Shout Out To My Ex: (The Ever After Agency Book 2)

‘What to wear, what to wear?’ I mutter to myself. For the second day in a row, I’m standing in front of my wardrobe, indecisive – and apprehensive – about choosing the perfect outfit. Yesterday, I wanted to make a good impression on Leo (and perhaps make him fall madly in love with me and dump Franzia so we can build a fashion empire together).

And look where that got me! Splashed all over the bloody internet and on newsstands across Britain. Today’s outfit needs to be the exact opposite of yesterday’s. I need to disguise myself to elude any paps who might be skulking about. But if I opt for the usual work uniform, I’ll (of course) look like me – easily recognisable, fresh meat – and potentially induce a paparazzi feeding frenzy.

Cassie’s no help. Yesterday, she was at Bliss Designs, like a respectable professional grown-up, and this morning, she has a meeting with Tom Finn and Hilde Klein’s production company – also like a respectable professional grown-up. I just hope being at the centre of a scandal isn’t enough to scare them off – something else to stew over.

I back up several steps and flop onto my bed so I can feel sorry for myself properly, lying flat and staring at the ceiling. Maybe I should just work from home today. But then, I was already off yesterday on my ‘research excursion’. What sort of (not-so-fearless) leader skives off work two days running?

I skived off work last week too, after we got back from Paris. I’ve become a skiver!

‘What are you about, Eloise Bliss?’ I ask the air.

We should get a cat. At least then I wouldn’t be here talking to myself. Talking to a pet is far more normal than talking to yourself, right? I eye the half-dead plant on the windowsill, realising I can’t recall the last time I watered it. If I can’t keep a plant alive, I have no business adopting a feline.

God, my mind wanders to odd places when I am avoiding facing the world.

I push myself up onto my elbows and scan my open wardrobe again. I may not like baseball caps, but I have one tucked away somewhere; it’s from a charity event I volunteered at a couple of years ago. To go with the cap, which I find in a bag of clothes I’ve yet to drop off at Oxfam, I choose dark glasses, jeans, and a T-shirt – about as far from ‘Elle Bliss’ as I can get.

It’s only when I’m fully dressed and look in the mirror that I discover I’m dressed as Leo. I roll my eyes at myself. But I’m now incredibly late for work and don’t have time to change. On the way out of the flat, I grab a (very brown) banana from the otherwise empty fruit bowl and eat it on the walk to work.

It’s obvious when I arrive that the team has been watching both the clock and the door.

‘Oh, hi, Elle,’ says Gaz, pretending they didn’t just flap their hand at the others to ‘subtly’ announce my arrival.

‘Hi, everyone. Sorry I’m late but I went the long way to shake off the paps.’

Gaz feigns astonishment. ‘Really? Why would the paps be stalking you?’

Zara and Prue, who are doing a rubbish job of acting normal, peer at me with obvious curiosity.

‘Well, they weren’t – at least not today,’ I say, waving Gaz off.

I decided on the way over here that the only way to move on from being tabloid fodder is to call it out, clear the air, then get back to work.

‘Elle, I…’ Zara starts, stepping closer. She shakes her head. ‘Never mind.’

I could never mind and do the very British thing of pretending everything’s fine and never speaking of it again.

‘No, go ahead, please,’ I say instead.

‘It’s just, well… Are you and Lorenzo together? Isn’t he supposed to be engaged to⁠—’

She stops suddenly, her mouth falling open and her eyes bulging as she looks past me. In fact, all three of them are looking past me, gawking as if they’re extras in the latest Jurassic Park film and have just spotted a dinosaur.

I pivot slowly and there he is – of course he bloody is! – standing in the doorway, one hip cocked and grinning.

‘Good morning, y’all,’ he drawls, sounding particularly Texan today. Maybe he spent the evening watching Matthew McConaughey films. I wouldn’t be surprised if he launched into a round of ‘all right, all right, all right…’

It’s annoyingly sexy and I’m torn between sending him away and grabbing the front of his T-shirt and yanking him towards me for a kiss. I do neither, as I am rooted to the spot, mortified. There is every chance he heard what Zara just said.

Also, what the hell is he doing here, anyway?

It’s not like we parted on good terms yesterday afternoon – or at least, I didn’t. I parted in frustration, confusion, and anger, with a side of ‘what the actual fuck?’

And as soon as I got home, I drowned my sorrows like any woman in my situation would: I drank cheap wine while scoffing a family-sized bag of crisps and moaning to my sister.

Not that it’s likely there are other women in my exact situation. Surely, the universe isn’t that cruel.

