All Bets are On

TWELVE


‘A nunnery it is, then, Sister Ford,’ Tilly said.

Alice stared at the cup of coffee and the sandwich she didn’t want, lying between them on the coffee-shop table. Normally she would have eaten lunch at her desk but the feeling, real or imagined, of being stared at in there was suffocating. Her declaration to Harry that she’d simply hand her notice in had been a heat-of-the-moment luxury. The reality was that she simply couldn’t afford to walk out of her role at Innova, not without another post to go to. Tilly’s offer of coffee was a welcome time-out.

She could have done without the side order of advice.

‘Don’t joke about it,’ she said.

‘I’m not joking. Well, not really. You’re basically denouncing men for the rest of your days.’

‘Not men. A man.’

‘The one who says he loves you.’

She fought the urge to clap her hands over her ears and sing loudly to drown this out. She didn’t need to hear Harry’s declaration of love repeated by Tilly. She was having enough trouble squishing it out of her head as it was.

Oblivious, Tilly carried on, fighting Harry’s corner when she was supposed to be in Alice’s.

‘OK, so what he did was terrible, but he was already doing everything he could to fix it, even before you found out about it. He paid back everyone who contributed to the pool—right? He said he was going to come clean to you. He’s sorry. You’re miserable without him. Where’s your sense of forgiveness?’

‘Simon used it up.’

Tilly threw a hand up.

‘And there we are again. Simon’s name comes back up. You’re still letting what that moron did control your decisions.’

Alice flung exasperated hands up.

‘You make it sound so easy. Let’s all move on, never mind that the entire office is talking about me and laughing.’

‘It’ll be yesterday’s news before you know it. The only person still dwelling on it will be you.’

‘That’s so easy for you to say, isn’t it? Because you don’t have to work there.’

Tilly shrugged.

‘Neither do you. Look for another job. Take a sabbatical. Sweep it all under the carpet and run away from it like you did with Simon.’ She leaned forward. ‘Or you could ring the changes, stay put and brazen it out.’

‘You’re meant to be my friend—you’re meant to be on my side.’

‘I am. That’s why I’m telling you this. I’ve never seen you as happy as you were those few weeks with him. It was like getting the old Alice back.’ Tilly’s gaze was gentle. ‘Isn’t that worth a second chance? You can come out of this situation in one of two ways, honey. You can carry on being the victim or you can rise above it.’

Alice stared into her coffee. She’d thought herself so empowered, making a new life after Simon’s betrayal, controlling every tiny corner of it, reinventing herself as a single professional with no time for relationships, carving herself a niche where she could finally feel safe. Yet all the time every aspect of what she was doing was being driven by the very thing she wanted to put behind her. Moving to London had made no difference. She’d stayed the butt of Simon’s joke for three years because she’d brought the effects of it right along with her.

Now she had Harry’s betrayal to replace Simon’s. A whole new nightmare to pick over, maybe for three more years, during which the thought of letting another man in filled her with dread.

And when you got past all the anger about the bet pool, lurking underneath was the aching, miserable loss of Harry and it took her breath away. She hadn’t counted on enjoying his company so much, laughing with him, talking with him, making love with him. He had completed her one-sided life in a way she hadn’t anticipated. And doing without him left a gaping, miserable emptiness that bravado simply wasn’t enough to fill.

Tilly was right: becoming a nun was a pretty comparable alternative future.

She could let it go.

A few weeks ago that would have been unthinkable. But a few weeks ago she hadn’t known Harry. Hadn’t fully comprehended how destructive holding a grudge could be. Hadn’t known the joy she was depriving herself of in the name of caution. OK, so she hadn’t shredded Simon’s clothes or filled his curtain rails with frozen prawns, but maybe if she had she might be in a healthier place now. Instead she’d turned her anger and hurt inwards and had carried it with her instead of getting over it.

She could do it all again. She could be the perpetual victim. Or—shock-horror—she could rise above it all and follow her own dreams instead of letting the past squash them. The idea of being aloof and deprecating suddenly felt vaguely as if it might be very classy and grown-up.

