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

‘This is coming along brilliantly,’ I say to Zara, my assistant designer. I circle the dress form and admire the single-breasted linen jacket.

‘I’m just not sure about this,’ she replies, running her forefinger along the raw edge at the neckline.

I step back to better scrutinise it, squinting slightly. ‘Mmm.’

‘What if we…’ She tucks the edge under on one side of the ‘V’, pins it, then stands beside me to get a better look.

We’re both staring at it when Cassie bursts in. ‘You are never going to believe this! Wait, what are you looking at?’ She glances between us and the dress form.

‘The neckline,’ I say.

Cassie joins us and angles her head. ‘Hemmed,’ she says right as I say, ‘Raw.’

Zara sniggers softly. ‘So, a raw edge then?’ she asks cheekily, removing the pins.

I give Cassie my attention just in time to catch her eye roll. ‘Don’t be like that.’

‘You never take my suggestions,’ she says with a (faux) pout.

‘Me, genius fashion designer,’ I say, pressing a finger to my chest. ‘You⁠—’

She cuts me off. ‘Yes, yes, all right. Anyway, I have news,’ she adds, brightening up in an instant.

‘I’m all ears but walk with me – I need to check the fabric bolts that came in overnight.’

We head towards the other end of the workroom, which bustles with activity. The autumn/winter collection will launch in just under a month and we’re all hands on deck, the entire team busy cutting, sewing, and fitting.

‘Three words,’ says Cass. ‘Paris. Fashion. Week.’

I stop short. ‘Sorry?’

‘You heard me.’

‘Yes, but what does that mean?’

‘I, my dear sister, have managed to work some magic and Bliss Designs is going to Paris Fashion Week!’

A hush descends over the workroom, and I can feel all eyes locked on us.

‘I… you… what?’

‘I know it’s late notice, but an Icelandic designer had to pull out and I snagged us their spot.’

‘But that’s only a few weeks away… and we’re just a small…’

Doubt rushes through me, shouting, ‘Imposter, imposter, imposter!’ inside my head.

‘Hey.’ Cass’s voice drops an octave and many decibels. She glances around. ‘Come.’ She grabs my hand and drags me towards our office. Once we’re inside, she closes the door and eyes me closely. ‘You all right?’

‘I’m not sure. Did you just announce in front of the entire team that we’re showing at Paris Fashion Week?’

‘Yes.’

I expel a breath, nodding slowly, trying to absorb what this means. I have a thought.

‘This isn’t like that time you said we were going to be sold in shops and I thought Harvey Nicks but you meant Primark, is it?’

‘That was good exposure.’

‘We were asked to design a T-shirt,’ I retort, blinking at her pointedly.

‘For charity,’ she lobs back.

‘All right, fine,’ I concede. It was a good cause, as well as good exposure. ‘But when you say Paris Fashion Week⁠—’

‘I mean your autumn/winter collection. In Paris. During Fashion Week.’

‘And not in some back alley in the fifteenth arrondissement?’

‘Nope. In the Carrousel du Louvre.’

Her words send a jolt of adrenaline through my veins – buoying and terrifying me in equal measure.

‘And you’re not playing?’

She grabs me by both shoulders and pins me with a big-sister-slash-business-manager look. ‘Listen, as fun as this is – convincing you that I’m serious – I need you to believe me and I need you to believe me right now, because we have less than three weeks until we’re showing in Paris. And not in some back alley. All right?’

A grin breaks across my face, quashing the internal cries of imposter. ‘We’re showing in Paris,’ I say.

‘We’re showing in Paris.’

I grab both her forearms and start jumping up and down. ‘We’re showing in Paris,’ I chant. To her credit, Cass plays along and there we are, two thirty-somethings bouncing up and down, giddy and ridiculous.

‘Right,’ she says after indulging me for a good thirty seconds, ‘shall we tell them the good news?’ She nods towards the workroom and when I look past her, our small but formidable team is standing still, eyes trained on us through the glass walls.

I scoot past Cass and fling open the door.

‘Is it true?’ asks Zara, the most senior of the team.

‘It’s true!’ I sing out, wiggling my bum and shimmying my shoulders – my happy dance. Delighted exclamations ripple around the room and Zara and Gaz join in on the dancing. Prue, who at twenty-two is the youngest, watches us, clearly amused by what the ‘old people’ are doing.

