Morag pulled her handbag off the back of her chair. ‘It’s okay. We should probably go on through security anyway.’
‘We’ll walk you there,’ Alice told her, ignoring Larry’s quiet sigh. Okay, so they were in a hurry, but this was her best friend, so he could give her another five minutes.
Bags picked up, they left the café and made their way across to the glass wall of the terminal, where the entrance to the security section was located.
When they got there, Alice pulled a little camera out of her bag, just one of the gifts Larry had bought her since they met. ‘Larry, can you take a picture of us?’ She turned back to Morag. ‘I need proof you existed, just in case you run off into the sunset and forget all about me.’ She was teasing, but Morag wasn’t laughing, and Larry didn’t look too pleased about yet another delay to them getting out of here. He snapped a couple of quick pics of the girls, and a couple with Cillian in them too then tossed the camera back to her.
Alice turned and hugged Cillian. ‘Take care of my girl. She’s special, you know?’
‘I do,’ he agreed, and Alice warmed to him even more.
Larry had given Morag a peck on the cheek, and now the two men were shaking hands and saying goodbye, which gave the girls a moment together. They wrapped their arms around each other, all the swallowed tears coming right back up again.
‘I’ll miss you so much. Take care and have an amazing time,’ Alice said in Morag’s ear, inhaling the scent of her daily squirt of Rive Gauche.
‘I will. I love you, but Alice…’ Morag whispered, holding on tight. ‘Be careful with Larry. I don’t think he’s who you think he is.’
Before Alice could fully absorb what had just been said, Morag McTay spun around and walked out of her life.
NOON – 2 P.M.
10
KARA
As Kara opened the door to her flat, she noticed that her hands were still trembling. She didn’t know if it was from adrenaline, devastation or sheer bloody fury. Josh. Her erstwhile fiancé. Still siding with Corbin Jacobs. Even after everything that had happened. And somehow – some-fricking-how – he obviously expected her to understand that decision.
As soon as they’d locked eyes in the HR reception, she’d frozen, her brain shutting down the ability to move, think or speak for a couple of seconds, until he’d stepped forward, ‘Kara, can I talk to you?’
The sound of his voice had been enough to snap her out of her comatose state. ‘No.’
Her gaze had shifted to Corbin Jacobs, who, despite looking like a casualty from the alien invasion dream scene they’d done on the show a couple of months ago, was eyeing her with an expression that sat somewhere between smugness and disgust. Before Kara could act on her urge to take Tress’s advice and stand on his other foot, Abigail Dunlop had emerged from her office. ‘Corbin, Josh – we’re ready for you.’
That had been the moment of truth – would Josh go in there with them or continue trying to speak to her? She hadn’t waited to find out. Her racing heart had been about to explode, so instead, she’d charged right past them and then bolted down the corridor, out of the door and into her car.
Now that she was back at the home she’d shared with Josh, she fired a quick text off to Tress.
Sorry I ran out on you. Thanks so much for being my wing-woman today. Xx
The reply was immediate.
No worries. I’m 100% on your side. If I can do anything to help, please holler. Xx PS: Josh was with Corbin? I’m so sorry. I hope you’re okay.
Everyone in the studio would be talking about this by now. Kara has a stand-up fight with Corbin, and her fiancé was still all chummy with him, business as normal. Tress, a work friend who had only just learned the details of the story, was supporting her, yet her boyfriend of eight years couldn’t do the same thing? Her hands began to shake a little more. Fury. Definitely sheer bloody fury.
And sadness too, as she scanned the flat that had been her home for the last seven years. Josh had already owned this place when they’d met and Kara was sharing a different flat with Drea, so it had made sense that she moved in here after a year or so of dating. At the start, there had been vague plans to look for something else that would be a joint investment, but somehow they’d never got round to it, because Josh hadn’t wanted to leave here. Not that she’d minded, because she’d loved this place. She just wished she’d considered that after paying half of everythingfor all this time she was going to walk away with nothing except a broken heart and a whole pile of sorrow.
A huge sob of grief began to rise up in her throat and she swallowed it back. No. She wasn’t going to fall apart here. Right now, she was going to gather her stuff together while Josh was at the studio, get out of here, and then schedule falling apart for when she was surrounded by people she loved and wine.
She crossed the deep walnut floor towards their bedroom, stopping at the doorway because it was right next to the sideboard in the living room that held pictures of all the special moments in their lives. The two of them on a beach in Kos, when he told her he was in love with her for the first time. The night they got engaged, sitting on the end of a pier, their feet dangling over the waters of Loch Lomond. And there were family pics too. Josh’s clan, at his thirtieth birthday, when they’d rented log cabins in the Highlands and partied for the whole weekend. They’d thought about getting married the same way, but she hadn’t wanted to withdraw from the joint wedding pact with Drea. Josh’s mother hated to fly, so his family had been totally accepting of their decision to do a private destination wedding by themselves, on the promise that they’d have a huge celebration in the next couple of months back here. Hopefully no one had splashed out on their party frocks yet.
Her gaze landed on another picture, right at the back – Kara, Drea and Jacinta, with Ollie and his mum, Moira, all posing outside the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, brimming with excitement to seeFlashdance. She must have been about sixteen, but she remembered every detail of it, because it was Moira’s last trip with them before she’d gone to work on the cruise ships. Ollie had grown about six inches that year and somehow his baby face had morphed into a level of handsomeness that shouldn’t be allowed. They’d had the best time, laughed all weekend, and for about five seconds, as Ollieslung his arm around her coming out of the theatre, Kara had experienced a flutter of attraction to him, that she’d rapidly brushed off and refused to consider ever again, which was just as well, because only a few months later, he’d gone to London, the first of many trips away that would eventually, years later, lead him to New York and Sienna.
Snatching the picture up, she carried it into her bedroom. Herformerbedroom. None of this was hers now. Nothing. Their bedroom had always been her happy place, the one room in the home that she’d decorated. The rest of the flat was all dark wood floors and white walls, with tasteful art and neutral furniture, but not in here. The walls were a calming ivory, and the bed linen was her favourite shade of yellow, with mint-coloured cushions and a matching throw draped across the bottom. The floors were a light oak, and the windows were dressed in voile that let the sun stream through on the occasions it actually shone in the city. Luckily, there were no neighbouring windows with an eyeline to the room, or they’d have had the pleasure of watching her wrangle into her Spanx every morning.
Under the window was her favourite thing of all – her old desk, the one that had got her through art school and that she’d used almost every day since. It was a kaleidoscope of colour charts, fabric swatches and sketches. At night, she would sit there, designing, drawing, planning out her concepts for upcoming shows. With a soap likeThe Clydeside, set in a fictional Scottish town in the present day, there hadn’t been much of an opportunity to use the more theatrical side of her imagination – other than that one alien invasion scene, but the less said about that the better – but she’d loved her job, nonetheless. Creating a character’s wardrobe was like shaping a part of their personality and she’d relished it and taken huge pride in her attention to detail. Yet, now she was out of the role she’d adored for a decade, all for sticking up for whatshe thought was right and trying to fight back against the misogynistic attitudes and gargantuan egos that still bubbled under the surface of the industry.
Would she do it again? Absolutely. Although, it might make her feel more reassured that it was worth it if Casey Lowden had been in touch. Not that Kara needed any kind of thank you, but it would be good to know that Casey had her back, just as Kara had hers at the party.