There’s also the (very real) concern I might become front-page news for the second day running. It won’t take long for the tabloids to connect the dots and determine that the ‘mystery blonde’ is actually ‘Elle Bliss – ex-girlfriend’, especially when he’s currently standing in my fashion house!

And where’s Ser, the odd bod publicist, in all this? Oh god, what if she was the one who set us up?

‘Sorry, am I interrupting?’ Leo asks, snapping me back to the present.

‘Yes,’ I reply right as the others say, ‘No,’ in unison. Note to self: sack all traitors.

‘Actually,’ says Zara, stepping forward, ‘we were just talking about you.’

‘Oh?’ He flashes that cocky Lorenzo grin I should hate but secretly find sexy (damn him). ‘You don’t say?’

If Zara does tell him what we were saying, I will actually sack her.

‘Um, it’s more of a “show” and not a “tell”,’ she replies cryptically. I literally have no idea what she’s talking about. ‘Come on, it’s back here,’ she says, leading the way. All right, now I’m intrigued.

Leo and I follow – I don’t so much as look at him, though his scent infuses the air between us, which is maddening. If he could stop being so flipping sexy all the time, that would be wonderful.

It’s when we get to the end of the studio that the consternation between us, all the embarrassment of being reduced to ‘mystery blonde’, and all the heartache at (probably) loving a man I can’t have, fall away. Because, while I was off galivanting around London, then wallowing in my flat, my team were working. In fact, they were absolutely smashing it.

Zara, Prue, and Gaz have taken our sketches and arranged them on inspiration boards, which are pinned up along the wall. To each, they’ve added colour swatches, motifs, and other images and graphics to begin fleshing out the vision for the collection, and for several designs, they’ve even added fabric swatches.

Their incredible efforts have given us a massive head start on our storyboarding.

‘Oh, you brilliant, brilliant loves,’ I say, awash with pride.

‘Holy shit, you guys,’ says Leo, his fingers lightly trailing over the nearest inspiration board. He looks over and meets my eye and this smile, this is Leo. ‘Your team…’ He shakes his head with joyful disbelief, then turns back to them. ‘You guys are incredible. The way you’ve understood our vision’ – his eyes meet mine again for a microsecond and I remind myself I’m still cross with him for multiple reasons, even though my thumping heart says otherwise – ‘you’re amazing,’ he tells them.

They beam under his praise but who wouldn’t? I’m beaming; I do have an amazing team and this is exactly why I hired them. They are brilliant and creative (and not traitors at all).

New note to self for the post-season celebration: change the spa booking to the deluxe package. Surely Cassie won’t mind when I show her what they’ve come up with.

‘So,’ says my collaborator, ‘should we get to work?’

I can do this, I tell myself. I can be a professional and ‘get to work’ – I just need to channel my very together and highly professional sister.

What would Cassie do in this situation? I wonder. Well, she’d never be in this situation, as she’s never been in love.

Gah! These thoughts are not helpful.

I look up at Leo and smile brightly – fake it till you make it, right? – and say, ‘Absolutely.’

Poppy

‘So, that’s where we’re at,’ I say, casting my eyes around the conference room table.

The silence is deafening, which isn’t surprising. I’ve just revealed that a client of our (purposefully covert) matchmaking agency is all over the tabloids, adding a layer of complexity to an already complex case.

Of course, some of my colleagues knew before the meeting – George, who devours tabloids daily over breakfast (no judgement), Mia, who watches closely for any mention of the agency in the press or social media, and Nasrin.

Saskia and Paloma are at opposite ends of the table, as always, and I look between them to gauge their reactions. Paloma looks like she’s just sucked on a lemon, but Saskia is her usual stoic self. She finally breaks into a smile, one that says, ‘Everything has gone to shit but we will sort it out.’ A ‘hopeful pragmatist’ she calls herself, and I’m witnessing that ethos in action right now.

She turns to Mia, who is tapping away on a tablet, her brows knitted together.

‘Mia, any sign that the press has made the connection?’

Mia shakes her head. ‘Nothing in my daily sweep this morning,’ she says in her Irish lilt, ‘and it looks like nothing has popped up since.’ She looks up with a satisfied smile, then turns to me. ‘You mentioned that Lorenzo has a publicist?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Ser Robbins out of New York. And that’s S-E-R.’

Mia nods, then goes back to her tablet.

‘Are we working with Robbins directly?’ Paloma asks. In this instance, ‘directly’ means that Ser has been read in and is aware of the aim to reunite Leo and Elle. She hasn’t – we rarely do that.