‘Which means,’ says Cassie, talking over the excitement, ‘we have exactly eighteen days to finish the collection.’

‘Fuck,’ says Gaz candidly. They slap a hand over their mouth. ‘Oops, sorry,’ they say through their fingers.

Eighteen days to finish this collection does warrant at least one ‘fuck’ but as their fearless leader, I need to spin that into ‘hell, yes’.

I stop dancing and address the team.

‘Okay, sure, that’s nine less days than we thought we’d have, but you are one of the most talented, clever, hard-working teams there is or ever has been and⁠—’

‘Nice way to butter us up,’ Prue says with a laugh.

‘Okay, you’ve caught me,’ I say. ‘Doesn’t make it any less true, though.’

I look at each of them in turn. ‘But we can only accomplish this as a team and it will be even longer hours and harder work for the next few weeks.’

Murmurs and looks pass amongst them, the excitement building even more.

‘So, what do you think?’ I ask.

Zara looks to Gaz and Prue, who nod enthusiastically, then back to me and Cassie. ‘We’re in!’

‘Brilliant!’ I reply, turning to grin at Cass with another little shoulder shimmy.

She steps around me, all business again. ‘All right, everyone. Back to work, please. Elle will come around to each of you for a status check.’

The team dissembles, the bustle of the workroom resuming.

‘And what about you?’ I ask Cass quietly.

‘You can catch me up at home. I’ve got to be somewhere.’ She crosses to her desk and collects her handbag.

‘Where?’ I ask.

‘Um, just that side project I mentioned last night. I’ll tell you more if it eventuates.’

‘Wait, wasn’t Fashion Week the side project?’

‘Er, nope.’ She gives me a smile-and-nose-crinkle combo, then rushes past me, leaving me confounded.

Poppy

‘Hiya, Cassie. I’m Nasrin and this is my colleague, Poppy.’

Cassie is a tallish woman with a mane of glossy brown hair, a warm smile, and dimples. As we enter the meeting room, she stands and leans across the table to shake our hands in turn. We exchange hellos then sit.

‘Thank you for seeing me,’ she says to Nas.

‘Course. Toves and me go way back. We’ve been mates since school days.’

‘We’ll always meet with a referral from a friend,’ I chime in.

‘Brilliant.’ That dimpled smile appears again. ‘Tova says this is one of the best agencies in London.’

‘It’s the best, actually,’ teases Nasrin, her eyebrows lifted.

This clearly catches Cassie off-guard and for a moment, it seems as if she’s going to backpedal. That is until Nasrin flaps her hand and breaks into a grin.

‘Just having a laugh. I mean, it’s definitely a top-tier agency, and one of the things that makes us special in cases like this is our investigator. She’s a gun.’

‘Excellent.’ Cassie is visibly relieved and sits back against her chair.

‘But just to let you know,’ Nas continues, ‘I’m currently chest-deep in another case, so I’ve asked Poppy here to consider taking yours.’

‘Oh,’ says Cassie.

‘I’d be her second, her lieutenant, so to speak, but it’s Poppy’s decision as to whether we’ll take you on.’

‘Right. Sorry, I thought this meeting was to get started.’

‘On that,’ I say, leaping in before Cassie deflates any further – she’s gone from cheery to gloomy in mere moments. ‘Could you tell us about your sister and her previous partner?’

The question seems to appease her, at least for now, and she directs her response to me. ‘Well…’ She sighs, then chuckles softly. ‘Actually, now I’m stuck on where to start.’

‘How about telling us why you want to find’ – I check the case notes on my tablet – ‘Leo.’

‘That’s an easy one. Because Elle is not just my sister, she’s my closest friend and she’s never been happier than when she was with Leo. They were together for four years when he left suddenly to move back to Texas. And Elle was devastated. Understandably, as they were… You know when you meet a couple and they are completely besotted and complement each other perfectly?’

Nasrin’s head swings in my direction and when I look over, her mouth is quirking. ‘Oh, yeah, I know that type of couple.’ At least she doesn’t go so far as to name me and Tristan outright, but we’re getting off track.

‘It sounds like theirs was a great love,’ I say to Cassie.

