Page 27 of One Day and Forever
‘I can do that.’
But even as he was saying it, he wasn’t sure if he was about to make the biggest mistake of his life.
2 P.M. – 4 P.M.
14
KARA
‘Tell me something else, then, Josh – if I agree to stay… will you drop the studio and Corbin Jacobs as your clients and stick up for me instead?’
Kara waited for the answer, praying she was wrong about what it would be.
‘Kara, that’s totally unreasonable. You know that they’re my biggest clients. It would have a huge impact on my business and?—’
‘Stop. That tells me everything.’ Another question struck her. Today he should also have been getting ready to leave for their wedding, but instead, he was in full crisis-management mode. Would he have chosen work over her, even if it were a different situation? ‘Josh, if Hogmanay hadn’t happened, and there was some other huge scandal at the studio this weekend, would you still have left it behind and come to Hawaii today or would you have asked me to postpone our wedding?’
His hesitation and a flash of panic that made him blink before he spoke, answered her question without words.
‘Oh Josh…’ she groaned, as she shook her head, horrified. How had she missed this? How had she managed to carry onwith life, blissfully unaware that he was so non-committal about their marriage? There was an instant realisation that made her want to weep. Had they both just been swept along with this whole thing? Drea had been the one to organise it all, because given her job, she had all the contacts and the vision of what it should look like. Kara and Josh had both been asked for their input at every stage along the way, but they’d both been happy to go with Drea’s choices. Somewhere in Kara’s mind, she’d told herself that they were just leaving it to the expert. But maybe she’d been sticking her head in the sand? Maybe their hearts weren’t in it. Perhaps she’d just been so carried away with excitement for Drea and Seb that she hadn’t stopped to think about whether it was what she’d really wanted too. And maybe Josh felt the same. After all, Seb and his brothers were in Hawaii right now with a couple of friends having a mini-stag celebration and Josh had been invited but had declined, because he didn’t want to step away from work for any longer than absolutely necessary. None of Josh’s family were coming. And it had taken five blooming years for him even to propose in the first place.
What had they been thinking? Oh God. It was a mistake. Maybe their whole relationship had been a mistake. And getting married this week would have been the biggest mistake of all.
‘Babe, I’m just being honest. I want to marry you, but I’d have been okay with doing it in a registry office, just you and me. The Hawaii thing… that’s because you wanted it and I was happy to go along with it, but?—’
‘But you could take it or leave it.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You didn’t have to say it.’ There was no air left in her lungs. It was all gone, sucked out of her by the absolute knowledge that they’d been sleepwalking their way to the altar, followed by a massive kick of self-reproach for being so damn stupid. She’d heard all that she needed to. ‘You get to play hero for your client,and now you don’t have to take time out of your busy schedule to go to Hawaii. Win-win for you.’
Her shoulder strained as she pulled the strap of the heavy, bulky holdall on to it, then grabbed her other bag, turned around and walked straight out of the door, downstairs, and got into her car, before taking off down the street as fast as the crunching snow beneath the tyres would allow. Only when she knew she was out of sight did she pull over, rest her head on the steering wheel and then let out a roar of blind fury and pain so loud it made a little man walking past with a Yorkshire terrier in tiny snow boots jump.
When she managed to get some air back into her body, she pulled her handbag up from the footwell and rummaged for her phone. ‘Hey Siri, call Ollie.’ He was the only person she wanted to speak to right now. He hadn’t been having the easiest time with Sienna over the last year or so either, so she knew he’d understand. The two of them could just make the trip to Hawaii together, drink too many pina coladas, dance on the beach and make each other feel better – just like they’d been doing all of their lives.
There was a pause while Siri got her act together, then the next thing she heard was an all-too-familiar voice. ‘Hi, sorry, I’m busy. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.’
Bugger. What was he doing right now that made him too busy to answer the phone? Sometimes she felt like she spoke to Ollie’s answering machine more than she did to the real person. Although, she couldn’t exactly claim to be an ace communicator over the last couple of days either. Not that that was unusual for them. They could often go back and forward for days trying to nail down a moment when they were both free, especially when they were in different time zones. LA was the worst. The eight-hour difference there usually meant he was free when she was sleeping, and she was free when he was working. But aroundonce a week, when they did manage to co-ordinate a time slot, usually when their partners were out – when Sienna was at the theatre and Josh was either at work or the gym – that’s when they’d sit on a FaceTime call for four hours and talk through every detail of their week, all the latest celebrity goss, what they were having for dinner, and a hundred other inconsequential things that amused them.
