Charlotte Phillips - All Bets Are On

‘Alice?’ Louder this time. ‘Are you OK?’

Another knock. Perhaps if she kept quiet he’d give up. She clutched the side of the sink in frustration.

‘Sandra’s downstairs in Reception. I’ll go and get her,’ he said.

Sandra. The resentful marketing assistant who’d been passed over when Alice got her promotion to Account Manager and who would probably like to see her buried under a patio. No, thanks. She could envisage the ill-hidden glee and fake concern on Sandra’s face right now and it was enough to galvanise her into action.

‘I am fine!’ she snapped, hearing the nasal tone in her voice from all the crying and hating it. ‘I don’t need Sandra or anyone else. I’m perfectly all right.’

He totally ignored her.

‘No, you’re not. What’s up? Maybe I can help?’

The idea that she might want an emotional chat about her love life, or lack of it, with the man who was sleeping his way through the office actually raised a crazy bubble of laughter.

‘Go away,’ she snapped.

‘I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re OK.’

The concern that softened the deep voice was, of course, not genuine. Harry Stephens didn’t do concern. As Head of Graphic Design he did creative brilliance in the office and short-term devastation in his personal life. Emotions like concern need not apply. Anyone with a pulse and a pretty face in this building had probably at some point looked into his deep blue eyes and thought he would be different with her. So far, he never had been.

She was just trying to come up with an adequately cutting response that would get him off her case once and for all when he opened the door. She hadn’t considered for one second that he’d actually have the arrogance to follow her into the ladies’ room. She caught a glimpse of her own gobsmacked expression in the mirror as she dashed into one of the cubicles and twisted the lock.

‘You can’t come in here!’ she squawked.

‘I’m already in here,’ he said. A pause. ‘And I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re OK, so you might as well just come out with it.’

She heard the squeak of the wicker chair in the corner as he made himself comfortable. Despair rushed in and buried her. She’d let her guard down; let the mess she’d been in the past show through. And he’d seen it. The real Alice Ford—behind the iron-solid professional glossy persona she’d worked so hard to perfect.

The surge of grief swelled back up, too big to squash down or bat aside, and in her misery her guard slipped a little.

She sat down on the toilet, clutched her hot forehead in her hands, and closed her eyes against her wet palms. She had the beginnings of a headache.

‘It’s nothing,’ she mumbled. ‘Work stuff.’

* * *

A vague comment that would probably put most people off probing any further, Harry thought. She was the expert at keeping things on a work level. He couldn’t think of a single person in the office who had ever socialised properly with her.

He wasn’t most people.

‘Then I can definitely help,’ he said. ‘If it’s work related. I’m always happy to help out a colleague.’

‘Please will you just go away?’

The despair in her voice tugged unexpectedly at his heart. He jumped a little in surprise. Of course, he didn’t do crying women so no wonder his reactions were off kilter. He didn’t need emotional angst. Avoid like the plague.

Except that this situation was also an opportunity.

Alice Ford was the current subject of the office betting ring, an outwardly light-hearted but in reality deadly serious pastime. Naturally he had a huge stake in it and naturally he intended to win. He’d simply been biding his time. And now that time was here.

‘No chance,’ he said.

He heard her strangled sob and was on his feet before he knew what he was doing, moving across to the cubicle door. He spoke through it, making his voice gentle.

‘Come on. Tell me what’s up,’ he encouraged. ‘Is it family stuff? I know what that can be like.’ He certainly did. Putting family stuff out of his mind was pretty much up there at the top of his priorities.

‘No,’ she mumbled, between sobs.

‘Boyfriend stuff, then?’

A perfunctory suggestion and he knew it. The word was that there had been no boyfriend in years—the surprisingly high-stakes bet proved that. But no harm in confirming the fact, confirming the challenge.

‘You don’t know the first thing about it!’ she howled angrily through the door. ‘With your life-is-a-cabaret attitude.’

‘Oh, OK, so tell me the first thing about it. Has some bloke dumped you? Because if he has, he’s an idiot.’

In Harry’s opinion, flattery was always a good starting point.

She snorted bitterly.

‘Are you having some kind of a laugh?’

‘No. I just assumed that the main reason women cry in toilets is over men.’

‘Well, of course, you’d know that, wouldn’t you? I bet there have been plenty of tears shed in here over you.’

He chose to ignore that.

‘If it’s not over a man, then what the hell is it?’

‘Will you please just leave me alone?’ The anguished note rose in her voice. Maybe if he just pushed her a bit harder.

‘No. Not until you tell me what’s wrong.’

The answer came in a sobbing shout and the cubicle door rattled as if she’d beat a fist against it. He stepped back in surprise.

‘All right, then, it is over men! Plural! Not just one man, the whole damn lot of you! You think I’m having a meltdown because some bloke’s dumped me? I haven’t dated in three years. Go on and laugh it up now!’

She dissolved into a flurry of sobs again, coming up every so often to blurt out more details.

‘It’s not that I don’t want to date, it’s just been so long I haven’t a clue where to start. I can’t face the whole nightmare of meeting a guy, investing all that emotion, all that time and energy, only to be kicked in the teeth a few months down the line.’ A sob. ‘I’ll be single for ever and end up one of those women in a houseful of cats smelling of wee.’ A loud snuffle followed by a furious snarl. ‘And my clock is ticking!’ Another sob, tapering off into sniffles.

He took a moment to consider how best to play this. He couldn’t quite believe his luck. By pure coincidence he’d happened to come back to the office early, find her like this and now here it suddenly was. The chance he needed.

Insider knowledge.

A way into her life where he could then stay put long enough to win the bet and scoop the cash and the kudos.

This year or so in London, the job here, were beginning to pay dividends. Finally a sense of freedom. New place, new people. After the last few weeks he was definitely ready for a new challenge. Arabella had just been a diversion. This would be something else entirely. It was common knowledge that Alice was a workaholic who kept all men at arm’s length. Now he knew that wasn’t what she really wanted, he could use the fact to his advantage. She was just too used to being single; that was all it was.

She needed some persuasion.

‘Alice, listen to me,’ he began.

His voice was gentle and kind, and Alice’s stomach gave a sudden melty flip-flop. Apparently even in the depths of emotional meltdown her body was as receptive to his charm as the rest of the female workforce, who cared only that he looked like an Adonis with his dark-hair-blue-eyes combo and the muscular build and leftover tan from whatever sporty summer holiday he’d taken.

Fortunately she was able to rely on her mind, which knew only too well the kind of man he was.

‘You just need to get out more, that’s all,’ he said, jump-starting her temper, which up to now had been squashed into submission by humiliation and disbelief. She unwound a huge wad of toilet roll and wiped her eyes angrily.