Girl on the Run (7 page)

I’ve always had this weird problem with attractive men. Whether I fancy them or not, I go to pieces in their presence, intimidated by their sheer beauty. With Tom Bronte, this phenomenon takes hold of me with a vice-like grip. His dark looks are so prepossessing, so dazzling, that I can barely look at him without feeling embarrassed. That’s before we even get onto the horrendous facts of this situation.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks. I don’t look at him long enough to scrutinise his expression, but he sounds concerned as I inch away from the cavity into which I vomited.

‘Hmmm,’ I mumble. ‘Must have been something I . . . ate.’

My eyes flick up to catch him studying my face, and it’s then I realise he hadn’t recognised me. Until now. My cheeks ignite with shame.

‘God, it’s you.’ He raises his eyebrows. ‘You look different.’

‘So glamorous you didn’t recognise me?’ I ask.

Despite the circumstances, as I stand before Tom Bronte, I can’t help marvelling at how firmly he falls into the ‘them’ camp. The impressive curves of his arms are glistening, his cropped hair is shiny with sweat. Yet he looks no more than mildly invigorated; like a marine who’s run 10 kilometres to warm up for a double marathon. I resent him even more now.

‘Do you need a drink?’ His expression softens as he offers me some water. I’m dying for a drink, but the thought of the wretched taste in my mouth transferring to his bottle makes it out of the question.

‘No, thanks.’

‘Towel?’

‘No, thanks,’ I repeat, realising we’re way too close to the gutter. I hastily start walking towards the sports hall. He’s a second behind me, but after two strides, has caught up.

‘Why are you being nice to me?’ I ask. ‘Do you feel guilty about attempting to land me with an insurance premium Bill Gates would struggle to pay?’

‘Not at all,’ he replies. ‘Do you feel guilty about causing a ton of damage to a motorbike I’ve had for less than four months?’

‘It’s still up for discussion that I was at fault,’ I reply.

‘If you say so,’ he replies, clearly finding that amusing.

‘I do,’ I sniff, pausing for a second. ‘Motorbikes are notoriously dangerous.’

‘So are crap drivers.’ Cue a killer glance. Which he ignores. Instead, he says, ‘What have you got against motorbikes anyway?’

‘I don’t like them, that’s all.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know,’ I reply, not wanting this philosophical debate. ‘They’re so
unnecessarily
hazardous.’ The indignant look on his face makes me want to continue. ‘I question what sort of person would choose to ride something like that when they could drive a car instead.’

‘Have you ever been on one?’ he asks.

‘No. And I don’t want to, thanks.’

‘Then you’re not qualified to judge.’

‘Rubbish.’

‘How can you possibly make sweeping statements when you’ve never been on one? If you had, you’d understand their appeal.’

‘I don’t need to murder someone to confirm that I’d never want to be a serial killer,’ I tell him.

‘Hardly comparable.’

I narrow my eyes. ‘Are you denying that, statistically, motorbikes are more dangerous than virtually anything else on the road?’

‘Let me ask you something,’ he replies. ‘How many times have you crashed your car in the last five years?’

I stiffen. ‘An . . . average number of times.’

‘Well then,’ he says, with a self-satisfied shrug. ‘I have never – and I mean
never
– been in any form of collision with a motorbike since I first rode one aged nineteen. Until you nearly killed me, that is.’

‘I did
not
nearly kill you.’

I look up and see Jess marching towards me with a worried look on her face. I turn back to Tom, who’s still got that smug smile on
his
face.

‘Right, well, I’m off. Goodbye,’ I say sharply and start walking away.

‘See you at the next session,’ he calls after me, with feigned chirpiness.

‘There won’t be a next session,’ I growl, glancing over my shoulder. ‘Not for me anyway.’

‘Really? That’s a shame,’ he calls back. ‘We’ve never had anyone throw up before. It hasn’t been this exciting for ages.’

My accountant has the scruffiest shoes I’ve ever come across. They’re brown suede, with scuffed toes and laces that look like they’ve been chewed by a hamster.

I have nothing against anyone exercising their right to wear scruffy shoes, by the way. Hell, I’ve got some battered flip-flops that I can’t let go of, despite years of abuse in everywhere from Goa to my grandad’s vegetable patch. But the footwear currently sported by Egor Brown ACA does ring an alarm bell in my mind. Shouldn’t successful accountants be rolling in money, and therefore wearing the best shoes money can buy? To be fair to Egor, he did only graduate last year. Maybe he’ll be in Guccis in five years.

I reach for a biscuit and wince in pain. The running club was three days ago and I appear to be making no recovery. Indeed my thighs still feel as though someone took a mallet to them.

‘Things are looking pretty good, Abby,’ Egor tells me, pushing his glasses up his nose. We’re in a small, hired meeting room on the top floor of our building – one, I can’t help noticing, that has been decorated significantly more recently than our office. ‘You had a lot of start-up costs to claw back, and now have four staff members on the payroll. But your client base and turnover are growing really nicely.’

‘Thanks, Egor.’

‘The business plan we drew up at the start of the year is well on course. If you continue at the rate we’re predicting, you’ll have a turnover of around two hundred grand by the end of the year
and
you’ll make a profit of seven.’

‘Seven thousand pounds’ profit,’ I repeat dreamily. ‘So when can I retire to the Bahamas?’

I’m only being slightly sarcastic, because the truth is, while seven grand may not sound a lot, it is a big deal, simply by dint of it being a
profit
. Which means it’s mine, all mine – apart from the massive chunk for the tax man, that is, but I try not to dwell on that.