She just wasn’t sure if moving on and forgiving Harry could be the same thing.

* * *

Straight home from work yet again and then in for the evening.

For over a year now staying in had been pretty much unheard of. Even on weeknights. When he wasn’t dating he was out with friends or colleagues, soaking up every social vibe London had to offer.

The thought of going out had no appeal whatsoever. He hadn’t the remotest interest in the new intern who’d started this week at the office and whose skirt length should be illegal. What had Alice done to him?

All he could think about was what he’d lost. The feeling, suppressed so hard that he’d almost forgotten it, of being part of a team, of looking after someone and earning their love and respect. Of loving someone and having them love you in return. Being with Alice had felt like coming home.

The idea that he needed to be needed came as a shock, and the solution was never going to be found in London, not when seeing Alice every day reminded him what could have been.

He opened his laptop and drafted his resignation.

* * *

Pouring everything into work had been Alice’s way of surviving after Simon’s betrayal. Fourteen-hour days had leeched so much energy from her that she’d had little left for anything else. She didn’t even have that this time—how could she lose herself in work when everyone she dealt with there had been in on the joke? She withdrew back to keeping all her workmates at a completely professional distance. No room for small talk or friendly conversation.

She kept out of Harry’s way—not that it was difficult. He seemed to have ceased all socialising. There were no more crying assistants. He came into work, did his job, went home again. And avoiding him like the plague seemed to be helping, right up until she saw his job advertised on the internal notice board.

He was leaving.

As he opened the door of his office in response to her knock her heart, steeled against any rash impulses, turned softly over. Up close he didn’t look like someone who was living it up on a diet of no-strings flings any more. He looked a bit like she felt. Tired and pale. Sleep hadn’t been a friend to her these past days.

‘Alice!’

Genuine surprise.

‘Can we talk?’

He opened the door wider and stood well back, careful not to be in her personal space, yet still she was acutely aware of him as she stepped past him into the room. A quick glance sideways showed a resigned expression in his blue eyes.

‘Coffee?’ he asked her, as if they had never been anything more than colleagues. She shook her head and sat down by the desk.

‘I heard you handed in your notice,’ she said.

He closed the door and crossed the room to sit behind the desk as if this were some work meeting.

‘I’m moving back towards Bath. Thinking of doing some freelance work for a while.’ He paused. ‘And I thought it might be easier for you if I’m not around.’

He was thinking of her. London party animal Harry was prepared to exit his life so that she might breathe a bit easier in hers.

‘I thought this was your big escape route,’ she said. ‘Now you tell me you’re going back home.’

He was looking downwards and she saw a smile touch his lips.

‘You’re right, I did move to London to escape. But it turns out you can’t just chop chunks out of your life and become a different person. I spent so long looking out for Susie and my mum it must have become ingrained. I’m not sure what my purpose is here any more.’

‘You could still stay in London,’ she said. ‘Even if you left Innova you could find another job. You’re great at what you do. I’m sure it wouldn’t take you long.’

He looked up at her then, the blue eyes clear, and shook his head.

‘I miss it,’ he said. ‘I was so busy resenting the way my family tied me down and made demands on me that I overlooked what I was getting from them. Having someone to care about and look out for, that feeling of belonging. I didn’t even realise I missed it until I got to know you. I’d convinced myself the single life was so great. Then I met you, I fell for you, and now I’ve lost you. And I feel...’ he looked up at the ceiling as if searching for the right word ‘...rootless. There’s nothing here for me any more.’ He shook his head wonderingly. ‘I was so afraid I was like my father deep down because all I used to think about was getting away. Turns out, getting away wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.’


‘I told you before, you’ve always been different from your father. You might have felt like you were being held back but you didn’t act on that. You made a choice to stay and look after your family. You’re not him. You’re better than that.’

He offered her a small smile.

‘Thanks.’

‘So it really will be over, then, once you’ve gone.’

