Chapter Eight
Annie – Saturday
Before I even bothered to open my eyes, I flung my arm across the bed to see if Rae was lying next to me, which of course she was. It was an unfortunate habit that she’d gotten into over the last few months after a bout of night terrors, and I didn’t have the heart to really put a stop to it just yet.
“Rae, wake up, sweetie,” I murmured to her, holding on to my slightly achy head. I probably drank a little more than I should have last night, but at least I didn’t do anything too crazy. I could have, but I’d forced myself not to. Sleeping with my investor didn’t seem like the best plan.
“I need to get ready for work in a minute, and you need to be a bit organized for Nancy. She’s feeling much better now, so she wants to have some fun with you.”
“Yay, Nancy!” Rae squealed. “I’m glad she’s much better.”
“Me, too,” I smiled at her, trying to ignore my cotton mouth and how loud her voice seemed. “So, are you ready to wake up yet?”
“Wait, not yet!” She jumped on me, bringing up a wave of nausea that I hadn't been expecting. “You haven’t told me about dinner with the important man. How did it go?”
I laughed loudly, taken aback by Rae. Sometimes it was difficult to remember that she was just a kid, she seemed so adult most of the time. What other four-year-old asked such questions, honestly? “It was fine, thank you.”
“What did you eat? Did you have ice cream? Did you bring me any back?” By this point, she might as well have been jumping up and down on the bed. “I love ice cream, you know.”
“I do know,” I replied, pulling her in for a hug. “But no, I didn’t have ice cream. I didn’t have anything for dessert, actually.” By that point, it had gotten far too awkward and all I wanted to do was go home. The fact that Justin didn’t even know what to do with himself when I turned him down told me a whole lot about him – and I wasn’t sure that I necessarily liked what I discovered. “And, I ate pasta.”
“Urgh, I hate pasta,” she screwed up her nose in the most adorable way possible. “But I like the important man. Do you like him, too? Was he nice to you?”
I wasn’t sure exactly why Rae was so taken in by Justin, but clearly she didn’t understand him. He might have been nice to her, but I wasn’t sure how he was with me. I couldn’t work him out, at all.
I didn’t want to answer that question, so I rolled my giggling daughter up in a blanket to distract her from the conversation, and luckily, it seemed to work. She was so busy laughing that she certainly wasn’t bothered about the “important man” anymore.
“Right, come on,” I started, before sliding myself out of the bed. “I’m going to make breakfast. You hurry up and get your bottom downstairs. I don’t want to be late for Nancy; we don’t know how she’s going to be today. She might not be one hundred percent better, and if that’s the case then you need to be all sorted for her.” But as I finished my sentence, I could hear noises coming from downstairs, a knocking from the front door, which meant she was already there. “Come on, she’s already here!”
As I let Nancy in, I was pleased to see that she was looking like herself. Whenever she got ill, she went ridiculously pale, so she had to be all right now. “How are you feeling?” I asked her anyway.
“I’m okay now,” she reassured me. “I’m so sorry that I got sick right when you had your meeting with your investor.”
“It’s okay,” I smiled widely at her as we walked into the kitchen. “You couldn’t help it. It was probably the undercooked food that Rae gave you the other morning.”
“So?” she asked excitedly as I handed her a coffee. “How did it go? How was your meeting? Is he going to invest yet?”
“I don’t know,” I told her carefully. “He’s a tricky one to read.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, one moment he was all arrogant and annoying, the next he seemed to take me pretty seriously, and then he would be flirting with me. He said he needs to run the numbers before he can tell me for sure.”
“Wait a moment,” Nancy interrupted, holding up her hand to stop me. “He was flirting with you? Are you serious? What does he look like?”
The heat that filled my cheeks at that question gave me away, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to lie – not to someone who knew me so well. “Oh, I don’t know, tall, dark, handsome…amazing eyes, a great smile. He’s good looking, but I get the impression that he knows it. He seems like the playboy type.”
“So, how did he flirt with you? What did he say?” Nancy seemed far too excited on my behalf, almost as if she hadn't heard the part where I told her that he was a playboy.
“He asked me back to his hotel room for drinks.” God, even saying it aloud now made me squirm inside. It had been difficult to turn him down, but I didn’t want to risk my future for one night of fun.
“Why didn’t you go? You could use a hotel night.”
