Love at first site, p.1
Love at First Site, page 1
LOVE AT FIRST SITE
PHOEBE MACLEOD
To my fantastic boys, Matthew and Charlie.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Acknowledgments
More from Phoebe MacLeod
About the Author
About Boldwood Books
1
Ella,
I’m just putting together the slide deck for the final presentation to the trust tomorrow. Can you send over your project plan for the initial phase, including costs, as soon as possible so I can integrate it into our overall proposal?
Thanks
Lee
I close down the email and, with a sigh of pleasure, open up the project plan to give it a final once-over before sending it to Lee. It’s not surprising that project plans give me joy; I’d be a pretty rubbish project manager if I couldn’t take pleasure in a well-honed plan, and this one is a doozy. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been through it, both on my own and with other people in the company. As I study the Gantt chart, looking for any tiny holes I may have overlooked, I’m filled with confidence that this really is a work of art, as project plans go.
I’ve always liked order, and my sister Ava used to tease me relentlessly when I was doing exam revision at school, because I’d spend nearly as long putting together my colour-coded revision plans as I would doing the actual revision. Having assembled the plan, I’d print it off and stick it on my bedroom wall, meticulously ticking off the tasks as I completed them.
‘This is borderline OCD,’ she’d remarked when she first caught sight of my A-Level schedule, ‘but you’ve missed something.’
‘What?’
‘There’s nothing here about organising your knicker drawer. How will you cope if your knickers get out of sequence?’
‘Piss off,’ I’d replied as she’d sauntered out of my room, grinning.
Since joining Orchestra, the somewhat bizarrely named payroll and accounting software firm in Leeds where I’ve worked for the last five years, I’ve put together countless project plans, but this one matters more than any of them. We’re down to the final two in a bid for a contract with a cluster of NHS trusts across the north of England. Not only does this deal involve pretty much all of the components of our software suite, but it could also become a template for deals with other NHS trusts going forwards if the project is successful, so to describe it as ‘massive’ would be something of an understatement.
The other reason that this deal matters so much is that our opposition is a company that goes by the equally bizarre name of Harmony. Harmony was founded roughly ten years ago by a couple of disgruntled Orchestra consultants who left to set up on their own. It’s widely believed that they chose the name of their company as a deliberate snub to their ex-employers, but this all happened before I joined, so I don’t have any firm evidence. However, most of their products have similar names to ours. For example, our database component, which all the other applications sit on top of, is called ‘Maestro’, and theirs is called ‘Conductor’ – go figure. To begin with, they didn’t pose much of a threat, but Lee tells me that their offering is now on a par with, and in some ways better than, ours, so this deal really could go either way. Needless to say, this is as near to ‘personal’ as business gets. Everyone in the company is rooting for us to shut Harmony out and close this deal.
Having gone through the plan one last time, I convert it into a format that Lee can embed into his presentation and attach it to my reply.
Hi Lee,
Plan attached. Trust me, a lettuce leaf has more fat on it than this plan does. I’ve already included contingencies, so you can use the numbers in the attached spreadsheet as they are.
Good luck for tomorrow!
Ella
I attach the spreadsheet with the costs to back up the plan and press send. My part in the sales pitch is now done; it’s up to Lee, as the Customer Relationship Manager (basically an upmarket term for salesman), to bring everything together into a compelling argument to put to the trust tomorrow.
‘Have you seen Lee’s email asking for the project plan?’ my boss, Jonathan, asks, plonking his backside on the edge of my desk and manspreading. I don’t think he does it on purpose, but it’s definitely a subconscious power play because he never does it when he’s talking to people at the same level as, or above, him. Today, he obviously feels a special need to assert himself, because he’s spreading so wide that I’m having to tuck myself into the corner of my desk to prevent my arm from coming into contact with his thigh.
‘Yes. I’ve just sent it,’ I tell him.
‘Oh.’ He looks momentarily annoyed. ‘I thought you were going to walk me through it before you committed it.’
‘I did. That’s what we did this morning, remember?’
His face clears. ‘Of course. I’m sorry. Baby brain, I’m afraid. Even though Lucas is six months old now, we’re still not getting any sleep. So, are you excited? There’s a lot riding on this deal for you, isn’t there? I’ll be sad to lose you from my team, but I think you’ll really flourish as an account manager. I’ll put in a good word for you, of course, when the time comes. I’ll tell them what a model of efficiency you are, and how much you deserve the job.’
‘I’m not counting any chickens,’ I tell him firmly. ‘Let’s see whether we manage to close this deal before we start celebrating my possible promotion.’
