Runaway Lawyer Falls in Love with Billionaire

Chapter 9

There’s an ominous silence. I can’t believe I’m standing up to her. I don’t think I’ve ever challenged my mother in my life. I feel shaky as I grip the phone. But at the same time, I know I can’t do what she wants.

“Olivia, if you’re having some kind of breakdown like your brother—”

“I’m not having a breakdown!” My voice rises in distress. “I never asked you to find me another job. I don’t know what I want. I need a bit of time … to … to think …”

“You will be at that job interview, Olivia.” Mum’s voice is like a whip. “You will be there tomorrow at ten o’clock.”

“I won’t!”

“Tell me where you are! I’m sending a car straightaway.”

“No! Leave me alone.”

I switch off my phone, come out of the larder, and almost savagely throw it down onto the table. She’s my mother. And she didn’t express one word of sympathy. Not one jot of kindness. My face is burning and tears are pressing hotly at the back of my eyes. The phone starts vibrating angrily on the table, but I ignore it. I’m not going to answer it. I’m not going to talk to anyone. I’m going to have a drink. And then I’m going to cook this bloody dinner.

I slosh some white wine into a glass and take several gulps. Then I address myself to the pile of raw ingredients waiting on the table.

I can cook. I can cook this stuff. Even if everything else in my life is in ruins, I can do this. I have a brain, I can work it out.

Without delay I rip the plastic coverings off the lamb. This can go in the oven. In some kind of dish. Simple. And the chickpeas can go in there too. Then I’ll mash them and that will make the hummus.

I open a cupboard and pull out a whole load of gleaming baking dishes and trays. I select a baking tray and scatter the chickpeas onto it. Some bounce onto the floor, but I don’t care. I grab a bottle of oil from the counter and drizzle it over the top. Already I’m feeling like a cook.

I shove the tray into the oven and turn it on full blast. Then I put the lamb in an oval dish and shove that in too.

So far so good. Now all I need to do is leaf through all Tanya’s recipe books and find instructions for seared foie gras with an apricot glaze.

OK. I didn’t find a single recipe for seared foie gras with an apricot glaze. I found apricot and raspberry flan, turkey with chestnut and apricot stuffing, and almond pithivier with apricot filling and Prosecco sabayon.

I stare at the page blindly. I have just turned down what may be my only opportunity to start over. I’m a lawyer. That’s what I am. What else am I going to do? What’s happened to me?

Oh, God. Why is smoke coming out of the oven?

By seven o’clock I’m still cooking.

At least I think that’s what I’m doing. Both ovens are roaring with heat. Pots are bubbling on the hob. The electric whisk is whirring busily. I’ve burned my right hand twice taking things out of the oven. Eight recipe books are open around the kitchen, one drenched with spilled oil and another with egg yolk. I’m puce in the face, sweating hard, and trying every so often to run my hand under cold water.

I’ve been going for three hours. And I haven’t yet made anything that could actually be eaten. So far I’ve discarded a collapsed chocolate soufflé, two pans of burned onions, and a saucepan of congealed apricots that made me feel sick just to look at them.

I can’t work out what’s going wrong. I haven’t got time to work out what’s going wrong. There’s no scope for analysis. Every time there’s a disaster I just dump it and start again, quickly thawing food from the freezer, changing tack, trying to cobble something together.

The Geigers meanwhile are drinking sherry in the drawing room. They think everything is going splendidly. Tanya tried to come into the kitchen about half an hour ago, but I managed to head her off.

In less than an hour she and Eddie are going to be sitting down at the table expecting a gourmet meal. Shaking out their napkins with anticipation, pouring out their mineral water and wine.

A kind of frenzied hysteria has come over me. I know I cannot do this, but somehow I can’t give up either. I keep thinking a miracle will happen. I’ll pull it all together. I’ll manage it somehow—

Oh, God, the gravy’s bubbling over.

I shove the oven door shut, grab a spoon, and start stirring it. It looks like revolting lumpy brown water. Frantically I start searching in the cupboards for something to chuck in. Flour. Cornstarch. Something like that. This’ll do. I grab a small pot and shake in vigorous amounts of the white powder, then wipe the sweat off my brow. OK. What now?

Suddenly I remember the egg whites, still whisking up in their bowl. I grab the recipe book, running my finger down the page. I changed the dessert course to pavlova after I chanced upon the line in a recipe book: Meringues are so easy to make.

So far so good. What next? Form the stiff meringue mixture into a large circle on your baking parchment.

I peer at my bowl. Stiff meringue mixture? Mine’s liquid.

It has to be right, I tell myself feverishly. It has to be. I followed the instructions. Maybe it’s thicker than it looks. Maybe once I start pouring it out, it’ll stiffen up by some weird culinary law of physics.

Slowly I start to pour it onto the tray. It doesn’t stiffen up. It spreads in a white oozing lake and starts dripping off the tray onto the floor.

Something tells me this is not going to make white chocolate pavlova for eight.

