Playing by the Rules: The feel-good heart-warming and uplifting romance perfect for Valentine’s Day

‘Is … is something wrong?’ I said, walking up to his desk.

‘Well if what Benson has just told me is true, this company is on the verge of going bankrupt and he’s just offered to buy us out.’

I leaned my knuckles onto the desk and mouthed: Oh my God! in slow motion.

‘I know,’ said Anthony. ‘Dad said we had hit a bump but he never told me it was an iceberg and that we were sinking.’

‘It can’t be true. I spoke to your dad for ages, yesterday. He didn’t say a word.’

‘You did? Did he call to check up on me?’

‘No, nothing like that. I just needed to fill some time so I thought I’d pick his brain a bit.’

Anthony pursed his lips and then exhaled with a sigh. ‘I think he’s testing me, Magenta. He wants to see if I can get us back in shape. That man has spent his life trying to make me as business-minded as he was and his father before him, especially since my older brother, Michael, went into medicine. He should have taken over the company but he was adamant he didn’t want to follow in Dad’s footsteps. So that just left me – the pushover. Dad knows I won’t want to let the family business down and now he’s landed me right in it.’

‘Perhaps this Benson guy is bluffing,’ I reasoned with him. ‘Maybe he sees you’re new at this and he’s chancing his luck.’

‘I hope you’re right. Look, Magenta, organise that meeting for nine tomorrow morning. I need to get my father on the phone.’

I backed out of the room slowly, taking in Anthony’s drooping shoulders and the solemn way he tapped in his father’s number on his mobile phone.

I closed the door behind me and went about organising the meeting. When I spoke to the finance section they sounded rather as if they were expecting this day to come. It wasn’t looking good for the company and it wasn’t looking good for me. I’d managed two days. Two. And already it looked as if I’d be out of another job before a month was up. But I refused to let my ideal job be taken away from me. I wasn’t sure what I would do to avoid the inevitable but I would try. In many ways, it wasn’t just about me. Anthony also had something to prove and I wanted to be the one to help him prove it.

Chapter 7 (#ulink_435bda54-0c4e-5960-af25-92249402431d)

That same evening I was expected to attend a family dinner. Mother, in her wisdom, had decided to throw the dinner in honour of me finding a job so quickly. She’d called that morning when I had just jumped out of the shower, slippery wet with water and Nivea Body Oil, and running a few minutes later than I wanted to be for work. With the timing of a super sleuth, Mother knew just when to catch me on the hop and to surprise me with arrangements I wasn’t quick enough to wriggle out of.

‘The whole family?’ I’d said pulling up a thong that got held up around my thighs because I wasn’t quite dry yet.

‘Yes, the whole family. It’s the only day everyone could make it,’ she said.

‘But if the dinner is in my honour don’t you think you should have checked with me first?’

‘Don’t be difficult, Magenta; I’m trying to be nice.’

‘So is Father coming?’

There was a deafening silence on the other end of the line. Mother had several types of silence ranging from the: I’m not happy with this conversation so I need a way to end it silence, to the: Are you too stupid to work that one out for yourself? silence. This silence said: I told you before, Magenta, I don’t want to talk about your father.

‘If it’s for the whole family then Father should be there too,’ I persisted.

‘Well of course he’s invited.’ Meaning: your father’s number was deleted from my address book years ago; I got one of your sisters to call him. ‘I’m not sure if he’ll show up. You know what he’s like.’ Meaning, this divorce was all his fault and I don’t see why I should have him in my house.

My parents had argued bitterly for years before they finally divorced. After the divorce my mother went on to become a vegan who did yoga three times a day and my father gained a stone and took up with an African woman twenty years his junior and who claimed to be a princess in her country. Whenever I saw either of my parents on their own I could tell, quite easily, that they were both miserable and missed each other terribly.

Their competitive natures meant they could never agree on anything. My father worked hard on his property management and hotel business and my mother threw herself into the lingerie company. She resented any advice from Father about her work and vice versa. But my secret wish was that they could just get over themselves, admit they were still in love and live happily ever after.

Dinner with both of them at the same table was going to be interesting to say the least and dinner with the whole family would be yet another opportunity for them to tell me what a mess my life was. At least I had a job and I could be spared the constant questions about when I was going to find one. But there was every chance they’d gang up on me about other issues in my life they couldn’t get their heads around, like the amount I spent on clothes and shoes and the number of parties I went to in the space of a week. For that reason I needed to bring backup to defuse and deflect their accusations about my lifestyle choices.

‘Fine, Mother. I’ll see you at seven,’ I said. ‘Oh, and Anya is back so I’ll bring her.’ She was the best backup I had.

