Shout Out to My Ex, page 1
SHOUT OUT TO MY EX
EVER AFTER AGENCY SERIES – BOOK TWO
SANDY BARKER
For you, Mum.
Thank you for being my first reader, my champion and for encouraging me to write since I was little.
I love you.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
More from Sandy Barker
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Sandy Barker
Love Notes
About Boldwood Books
1
ELLE
I burst through the front door of our flat, fling my clutch onto the hallstand, and head straight to the sofa, where I fall onto it backwards. Covering my face with my forearm, I shout, ‘Gah!’ into the crook of my elbow.
My sister, Cassie, chuckles at me. ‘More than two hours. That’s a new record.’
I lift my arm and glare at her across the pouffe that moonlights as our coffee table. ‘Were you timing me?’
‘Always do,’ she says, darting a glance my way, then returning to her laptop.
I toe off my (extremely uncomfortable) heels, then rub my feet against each other. Why do we torture ourselves with these bloody things? I eye the abandoned heels where they lie skew-whiff on the rug.
Oh, that’s right, I think, because they’re bloody gorgeous.
‘So, what was wrong with this one?’ Cass murmurs, distracted.
I sit up. ‘Are you working?’ I ask, ignoring her question.
Her eyes dart my away again. ‘Aren’t I always?’
‘It’s Saturday night.’
She shrugs.
‘If you put that away, I’ll give you all the juicy details.’
She snaps the laptop shut. ‘Go on. Actually, wait. I want wine for this.’ She leaps up and goes to the kitchen and I flop back onto the sofa and stare at our incredibly high ceiling, a favourite feature of living in a converted fabric factory. She opens the fridge door. ‘Rosé or Chardonnay?’
‘Have we got any fizz?’ I ask, too lazy to get up and look for myself.
‘Consolation prize?’
‘Exactly.’ A yawn sneaks up on me and I succumb to it, stretching my arms in one direction and my legs in the other. Cass reappears with a bottle of cheap fizz we bought a dozen of from Aldi and two mismatched glasses. ‘We need new—’
‘Glasses,’ she finishes. ‘I know. You say that every time.’
‘I only think of it when we’re about to pour.’
‘Me too.’ Rip-twist-pop and she pours. I swear she could crack a bottle of fizz with her eyes closed. Cass is the master of celebrating even the smallest of wins, one of the things I love most about her.
‘Here you are.’ She holds out a glass and I sit up and squint at it. ‘They’re even pours, I promise.’ This is an age-old argument, dating back to when I was four and Cass was seven and she’d give me the smallest ‘half’ of the Mars bar.
I take the glass, holding it up to give a toast. ‘To Marcus, a boring prat who ordered the banquet before I arrived so I couldn’t ditch him until after dessert.’
Cass chokes on her fizz, spluttering as she says, ‘Wowser, that’s an advanced dating manoeuvre.’ She bangs on her chest and coughs some more.
‘I know. Part of me was impressed – a teeny part.’
‘Where did you meet this one?’
‘On Flutter.’
‘Flutter? You’re making that up.’
‘Nope.’ I cross my heart with two fingers. ‘Latest dating app for under-thirty-fives.’
‘That leaves me out then,’ she says, which makes me laugh – even if she were under thirty-five, Cass is not much of a dater. ‘What? I date,’ she says, her voice edged with defensiveness.
‘The last time you went on a date, Harry Styles was still in One Direction,’ I retort.
She shrugs, which for Cass is an acknowledgement that I’m right.
I sip more fizz. It’s not terrible but it’s not good. Cass has us economising – just until we find the perfect partner for Bliss Designs and expand. Cass is all about ‘expanding’, as long as it’s our fashion house, not our household budget.
She’s the brains (i.e. the smart one) and I’m the creative (i.e. the talented one). According to those in the world of fashion, I am everything from a ‘wunderkind’ (at the ripe age of thirty-two – hah!) to a ‘fashion savant’ to the ‘next big thing’. One fashion journalist even described me as ‘Karan meets Chanel’, which I’ve taken as a compliment, even if they intended it to mean ‘derivative’.
Overall, flattering characterisations, but monikers touting my (supposed) brilliance have yet to translate into proper monetary success. To date, our achievements include making enough in sales to hire a team of three and rent a space for our fashion house, maintaining a steady (albeit small) clientele, and the odd celebrity endorsement. But our long-term goals are much loftier. This is where Cass’s wizardry with money, marketing, and distribution channels comes in. We are ‘building the label’ and ‘solidifying our place in the market’ and other business-y jargon.
Cass is also great at handling the imposter syndrome that pops up intermittently – mine, not hers. I doubt Cass has ever doubted herself in her entire life. She was bossing about our Sindy dolls before she could even read.