‘That’s exactly how I’d put it,’ she says with a slight smile.

‘And I’m guessing she hasn’t been with anyone who’s measured up since?’

‘No. And not for want of trying. Elle’s dating history could be made into a Netflix series. Only the episodes would be about three minutes long. She’s been on more first dates than I’ve had hot dinners.’

Nas and I chuckle at that.

‘But honestly,’ says Cassie, her demeanour becoming earnest, ‘you should have seen them together. It was the real deal, their love. Even though they were young, it felt like they’d be together forever. And I know there must have been a good reason – one we can’t yet fathom – for him leaving out of the blue like that and breaking off all contact. But we can’t find him to ask. And believe me, I’ve helped Elle search for him for years. I’d all but given up, but then I was chatting with Tova about it recently and she mentioned your agency.’ She turns to Nasrin. ‘She said you matched her with Arty.’

‘Yep, unofficially, but I got it right on the first go,’ says Nasrin without a skerrick of modesty.

‘Getting back to your sister…’ I say, redirecting the conversation.

‘Right. Look, Elle is one of the best people I know – bright, talented, caring – but she’s never been quite herself since Leo left and I…’ Cassie’s voices hitches and she clears her throat. ‘Sorry…’

I intuit that Cassie doesn’t typically display her emotions, particularly to strangers. If I were her psychologist – my profession before I joined the agency – I might delve into that further. But Cassie isn’t my patient.

I pour a glass of water from the jug on the table and pass it to her.

‘Thank you.’ She sips, composing herself, then looks me in the eye. ‘Please help my sister.’

How could I possibly turn her down after that? I’ve taken on cases with far less romantic objectives. These two sound like Westley and Buttercup – destined to be together but torn apart by some mystery circumstance. If I do my job, we’ll have them reunited – and possibly even ‘maweed’ – before they can say ‘Humperdinck’.

That is, if Leo isn’t already loved up. We are not in the business of breaking up relationships to form new ones.

‘We’ll take your case,’ I say, eliciting a grateful sigh coupled with a dimpled grin.

‘Excellent. But just so you know, we may have to hold off a bit.’

‘Oh?’ Nas and I say together. We exchange a glance.

‘Well, it’s just that our fashion label – Bliss Designs – we’ve got a spot at Paris Fashion Week, which was very last-minute and means the previous deadline for our next collection has been bumped up.’

‘Right,’ says Nas, and I can tell she’s peeved. To be fair, this is the first time a client has begged us to take a case and then told us to hold off.

‘How about this?’ I ask. ‘We start looking for Leo – you give us every bit of personal information you have on him and we’ll pass it on to our investigator – and you and Elle get ready for Paris. From there, we can play it by ear. How does that sound?’

‘I can make that work.’

‘Oh good,’ says Nasrin sarcastically. I flick her leg under the table. ‘Oww.’

I should have known she’d react like that. Nasrin is an excellent agent – her clients love her no-nonsense, call-it-like-she-sees-it approach – but sometimes she has the maturity of a toddler.

Cassie shifts in her seat. ‘Sorry. I know this is all a bit “please help but not just yet”.’

‘Not at all,’ I say, feeling Nasrin’s eyes on me. I ignore her.

‘I really do appreciate you taking the case. And I’ll send over everything I have on Leo.’

There’s an unspoken agreement that the meeting has concluded and the three of us stand in unison.

‘Before you head out,’ I say, ‘if you could stop by reception, Anita will give you our contract and non-disclosure agreement to review. We can get started once they’re both signed.’

‘Of course.’

‘And as I said on the phone, we’re waiving our fee,’ says Nasrin.

‘I appreciate that,’ she replies, colour flooding her cheeks. It indicates at least slight discomfort at receiving our services pro bono, something I appreciate. Nothing worse than a pro bono client who takes advantage. It has only happened a couple of times since I started here nearly five years ago – but no one wants to ‘fire’ a client.

‘Oh, and one last thing,’ says Cassie. ‘Elle can never know I came to you. If we do find him and we are able to reunite them, she’s got to believe it was…’ She seems to search for the right word.

‘Kismet?’ I supply.

‘Exactly. Kismet.’

Finding a long-lost love and staging a reunion that seems like a coincidence? This case just gets more and more intriguing.