Page 9 of You Belong With Me

Several of those still present had signed a petition asking her to leave. Edie suspected there was a view that cheats had prospered, with her staying on the payroll and scoring remote working.

They were passably nice to her at the Christmas party, but then, people were to your face, and she had acquired a very famous boyfriend since she last saw most of them. Guess they’d get even nicer now. To her face.

‘Be on your guard that not everyone is behaving with honour about what you share online. I reminded Jessica that those who bully in my workplace, subtly or not, get their P45s.’

Oh, Jess. Edie had hoped Jess might’ve moved on. She was a comrade of Charlotte’s and had been one of the first names on that petition. After Charlotte’s departure, Jess had unofficially become a kind of leader of the office.

Her hostility especially stung Edie for a ridiculous reason: Jess, with her dirty laugh and line in sarcasm, masses of auburn hair in a top knot, peg trousers and loafers, didn’t present as any sort of sorority Mean Girl. She looked like someone Ediemight’ve been friends with in the Before Times. To be disliked by her felt like a proper indictment: marked a traitor to the sisterhood by someone who’d not assign the status frivolously. Indeed, it made Edie the Mean Girl.

Of course, Jess and Charlotte would probably still be in contact, wherever Charlotte was now. It’d be Jess’s duty to breadcrumb Edie disgraces, rumours and talking points.

‘What was Jessica’s excuse for bringing it to you? Do they think I’m an embarrassment?’ Edie asked, not really wanting to know.

‘Oh, she harked back to the scrap in the street and some Ad Hoc clients grumbling at the time. It was athought you should knowbefore the media rang me, but I can spot a malicious stirring of the pot at my great age.’

Edie mumbled thanks.

‘So, is it all on and all in with the actor chap? Thought he was something akin to a harrowing ordeal to work with?’ Richard said.

Edie understood the genuine paternal concern underneath the slight disbelief: Richard thought she might be picking Jack Marshall 2.0.

‘Honestly, he wasn’t – he’s great. Absolutely nothing difficult about him at all. His critics were using difficult as useful shorthand for “too smart to do what we want”. I went in with the same preconceptions because of his … status.’

She felt like Elizabeth Bennet promising her dad that Mr Darcy wasn’t a proud dick after all and that the great estate at Pemberley wasn’t a factor, promise.

‘But you’re not off to the Hollywood Hills?’

‘We’re trialling an arrangement where I visit him and we go to Nobu Malibu and eat snapper sashimi. And he visits me and we go to Bacon Derek’s food truck at Sneinton Market for breakfast baps.’

‘Splendid. Very on trend. It’s what I believe is called thehigh low. In other news, I’d intended to leave this announcement until the New Year, but since I’ve got you now – how do you fancy running a Nottingham office for me? I’ve decided, with it having gone great guns for you since you moved up, it makes sense for you to helm the first official regional outpost of my empire.’

‘Seriously?! I’d love that.’

Edie beamed in surprise and gratification: Richard praise was always earned.

‘Great. I’ve earmarked premises in the Lace Market. Secondly, you’re not a manager without someone to manage. I’m not going to lie to you, the response from the metropolitan elite here when I requested volunteers to relocate – on a generous package, I might add – was quite something. I started compiling the greatest hits. “Is it a market town?” to “Is there a seaside?” “Does anywhere make a serviceablecacio e pepe?” and my favourite – “Crouch End is northern enough.”’

Edie guffawed. Yeah, and she bet that many cast it as opting for a prison cell with Rose West.

‘However, one brave soul not only stepped up but said he genuinely liked the idea – Declan Dunne. Do you remember him from the Christmas party? Tall. Irish, obviously. Sunny disposition. Strangely partial to exercise.’

‘I … don’t, off the top of my head.’

And new people don’t really fraternise with the notorious wedding-wrecking tart who can even draw characters from fictional multiverses into the tractor beam pull radiating from her crotch.

‘I think you’ll really gel. He reminds me a lot of you, in some ways,’ Richard was saying. ‘Promising chap. I wouldn’t ask you to spend all day together if I didn’t think the chemistry was right.’

‘Understood,’ Edie said. ‘I trust your taste.’

This was true, and yet, privately, she doubted. Declan might well have been infected by the sniping. Worst case, he was running reconnaissance. Pretty big commitment to being nosy, yes, but these days, Edie wouldn’t rule out any far fetched possibility.

‘He’s going to report to you at nine a.m. on the first Friday back. Thought it might be nice to start on a day where you can take him for a drink at lunchtime, and he’s got the weekend to settle in.’

‘Typing “get him wasted” into my Notes app as we speak, got it.’

Richard laughed. ‘Not to pressurise you or make you dread Mr Dunne’s arrival – especially as it sounds like you’re going to have a busy social life – but if you did fancy taking him under your wing and acting as local tour guide, it’d be hugely appreciated, I’m sure. He’s the self-sufficient type who won’t take much launching.’

‘I’ll try my best. I can rank the pizza restaurants and save him from the fighting pubs, at least.’

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