found hers and they didn’t carry a hint of
judgement. ‘And do you?’

She waved the sheaf of papers. ‘All signed.’

A disproportional amount of relief washed across his face. He
sat back in his expensive chair.

She tipped her head. ‘You weren’t expecting that?’ She hated
the thought that maybe there’d been more room for negotiation after all. She
hated being played.

‘I’ve learned never to try and anticipate the actions of
people.’ His eyes drifted to the door where the man had just stormed out.

‘I had one question...’

The relief vanished and was replaced by speculation.
‘Sure.’

‘It’s about the interviews. Is that really necessary? It seems
very formal.’

‘We just need an idea of who you are, so we know what we’re
starting with.’

‘By filling out a questionnaire? I thought maybe if I had
coffee with your assistant, told her a bit about myself—’

‘Not Casey. She’s not subjective enough.’

‘Because she’s a woman?’

‘Because she’s a card-carrying member of Team Georgia.’

Oh. How nice to have at least one person in her corner.

‘Unless you were angling for a free lunch?’

She glared at him. ‘Yes. Because all of this would be totally
worth it if only I could get a free bowl of soup out of you.’

His scowl moderated into a half-smile.

‘What about one of your other minions,’ she tried.

His eyebrows shot up. ‘Minions?’

‘You have an assistant to do your bidding. And that man leaving
just now didn’t look like a man who enjoyed fair and equal status in his
workplace.’

His frown deepened. ‘I don’t have minions. I do have
staff.’

‘Then any one of your staff.’

He studied her across the desk. ‘No. Not one of my staff.’

She sighed. ‘I’d really rather not do a questionnaire, Zander.
It’s too impersonal.’ And a little bit insulting. As though a computer could
tell her what was missing in her life when she was still struggling to work that
out.

‘Not one of my staff and not a form.’

‘Then what?’

‘Me.’

‘You what?’

‘I’ll interview you.’ He reached for a pen.

‘N-now?’ she stammered.

The half-smile graduated. ‘No. I’m just making a couple of
notes for Casey for tomorrow.’

She swivelled in her chair. ‘She’s gone?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘I thought you... Didn’t you signal for her to do something for
you just now?’

‘Yes, I told her to go home. Just because I keep long hours
doesn’t mean she has to. She’s got a young family to get home to.’

So they were...alone? Why on earth did that make her pulse
spike? Just once. She’d walked in a secluded wood with him. Being alone in an
office wasn’t all that scandalous. Except that it was
his
office, full of
his
comfy, oversized
furniture and all of a sudden she felt a lot like an outclassed Goldilocks.

She pushed half out of her chair. ‘I should go.’

‘What about the interview? I thought we could go and grab a
drink, talk. I can get what I need.’

For a bright woman, an astonishing amount of nothing filled her
head just then. He prowled to the front of his desk and stood by her chair so
that she had no choice but to stand and let him shepherd her out of his
office.

‘The contract...’ she breathed.

He relieved her of the pages, flicked to the back one and
signed it, unread. She pressed her lips together. ‘I should have gifted myself a
luxury car in small print.’

His lips parted, revealing smooth, white, even teeth. ‘Where
would you drive a luxury car?’

‘You never know. Maybe that’s something I’d like to get
experience with—I’ve never driven anything flashier than a Vauxhall.’

His eyes softened as they alighted on her. Then he reached deep
into his trouser pocket and tossed her a bundle of keys. They were still warm
from his body heat. Toasty warm. She lifted her eyes to his.

‘Never too early to get started. Consider this the first Year
of Georgia activity. Driving a luxury car.’

‘Not your Jag?’ she gasped.

‘Not flashy enough for you?’

Excitement tangled with dread. ‘What if I scratch it? Or dent
it?’ Or drive it into the Thames in her excitement?

‘You strike me as a careful driver.’

He ushered her out of the door, keys still lying limp and
unwelcome on her palm. She closed her fingers around them.

‘Besides,’ he said, ‘I have outstanding insurance.’

* * *

Why
would you even
care?

Her words had haunted him ever since she’d uttered them,
wide-eyed and confused, when he’d first hit her with his counter-proposal. He
did care—very much—on a personal level that even he barely understood, so he’d
been shoving the echo of her words way down deep every time it bubbled to the
surface.

Rod and Nigel were already celebrating a ratings coup—even bad
PR was good PR in the communications industry—but they’d left the details of
what the coming year would entail up to him. As long as Zander got her on board,
that was all they cared about. Locking down the contract and making the best use
of the publicity windfall.

This desperate attempt to make sure she got something back for
her troubles, that was all him. It just didn’t seem right to screw a girl at the
most vulnerable moment of her life.

And he knew all about that moment. He’d lived it. He knew how
it shaped his life.

