Daydreamer

Lucy

Why did Ollie have to use my full name? After a long moment staring at me, Harry blinked and shook his head as if to clear it. I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe I’d got away with it? After all, Mayweather is a fairly common name, and he only glanced at me for a second in that restaurant over a year ago.

“If the reunion is over, can we get back to the actual numbers on the project and how they don’t add up? I’m sure we don’t want to waste His Grace’s time,” Harry said.

Felix rolled his eyes. “His Grace,” he muttered. “Christ, you’re such a kiss-arse.”

Felix and Harry continued to volley increasingly aggressive insults until, to my surprise, it was Victoria who interrupted the deadlock.

“Enough!” she said, that one word cracking through the room, silencing the meeting. “Neither of you are using logical reasoning skills here. Felix, I know Ollie’s your friend.”

“He’s your brother,” Felix snapped. “Where’s his sense of family loyalty?”

“Half-brother,” Victoria corrected automatically.

“Careful, Felix,” Ollie put in, his smile dropping.

Victoria just rolled her eyes. “The financials on the Hyde Park development are solid. I will prepare a presentation and I’ll deal with your concerns. Let me assure you, Mr York, I have no interest in putting any Buckingham Estate money at risk, despite what you may have heard about my parentage.”

“Vics,” Ollie said softly. “Nobody would think that, love.”

Victoria gave a jerky nod, a flare of some unidentifiable emotion breaking her cool exterior for a moment before she masked it.

“Lady Harding, I didn’t mean to imply that⁠—”

“I am not Lady Harding. The title does not transfer to illegitimate children,” Victoria said, cutting Harry off. Silence fell over the boardroom. “I’ll prepare the figures by next week when we should have heard more from the planning application. This meeting is no longer productive. Lottie, arrange another meeting excluding Felix. As far as Blue Sky Designs goes, I am already negotiating directly with Verity York. Good day.”

With that, Victoria pushed back her chair and simply left the room without a backward glance. The woman was a total badass. Ollie muttered his excuses and stalked out of the room after her.

“Right,” muttered Harry York. “Well, I⁠—”

“Jolly good,” the guy next to Harry said briskly (I assumed he was Harry’s business partner, Toby). “As usual, Ms Harding cuts through the bullshit.”

Everyone started packing up their stuff. I started to push up to stand, but Felix’s sharp “Lucy,” from across the table, caused me to sit back down. “Stay a moment, please. You as well, Brent.”

Will shot me another poisonous look, then sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.

“Lucy, is it?” Harry asked me as he approached my side of the table.

“Er, yeah. Hi,” I said in a small voice. He tilted his head to the side as he stared down at me.

“Lucy Mayweather?”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat, suddenly regretting my decision to not go with a proper pen-name. The leap from LP Mayweather to Lucy Mayweather wasn’t a big one.

“Yes,” I whispered. Recognition flashed in Harry’s eyes, and my heart sank. He opened his mouth to speak again, but with my wide eyes fixed on his, I gave a very slight shake of my head. He frowned, his gaze flicked around the room and his eyebrows went up, but he did snap his mouth shut.

“What the fuck?” Felix snapped as he strode around the table to me. “Leave my employees alone, York.”

Harry gave me one last searching look before focusing on Felix.

“Alright, Moretti. Keep your knickers on.” Harry winked at me before picking up his bag and moving to the double doors. “I’ll be seeing you,” he said, his eyes on me just before the door closed after him.

“What was that about?” Felix asked, crossing his arms over his impressive chest.

I just shrugged. “No idea,” I squeaked, and he frowned down at me. I’d never been a great liar. Finally, he looked from me to Will, uncrossed his arms to put his hands on his hips.

“Right, want to tell me what you’re playing at, Brent?” he asked.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“If Lucy is limping you don’t just ignore it. You bloody well tell her to get it checked out. At the very least, you don’t have her walking around the office at your beck and call. You certainly don’t call her Hop-a-long.”

Will rolled his eyes. “She’s a full-grown adult, Felix. She can sort herself out. I’m not here to babysit her. I’ve babied her through the last month as it is. Anyway, she knows it’s all just bants, don’t you, darling?” He winked at me, and I think I might have vomited just a little in my mouth.

“Watch it, Brent,” Felix said in a low, dangerous voice. “Do you understand me? Now, Lucy won’t be available for the rest of the day. She needs to go for an X-ray.”

“Whatever,” Will said under his breath as he got up to leave. “No loss to me. About as useful as a chocolate teapot.”

As the double doors closed after Will, Felix turned his attention back to me, and I wanted to sink through the floor with embarrassment.

“Felix, I am not going to the emergency department.”

Felix narrowed his eyes.

“Are you going to shout at me again?” I meant my voice to come out stronger than it did, but I tried to square my shoulders and brace for criticism. But Felix just looked up at the ceiling and rubbed his temples. I felt bad for the man. He had enough stress going on without me adding to it every day.

To be honest, I couldn’t understand anyone wanting to live life at the pace he did. It looked exhausting to me. I needed way more downtime than everyone else here seemed to require. The relentless peopling Felix did would break me. I fiddled with the sleeves of my shirt, wishing again it was the warm wool of my holey jumper that I could pull over my fingers.

“Lucy, I’ve never shouted at you,” his voice was softer now, but I could still detect the irritation. All I seemed to do was annoy Felix these days. He used to be much more tolerant of me when we were kids. I turned to stare out of the window again and heard Felix’s exasperated sigh. “And you are going to A&E, right? Lucy? Are you listening?”

I forced myself to look at him, and it was my turn to narrow my eyes. “Yes, I’m listening. No, I’m not going to A&E.”

“You’re a lot more stubborn than I remember.”

I shrugged.

“Well, fine. If you want to be an idiot, be my guest. You’d better get back out there and answer the bloody phone then.”

He was clearly irritated. I got the impression that he considered all his interactions with me a massive waste of time. His loyalty to my mum must be a real millstone around his neck.

“You’ve got the proper clothes now. You can start getting on with the job properly.”

I forced a smile. “Right, yes. Er… are you sure you don’t want to just fire me? It’d probably be easier.”

“Lucy,” Felix snapped. “This defeatist attitude is bullshit, you know? You owe it to your mum to really give this opportunity a chance.”

A huge wave of guilt assailed me then. Felix had really gone out on a limb for me, and I was fucking it all up. Not to mention all those poor, much more competent people who should be doing this job instead. I promised Mum I’d give this a go. I had to stop being a big wimp and get on with it. Creeps like Will were everywhere in the real world. So were offices full of unfriendly people. If I wanted to live in the real world, I needed to start toughening up.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m on it. I promise.”

The trouble is that being on it had never really been my natural state. More often than not, I was unaware of what it actually was.