Page 88 of The Plot Twist

‘Al?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m sorry about what I suggested about Martin. Before. That he was some kind of daddy substitute for you.’

‘S’OK.’

‘No, it’s not. I know how much your dad meant to you, and how important his memory is. I shouldn’t have said it.’

Allie exhaled. ‘Maybe you had a point. I guess I’m always thinking about what Dad would have thought about my life. Whether he would have been proud of me. I’ve never told anyone this before…’ She paused and then took a deep breath in. ‘The last thing he ever said to me was that he hoped me and Martha would find a love like he and my mum had.’ Allie paused, her throat thick with tears. ‘For a long time, I didn’t think I’d have that kind of luck, that I should just settle for someone like Dominic. And then I met Will. And he was everything I think my dad was talking about. I feel like he brought me back to life. That sounds so silly.’ She felt Jess shake her head next to her on the bed. ‘But he made me believe that happy-ever-afters could really happen and that maybe I had found mine. And now he won’t talk to me, not even after everything I wrote. So yeah, I guess I’m hoping that maybe he just hasn’t got around to reading it yet.’

Jess took Allie’s hand in hers and squeezed it tight.

* * *

Allie stood in front of the huge doors to the V&A and bit her lip. She shivered, more from the memories of how she felt when she left here last time than from the cold air, which was nipping at her exposed legs. If she had the energy to care, she would have been regretting the short dress that Jess had persuaded her into, but all her energy was focused on putting one foot in front of the other and pushing all thoughts of Will from her head. She had put her plan into action, she had almost killed herself writing two books: Martin and Angie’s love story, which she had delivered to them, and a second romance, a twist on her and Will’s meet cute. But she had made up the ending of that one before she had discovered how it truly ended. And now here she was, rethinking the whole thing, thinking she should have trusted her gut, realised that happy-ever-afters really only did happen in books, and she should have been honest with her readers and told them that actually the girl doesn’t always get the one she wants, that true love doesn’t always win out, and that sometimes it would be easiest just to write a murder mystery and be done with it.

‘Come on.’ Jess took her hand, simultaneously pinning a name badge on Allie’s front as she did so and pulling her in through the front doors. It was a Chanel retrospective that Jess had cadged preview tickets for and as such it was quieter than it would be when it finally opened to the general public next week. Jess grabbed a couple of glasses of champagne and thrust one into Allie’s hand, ushering her through into one of the darker galleries, where the iconic Chanel dresses were encased in glass domes.

‘Where are we going?’

‘They’ve got the first little black dress here that she ever designed. It’s not shown very often. I want to get a glimpse before everyone else gets here.’

Allie allowed herself to be pulled by Jess, eventually coming to stop in front of a glass case, standing in isolated splendour in the darkest of all the galleries. Allie could barely see anything past the case itself and as it was, she was mesmerized by the dress inside. So simplistic in design, yet so chic. Allie tugged at her own hem, wishing she had the effortless style that Chanel embodied.

‘Tell me about your book,’ Jess said into the semi-darkness.

‘What?’

‘You normally tell me about your books. But you haven’t told me anything about this one. The one you left with Will.’

Allie sighed. Truth was, she wanted to tell everyone this story, she wanted to shout it from the rooftops, but she wanted it to end how she had written it, not how it seemed to be ending, with her stood alone rather than wrapped in Will’s arms. ‘It was supposed to be a twist on our story, on mine and Will’s,’ she started. ‘The meet cute is two waitstaff, at an event like this,’ she gestured to their surroundings. ‘She’s the stuck-up little know-it-all, who has a hot take on everything, who doesn’t believe in true love, who thinks romance is for losers. He’s the sweet sensitive one who does believe, who ends up listening to all her complaints about the company they both work for, about the size of the vol au vents they serve…’ Her breath caught as she said this. ‘About anything and everything she could complain about. And he listens, patiently, and some of the things she complains about are right – like the vol au vents.’ Allie gave a rueful smile. ‘And some of them she’s wrong about, but he listens nonetheless. Because it turns out that he’s not just the lowly waitstaff that she had him down as, but he runs the company, and just happened to be helping out that night, and was so mesmerized by this bossy, opinionated girl that he met – who was sometimes right and sometimes wrong – that he put himself down to work every other shift that she was working. But she gets scared, because she had stopped believing in true love, stopped thinking that a happy-ever-after would ever come her way and really didn’t believe she deserved one anyway. She thought that love died when the butterflies disappeared and hadn’t realised that her best friend was right, and that the butterflies couldn’t last forever but that if you were lucky, what you were left with was even more special. And so she keeps messing up, and keeps doing stupid things, things that any other normal boy would run a mile from. But he never gives up on her and he keeps believing in her and keeps showing her that love is real. Until little by little, very gradually, she starts to see him for what he really is, and she stops being so opinionated, and stops being so dismissive, stops trying to see him as just a means to an end, and just as he fell in love with her from the start, she falls back in love with him, and gives him her heart.’

There was a long silence. Jess reached for Allie’s hand in the semi-darkness and squeezed it and in a voice thick with tears said, ‘Thank you for telling me your story.’

Allie shrugged. ‘I just wish my real one ended the same way.’

‘It still could.’ Allie spun round at the sound of the low familiar voice.

‘Will?’

‘Hi,’ he said shyly. ‘Hey Jess.’

‘Wait, you two know each other?’ Allie stared between them trying to figure out just what was going on.

‘I should go,’ Jess said, picking Allie’s hand up and kissing it before walking quickly away.

‘Jess!’ Allie called after her retreating form.

‘Talk, Allie,’ Jess shouted back, ‘don’t just write it in a book.’

‘Will?’ Allie looked up into those beautiful grey eyes questioningly.

‘Allie?’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Finishing our story.’

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