Page 3 of Never Gonna Happen

‘You lucky bitch,’ said Eddie. ‘A month off on full pay.’

Emily shrugged. ‘I’ll be spending it looking for another job. Wait, where’s Lucy?’

‘She said she had bad cramps,’ said Shona. ‘I don’t think she can face you, to be honest. She still swears blind that she’d turned your straighteners off at the wall, even though the fire inspector guy showed her the melted remains.’

‘I didn’t know she was borrowing them,’ said Emily. ‘What was she even doing in my room?’

Eddie shook his head. ‘She used them all the time when you weren’t there. I thought she’d asked. Sorry.’

‘What’s the hotel like?’ asked Emily. The landlord’s insurer had moved Shona, Eddie and Lucy into a hotel until Emily’s room was repaired and the flat was repainted. The window and carpet had been replaced and they were now redecorating before the new furniture arrived. Emily had been offered the hotel too, but had decided her parents’ house was marginally preferable. It would be nice to have her room back while she was doing job interviews though; commuting from Chichester was a faff.

‘It’s fine,’ said Shona, topping up her wine. ‘Annoying not to be able to cook, but the insurance guy said only one more week.’

‘Did they manage to save any of your stuff?’ asked Eddie.

‘Two pairs of silver earrings and a photo frame,’ replied Emily. She supposed the upside of not having much was that you didn’t have much to lose.

Shona sloshed the rest of the wine into Emily’s glass and put the upturned bottle back in the ice bucket. ‘So what’s next?’

‘I’ve already got two job interviews lined up and I’ve just heard about another one,’ said Emily. ‘It looks interesting.’

‘What kind of interesting?’ asked Eddie.

‘Another personal assistant role,’ she said, sipping her wine. ‘But working for a retired businessman instead of a firm.’

‘What does he need an assistant for if he’s retired?’ asked Shona, plucking an artisanal cracker from the jam jar on the table and munching the end off.

Emily laughed. ‘He’s retired from business, Sho, not from life. Maybe he’s got lots of other interests, or likes to travel a lot, I don’t know. I’ll find out more when I go for an interview.’

‘Will you be staying in London?’ asked Eddie.

Emily shrugged. ‘No idea. I expect so. It’s a live-in job, so it could be anywhere.’

Eddie looked horrified. ‘What, you live in his house?’

‘I don’t think I’m going to be on the sofa bed in the spare room, Ed,’ she said. ‘I’m guessing it’s a pretty big house. Or maybe he travels all the time, so I’d live in hotels.’

‘That sounds super-weird,’ said Shona, her brow furrowed as Eddie nodded emphatically. ‘Are you sure he’s legit? What if he’s a sex trafficker and this whole thing is a scam?’

Emily rolled her eyes. ‘It’s been organised by a specialist agency,’ she said. ‘They only deal with high-end assistant jobs, so I’m pretty sure they’ve checked he’s not a sex trafficker.’

‘Still sounds weird to me,’ said Shona.

‘It’s no different to being a nanny or an au pair,’ laughed Emily. ‘Loads of people do live-in jobs for rich people. It might be really interesting.’

‘Until he murders you and dissolves your body in his acid-filled swimming pool,’ said Eddie, nodding ominously at Shona.

‘Oh my God, you’re both insane. I’ll let you know after I’ve met him.’

‘Bet he’s a sex trafficker,’ said Shona.

‘Murderer,’ said Eddie.

Emily sighed and shook her head. It was a live-in job that had nothing to do with architecture and offered little in the way of dating opportunities. Right now that ticked a lot of her boxes.

Chapter Four

Emily stood in front of the full-length mirror in her freshly painted Stratford room, doing a final sweep for missed details. Her only surviving suit was the one she’d been wearing on the day of the fire, but it was also her favourite – a tailored blazer from Reiss in a pinky-beige colour, paired with a matching pencil skirt that fell just above her knees. Dresses didn’t really work on her, because even though she was five foot seven, her top half was a size ten and her bottom half was a twelve or fourteen, depending on the time of the month. She’d inherited her mother’s classic pear shape – no boobs and a curvy bum – and whilst the gym and running and swimming stopped her edging from pear to butternut squash, there was nothing she could do about her proportions. Suit separates in different sizes were her salvation, but there was no point buying anything new until she knew where she would be working next. Some places expected PAs to be fully suited and booted; others were fine with jeans and trainers.