‘No, not directly,’ I reply. ‘Our only contact with her was to set up the initial meeting between our client and the love interest, and that was handled by Cassie, the sister.’

‘But you believe that Robbins is behind the engagement to the supermodel?’ asks Saskia.

‘I’m almost positive. Marie is still working on getting irrefutable proof⁠—’

‘That the engagement is fake, a publicity stunt?’ Paloma interjects.

‘Yes.’

Her expression sours again, but I’ve worked with Paloma long enough to know this is her ‘thinking face’. Before joining the agency, she was an executive in a multi-national PR company, so perhaps she’s untangling this snag from that perspective.

‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’ Saskia asks Paloma. ‘Read her in?’

This is huge – I’ve never read an external person into a case before.

‘Mmm,’ Paloma replies after a moment. She must still be mulling it over.

The rest of my colleagues remain silent, listening intently as glances ping between them, which is completely understandable.

Our morning staff meetings are usually a quick whip around of case updates, then back to work. We’re not even the type of workplace that indulges debriefs about Love Island, Strictly, or Bake Off during staff meetings – those interactions, as well as sharing pet photos and weekend plans, occur at our desks or in the kitchen.

And we rarely end up this far into the weeds of a specific case with everyone present.

‘Poppy. I think perhaps we should wrap up here, then meet with you and Nasrin,’ Saskia says, meaning her and Paloma.

There’s a soft groan of disappointment as our colleagues are subtly dismissed and I have no doubt that Nas and I will be bombarded with questions later. This is an especially juicy case.

It’s also not lost on me that Nasrin has been extremely quiet during this briefing – she’s always happy to leap in and share the glory, but where’s my second when I really need her? And she’s the one who brought this case in.

For a moment, I thrum with annoyance, but then I remind myself that the person I’m most annoyed with is me. I’ve let this case get away from me – or at least parts of it.

The others clear out of the conference room and Nasrin and I stay put.

‘Actually,’ says Paloma, ‘let’s move this to my office.’

Saskia and Paloma are the only two at the agency with offices, and while they have comfortable seating areas, each with a sofa and armchairs, there is nothing comfortable about being called into Paloma’s office and put in the hotseat.

‘Make yourself comfortable,’ she says as she leads us inside, and I almost laugh at the irony.

The four of us sit and Paloma gets straight to the point, her dark eyes boring into mine.

‘Have you met this person?’

‘Ser?’ She nods. ‘Not really. She was at the H&M party, where the engagement was announced, but we weren’t introduced.’

She props her chin on her forefinger and stares at the bookshelves behind me. I surreptitiously glance at Nas and she lifts her shoulders slightly in a tiny shrug.

After at least a minute, Paloma finally speaks – this time to Saskia. ‘I think we vet her, then consider reading her in. We don’t want her at cross purposes with us.’

‘Or…’ says Saskia, and just the tone of that one drawn-out syllable makes my stomach churn. ‘We drop the case.’

I press my lips together, holding my breath.

These are the exact words I’ve been dreading since this new development. As with most of my cases – there have been a handful of duds over the years – I am completely invested. I’ve seen Elle and Leo together and there’s love there, I’m sure of it. And with the additional information that Cassie’s feeding us, I believe there’s a strong possibility we can get Elle and Leo their HEA.

It was difficult talking Cassie around when she came in earlier, but maybe convincing her to continue was moot. Nas nudges me with her knee, but I dare not look at her, as I suspect she may agree with Saskia.

Paloma and Saskia have one of their silent eye conversations as Paloma mulls over Saskia’s suggestion.

‘No,’ says Paloma eventually, turning back to me, ‘I don’t think we need to drop it – at least not yet.’

I exhale loudly and she gives me an amused look.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I just…’

‘You’re invested in your client’s happiness,’ says Saskia, rescuing me – and echoing my exact thoughts.

‘Yes, that’s it.’

‘Well, we appreciate that,’ she says, magnanimous as always.

‘Right, now, Poppy,’ says Paloma, back to business, ‘you and Nas⁠—’

There’s a knock at the door, interrupting her. ‘Come in.’

Mia opens the door and pops her head in. ‘Sorry to interrupt, but there’s been a press release from Lorenzo – the company.’ She holds up her tablet.

Paloma calls her in and takes the tablet, her eyes scanning the screen. As she reads, her mouth lifts at the corners.

‘Good news,’ she tells us. ‘We don’t have to read in the publicist – well, not for the time being.’ She hands over the tablet and we pass it between us, quickly reading in turn.

Thank god. We’re still on the case and it’s no longer headed for disaster. Well, at least for now.