Page 5 of A Smart Girl's Guide to Second Chances
‘Then tonight should definitely be a last hurrah,’ Matt said, his voice still husky.
My phone pinged again as Miranda’s email, the one with the background materials on the client, project team and industry, hit my inbox. My thumb automatically moved to open it, but I stopped myself. I dropped my phone on the floor and then turned back to Matt. I stared at his handsome face, my favourite one in the world, then began to unbutton his shirt.
I arrived at work the following morning with my game face on – I couldn’t be distracted by any more wedding disasters or non-PG-rated moments with my fiancé. The first few weeks of any project always sat somewhere on the intensity spectrum between ‘nervous breakdown’ and ‘soul destroying’.
‘Consultant’ was a job title that meant nothing to anyone. Basically, our job was to go into an enormous company and spend a few weeks or months solving the specific problem they’d given us. I’d usually enjoy throwing myself headfirst into a new case, though I’d hoped that this one might be a cruisier project than normal to give me a bit of breathing room in the lead-up to the wedding. At least at this stage my only job was to listen and gather information.
I clacked my way across the marble lobby, which smelled like a Le Labo store, and rode the eerily silent lift to the top of the building. I picked up a temporary company pass from the reception desk, which looked hobbit-sized under the company’s enormous name,ATG. Even the company’s motto, ‘Healthcare for the Future’, was gargantuan. It wasn’t surprising – this company was a global behemoth, a national success story. It was also part of an industry I had no desire to learn about.
‘They’re waiting for you in “Passion”,’ the glossy receptionist informed me with a warm smile.
‘Sorry?’ I asked, confused.
‘All our meeting rooms are named after the company’s values. It’s next to “Integrity Always”.’
‘Ah, thanks,’ I said, trying to conceal any trace of judgement from my face. I had no strong feelings about naming meeting rooms. On my last project I’d spent most of my time in a room called ‘Collins Street’ (which overlooked Bourke Street). But I did take umbrage with passion as a corporate North Star. Passionate people lacked moderation, rational thought, balance, perspective. These qualities were the stuff that successful businesses were made of.
I wove my way through an open-plan office until I found a room with a plaque embossed withPassion.
I began to open the door then paused. There was someone already in the room. A tall man with a mane of blond hair, and wearing a chambray shirt, was bent over the long conference table, furiously scribbling on a piece of paper. I spied the Stern & Co banana-yellow logo in the top left-hand corner of the page.
I knocked softly. The man, evidently annoyed at being interrupted, looked up with a frown. Two bright blue eyes stared at me. I instinctively took a step back and ran my hands down my white silk shirt.
Because sitting at the conference table, in the meeting room I was meant to be in, was Alex Lawson – the only man on earth I truly never wanted to see again.
Chapter 3
Were my eyes playing tricks on me? Had I forgotten to put my contacts in? Had my long black been spiked?
Over the years, I’d occasionally thought I’d seen him. I would be in a cafe and sitting in the corner would be a tall man with fair hair. My heart would begin to thud and my palms would become sticky. But then the man I was staring at would turn his head slightly and I’d realise that it wasn’t Alex, that he looked nothing like him. My mind would stop racing and then I’d go back to not thinking about Oxford at all.
‘Rebecca.’ He said my name in the same deep, slightly gravelly voice I remembered.
‘Alex?’ I hadn’t meant for it to be a question. But how could it not be? Because right then I had nothing but questions. Why was Alex Lawson in Melbourne? Why was he attending the same meeting as me? When had he started wearing shirts with collars?
‘Of all the meeting rooms in all the cities in the world,’ he said as he stood up. He still looked the same, just sharper. His jawline was stronger, the last traces of the softness of youth gone, his hair looked like it had seen a hairdresser recently, and while his shirt was rumpled and had clearly never been introduced to an iron, it was still more structured than anything he’d voluntarily worn during daylight hours when I’d known him.
My cheeks began to burn. Suddenly I felt like I was in my twenties again. Except not in the Taylor Swift–song sense: that was the good, fun, upbeat version. I was the girl who hadn’t yet learned how to blow-wave her hair or that bold jewel colours made her look washed out, and could still not confidently wear heels without feeling like a young girl playing dress-ups. All the armour I’d built as I’d grown up, the tailored clothes in natural fibres and true winter shades, a phone in each hand, had melted away.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, because it was now the only question looping around my brain.
‘I work here,’ he replied.
‘You work here?’ I echoed.
‘No, I like breaking into office buildings and sitting in meeting rooms wearing company-branded lanyards for fun,’ he replied. He’d never had any tolerance for people who took more time to understand something than he did. Which was everyone.
Since we’d broken up, I’d never googled him, not once. I’d never attempted to stalk him on Instagram or connect with him on LinkedIn, and I’d been silently proud of this. I knew people who followed their exes, or the new partners of their exes, on fake accounts. I’d laugh when they confessed this, but secretly felt like I’d taken the higher ground. How were you meant to move on if you were still absorbed by the lives of people from your past? Wasn’t it disloyal to current partners if you still cared, even a bit, about flings from yesteryear?
I was the fool. I hadn’t kept tabs, which meant that I had no idea what he’d been up to for the previous nine years. Had he been in my city the whole time?
‘Ah, I’ve found “Passion”.’ We were interrupted by a familiar voice behind us.
No, you’ve found ‘Awkward’ or ‘Discombobulated’ or the ‘Seventh Circle of Hell’, I silently re-christened the meeting room.
After many years of working together I knew that the brightness of Miranda’s outfit was a litmus test for her levels of energy and enthusiasm for a project. Today she was in yellow: she was clearly fired up about this case. She offered her hand to Alex and gave it a vigorous shake.
‘Miranda Buchanan.’