It was stupid; he could hardly say that he’d bonded with
Georgia the moment he decided to shield her from the prying eyes waiting in
Reception. Back in the elevator. But he had. She’d lingered somewhere in the
back of his mind from the moment she’d fallen so gratefully on the gesture, and
then she’d popped up, unsolicited, when he wasn’t armed.

In the middle of important meetings.

Late at night.

Out on the roads as he thudded one foot in front of the
other.

‘You seem to be dealing with this quite well,’ he murmured as
the waiter topped up both their glasses in his favourite Hampstead bar. ‘Given
how you felt about the whole idea last time we met.’

She took a long, steady breath. ‘It seems I’m the only one of a
longish list of people who doesn’t think there’s room for improvement with
Georgia Version-Two.’

‘Give yourself some credit,’ he murmured, saluting her with his
glass before taking a sip. ‘You’re more together than you think.’

‘Based on what?’

‘My observations.’

‘During one quick walk in the woods?’

‘I’m paid to pay attention to first impressions.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘The elevator?’

‘That was a tough few minutes for you and you handled them
well.’

She snorted. ‘Weeping while your back was turned?’

He smiled. ‘How someone reacts under extreme pressure tells you
a lot about them. You were unfailingly courteous even as you were dying
inside.’

Uncertainty flooded her dark eyes. ‘You saw that?’

‘But you didn’t let it have you. You stayed in control.’

‘You didn’t see what happened to me once I got home,’ she
murmured.

He chuckled. ‘I said you were strong, not a machine.’

He glanced down to her twisting fingers. Elegant, sensibly
manicured hands. He wondered how much else Georgia Stone was sensible about. And
what secret things she wasn’t.

And he shut that curiosity down as fast as it came.

‘So. Have you given any thought to the kinds of things you
might like to do with the Year of Georgia?’

‘No.’

A lie, for sure. She was human. Who wouldn’t start thinking
about how to spend that kind of money?

‘Top restaurants? Boats? A-list parties? A taste of how the
other half live.’

She shrugged. ‘I can see how they live. It doesn’t interest me,
particularly.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s...frivolous.’

Wow.
‘That’s rather judgemental,
don’t you think?’

She leaned forward. ‘More cars than one person can drive and
glamorous houses and wardrobes bulging with unworn clothes?’

‘Where’d you get that impression? Television?’ She frowned. ‘I
have more cars than I can drive at once. A nice house and enough suits for two
weeks without laundering.’ As he knew from experience. ‘But I wouldn’t call
myself frivolous. Maybe there’s more to it than you imagine.’

And he wouldn’t flatter himself that this was about him. This
was an older prejudice at work.

She dropped her eyes briefly. ‘Perhaps. But I’m still not
interested enough to try. I like my own world.’

‘Science and beautiful gardens? What else?’

She stared him down. ‘Classical music. Rowing. Old movies.
History.’

He blew out a breath. One part of him sighed at the image of a
life filled with those things. Quiet, solitary, gentle things. But the station
manager in him baulked. ‘Getting our listeners excited about rowing and
classical music is going to be a hard sell.’ Along with the rest.

She sat up straighter. ‘Not my problem.’

The first real emotion she’d shown him. Shame it was offence.
‘It kind of is, Georgia. You have a signed contract to honour. We need to find a
way forward in this.’

Her astute eyes pinned him. ‘As long as it also works for your
listeners?’

‘There must be things that they’ll enjoy that you will,
too.’

She stared at him. ‘I won’t do it if it’s portrayed as me
trying to find a man. Or to improve myself enough to find one.’

‘Just the Year of Georgia, then. The Valentine’s Girl getting
back on her feet. You really cared for Daniel, our listeners will buy that.’
God... Could he hear himself? He sounded just like Rod. Always an angle. Always
a carrot. ‘We’ll assign someone from the station to—’

‘No. I don’t want one of them with me.’

‘One of who?’

‘One of the people who were there for the proposal. I don’t
want them coming with me.’

She didn’t trust them. And he understood why. Though what she
didn’t understand was that the whole sodding mess was
his
fault. Not theirs.

‘OK, I’ll hire someone esp—’

‘No strangers, either.’ Her face pinched in several places.

‘Georgia, if I can’t use one of my team and I can’t hire
someone, who am I going to get to do it?’

‘You do it. I know you.’

His laugh was as loud as it was immediate. ‘Do you know what I
get paid an hour?’

‘Too much to actually get paid by the hour, I’m sure. But that
is my condition.’ She did her best to look adamant. Even that was moderated by a
faintly apologetic sheen to her steady gaze. ‘Take it or leave it.’

She had no idea how to negotiate. The innocence was insanely
refreshing. ‘You’ve already signed the contract,’ he pointed out gently.

But even as the words came out of his mouth his brain ticked
over, furiously. His assistant would jump at the chance for some extra
responsibility, so he could offload some lower-end tasks to Casey. And if this
was what it would take to get Georgia fully on board...