Page 73 of The Plot Twist

‘Feeling nostalgic, hey?’ Allie gave her friend a kiss on the cheek and gestured to their surroundings. ‘To be honest I wasn’t sure this place still existed.’

Jess laughed. ‘I actually came here with Tom the other day. Do you know, I don’t think he’d ever been here before?’

Allie looked at her incredulously. ‘Really?’

‘Uh-huh. I mean think about it. By the time I’d met Tom we both had proper jobs and could afford to go to places that had more than one type of wine. But look…’ Jess held up a wine list, which despite the fact it was printed on cheap paper, was an actual list, which was more than Elliot’s had when they used to meet there.

‘I know!’ Allie laughed. ‘I was looking at their website on the way here. What did you go for in the end?’ she asked, pointing at the champagne bucket, which looked identical to the ones they had drunk from a decade earlier.

‘Pinot grigio, thought it was the safest option. Probably best not to get ahead of ourselves don’t you think?’

Allie pulled herself on to a bar stool while Jess poured her a glass of wine, Allie noted that Jess’s glass was, as yet, untouched. ‘What did Tom make of the old place and what on earth made you want to bring him here?’

Jess shrugged, her eyes glazing over slightly and slipping off into the middle distance behind Allie. ‘I don’t know. Just thinking about the past, no real reason,’ she answered vaguely.

Allie narrowed her eyes, Jess was being weird again.

‘So, what’s going down in the world of publishing? Is it all over for Jake Matthews and has Verity finally got her job back?’

‘Still up in the air, at the moment. I called Verity while I was on my way, but she was too excited to get much sense out of.’ Allie chugged a large part of her wine, delighted to have smashed her word count that day AND be out of the flat. ‘As far as I can make out, Brinkman’s are in crisis mode, lots of closed doors, lots of high-level meetings. Verity seems to think something will happen overnight and Jake will be summoned to a meeting tomorrow.’

‘Well, that’s exciting!’

Allie shrugged. ‘I’ll believe it when it happens. Let’s be honest, we’ve seen men get away with far more serious things. I’m just really glad that other people came forward to support Tessa’s allegations, so she didn’t have to do it alone, but I hope she’s OK. I can’t imagine how brave she must be to have put herself out there like that. Makes me feel a bit guilty about thinking so little of her before.’ She pulled a face and Jess reached over and squeezed her hand in sympathy.

‘Hey. You were doing your best with the information you had at the time. And just remember, she was pretty dismissive of you, and it’s not like you were awful to her.’

‘No, but I do feel bad for presuming she was just one of Jake’s lackeys though.’

‘Huh. I don’t think there was much else you could think at the time. It’s OK Al, I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong and you’re supporting her now, aren’t you?’

‘I guess. I mean it all feels a bit like virtue signaling, doesn’t it? Liking tweets and hashtagging I stand with women?’

‘Al, seriously, what else are you supposed to be doing right now? It’s not like you can pull your contract from Brinkman’s? And by the way, I thought your statement was exactly spot on.’

‘Thanks, that means a lot. I’d been drafting it in my head ever since Verity told me they were going to go public.’ In the short space of time between talking to Jess and arriving at Elliot’s, when she wasn’t hunting for clothes at the back of her wardrobe and googling the wine bar, Allie had issued a brief statement on her socials. It hadn’t badmouthed Brinkman’s and she had just about managed to steer clear of libelling Jake Matthews, but she had managed to say that she welcomed a swift investigation into these troubling allegations and made it clear that her sympathies and loyalties lay with the women coming forward.

‘Ugh, I just hope some good comes of it and it doesn’t all get brushed under the carpet.’

‘Let’s drink to that.’ Jess tipped her wine glass towards Allie, but didn’t actually drink. ‘And also to the fact you’re writing again.’

Allie scrunched her nose, wondering whether now was the time to come clean. ‘Yup, good news. Especially as it’s not the book I was writing before.’

‘Okaay…’

‘I told Will.’ Allie paused. ‘I told him everything.’

‘Aaand?’ Jess watched her friend with concern.

‘Haven’t heard from him since. Which isn’t really surprising, is it? There’s a lot for him to process.’

‘OK. Well, I’m proud of you for telling him. It was the right thing to do. But now what? Why the new story?’

‘Because I want him to realise how sorry I am about the whole thing. And that, to me, his feelings are more important than delivering a manuscript.’ Allie left her confession and the implication of it hanging. Jess’s eyes went wide.

‘More important than reneging on a contract?’

Allie nodded.

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