The thought of that finality, of knowing that she really wouldn’t see him again, brought a wave of regret. All that potential happiness just gone in one fell swoop.

He nodded.

‘Yes, it will be over. I’m so sorry, Alice, for what happened, for the way I treated you. I’ve done as much as I can to put it right but without turning back time it was never going to be enough, was it? I just hope you can be happy going forward and maybe one day you can forgive me.’

The tortured look in his eyes wrenched at her heart.

He was moving away. He’d disbanded the bet pool so no one would benefit from it and now he was leaving his job, leaving London. She would never see him again. She searched again for the satisfaction in that and found none. The hideous ache of losing him hurt far more than the stupid bruised pride the bet had caused.

She was through caring what people thought of her. Where had it ever got her?

‘I was over the bet weeks ago, Harry,’ she said. ‘In a way I began to see it as a positive thing—I was floundering along living half a life, pouring everything into work and spending my evenings like some recluse. I’m only twenty-seven, for goodness’ sake. Life was passing me by. It was the kick up the butt I needed to get me out of that rut.’

‘I still don’t get the feeling you’re about to thank me for it.’

She grinned ruefully at that.

‘Don’t push your luck,’ she said.

She saw the tiniest spark in his blue eyes interrupt the flat defeat of his gaze.

‘I carried on working with all the people on that list, knowing I was the butt of gossip. At the beginning I had no idea if you were on the list or not. It really didn’t matter then. What mattered was that by dating you I was proving everyone wrong and building up a bit of a social life for myself.’

She looked across the desk at him. ‘You weren’t the only one with a hidden agenda.’

She watched him frown as that statement kicked in.

‘What do you mean a hidden agenda?’

‘When you offered to take me out as some kind of integration back into dating, my first instinct was to turn you down flat. But then I thought it over and I decided it might be a good thing. You were the exact type of guy I wanted to avoid. So I came up with a list of rules that I thought would define a player. Traits that I remembered from when I dated Simon. Like the fact a player would move things on to the physical as fast as possible because getting laid would be his main aim. And a player wouldn’t really be interested in getting to know me, just in getting his hands on me. I thought I could come up with some kind of profile and then I’d be equipped to avoid that kind of relationship in the future. I could weed out the dross.’ She paused. ‘And I thought I could test the theory on you.’

The look on his face was incredulous.

‘You were using me to come up with some behaviour sketch? What kind of ludicrous amateur psychology is that?’

She could hear a twinge of indignation in his voice and defensiveness immediately kicked in. He was so not having the moral high ground. Not now.

‘I know it sounds a bit off the wall. But I liked the idea of having some concrete rules to follow instead of just relying on my own judgement of character. Let’s face it, I hadn’t exactly had great success at that in the past.’

‘But still...’ He pulled a face. ‘A list of rules?’

‘It turned out to be my downfall,’ she said. ‘You started out proving my point with that tried-and-tested boating-lake date but then somewhere along the way you started flouting the profile at every turn. Walking away after kissing me when my rules said that you should be falling over yourself to get me upstairs to bed. Letting me paint your face and stepping in at a kids’ party when my rules said that you should have been steering way clear of anything outside your comfort zone. And the more rules you bent, the more I began to believe you weren’t really a player after all. You were a keeper, you just didn’t know it.’

She sighed.

‘And that was why it was so devastating, Harry, finding out you were behind that stupid bet. Because you’d proved me wrong again and again and again. And then, when I’d finally let myself be convinced you didn’t deserve your awful reputation, began to believe we might have a future, it turned out that the entire relationship was underpinned by this big lie.’

He was shaking his head.

‘The rule thing is totally crazy,’ he said.

She smiled a little.

‘Maybe it is. It didn’t do me any good. Growing up I felt so dispensable. Neither of my parents ever really needed me. If I’m honest, really honest, I tried to turn my relationship with Simon into more than it really was because I wanted that feeling of belonging somewhere. To him it was just a light-hearted fling but to me it was about being needed. After I moved here I couldn’t face another relationship so I tried to make myself indispensable at work instead. I like that feeling of being wanted.’

