Cherry Neita was not the type of woman to voluntarily use stairs.

As far as she was concerned, they were inconvenient, inappropriate, and a public nuisance. Unless she was firmly strapped into a sports bra, with a bottle of Lucozade in hand, Cherry avoided physical exertion like the plague.

Which was why she had perfected the art of pushing into the queue for the lift. And her colleagues here at the Academy made it so easy! Bless them.

“Excuse me, gentlemen, thank you!” Cherry wiggled her way through the gaggle of men loitering in front of the building’s single lift.

Why the Academy’s senior leadership team was housed with the lowly administrative staff—and why the tower they all shared had only one lift—Cherry didn’t know. She avoided wondering about it, too, because poor organisation made her skin crawl. Honestly, if they’d only consulted her during the bloody planning stages…

“Morning, Cherry, darling,” beamed Jeff, the Academy’s rosy-cheeked Head of Key Stage 4. For a man who spent so much time working with teenagers, he was always remarkably cheerful. Cherry had to admire his fortitude.

“Morning, Jeff. How’s—?” Her sugary-sweet response was interrupted by a disgruntled muttering from somewhere behind her. Cherry turned to find Mike Cousins, Head of Geography, giving her a dark look. The sort of look that said, I’ve been waiting here for ages. How did she get to the front of the queue?

It was the arse-crack of bloody morning, and Cherry hadn’t had a coffee yet. This was her danger zone—the point in time when she was most likely to lose her grip on the sparkling facade her job required, and instead cuss someone in Patois borrowed from her parents.

But that wouldn’t do at all. So she collected herself with great effort, dragging her lips up from a demure smile to a full-on, charming grin. Mike blinked under the full force of her dimples, then smiled back, all annoyance forgotten.

The men in this place responded to a pretty face like babies to a bottle. And she was supposed to respect them.

Sigh.

Turning back to Jeff, Cherry continued. “How’s Sandra and the kids?”

“Not bad, not bad.” The lift arrived with a ding, and Jeff stepped aside to let her walk in first. What a gentleman. “Little one’s teething,” he went on, “but otherwise well.”

“Wonderful!”

A handful of staff members forced themselves into the lift behind Jeff and Cherry. They faced front like good little soldiers. Cherry, unembarrassed, studied her reflection in the lift’s mirrored back wall. Life was too short to pretend that you didn’t want to check your lipstick.

“And how are you, Cherry?”

“Oh, you know.” She fluffed at her hair, as though the mass of dark coils weren’t springy enough already. “Same as usual.”

Ding.

“Well!” Cherry turned away from her reflection with a smile. Just a small one, no dimples. She tried not to unleash them in enclosed spaces. “I’ll see you later, Jeff.”

“Cheerio, love.” He smiled back, genuine as always. Jeff was probably the only senior member of staff who didn’t make her want to be sick. He was sweet, he was kind, and he cared about the kids, so Cherry always had a kind word for him.

The rest of them could get fucked.

She stepped out of the lift and into the safety of the admin floor with relief. It was the only place at Rosewood Academy that felt like something other than a greedy, corporate pipeline.

See, once upon a time, Rosewood had been an actual school. Until a mate of the Prime Minister’s with a background in private education had taken over and ‘academised’—aka monetised—the place. Now the kids were pumped through the system like battery hens, and woe betide anyone who fell below industry standard.

Cherry wound her way through the rows of desks and occasional offices that filled the floor, greeting colleagues as she went. She didn’t bother with exaggerated wiggles and dimpled smiles up here. No-one was silly enough to fall for it, or dangerous enough to warrant her Darling Doll performance, anyway. She reached the HR office and paused, reading the sign blu-tacked to the door with a frown.

CHERRY NEITA, KEEP OUT!

With a shrug, she swept into the room.

“Oh! Cherry! What are you doing here?” Inside the office, two women huddled protectively around Cherry’s desk. She struggled to place them. They were in finance, she thought… and the little, dark-haired one might be called Julie.

The taller of the two women looked at Cherry as if she were a rampaging bull. “Didn’t you see the sign?”

“No,” Cherry said blithely. “What are you doing at my desk, girls?”

Across the room, seated neatly at her own desk, Rose McCall snorted. She raised one pale, wrinkled hand to her spectacles, peering at Cherry over their half-moon lenses. “What do you think, darling?”

Cherry held back a sigh. It took great effort, but she managed.

“Sorry, Cherry,” the tall one wheedled. “It’s just that Julie and I were talking, and she—”

Cherry held up a hand. “You don’t have to explain. Have I ruined the surprise?”