I still can’t believe she abandoned a thriving career as a marketing exec to ‘take Bliss Designs to the next level’. Whatever that looks like. It’s all rather nebulous in my mind, other than the twin goals of showing at Fashion Week (any of the big four would do – Milan, Paris, New York, London) and having my collection sold exclusively in a top-tier department store. Although, I’d swap the latter for my own high street shop in Central London.
Cassie says my goals are achievable but to me they remain waiflike, just out of reach. Meanwhile, we never quite break even, continuing to drain our combined savings and a generous gift from our maternal grandmother. ‘I can’t take it with me, girls,’ she says anytime we bring it up.
And while Cassie loves spreadsheets and sales projections (truly – she’d tell you the same), I love front-row seats at fashion shows and goodie bags. And clothes. I love, love, love clothes. I love designing them. I love styling them. I love wearing them. Clothes can make or break a day, a week, or a lifetime. Since I started playing dress-up from Mum’s wardrobe (around the same time I was wrestling my big sister for the bigger ‘half’ of a chocolate bar), I’ve known I would be a fashion designer. My career is the fulfilling aspect of my life, making my love life pale even more in comparison.
I’m staring into space and when I ‘come to’, Cass is back on her laptop. ‘Hey, you said you’d put that away.’
‘I did and then you disappeared on me.’
‘I’m back now.’
She closes her laptop again, gently this time, and sets it on the pouffe. ‘I’m all ears. So, on a scale of one to ten – one being a politician and ten a potato – how boring was Marcus?’
I shake with laughter, barely managing to say, ‘At least a six. And the cheek of ordering the banquet, holding me hostage like that.’
‘So, what did he talk about?’
‘I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count,’ I quip.
‘Ahh, so himself.’
‘Yup.’ I start listing off his traits on the fingers of my free hand. ‘Public school… King’s College—’
‘Oh god! Say no more,’ Cass interjects.
‘Oh, but there is more. So. Much. More.’
‘Skip ahead. I don’t need the life story of someone you’ll never see again. Oh, unless…?’
‘Oh, no! I am definitely not seeing him again.’
‘So, unattractive as well, huh?’ she asks with a knowing smile.
Sometimes, I’ll endure a little boredom for some ‘physical activity’ – but only sometimes and only if he’s super-hot. A woman has needs, after all, and not all of them are intellectual.
I shrug. ‘Not unattractive, just not my type. He’s one of those blokes who spends half his time in the gym and the other half talking about it to his date. Rather, at his date. I don’t care how much you can deadlift, Marcus!’
‘I suspect you underrated him before,’ she says with a smirk.
‘Underrated or over?’
‘Whichever means he’s closer to a potato than a six.’
I gulp the rest of my fizz and hold out my empty glass. ‘More please.’ Cass tuts at me before obliging – her not-so-subtle
way of telling me to ‘sip and savour’, another cost-cutting measure. Ignoring her, I take a large pull then cradle the glass in my lap. ‘I just wish…’
‘I know. You want someone like Leo,’ she says, completing my sentence by rote. This may not be the first time I’ve mentioned it.
Leo. My first and only love. Bright, talented, hilarious, kind, loving, generous, and (oh so) sexy Leo. The benchmark against which every man since has been measured, each one falling woefully short. I just wish I knew where he was or how to get in touch with him.
We met on our first day at Kingston School of Art. He appeared to be lost and I stopped to offer directions. I told myself at the time it was because I was a good person and had attended Orientation Day, so I knew my way around. But really it was because he was heart-stoppingly gorgeous. The words, ‘Are you lost?’ popped out before I could second-guess approaching someone that good-looking.
He smiled gratefully and my heart thudded so loudly, I was sure he could hear it. We then discovered we were both studying fashion design and were heading to the same lecture hall. We were inseparable from that day on, our relationship making the leap from friendship to romance by the end of week two when he kissed me mid-laugh – he’d said something hilarious that I can’t for the life of me remember – and that was that. We were a couple.
But after four years together, Leo moved back to Texas, breaking the news the night before he flew out and obliterating my heart into a zillion pieces. After that, we lost touch – or rather, he ignored all my attempts to contact him and I eventually gave up. We didn’t have a word for it back then, but now I’d call it ‘ghosting’.
A few years ago, after a particularly dire first date, I started looking for him in earnest, but despite many extensive online searches, I cannot, for the life of me, find him.
I’ve wandered off again – my mind does that – and I ‘return’ to the flat. Not surprisingly, Cass is back on her laptop. I don’t blame her. She’s heard more about Leo than about all the men I’ve dated since put together.
‘So, what are you working on?’ I ask, returning my focus to her.
‘Oh, just a little side project,’ she says cryptically. ‘I’m not sure if anything will come if it yet, but I’ll let you know if it does.’ She sends me a dimpled smile. Cass got the dimples and the height and the chestnut waves. I got Mum’s petite (short), boyish (flat-chested) frame, mousy hair that I dye honey-blonde and wear in a choppy bob, and no dimples. Other than that, we look enough alike in the face that people can tell we’re sisters.