He is right, though. Although I really am trying very hard not to think about it in case I jinx it, I really need this deal to go through too. Nothing has been promised, but there have been heavy hints that Orchestra will need a new account manager, among other positions, if we land this, and I’ve been left in no doubt that my name is in the frame. Having delivered his speech, Jonathan obviously feels that our little motivational chat is over and strides off back to his own desk. As he does so, I look up and meet my friend Ruth’s eye. She’s grinning broadly and surreptitiously forms a T with her hands. I grab my mug and we head for the kitchen.
‘I couldn’t see everything, but it looked like we were quite high on the manspread scale just then,’ she giggles as soon as we’re safely in the kitchen and out of earshot of the rest of the office.
‘Oh, yes,’ I reply. ‘I’m calling a solid nine as he pretty much had me pinned against the side of my desk.’
‘Surely that’s a ten?’
‘No. Wrong trousers for a ten. You only get a ten when he’s wearing the dark blue ones that emphasise the crotch bulge. Come on, Ruth, that’s elementary.’
‘You’re right. I’m so sorry. How were we on the fertility score?’
‘That’s a disappointing eight, I’m afraid.’ I try to arrange my face into an expression of regret, but I’m not really succeeding. ‘He didn’t mention the baby until the third sentence.’
‘Ah, well, better luck next time,’ she sympathises. ‘Are you sure you want this promotion? Who am I going to play the game with when you’re gone?’
‘I haven’t got it yet, remember? And, even if Lee knocks their socks off tomorrow, it’ll still be ages before they announce who’s got the contract, so I’m not going anywhere for a while. Plus, assuming all of that comes off and I get the position, I’m still going to be in the same office as you.’
‘You won’t be, though. You might drop in occasionally, but you’ll be on the road, schmoozing clients and having lavish dinners on expenses.’
‘Fair point, but I think you overestimate the glamour,’ I laugh. ‘It’ll mainly be dinners for one in various Holiday Inns.’
‘Well,’ she replies, expertly flicking her used teabag into the bin, ‘good luck anyway. I’m rooting for you, even if I will miss you. Let’s hope they replace you with someone interesting who’ll keep me entertained. Otherwise, I’ll have to resort to wearing low-cut tops and breaking my computer just to torment the IT guy.’
‘You wouldn’t! That’s so cruel.’
‘Of course I wouldn’t,’ she laughs. ‘What do you take me for?’
I’m ashamed to admit that I only learned that the IT guy is actually called Ian a few months ago. He’s always just been ‘the IT guy’. He’s good at what he does, there’s no doubt about that but, if his lack of social chit-chat is anything to go by, he’s generally happier talking to machines than he is to people. Until recently, he also had a frankly creepy habit of staring at women’s chests whenever he thought he could get away with it. Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t very subtle about it and someone made a complaint around six months ago. Rumour has it he got a verbal warning from HR and, ever since then, he makes such a point of looking into your eyes when he’s speaking to you that it’s possibly even more creepy than having him stare
I take my cup of tea back to my desk and spend the last hour or so of the working day replying to emails and making sure all the documentation I’ve prepared for the NHS trust project, including my beautiful project plan, is uploaded to the relevant internal SharePoint sites. I’m full of nervous energy; even though I won’t be in the final pitch meeting tomorrow and there’s nothing more I can do, I can’t seem to sit still. The next month is going to be agonising.
‘I know it’s only a Thursday, but do you fancy a drink before going home?’ Ruth asks, as I’m packing up at five-thirty. Our office is in one of those redeveloped commercial areas, with herringbone-patterned brick walkways and lots of trendy bars and restaurants catering to the office crowds. There’s a fancy cocktail bar just around the corner, and a group of us often head that way after work on a Friday. Jonathan used to be one of the ringleaders until his son was born, but now he just paints on an expression that’s a weird mixture of smugness and disapproval when we invite him, and makes some excuse about priorities changing when you have a family. The way he talks, you’d have thought nobody else in the office had ever had a baby.
‘I think that’s a genius idea,’ I reply. ‘Are we inviting anyone else, or is it just going to be the two of us?’
‘Jonathan won’t come, obviously, and the others have left already, so I think it’s just you and me. Will you be able to cope, do you think? I know I’m awfully dull, but I’ll make a special effort, I promise.’
‘Oh, do shut up!’ I laugh. ‘It’s a work night, so I’ll only have one, though.’
‘Of course you will. There’s no chance whatsoever that you’ll end up having “just one more” about three times and falling into an Uber,’ Ruth giggles as we make our way outside.
She may have me bang to rights, but I’m determined to stick to one cocktail tonight. It doesn’t matter if you over-indulge on a Friday, because you’ve got the whole weekend to get over it. But I’ve got to be on the ball tomorrow in case I’m called upon to talk Lee through any of the finer points of the plan before he goes into the meeting.
