Jules Wake - Peony Place

One More Chapter

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2020

Copyright © Jules Wake 2020

Cover design by Lucy Bennett © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2020

Cover illustration © Joanna Kerr/Meiklejohn

Jules Wake asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008323653

Ebook Edition © August 2020 ISBN: 9780008323646

Version: 2020-07-30

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Thank you for reading…

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About the Author

Also by Jules Wake

One more chapter...

About the Publisher

This book is dedicated to my Great Aunt Hilda who at 105 is an inspiration to us all

I picked up my pace, clutching my travel mug of coffee – there was no way I could start the day without a hit of caffeine – my heels click clicking like runaway castanets as I joined the midweek tide of people pouring along the path with ant-like efficiency, all headed towards Churchstone station and the daily commute to Leeds.

I listened to the sharp, staccato beat of my shoes. To me they said, quick, precise and well-organised. And just because I wore high, sexy designer shoes (Russell and Bromley thank you; who can afford Jimmy Choos?!) I wasn’t like all the bitch bosses in romcoms. They were high but not super high, and made from supple, polished black leather. As sexy shoes, went they were workmanlike but expensive. I think shoes say a lot about you. I wanted people to know that I, Claire Harrison, had got where I was through hard work and intelligence but I still had class and style. Shoes have nuances and with this pair, I’d nailed it. Just like the meeting I was headed to. I’d worked all weekend to get this presentation to within an inch of perfection.

Mentally, I ticked off my list. Presentation done. Boardroom booked. Team briefed. The truth was, I’d been working for weeks on this meeting and had clocked up many a sleepless night. Reorganising the audit team was a huge responsibility and I was just praying I’d got it right and wasn’t creating an opening for a couple of redundancies. My promotion to partner depended on this and surely by now I’d jumped through enough hoops. Unfortunately, they just kept piling more on my plate, as if to test at what point I’d give in. They’d have a long wait.

On the personal front, I’d texted my sister an ambiguous ‘maybe’ in response to repeated pleas to help her this weekend, booked a long-overdue dental appointment and seriously considered phoning the doctor to arrange a smear test. All in all, my to-do list was nicely full of ticks and just as I was congratulating myself, everything came to a sudden halt. With a start, I slapped a hand over the top of my coffee cup and stopped abruptly because an older woman with a dandelion clock of white hair wearing a sunshine-yellow tracksuit, Day-glo pink trainers, and a silver lamé messenger bag slung across her chest darted out of the lane on the right, cutting across the main path only to disappear down the opposite track. Thankfully, despite slopping wildly, my coffee stayed put and hadn’t dripped all over my brand-new kingfisher-blue suit, worn with a crisp white shirt designed to say I’m chic, stylish and extremely competent. Or at least that’s what I hoped it said to my bosses. Phew no spillage. Near disaster averted.

Unfortunately, even as I was congratulating myself, it seemed the woman’s sudden appearance had startled several wood pigeons pecking desultorily on the grass verge and with a cacophony of outraged squawks and a flurry of feathers, they clumsily took flight, heedless of the commuters hell-bent on reaching the station for the seven-twenty train.

The man in front of me stopped dead and then, in order to avoid the pigeons, the stupid idiot took a step back doing a Matrix -style back-bend manoeuvre, sending the tails of his fine wool suit flying. In some sort of slow-motion panic, I registered this as he tried to dodge one of the birds, adding a twist at the last minute that brought him face to face with me, or rather, coffee cup to coffee cup.

The refillable cups collided, a spout of brown liquid shooting up into the air. And what goes up must come down. We both glanced up with quick, horrified fascination and then there was no time to dodge the inevitable downflow of hot, wet coffee.

The splash hit my beautiful white shirt dead centre, right above my cleavage, liquid seeping through and puddling in between my boobs. Brown stains blossomed with inexorable progress, bleeding out over my chest across the front of my white shirt. Shit. Shit. Shit. I did not need this today of all days.

‘Oh my God!’ I cried and glared up at him. ‘You idiot.’ Why the hell hadn’t he had the presence of mind to hang on to his bloody coffee?

He was trying to stroke the coffee away from his own white shirt, completely oblivious to what he’d done, and then he glanced up at me, his eyes zeroing in on my damp chest.

‘Idiot? Me? Why weren’t you looking where you were going?’

‘Me?’ I asked, now rummaging one handed in my shoulder bag. I had some travel tissues in there somewhere.

‘You went into the back of me. In a car, it would be your fault.’

What? He had to be flipping joking. ‘You reversed into me. Look at the state of my shirt.’ I let out a ‘Grrr’ noise out of sheer frustration. My shirt was absolutely ruined. And why was he glaring at me as if this was my fault.

Wow, he has unusual eyes, a kind of golden green.

Who cares about his effing eyes, Claire? What is the matter with you?

Given the circumstances, that was a completely inappropriate observation. Since when did I go around checking out men’s eyes? I gave up on that sort of thing a long time ago. A girl can only suffer so many disappointments. My career was enough for me; besides, lots of men couldn’t hack it. Couldn’t handle that I was more successful than them.

‘Shit. I’ve got a meeting with the board in an hour’s time. Look what you’ve done.’ I glanced down at my coffee-stained shirt.