She shrugged and stole a glance at him. He was looking at her intently.

‘Unfortunately I ended up channelling needy instead. I should have been letting go of the past, taking new people at face value, but instead I was there with a big fat list of rules defining you by what happened to me before. I’m tired of it, Harry. I just want to let it go.’

She looked up at him and suddenly he was out of his chair and around the desk in a few quick paces. He knelt in front of her and took both her cold hands in his own.

‘You can let it go. We’re not so different. We’ve both tried to freeze out big aspects of our lives because we thought that’s what it would take to be happy. I cut my family out and you swore off men. It didn’t work. We ended up living half a life, both of us held back by what happened in the past instead of letting it go.’

He squeezed her hands gently.

‘If you can forgive me we could try again. Just look forward instead of back. I promise you, I’ll never let you down again. I’ll never hide anything from you or do anything but protect you.’

He looked openly into her face, holding her gaze with clear blue eyes that were filled with nothing but love and concern. She felt her love for him. The thought of a future ahead of her without him in it filled her with despair. It was the safe option, of course, no fear of betrayal or loss if she put an end to it right now. She could put in for another promotion at work, maybe think about buying a house instead of renting. She would still be upwardly mobile; she didn’t need a man to be that.

But he was right: she would be living half a life.

‘I did everything I could think of to put things right,’ he went on. ‘If I could give you my head on a pole I would. I’m so sorry, Alice.’

She swallowed hard to get rid of a sudden dry sensation at the back of her throat.

Harry saw the hesitation in her eyes and his heart twisted.

‘You haven’t quite done everything possible to put it right,’ she said, lifting her chin in the cute way she had that made him want to kiss her and kiss her and kiss her. Thinking that gesture wouldn’t be for him from now on filled him with misery.

‘How do you mean?’

‘The money,’ she said.

He stared at her.

‘The money?’

‘Yes. I want the money. The stake money you were in line to win by sleeping with me.’ She took one of her hands away and examined her fingernails, not looking at him. ‘I think I’ve earned it.’

‘I cancelled the bet,’ he said. Did she not understand how these things worked? ‘I paid everyone their stake back. The bet pool is empty.’

‘Then you’ll have to cover all the stake money yourself,’ she said airily. ‘The whole pool. Winner takes all. I’ve seen the list so I should be in line for a few hundred quid.’

So that was it.

‘Enough money to sweeten a new start, is that it?’ he said. ‘Compensation.’

‘Something like that.’

She’d come here for money? Not to talk. Then there had never been any hope at all.

As if in a dream he stood up, went to the desk drawer and took out his chequebook. When he’d written and signed a cheque he tore it out and turned to see that she was standing up. Ready to leave. He fought the feeling of impending emptiness and held the cheque out to her.

‘Thanks,’ she said, folding it.

He pre-empted her and walked towards the door, the depth of his sadness making his throat dry and his limbs ache.

‘I’ll put it towards Venice,’ she said from behind him.

His heart gave a tiny cautious jolt.

‘Venice?’

He turned slowly around.

‘Yes,’ she said and shrugged. ‘I figure since I wasn’t exactly straight with you about my list of rules, and since I’ve now won the bet myself, that just about makes us even.’


He searched her face for some sign that she was joking. She was looking at him steadily. His heartbeat was climbing towards breakneck.

‘A new start. You, me, no past baggage and Venice. What do you say?’

She smiled her cute smile at him and he let himself believe. Relief and excitement flooded in. He couldn’t say anything. Instead he pulled her into his arms. She tangled her hands in his hair.

‘You sure Venice is a good choice?’ he whispered, between melting kisses, not caring who might walk in.

‘Romantic capital of the world,’ she said. ‘What’s not to like?’

He kissed his way slowly along her jaw.

‘I wasn’t thinking about that,’ he said, moving his lips to brush her neck. She squirmed deliciously against him. ‘More about your track record with boats.’