If Josh was home, though, it used to drive him mad, especially if it was, say, a Sunday night and he wanted her all to himself. A rebellious, pissed-off little voice in her head piped up to remind her that she wouldn’t have to worry about that any more. And another rebellious, pissed-off little voice in her head pointed out that she never threw a tantrum when Josh spent the night at the gym, or locked in his home office working, or out at some swanky client event, so why did she have to be there when he snapped his fingers? Well, now she didn’t. And much as that broke her heart, her rebellious, pissed-off inner self knew for sure that she was doing the right thing.
She didn’t bother leaving a message, figuring Ollie would see her missed call anyway. Instead, she put her foot down and set off on the drive back to Drea’s flat, giving herself a pep talk the whole way. She could do this. She’d never been the type of person who felt she needed a guy to exist, so it wasn’t as if she was scared to be alone. Maybe it was time she had some independence and could do whatever she liked for a change. Perhaps this was a decision she should have made a long time ago, because Josh wanting everything on his terms was nothing new. Years ago, he’d even spat his dummy out about her going to New York for Ollie’s wedding. Her best friend! And she was only away for a few days.
Before she realised it, a glance in the rear-view mirror told her she was almost smiling as her mind went back to that night. In fact, it must have been… She did the calculation… six yearsago yesterday. Wow. This was the first year she hadn’t spent the anniversary of that date thinking about that night and the lovely, lovely Zac. Although, granted, she was a bit busy being pathetic and feeling sorry for herself yesterday. That had to stop. Part of her wished that Josh had found out what had really happened that night because he’d have called their relationship off back then and she wouldn’t have wasted another six years of her life. Zac struck her as the kind of guy who would definitely have backed her up no matter what. And so, of course, would Ollie. Yet the man who was supposed to be her person couldn’t do that. Well, sod Josh Jackson.
Feeling a nugget of strength and resolve grow in her gut, she pulled into the parking space outside Drea’s flat and then lugged her holdall up two flights of stairs. The lift was from the 1970s and she was deeply suspicious of it, so she preferred the stairs, even if they made her hamstrings scream. When she reached their door, she dropped everything and fumbled for her key before practically falling over the threshold as she dragged her bag in.
Sweating, she puffed her cheeks out with relief when she got inside and closed the door behind her. When she got her breath back, the first thing she did was open the holdall and take out the thing that mattered most: the pic of her, Ollie and Drea with their mums, and put it on the console table on the hall.
‘I thought I heard you come in,’ Drea said, padding through in white furry slippers, wearing a white terry robe and a turban with two large rollers sticking out of the front. She spotted the new frame on the table. ‘Aw, I love that picture. Right, I want to know every detail of every single thing that’s happened since you left here, but you need to tell me in less than five minutes because I’m not organised yet.’
She turned back to Kara and suddenly stopped speaking. Kara watched as her sister’s gaze went from her head to her toes,taking in her sagging shoulders and her red-rimmed eyes. ‘Oh no, what happened?’ Drea asked, with an edge of wariness.
Kara slumped back against the wall. ‘How long have you really got? It’s a pretty big story and five minutes won’t cut it.’
Drea checked her watch. ‘The cars are coming at four o’clock, so that’s an hour and a half from now. That means I’ve got approximately…’ She paused and made the motion of doing a calculation in her head. ‘Ten minutes max, because I’ve still got about three hundred things to do. Tell me you’re still coming.’
‘I’m still coming.’ There was no wavering on that. Her own wedding was off, and her life was a shitshow, but she wasn’t going to let that spoil Drea’s big day. Time to park her own feelings and just get on with celebrating her sister and Seb, and then in a week’s time, when she got back, she could fall apart and try to process everything that had happened. Only then, maybe, could she begin to work out what she wanted and where she should go from here.