Luckily Anya was free that evening. I refused to enter the house until Anya’s taxi arrived and she met me at the top of the road so we could walk in together. Mother still lived in the family home, a massive house in the suburbs of St John’s Wood with eight bedrooms, six bathrooms and grounds all around. Visiting Mother was like escaping to the country while still being in London – but without the sheep.

I’d always loved our house. It was where I’d grown up and I was glad Mother stayed when Father left. Our house was the heart of everything I’d known and everything I did as a young girl. Nana Clementine had her own extension and that was where I’d spent a lot of my adolescent years, sitting in Nana Clementine’s sitting room and listening to her stories of when she was a young girl. Nana was the person I told all my problems to back then and she was the one with all the answers.

‘You look different,’ Anya said to me as we entered the gates to the driveway of the house.

‘I’m a working girl now; of course I’m different. I’m mature and I pay taxes. Well I will if I last long enough to get a wage slip.’ I laughed but the truth of that statement was too close for comfort.

‘It isn’t that.’ Anya eyed me suspiciously as we made our way to the door. I searched my bag for the key with Anya’s eyes penetrating me and was relieved when Mother flung open the front door.

‘Anya!’ Mother cried and threw her arms around my best friend. Anya patted my mother’s back and pulled a face at me. Mother always acted as though Anya had just learned the news that her parents had both died in a car crash even though they both lived quite happily in Surrey with a Shiatsu and a cat. Because Anya and her parents were estranged, Mother always felt the need to compensate for this loss in Anya’s life, while Anya seemed to be coping with it fine from what I could see.

Anya shoved the enormous bouquet she’d brought for Mother up in between them to force Mother off her and to back up a bit.

‘These are just beautiful,’ said Mother. ‘Come in, come in. Tell me all about your latest shoot. I bet it was exciting. One day you must be the pin-up for one of our new lines.’ Mother said this to Anya every time she saw her. True, Mother could afford Anya’s rates but the fact was that Anya was more than a little flat-chested. It would have been awkward for her to model anything from a lingerie company without needing some stuffing of the bra area.

Anya and I grinned at each other as Mother led us to the sitting room. My two elder sisters had arrived, without their husbands in tow. Amber’s two children spent their day with the au pair and Indigo refused to have children. A choice she’d made when I turned two and, from what she saw of me, decided that children were not for her. I still didn’t get what she meant. I’d seen pictures of me at age two and I was adorable.

I decided to make cocktails for everyone while Mother fussed over Anya. My sisters both talked business. Ebony arrived shortly afterwards and started downing the long cocktail I handed her like it was the last glass of water in the desert.

‘Tough day?’ I asked her. She held out a finger and didn’t answer until the last drop.

‘Something like that,’ she replied and gestured for me to make a refill.

‘Ebony, you work too hard,’ Mother said with concern in her voice. ‘You’ll make yourself ill.’

‘Only following in your footsteps and you did just fine,’ Ebony said and slumped onto a sofa.

‘Let’s go through.’ Mother headed for the dining room.

‘But Father isn’t –’ I began.

‘He’s late,’ Mother snapped and we all trailed after her in silence. My sisters rarely spoke about one parent in front of the other; it was usually a recipe for disaster. I, on the other hand, did the exact opposite, telling Father what Mother might be up to and vice versa in the hope they would start having regrets about being apart.

Just as we all sat at the dining table and just as the caterers began to serve starters, the doorbell sounded. I noticed Mother’s shoulders rise with tension in her white, silk top. We all looked at each other. It was always hard to gauge what might happen when Mother and Father were under the same roof, but the fact that he’d bothered to show up was a good thing in my opinion.

‘I’ll get it!’ I said in a happy voice. Secretly I was hoping that a happy occasion, such as me getting a job, might instigate the start of the reunion between them I’d been longing for.

At the front door I had to do a double take. Father hadn’t come on his own. He was with her. Suma, the African princess. What the f –. But I couldn’t finish the thought because Suma hugged me in a tight embrace so that her face was plastered against my chest and her African headdress was thrust up my nose.

‘Congratulations on your new job, Magenta,’ Father said and pulled the clamp-like Suma away from me. He handed me a present.

‘Oh, you didn’t have to do this.’ I reached up to kiss him and looked down at the neat packaging.

‘It’s a necklace!’ Suma exclaimed clapping her hands together. ‘Carl and I chose it together. Where is everyone?’ She had already started walking along the hallway, peering around doors, and when she heard the chatter coming from the dining room she marched her way through. I looked at Father. He shook his head.

‘I tried to put her off,’ he said under his breath.