A splodge lands on my foot and I give a frustrated cry, near tears. Why didn’t it work? I followed the sodding recipe and everything. A pent-up rage is rising inside me: rage at myself, at my defective crappy egg whites, at cookery books, at cooks, at food … and most of all at whoever wrote that meringues were so easy to make.

“They’re not!” I hear myself yelling. “They’re bloody not!” I hurl the book across the kitchen, where it smashes against the kitchen door.

“What the hell—” a male voice exclaims in surprise.

The door flies open and Nathaniel is standing there, a rucksack hefted over his shoulder; he looks like he’s on his way home. “Is everything OK?”

“It’s fine,” I say, rattled. “Everything’s fine. Thank you. Thank you so much.” I make a dismissive motion with my hand, but he doesn’t move.

“I heard you were cooking a gourmet dinner tonight,” he says slowly, surveying the mess.

“Yes. That’s right. I’m just in the … most complex stage of the … um …” I glance down at the hob and give an involuntary scream. “f**k! The gravy!”

I don’t know what’s happened. Brown bubbles are expanding out of my gravy saucepan, all over the cooker, and down the sides on the floor. It looks like the porringer in the story of the magic pot that wouldn’t stop making porridge.

“Get it off the heat, for God’s sake!” exclaims Nathaniel, throwing his rucksack aside. He snatches up the pan and moves it to the counter. “What on earth is in that?”

“Nothing!” I say. “Just the usual ingredients …”

Nathaniel has noticed the little pot on the counter. He grabs it and takes a pinch between his fingers. “Baking soda? You put baking soda in gravy? Is that what they taught you at—” He breaks off and sniffs the air. “Hang on. Is something burning?”

I watch helplessly as he opens the bottom oven, grabs an oven glove with a practiced air, and hauls out a baking tray covered in what look like tiny black bullets.

Oh, no. My chickpeas.

“What are these supposed to be?” he says incredulously. “Rabbit droppings?”

“They’re chickpeas,” I retort. My cheeks are flaming but I lift my chin, trying to regain some kind of dignity. “I drizzled them in olive oil and put them in the oven so they could … melt.”

Nathaniel stares at me. “Melt?”

“Soften,” I amend hurriedly.

Nathaniel puts down the tray and folds his arms. “Do you know anything about cooking?”

Before I can answer, there’s the most almighty BANG from the microwave.

“Oh, my God!” I shriek in terror. “Oh, my God! What was that?” Nathaniel is peering through the glass door.

“What the hell was in there?” he demands. “Something’s exploded.”

My mind races frantically. What on earth did I put in the microwave? It’s all a blur.

“The eggs!” I suddenly remember. “I was hard-boiling the eggs for the canapés.”

“In a microwave?” he expostulates.

“To save time!” I practically yell back. “I was being efficient!”

Nathaniel yanks the plug of the microwave from the wall socket and turns round to face me, his face working with disbelief. “You know bugger all about cooking! You’re not a housekeeper. I don’t know what the hell you’re up to—”

“I’m not up to anything!” I reply, in shock.

“The Geigers are good people.” He faces me square on. “I won’t have them exploited.”

Oh, God. What does he think? That I’m some kind of confidence trickster?

“Look … please.” I rub my sweaty face. “I’m not trying to rip anyone off. OK, I can’t cook. But I ended up here because of … a misunderstanding.”

“What kind of misunderstanding?”

I sink down onto a chair and massage my aching lower back. I hadn’t realized how exhausted I was. “I was running away from … something. I needed a place to stay for the night. I stopped here for some water and directions to a hotel and the Geigers assumed I was a housekeeper. And then this morning I felt terrible. I thought I’d do the job for the morning. But I’m not planning to stay. And I won’t take any money from them, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Nathaniel is leaning against the counter, his arms folded. His wary frown has eased a little. He reaches into his rucksack and takes out a bottle of beer. He offers it to me and I shake my head.

“What were you running from?” he says, cracking the bottle open.

I feel a painful wrench inside. I cannot face telling the whole dreadful story.

“It was … a situation.” I look down.

He takes a drink of beer. “A bad relationship?”

For a moment I’m silenced. I think back over all my years at Steve Spink. All the hours I gave them, everything I sacrificed. Finished in a three-minute phone call.

“Yes,” I say slowly. “A bad relationship.”

“How long were you in it?”

“Seven years.” To my horror I can feel tears seeping out of the corners of my eyes. I have no idea where they came from. “I’m sorry,” I gulp. “It’s been quite a stressful day.”

Nathaniel tears off a piece of kitchen towel from the wall-mounted roll behind him and hands it to me. “If it was a bad relationship, you’re well out of it,” he says in calm tones. “No point staying. No point looking back.”

“You’re right.” I wipe my eyes. “Yes. I just have to decide what to do with my life. I can’t stay here.” I reach for the bottle of Cointreau, which was supposed to go in the chocolate-orange soufflé, pour some into a handy eggcup, and take a gulp.

“The Geigers are good employers,” says Nathaniel with a tiny shrug. “You could do worse.”

“Yeah.” I raise a half smile. “Unfortunately, I can’t cook.”