‘It might be a while before you pack your bags yet,’ Egor laughs, ‘but if you end up in profit so early in your company’s existence, you should be very happy, Abby. Let’s not count our chickens though, shall we?’

Shoes aside, Egor is lovely. Utterly so. And I don’t only think that because he’s the guy who does the number crunching that I despise, everything from filing my VAT return to preparing my accounts each quarter.

I decided early on to take on a self-employed accountant like Egor, as well as an agency to do the payroll every month. Nobody would ever have been paid otherwise – including myself.

‘Well, I’m very glad to hear it,’ I tell him, ‘because frankly, the size of the overdraft being run by this company terrifies me.’

‘Ten thousand pounds is perfectly normal for a company of your size, Abby,’ he reassures me. ‘Start-up businesses couldn’t function without an overdraft, and most of the time you’re operating in the black; we only use the overdraft at the end of each month to cover the staff salaries while we’re waiting for the clients to pay. It’s all perfectly normal.’

My mobile rings and I ask Egor to bear with me while I take it out of my bag and glance at the number flashing up.

‘Oh no,’ I groan, before pressing ignore.

I recognise the number immediately, courtesy of the fact that they’ve phoned three times in twenty-four hours and left two messages: it’s my insurance company. I genuinely haven’t had a minute to return the call.

‘Well, Egor, considering my feelings about this side of the business, today has been painless. Thank you,’ I say, standing to leave.

‘Er, just a second, Abby,’ he says.

I pause and sit, glancing at his expression – which has suddenly shifted.

‘Now,’ he says with a tone I instantly recognise as tactful, ‘I know you don’t like admin, but there are certain jobs you can’t avoid. You’ve got to stay on top of your invoices, Abby.’

‘I send them out on time,’ I protest weakly.

‘The trouble is, not everyone
pays
on time, do they?’ he replies. ‘Look at the precision engineering company – Preciseco. We never seem to get their payment earlier than sixty days after you’ve sent the bill.’

‘That was starting to annoy me too,’ I mutter.

‘Look, I’m not having a go. Well, not really. Late payments are the scourge of the small business. But you must keep tabs on every bill you send out to a client. If they’re even a day late, get on to them with a polite reminder. That will usually do the trick, but if not, get on to them again – until they do pay.’

‘Okay, I’ll do that in future. Though may I point out that not all my clients pay late. Diggles are my biggest and they always cough up within seven days.’

‘Ah yes, your garden-centre chain. They are pretty brilliant, aren’t they? So, if you can win some business from seven or eight more massive garden-centre chains who pay up
before
they even need to, you’ll be a millionaire by next year. Alternatively, try it my way.’

‘You can be such a bully sometimes, Egor,’ I tell him. ‘And here I was, thinking you were different from other accountants.’

‘I’m exactly the same, Abby, I promise.’ He helps himself to the last of the biscuits and takes a bite. ‘Nice cookies. Hope they didn’t cost too much.’

If it wasn’t for the fact that I’m walking with the gait of an over-worked pornography actress, I’d enter the office with a spring in my step. Egor didn’t tell me much I didn’t already know, but it’s nice to have the fact that my business is in good shape reinforced.

‘Morning, Abby,’ smiles Priya. ‘How are things?’

‘Good, thanks, and you? How are you feeling about . . . whatsisname?’

‘Karl,’ she replies. ‘Absolutely fine. I’ve met someone else.’

‘She’s nothing if not fast,’ Hunky Matt comments, upon which she throws a pad of Post-it notes at his head.

‘He’s called Richard and he is very nice,’ Priya says proudly. ‘He’s a sales rep.’

‘He sells toothbrushes,’ Matt puts in.

Priya narrows her eyes. ‘What is wrong with toothbrushes?’

‘Nothing at all,’ Matt says. ‘Everyone needs ’em. Well, everyone with teeth.’

‘Exactly!’ she replies.

‘In fact, I bet the date’ll be absolutely filling,’ he adds.

‘These puns of yours get worse,’ I sigh. ‘Now – what have you both been up to this afternoon?’

‘Working on the new site for Spring,’ Matt says, referring to one of our newest clients, a group of trendy delicatessens. ‘What do you think?’

I walk round the desk to look over his shoulder. ‘This is gorgeous – I love it. Though you might want to consider a different font. How about . . .’ I lean over and am clicking on the mouse a few times when something strikes me. ‘Where’s Heidi?’

‘Oh, she phoned in sick,’ Priya says. ‘Apparently, she sent you an email. Thought you’d pick it up on your BlackBerry.’

‘I get far too many emails to do anything other than ignore them when I’m in meetings,’ I tell her. ‘I know that destroys the object, but I’d spend all day on it otherwise.’

I sit and scan my inbox, finally spotting one from Heidi’s personal email address.

I groan outwardly, but as the others are used to me doing this every time I go near my emails – and unearth another hundred things for my To Do list – they barely stir.

My only free slot today was at three, and I was intending to use it, fresh from Egor’s chat, to chase up late-paying clients. Not just that, but I have a horrible feeling about Heidi’s urgency: my suspicion about another agency persuading her to join them suddenly feels like a real possibility.

I am about to stand to leave when another email leaps from the computer screen – from [email protected] – and makes my stomach swirl.

Abby
, it begins and I tut at the further presumption of familiarity.

I suppress a smile.

My face blanches. The insurance company have left scores of messages and I just haven’t had time to return them. I glance at my watch and quickly hit Reply.