The bar is much quieter than I’m used to, and we have no problem getting one of the booths that are normally rammed full on a Friday night. There’s also none of the usual jostling for attention to get served at the bar; we’re encouraged to take our seats and a barman comes over to take our order, which is a novelty.
‘So, there is a bit of a hidden agenda to our Thursday night drinks. I have news!’ Ruth trills, grinning widely as soon as the barman has set down our porn star martinis.
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Wade’s asked me to move in with him.’
‘Oh, wow! That’s a big step for him. What did you say?’
‘I said yes, dummy! What did you think I was going to say?’
‘Hey, look. No judgement from me, but you’ve always said you wouldn’t move in until he’d given you a ring.’
‘Yeah, well, he doesn’t seem to have got that memo, despite some pretty heavy bloody hints from me, so I’ve decided to compromise. It’s still a big step forward in terms of commitment and, if I’m living with him, I’ll have more opportunities to nudge him in the right direction, don’t you think?’
‘I can see the logic. When is this going to happen?’
‘I have to give my current landlord notice, so not for a couple of months officially, but I’ll probably move most of my stuff over in the next week or two. I don’t want to give him the chance to change his mind.’
‘I’m delighted for you. I hope you’ll be very happy together.’
‘Thank you. Anyway, enough about me. What about you? Anything happening on the dating front?’
‘No,’ I tell her, with a smile. ‘When I have Jonathan as a role model, somehow nobody else measures up, do you know what I mean? He’s so fertile, I have to be careful not to pass him too closely on the stairs in case I accidentally get pregnant.’
‘You’re right, of course,’ she replies. ‘That was the one thing that I found myself wondering when Wade asked me to move in. “Am I accepting second best here? What if he’s not as fertile as Jonathan?” I’ve encouraged him to manspread as much as possible at home, to give the boys some ventilation, but it’s still a risk.’
I smile, pleased at having deflected the conversation back onto her. I love Ruth to bits and I’d like nothing more than to tell her the truth, but my true relationship status has to remain a deeply guarded secret, especially from her.
2
It’s only a couple of short bus rides from the office to the flat so, despite a detour to pick up a few groceries, it’s only just gone seven o’clock when I get back. I’m expecting to find my boyfriend sitting at the breakfast bar, still poring over his laptop, so it’s a bit of a surprise to find him relaxing in front of the TV.
‘What’s this?’ I ask him. ‘Slacking off? That’s very unlike you.’
‘To be honest, Els, I’ve been over this bloody thing so many times, I don’t think I can tweak it any more. I’ve decided to let it rest.’
After dumping my coat and laptop bag in the cupboard by the front door and putting away the groceries, I pour us each a large glass of the red wine I know he likes and take them over to the sofa, planting a kiss on his head as I sit down.
‘Are you confident?’ I ask, as I lean into him and he puts his arm around me. Even after a long day, he still smells delicious.
‘As much as I can be,’ he replies, wearily. ‘You know what it’s like. I could go through it again, and I’m sure I’d find something I want to change. I reckon I’m at the stage now where I can’t polish this turd of a presentation any more. It’s time to roll it in glitter and put it to bed.’
‘I hope it’s not a turd!’
‘No, but you know what I mean.’
‘I bought steak to give you stamina, but I’m going to grab a quick shower first and wash the day off. OK?’
‘Good idea. I’ll go in after you,’ he replies as I pick up my glass of wine and head for the bedroom.
You may be wondering why Lee and I have to keep our relationship secret. After all, he’s not married or seeing anyone else, so there’s no logical reason why we should have to skulk about under everyone’s radar. The truth is that Orchestra has very firm views about office romances. On the day I joined, the HR person responsible for my ‘onboarding’ took me through a long list of company policies, one of which included the policy on employees dating each other, which was basically a no-no.
‘Listen,’ she’d told me when I’d raised my eyebrows. ‘Obviously we can’t dictate how you run your personal life, but it’s better for everyone if office relations stay firmly platonic. If you were to form a romantic attachment with a colleague, and that relationship were to turn sour, I’m sure you can understand that a toxic break-up in an office environment poisons more than the two people directly involved. What I’m trying to say,’ she’d continued when I had evidently looked completely nonplussed, ‘is that we can’t forbid you from having a relationship with a colleague, but it would be very severely frowned upon.’
‘If you don’t mind me saying, that seems slightly draconian. I’m not planning on dating anyone at work, but surely my private life is just that?’
She’d sighed. ‘You’re right, of course. The reason we have this policy is that there was an incident a couple of years ago that left a nasty taste in everyone’s mouth. Management therefore decided to implement this policy to try to prevent anything similar from happening again.’
