Page 194 of Falling for You
‘Oh,’ Mom says after a pause, and then she laughs lightly. ‘That must have been a mistake. How are you, sweetie? How’s Stevie?’
I place a hand over my face as a cold mixture of fear, relief and panic begins to take a hold of my body.
I inhale deeply. ‘How was your day?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Annie
‘So here we have a property that I really think you’ll like.’
I hear my voice tighten as I repeat the same sentence I’ve been parroting to this client for the past six weeks.
Melissa Dumfry is the Head of Sales at a global, multi-million marketing company and is about to relocate to London for eighteen months. They’ve given her a budget of thirty thousand poundsa monthto cover her expenses, and I know that’s moving over from a one-bed apartment in New York. So far, I have shown her eight properties. Eight! All dotted across different parts of leafy London, from the white-bricked Georgian to the terraced Victorian. She’s seen – and hated – them all.
I need her to agree on a property by the end of this week. Partly so I meet the deadline set by the client, and partly so I don’t murder Melissa the next time I see her pout as if something has just collapsed and died under her nose when I say something like: this property only has one communal swimming pool.
Today, I’m showing her a three-bedroom flat in Knightsbridge. It’s right behind the Victoria and Albert Museum andin its own gated community. It’s on the third floor of a block of flats (an immediate red flag that I managed to skirt over by distracting her with the enormous lift) and spans over two thousand square feet. It’s decorated in creams and light, speckled greys with fat, plumped-up sofas and towering double beds stacked with firm cushions, crisp white sheets swept over each mattress.
Looking around these ridiculous houses is one of my favourite parts of the job. Our clients range from all over the world, all with different needs and definitions of what the word ‘essential’ means, but they all have one thing in common: their budgets. I worked out pretty quickly that if you work for a big enough company, then they’re prepared to chop off their left foot if it means that you’ll agree to relocate. I mean, honestly. These people are being put up in the best properties London has to offer and act as if they’re doing their CEO a favour.
Melissa skims past me in the reception as the lift pops open and we both step inside. We glide up to the third floor and I can’t help but look at our reflections in the mirror as we stand next to each other. Melissa is tall and sleek, with dark skin and thin, long limbs and glossy hair. She’s wearing a granite-grey coat that falls down her body and shiny snakeskin boots. Her make-up is subtle, only the tint of a pink lip and the slight flick of a mascara wand, but expertly applied. She is the definition of well put together.
Standing next to her, I look like her child.
Today, I’m wearing one of my favourite dresses. I made it out of an incredible Indian-inspired fabric. It’s punch pink,with illustrations of round trees with birds nestled inside them, painted with a thin gold thread. It’s silk, so not overly warm in this weather, and I’ve paired it with one of my oversized cardigans, which is bright orange and hangs off my shoulders with big, billowy sleeves and reaches the backs of my knees.
During the first month I worked for Pam, I could barely scrape enough together to pay for the bus every day. But as soon as I got paid, I went to Matalan, pulled everything ‘smart and sensible’ off the shelves and bought it. I’m talking neat grey trousers, navy pullovers and crisp white blouses, all finished off with black, buttoned-up shoes.
I wore my new outfit the following Monday, feeling pretty proud (albeit incredibly uncomfortable and slightly depressed at the disappearance of my personality in my horrible new clothes). Pam didn’t say anything to me all morning, staying hunched over her laptop like always. It wasn’t until I was leaving for the day that she muttered, ‘Oh, by the way, Annie. What the fuck are you wearing?’ I started giving her a babbling answer about my new ‘work clothes’ when I took a moment to notice what she was wearing. Loose-fitting cotton trousers, baggy shirt and big, jangly earrings. She didn’t look like she was about to march into a boardroom and shake hands with Alan Sugar. She said I could wear what I wanted to work, and anyone who judged us based on what we were wearing wasn’t the right customer for us anyway.
So, here I am, in all my colourful glory. I’ve learnt to ignore the looks of surprise when the especially wealthy clients meetme for the first time. If I’m feeling particularly brazen, I’ll even take it as a compliment.
The lift pings, and the doors slide open right into the living room of the flat. It’s bright and airy with wooden floors, high ceilings and an enormous TV built into a bookshelf.
Outside, the crisp white sunshine is pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows. In the distance, you can see clusters of spiky, naked trees, completely free of their leaves now, housing several pigeons perched happily on their branches.
‘Right,’ I say, springing into action. ‘Here we are. I’ll leave you to have a look around. Come back to me if you have any questions. I do think this one has had a lot of interest, though, so we need to act fast if you think it’s the one for you.’
I think I say this line about eight times a week, and every time I say it I feel it float into the air with less and less weight. These people are too important to care about deadlines. If they want something, they’ll get it.
Melissa thanks me and glides through the apartment. I flick open my folder and look down at my next appointment this afternoon. It’s with a new client who has a family of four that are being brought over for their new position in London. This means I’ll need to organise schools, childcare, and inevitably find a place with a big garden in the centre of London.
I sigh and take out my phone, feeling increasingly annoyed as it stares blankly up at me.
It’s been six days since my date with Nate, and three days since he sent me that cold, dismissive message, and I haven’t heard from him since. I mean, I thought the date went well.We spent the entire night together, laughing and chatting, but I’ve never received a more obvious ‘I’m fobbing you off’ message than the one he sent me. Was he faking it the entire time? Humouring me? It makes me feel a bit ill.
I didn’t reply to his message, obviously. What was I supposed to say? The only smidgen of power I had left was to leave him hanging.
I take a deep breath and drop my phone back into my bag.
Penny’s been with Mike since we left university and Tanya isn’t fussed about men and dating, which is probably a side effect of being so beautiful that having men drop at your feet on a daily basis makes dating feel a bit tedious. This means that they are both fully enraptured by my potential new romance and have been picking apart Nate’s message since the moment I sent them a screenshot of it.
It also meant that when I got home last night, they couldn’t wait to find out if I’d heard anything more. And when I said I hadn’t, they started their conspiracy theories, the excuses and then, inevitably, the bitching. What a bastard, he doesn’t deserve you, men are pigs. You all know the words, sing along if you wish.
I think I’ve felt every emotion possible this week. The hope, the giddiness, excitement, desperation, disappointment … and now, anger.
I’m not just angry with Nate for ditching me, I’m also angry at myself. Like, hello? You knew this would happen. This sort of thing happens to me all the time, but did it stop me from spending days twirling around the flat like Anna fromFrozen? No. You’d think after Tyler I’d have learnt mylesson and not got so bloody carried away. It always leads back to here. Hello disappointment, my old friend.