“Stop it,” I slapped her playfully, trying to ignore the underlying message to her point of view. Yes, it had been a long time since I’d been with anyone, but Justin Gains was hardly the right person for me to return to that world with. He was the man I wanted to boost my business. I didn’t want to dip the pen in company ink, so to speak. “I couldn’t.”
“Why not? If he was cute, then why wouldn’t you?” She actually seemed blown away by the fact that I didn’t hook up with him, which was ironic because she was so careful about who she slept with. She’d only been with her two serious boyfriends, so why was she so keen for me to act out of character?
Unfortunately I didn’t get to make any of those points because at that moment Rae came bounding into the room, interrupting us and basically forcing me to get dressed for work.
***
“So, how are you both?” I asked the lovely elderly couple, Jan and Tony, that came in the store at least once a week. “I missed you last week.”
“Oh, we were away,” Jan told me with a smile. “But although we were on holiday, we missed you, too.”
“You did not,” I gasped out in shock. “How is that possible? Where were you?”
“We went to Medford for a few days, but having coffee there just wasn’t the same. This is the sort of shop that we love. Tony can drink his coffee in peace, and I can read a book. Boffees is a marriage saver.”
She laughed at her statement, but in my mind, it simply solidified what I wanted to do. I wanted to replicate this everywhere. I loved reading as I drank my hot drinks, which was actually where the business idea came from. I just knew that I could make money given half the chance. Justin Gains might not have been able to immediately see the potential for making a profit, but I could.
“Well, thank you for that,” I teased. “And, it’s certainly good to have you back. The place has missed your presence, too.”
Tony shot me a grateful smile before returning to his newspaper and coffee. He was so much quieter than his wife; they really were a classic case of opposites attract. In my mind, opposites never worked, but that was just because they hadn't for me. I’d been with someone who was totally different from me, and it only ended in horrendous heartache.
Then again, that didn’t mean it would always be the case. Not when evidence to the contrary was sitting right in front of me.
“Anyway,” Jan continued with a grin. “I’ll just finish up this chapter because I know you aren’t far off from closing.”
As I made my way back behind the counter, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about Nancy’s words. I’d put off the romantic side of my life for far too long, focusing purely on the business and on Rae, but soon the time would come when all of that wouldn’t be enough anymore. It probably wasn’t a good idea to allow one bad experience to taint my entire existence because I would end up old and alone. I saw enough people like that walking through the door of Boffees to know how easily it could happen.
But even the thought of letting someone get that close to me again filled me with a horrifying pit of dread. I just wasn’t sure if I would ever feel ready to open myself up like that again. I just wasn’t confident enough in my life choices to be able to commit to anyone whole heartedly.
Almost as if my subconscious had summoned him up, almost as if the depth of my desires had brought him to the surface because, there he was, standing at the window, staring in.
Justin Gains.
“Shit,” I muttered to myself, before ducking behind the counter. I rubbed my face before attempting to smooth my hair down in a mad panic. I could feel my heart pounding and my whole body heating up with stress. I didn’t want to see Justin, not right now. But at the same time, I did – especially if he had good news for me. After all, why else would he be there?
Why else indeed?
Suddenly, the image of him asking me out on a date flooded my brain, and I couldn’t help the powerful bolt of lust that ran its way down to my core. Of course, it was Nancy’s fault for getting me all worked up and confused with her statement this morning, but there was something undeniably irresistible about him, too.
Maybe, if he wasn’t my potential investor, I could consider him for a hook up – obviously not for something long term, he didn’t seem like that type, at all. But of course he was the only person that could possibly be helping me to expand my company, so I couldn’t think of him in that way.
However fun it was.
“Get it together,” I hissed angrily at myself. “Just see what he wants. Get it over and done with.”
“Bye, Annie,” Jan called out, completely shaking me from my thoughts. “See you soon.”
“Yep, goodbye,” I yelled back, a little stiffly. “Looking forward to it.”
As soon as I heard the door clicking behind them, I knew I couldn’t put it off for any longer. I needed to stand up straight, attempt to look normal, and see what Mr. Gains wanted. There was no point in getting myself all worked up when it could all be just bad news, anyway. He might be here to tell me that he was dashing my dream and going back home, that his office didn’t approve Boffees for an investment.
Come on, I thought to myself as I sucked in some deep and calming breaths. Just face him now, see what he wants. There’s no point in worrying until I know.
With that, I pushed my hands on the ground until I was standing upright, and acted like I didn’t yet know he was there. Just until my body stopped freaking out.