“A little bit,” Julie admitted. “I don’t know how you missed the sign.”

“It’s a mystery for the ages,” murmured Rose. Cherry gave the older woman A Look.

“Well, anyway,” Julie said. She tried for a grin, but it looked more like a wince. “Surprise!” The pair sprang apart like show girls, waving their hands towards Cherry’s desk. Or rather, towards the monstrous mess they’d made of it.

Her neat and tidy workspace was covered in glitter and confetti. In the centre of the desk sat a huge, ceramic number '30' in a screaming shade of pink. As if she didn’t know precisely how old she was.

God, Cherry hated birthdays. They were so… unnecessary.

“Oh, you two,” she said, pasting a coy smile onto her face. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Really,” Rose echoed. “You shouldn’t have.”

The woman was a bloody nuisance. A brilliant bloody nuisance, but a nuisance all the same.

Julie’s hopeful face fell. “I know you hate a fuss, but—”

“No!” Cherry said firmly. “This is lovely. I very much appreciate it. I—” she broke off as she caught sight of a little box beside the ornament. “Is that Hotel Chocolat?”

“Yes!” Julie said proudly.

Rose sat up straight in her chair. “Where?” She demanded, squinting across the room.

“Never you mind.” Cherry stepped forward and swept up the box with a smile. “Really, ladies, thank you so much. What a lucky girl I am.”

The admin staff persisted in sucking up to her purely because Rose, the Head of HR and mistress of all she surveyed, was impossible to suck up to. Usually it was rather annoying, but in this case, Cherry couldn’t pretend to mind. As the girls left, looking rather pleased with themselves, she ripped open her box of chocolates.

“Don’t be greedy, love.” Rose stood and sauntered over, her fluid movements as deceptive as her plump, rosy cheeks. Rose McCall was, Cherry knew, sixty-seven. She appeared no older than fifty, despite her lavender-grey chignon.

“Says you,” Cherry mumbled, her mouth full. But she held out the box, and didn’t even complain when Rose picked out two truffles at once.

“I am sorry,” Rose said conspiratorially. She perched herself on the edge of Cherry’s desk. “I had no idea they were going to surprise you. Truthfully, I didn’t realise anyone knew your birthday.”

“Facebook,” Cherry said glumly.

“Oh, yes.” Rose popped a truffle into her mouth. “Well, you know I don’t hold with that nonsense myself.”

“I don’t know,” Cherry mused. “It can be annoying. But there are a lot of cat videos.”

Before Rose could reply, the door to their office burst open. Again. Really, all this human contact was a bit much for one morning.

It was Louise, one of the receptionists, all pink-cheeked and wide-eyed. “Rose!” she gasped. “Cherry! Oh, you won’t believe what’s happened!”

“Calm down,” Rose frowned. “Are you alright?”

“No!” Louise shrieked. “I’m as likely to pass out as—” she broke off, her eyes narrowing. “Is that Hotel Chocolat?”

Cherry slapped the lid back onto the box. “All gone. Sorry.”

“Bugger. Anyway, listen to this!”

Cherry listened. Rose listened. Louise paused dramatically.

“Come on, then,” Rose finally snapped. She wasn’t known for her patience.

Louise finally relented. She said, her tone hushed, “There’s a man.”

Cherry looked at Rose. Rose looked at Cherry. They might work in a school—sorry, educational academy—but men did appear from time to time. True, they tended to belong to senior management rather than, say, the admin team. But they were hardly a rare sighting.

“A man?” Rose prompted.

“Yes.” Louise nodded like a bobble-head. “A new man. A visitor. And he’s absolutely bloody gorgeous.”

Cherry leant forward. “Is he, now?”

“His backside is unbelievable,” Louise breathed. Her voice was reverent. Her eyes were slightly unfocused. Cherry’s interest was most firmly piqued.

“And who is this man?” Rose demanded. “What’s he doing here?”

Louise hesitated.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. That’s all the gossip you have?”

“I’m afraid so, Rose. He’s just come in, you see, and Chris fairly whisked him away…”

“Well,” Rose sniffed. “You’d best get back to reception, before you miss anything else.”

“You’re right,” the younger woman murmured, almost to herself. “He might come out again. There might be more of them!” She disappeared without bothering to say goodbye. As the door swung shut, Cherry wondered just how handsome this man could possibly be. Perhaps she could…

Don’t even think about it. You’re a sensible adult who does not make a fool of herself at work. You are a mature woman entering the prime of her life, not to be distracted by—

“Go and investigate, will you, darling?”

Cherry stood. “If you insist.”