Page 1 of About Last Night
1
Tallulah Lazenby drained the last drop of her large glass of Sauvignon Blanc, desperately trying to cling on to the dissipating buzz of the alcohol.
She really shouldn’t be drinking the night before her grievance meeting with the owner of the radio station where she worked, but she needed something to dull the growing panic that tomorrow could be her last day of employment there.
‘Lula, snap out of it. It’s going to be okay,’ her friend Emily muttered into her ear, clicking her fingers in front of her face and dragging her into the here and now of the dimly lit Covent Garden pub where they were celebrating a friend’s birthday.
Lula gave her a tight-lipped smile. ‘Easy for you to say; you didn’t make the catastrophic mistake of sleeping with your bellend of a station manager.’
Emily tried to keep a straight face, but failed spectacularly. ‘I have to say it, Lu, it wasn’t one of your best moves.’
She shot her friend ano kiddinggrimace.
‘Lord knows what possessed you to shaghim,’ Emily added.
Lula frowned into her empty glass.
Jeremy – or Jez as he preferred to be called – was an overconfident, self-absorbed player and the exact opposite of what she was looking for in a long-term partner.
‘It was after averylong,verydry patch and he caught me at a moment of weakness,’ she muttered, her face growing hot at the memory of how it had cast a dark shadow over their working relationship when she’d told him in no uncertain terms that there wasn’t going to be a repeat performance.
Jez was not the type of man you saidnoto.
And she’d paid the price for it.
After a few weeks of stilted and antagonistic interactions, he’d blithely informed her that he would no longer be stepping back from presenting the Breakfast Show and giving it to her, even though he’d been promising to for months. And, just to rub salt in the wound, he was giving her Drivetime Show to Darla – one of the much less experienced DJs at the station – who everyone suspected had been regularly bumping uglies with him for a while.
So now she was going to have to float around the station, covering for other presenters when they needed time off.
A major step backwards on her career path.
‘At least the owner’s taking your complaint seriously,’ Emily said, sprawling back in her chair and licking a bit of lemon off the rim of her glass of vodka and tonic.
Lula put her head in her hands and stared down at the table. ‘I didn’t tell you the worst bit. I found out today that Jez’sdaddyis best buddies with the owner. There’s no way he’ll take my side on this. Not when the Old Boy Network is in play.’ She rubbed her eyes and groaned, ‘Nepotism sucks.’
The corner of her friend’s mouth twitched up into a consoling smile. ‘It’ll be okay. You’re the best DJ that station has; they’re not about to let you walk – have some faith in yourself.’
‘Hmph.’
Emily leaned forward and slapped an encouraging hand onto Lula’s leg. ‘You know what you need to do right now? Give yourself a confidence boost so you can stride in there tomorrow with your head held high.’
Lula flashed her friend a pained look. ‘How am I meant to do that, exactly?’
‘You could start by engaging in some power-flirting with a crazy-hot sex god.’ Emily gave one of the trademark saucy winks that had earned her legions of fans on her popularTreasure TrailTV show.
Lula spluttered in mirth. ‘Do they even exist? ’Coz I’ve never met one.’
Emily crossed her arms and shook her head sadly. ‘You know, if you took some time out from your tireless quest to find this mythical “perfect man” and just indulged in a bit of fun – with someone other than your boss, that is – perhaps you’d get your mojo back?’ She cocked a chastising eyebrow, before turning away to answer a question one of the other birthday guests had called across to her.
Lula snorted at the back of her friend’s head but accepted that Emily had a point. She probablyshouldgive herself a break and stop worrying about findingThe One, but it had been one disappointing relationship after another over the past few years and she was beginning to panic that she was destined to be single forever.
Hence the foolish move of sleeping with her boss.
She’d just celebrated her thirty-first birthday – whichbothof her parents had managed to forget about this year – and Jez had been so attentive, so seemingly sympathetic when he’d found her crying in the break room after a particularly unpleasant call with her mum, that she’d found herself succumbing to his advances.
And look what had happened.
She wasnevermaking that mistake again. Sleeping with colleagues was a fool’s game. It only ever ended in tears and awkwardness. And possibly unemployment.