Another yawn takes hold. ‘Right,’ I say, standing and draining my glass. ‘Bed.’
‘Really? Because you’re such sparkling company.’
‘Says the woman with her nose in her laptop.’ I take the empty glasses and the half-full bottle to the kitchen, then swing past Cass on the way to the bathroom. I wrap an arm around her shoulders and squeeze, smacking a kiss onto her cheek. ‘Night.’
‘Goodnight, Bean,’ she says, calling me the childhood nickname I either love or loathe, depending on how and why she says it.
2
POPPY
‘Good morning, Anita,’ I say cheerfully as I sail past reception into our open-plan office.
‘Welcome back,’ she says with a smile and a wave.
‘Thank you,’ I sing-song.
‘Hi, everyone,’ I call out. Several heads lift at once and my fellow agents rush to greet me.
‘Poppy! We missed you,’ says Freya, throwing her slender arms around my neck. I return the hug one-armed.
‘Welcome back, Poppy,’ says George, leaning in for a cheek kiss. ‘There’s an invite in your inbox. Drinks after work.’
‘I—’
‘Nope, not taking no for an answer. You’ve been away two weeks—’
‘Ten days,’ I interject.
‘And we have loads of gossip to catch up on,’ he says, disregarding my correction.
‘What George really means is he wants all the honeymoon gossip,’ says Freya playfully.
George swats at her. ‘I do not. That’s private business between Poppy and her smoking-hot husband. Besides, they’ve been married for months now. Surely that side of things has died down by now?’ He eyes me intently, the nosy bugger.
‘I am not answering that,’ I tell him firmly.
He blinks at me and purses his lips with reluctant concession.
‘Anyway,’ says Nasrin, ‘welcome back to real life. You look…’ She scrutinises me and I half expect her to blurt out something like ‘thoroughly shagged’ – George isn’t the only member of my work family who oversteps – but instead, she says, ‘Hot.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ I reply, basking in the compliment.
‘No, I meant you look overheated. Are you sunburnt?’ She peers at me even more closely and I step around her.
‘Just a little pink,’ I say, miffed. ‘It was overcast on our last day, and I didn’t realise I’d been in the sun too long.’ It was a rookie mistake for an Aussie who grew up sun-smart, slip, slop, and slapping her way through childhood – but I don’t mention that.
At my desk, I relieve myself of my handbag and retrieve my laptop from the locked bottom drawer. Thankfully, someone had the presence of mind to water my peace lily and its waxy leaves greet me cheerily.
‘Poppy?’
‘Yes, George?’
‘Drinks at five.’ He punctuates this mandate with a wagging finger, then wanders towards the kitchen.
‘Yes, George, got it. Five o’clock. And put the kettle on?’ I call after him. He lifts a thumb up into the air. I start every workday with a pot-for-one of perfectly brewed tea.
Freya squeezes my arm. ‘So good to have you back,’ she says before heading back to her desk.
Nasrin sidles over and perches on the edge of mine.
‘What can I do for you?’ I ask, giving her at least half of my attention as I boot up my laptop for the first time in nearly a fortnight. I can’t believe that only two days ago I was in the Maldives. On honeymoon! With Tristan!
It was our first proper holiday together, as I’m not counting our quick visit to Tasmania to spend Christmas with Mum and Dad. That was a whirlwind trip so Tristan could meet my parents, and I spent half of it enduring the cringey stories Mum told about my childhood – with photographic evidence – and the other half rescuing Tristan from Dad’s deep dive into the minutiae of farming apples. It was fun and lovely but very much not a holiday – especially as any time Tristan attempted to seduce me, I shooed him off. I was not having sex with my parents in the next room!
‘You’re lost in thought,’ says Nasrin, bang on. ‘I’ll come back in five.’
Left to my own devices, my mind wanders further. Even now, months later, it still feels surreal when I consider the magnitude of marrying the client I was supposed match with a fake wife.
With three potential wives – one man-eating disaster, one desperate-to-be-a-mother near-miss, and one Goldilocks-style just-right match – it turned out that Tristan had fallen in love with me! And despite striving for professional distance (and failing) and with every nerve in my body telling me to steer clear (while simultaneously yearning for him), I fell in love right back.
And why wouldn’t I? Tristan is caring, brilliant, funny, and ridiculously handsome. Just picturing him walking about our waterfront bungalow naked, which he did at least once a day while we were on honeymoon, elicits a sigh.
‘Are you finished faffing yet?’ Nasrin asks, returning to her perch on my desk.
I abandon the not-suitable-for-work thoughts of my husband, lean back in my office chair, and smile benevolently. ‘Go for it.’ Nas may be impatient (and at times, mildly irritating), but I am still riding a post-honeymoon high, and nothing can faze me today.
