Page 66 of Someone Like You

‘Okay?Such ringing endorsement.’ His narrowed eyes are betrayed by his twitching mouth.

‘You turned out to be the best husband I could ever have hoped for – if I’d ever hoped for a husband before I met you,’ I say, mostly serious.

‘There might be a compliment in there.’

‘Believe me, babe, there is.’

All-hands-on-deck meetings aren’t unheard of at Ever After, but they’re rare enough that I didn’t sleep last night. Well, Saffron doing zoomies at 3a.m. didn’t help, but the main culprit was worrying about how to get this case back on track.

If that’s even possible.

We’re in Saskia’s office – me, Ursula, Paloma, and Saskia. It was decided (not by me) that we wouldn’t bring in Freya until I’d briefed the others.

It’s probably the best approach considering Freya was gushing to me this morning about how much Raff was gushing toherabout meeting Julia ‘out of the blue’.

I’ve just finished explaining where we’re at, including how I ‘interfered’ to tease out Gaby’s true feelings. Fortunately, Ursula backs me on that unreservedly, and there are no admonishments for my chosen strategy. Well, none from my bosses, that is. I’ve been admonishing myself plenty since yesterday.

‘Poppy, has there beenanyindication that Rafferty might return Gaby’s feelings?’ Saskia asks.

I sigh. ‘As far as I know, none. But I can only go by what Gaby’s told me. I haven’t seen them together, not recently. The last time was months ago at a dinner party at Freya’s – and I didn’t notice anything unusual. They behaved like best friends.’

‘Sask,’ says Paloma, ‘are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

They exchange one of their Saskia-Paloma-mind-meld looks.

‘You’re right – it’s time. Poppy, can you ask Freya to come in, please?’

A couple minutes later, I’m back in Saskia’s office with a confused-looking Freya. She sits on the sofa next to me, then looks between the rest of us, her large eyes even wider than usual.

All I told her was that we needed her in a meeting about Raff’s case.

‘Freya, there’s been a development in Poppy’s case,’ says Saskia.

Freya visibly relaxes. ‘I know! Isn’t it brilliant?’ she asks rhetorically. ‘Third try lucky, right Poppy?’

‘Uh…’

‘Actually, that’s not the development we meant,’ says Paloma. ‘There’s something else, something we need to discuss with you.’

Freya frowns in obvious confusion. ‘Sorry, so you didn’t want to talk about Raff being matched? But I thought…’

I catch Ursula’s eye behind Freya’s back, hopingshe’llexplain what’s going on. I feel like I’m too entangled in this case to talk about it sensibly.

I also fear that I’ve let Freya down. If I’d been more insistentwhen I first suspected Gaby had feelings for Raff, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.

Thankfully, Ursula understands that I’m handing over to her, giving me a slight nod, then placing her hand on Freya’s forearm.

She gently explains the situation to Freya, making it clear that Gaby’s feelings for Raff have come to the fore and are undeniable. As she talks, Freya’s face displays a gamut of emotions from incredulity to amusement to befuddlement.

Finally, there’s acceptance.

She shakes her head at herself. ‘You should have heard Raff on the phone this morning,’ she tells us. ‘He’s so excited about Julia. Apparently, they messaged each other through the night, and they already have plans to see each other on Sunday. And Raff movesfastwhen he connects with someone. He’s already invested – I can tell.’ Freya slumps further into the sofa. She’s even more upset about this than I expected.

‘So, what do we do about Gaby?’ I ask the group, hopingsomeonewill have a magic-bullet solution.

I’ve always liked Gaby, but over these past few weeks, I’ve got to know her quite well and it pains me to think of her heartbroken because she discovered too late how she feels about Raff.

‘Considering what Julia has told Poppy – and what you’ve just relayed to us, Freya – I suggest we see how this pans out,’ says Saskia.

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