Sophie Kinsella - The Undomestic Goddess

“Samantha.”

“What? What is it?” I give a startled jump and open my eyes. Guy Ashby is standing at my door.

Guy is my best friend in the firm. He’s six foot three with olive skin and dark eyes, and normally he looks every inch the smooth, polished lawyer. But this morning his dark hair is rumpled and there are shadows under his eyes.

“Relax.” Guy smiles. “Only me. Coming to the meeting?”

He has the most devastating smile. It’s not just me; everyone noticed it the minute he arrived at the firm.

“Oh. Er… yes, I am.” I pick up my papers, then add carelessly, “Are you OK, Guy?

You look a bit rough.”

He broke up with his girlfriend. They had bitter rows all night and she’s walked off for good…

No, she’s emigrated to New Zealand…

“All-nighter,” he says, wincing. “Fucking Ketterman. He’s inhuman.” He yawns widely, showing the perfect white teeth he had fixed when he was at Harvard Law School.

He says it wasn’t his choice. Apparently they don’t let you graduate until you’ve been OK’d by the cosmetic surgeon.

“Bummer.” I grin in sympathy, then push back my chair. “Let’s go.”

I’ve known Guy for a year, ever since he joined the corporate department as a partner.

He’s intelligent and funny, and works the same way I do, and we just somehow… click.

And yes. It’s possible that some kind of romance would have happened between us if things had been different. But there was a stupid misunderstanding, and…

Anyway. It didn’t. The details aren’t important. It’s not something I dwell on. We’re friends―and that’s fine by me.

OK, this is exactly what happened.

Apparently Guy noticed me his first day at the firm, just like I noticed him. And he was interested. He asked Nigel MacDermot, who had the next-door office to him, if I was single. Which I was.

This is the crucial part: I was single. I’d just split up with Jacob. But Nigel MacDermot―who is a stupid, stupid, thoughtless behind-the-times moron―told Guy I was attached to a senior partner at Berry Forbes.

Even though I was single.

If you ask me, the system is majorly flawed. It should be clearer. People should have engaged signs, like toilets. Taken. Not-Taken. There should be no ambiguity about these things.

Anyway, I didn’t have a sign. Or if I did, it was the wrong one. There were a slightly embarrassing few weeks where I smiled a lot at Guy―and he looked awkward and started avoiding me, because he didn’t want to a) break up a relationship or b) have a threesome with me and Jacob.

I didn’t understand what was going on, so I backed off. Then I heard through the grapevine he’d started going out with a girl called Charlotte who he’d met at some weekend party. They live together now. A month or two later we worked together on a deal, and got to know each other as friends―and that’s pretty much the whole story.

I mean, it’s fine. Really. That’s the way it goes. Some things happen―and some things don’t. This one obviously just wasn’t meant to be.

Except deep down… I still believe it was.

“So,” says Guy as we walk along the corridor to the meeting room. “What was Ketterman in your room for earlier?”

“Oh, the usual. A due diligence report. Have it back by yesterday, that kind of thing.

Like I’m not snowed under already.”

“Everyone wants you to do their work for them, that’s why,” says Guy. He shoots me a concerned look. “You want to delegate anything? I could speak to Ketterman―”

“No, thanks,” I reply at once. “I can do it.”

“You don’t want anyone to help.” He sounds amused. “You’d rather die, smothered by a heap of due diligence files.”

“Like you’re not the same!” I retort.

Guy hates admitting defeat or asking for help as much as I do. Last year he sprained his leg in a skiing accident and point-blank refused to use the crutch that the firm’s doctor gave him. His secretary kept running after him with it down corridors, but he’d just tell her to take it away and use it as a coat stand.

“Well, you’ll be calling the shots soon. When you’re a partner.” He cocks an eyebrow.

“Don’t say that!” I hiss in horror. He’ll jinx it.

“Come on. You know you’ve made it.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Samantha, you’re the brightest lawyer in your year. And you work the hardest.

What’s your IQ again, six hundred?”

“Shut up.”

Guy laughs. “What’s one twenty-four times seventy-five?”

“Nine thousand, three hundred,” I say grudgingly.

Since I was about ten years old, I’ve been able to do big sums in my head. God knows why, I just can. And everyone else just goes, “Oh cool,” and then forgets about it.

But Guy keeps on about it, pitching sums at me like I’m a circus performer. This is the one thing that irritates me about him. He thinks it’s funny, but it actually gets a bit annoying. I still haven’t quite worked out how to get him to stop.

Once I told him the wrong number on purpose―but that time it turned out he actually needed the answer, and he put it in a contract and the deal nearly got wrecked as a result. So I haven’t done that again.

“You haven’t practiced in the mirror for the firm’s Web site?” Guy adopts a pose with his finger poised thoughtfully at his chin. “Ms. Samantha Sweeting, Partner.”

“I haven’t even thought about it,” I say, feigning indifference.

This is a slight lie. I’ve already planned how to do my hair for the photo. And which of my black suits to wear.

“I heard your presentation blew their socks off,” says Guy more seriously.

My indifference vanishes in a second. “Really?” I say, trying not to sound too eager for praise. “You heard that?”

“And you put William Griffiths right on a point of law in front of everybody.” Guy folds his arms and regards me humorously. “Do you ever make a mistake, Samantha Sweeting?”

“Oh, I make plenty of mistakes,” I say lightly. “Believe me.”

Like not grabbing you and telling you I was single, the very first day we met.

“A mistake isn’t a mistake.” Guy pauses. “Unless it can’t be put right.” As he says the words, his eyes seem to hold an extra significance.

Or else they’re just squiffy after his night of no sleep. I was never any good at reading the signs.

I should have done a degree in mutual attraction, instead of law. It would have been a lot more useful. Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Knowing When Men Fancy You And When They’re Just Being Friendly.

“Ready?” Ketterman’s whiplash voice behind us makes us both jump, and we turn to see a whole phalanx of soberly suited men, together with a pair of even more soberly suited women.

“Absolutely.” Guy nods at Ketterman, then turns back and winks at me.

Nine hours later we’re all still in the meeting.

The huge mahogany table is strewn with photocopied draft contracts, financial reports, notepads covered in scribbles, polystyrene coffee cups, and Post-its. Take-out boxes from lunch are littering the floor. A secretary is distributing fresh copies of the draft agreement. Two of the lawyers from the opposition have got up from the table and are murmuring intently in the breakout room. Every meeting room has one of these: a little side area where you go for private conversations, or when you feel like breaking something.

The intensity of the afternoon has passed. It’s like an ebb in the tide. Faces are flushed, tempers are still high, but no one’s shouting anymore. The Fallons and Smithleaf people have gone. They reached agreement on various points at about four o’clock, shook hands, and sailed off in their shiny limos.