Page 69 of Loving Jemima
She closed her mouth, swallowed, and nodded.
“Which is why I’m going to give you a choice. And I want you to think very carefully before you come to a decision.”
TEN MINUTES LATER the swish notification of a text message being sent echoed through the silent office. Jem’s hands were shaking and she still felt sick and like she was going to cry at any second. But in the end, this had been the best choice.
Neither she nor Ellie could afford to lose everything. What could ever be worth that?
“Good girl,” her father said approvingly. “Now, go. Your mother will be expecting you at home, though I suspect your conversation with her will be less onerous than the one you have had with me.”
Automatically, Jem stood, kissed him on the cheek, and walked out, ignoring every face that she saw. Because none of those faces were Ellie. And they never would be. Ellie was out of her life forever.
Chapter Twenty Eight
“I’ve got some bad news.”
It was better, Ellie thought, to be honest and open. Mo was frowning in concentration at their screen and barely looked up when Ellie came in.
“Mmm?”
“We’re probably losing the Darlington contract.”
Mo definitely looked up at that. “What? How?” Then their eyes narrowed. “Hold on, you look different… shiny. What’s going on?”
“Long story,” Ellie said, collapsing into her desk chair her legs pleasantly aching.
Okay, okay, so today was not going to be a good day. She wanted to care so much about the business, she did care so much about the business, really she did. But every time she tried to concentrate on what might happen, she thought about Jem’s hair cascading down her smooth back, about the way her mouth tasted, about waking up with her in her arms.
“Then you’d better start from the beginning,” Mo said, spinning their chair around and scooting it over to Ellie’s desk.
Ellie sighed and Mo grinned.
“You did it,” they said. “You and Jem, you’re… together, aren’t you?”
Which was as blunt as questions got and Ellie really didn’t want to jinx anything, but how could they not be together. It was like the dam had opened and everything had come flooding out and she was grinning involuntarily as Mo started applauding and whooping.
“You’ve finally got a girlfriend.”
“Potentially.”
Mo paused and eyed her. “And… we’re losing the Darlington contract.”
“Potentially,” she said again.
Mo pursed their lips. “Let me guess what’s happening, Jem’s decided now is the appropriate time to come out of her closet, which in general I’d be all for, but I’m assuming it hasn’t gone well.”
“I don’t know,” Ellie admitted. “She’s gone to meet with her father now.”
“So we’ll just sit here on tenterhooks until she gets back to us.”
“She’ll let me know as soon as something’s happened. And we can always call Toby, he’ll give us the low-down.”
“Toby? Oh, the assistant, got it.” Mo’s lips started to twitch and then they were smiling again. “So tell me all the details.”
“About losing the party we’ve already worked hard on?”
They rolled their eyes. “Things might not be that bad,” Mo said. “I mean, the first time I showed up at home wearing a skirt I thought my parents were going to lose their shit. But my mum just told me to take it off because it needed ironing and my dad just snorted and said I was lucky I hadn’t inherited his knobbly knees.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not what’s going to happen here,” Ellie said, chest tightening a little. She took careful breaths, counting in her head, controlling things.