Free Happily Ever After by Harriet Evans Page B

don’t get it, do you? This is a commercial business.” He clenched his hands into fists. “It’s not your fault,” he said, after a moment. “I’m sorry. It’s just—now someone else will make it a huge bestseller and we’ll be left trying to persuade Smith’s to take the umpteenth Jessie Dukes about sisters in the Blitz.” He leaned forward again. “You’re a snob, Elle, you know that?”
    “No, I’m not,” Elle said indignantly.
    “Yes, you are. I saw you last week, devouring that book at your desk. You told me you liked it.”
    He looked genuinely upset. He’d never been cross with her; it was awful. Posy was stern, sometimes a killjoy; Rory was funny, kind, a bit lazy, sure, but she’d always thought he was on her side. “I was, I enjoyed it, but I’m just saying it’s not—”
    “Not what? Proper art? Oh, for God’s sake.” He waved his hand at her, as if she’d disappointed him, played the wrong move in a game she didn’t know she was in. “Forget it. It’s OK. It’s her, not you. She’s going to learn one day, and then it’ll be too late.” He wandered off, and left her staring after him, bewildered.

 
     
    RECOUNTING ALL THIS back at home to her brother that evening, Elle was still in shock.
    “So I spilled coffee over her, and she didn’t even seem to mind too much! She didn’t shout or anything. I thought I was going to get fired, and then she asked me what I thought of a manuscript!” She poured Rhodes another glass of wine and drained her own. “Honestly, Rhodes—well, you have to meet her to see what I mean, but she’s an amazing woman, really remarkable. Her husband died when she was thirty, left her alone with a small son, and this company to run, and she’s done it—she knows everyone, she’s always going to the most glamorous parties. Last week, she went to the Women of the Year lunch, and Joan Collins was there, can you believe it?”
    “Right,” said Rhodes, stuffing his face with Twiglets. “So then what happened?”
    His tone suggested polite boredom but Elle, wanting to make her older brother see how wonderful her new world was, couldn’t stint on any of the details. “Well,” she said. “So… We have this really great conversation, you know, about literature. About all these really interesting things.”
    From the battered old sofa in the corner of the kitchen Libby chimed in. “Elle, that’s rubbish. You talked about romance novels and then she stitched you up. If you ask me she played you like a Stradivarius.” She threw some peanuts in her mouth and crossed her legs, as Rhodes watched her admiringly.
    “. . . Anyway,” Elle plowed on, “Rory was really cross with me, he said I was the one who’d stuffed everything up.” She remembered Rory’s grim face as he stood over her. You’re a snob, Elle. She hated him thinking badly of her.
    “He’s playing you too,” Libby said. “The pair of them.Sometimes I think I can’t wait to leave that place. It seems all cozy-cozy, but the politics will ruin them in the end.”
    “Mm.” Elle didn’t like it when Libby talked like that. “Supper’s nearly ready.” She drained the pasta and stared at it, desperately, not sure what to do next.
    “I’m starving,” Rhodes said, as though he could read her mind.
    “Just applying the finishing touches!” Elle trilled, slightly too loudly.
    If Sam were here she’d have bought some four-cheese pasta sauce from Sainsbury’s just in case. Sam planned her meals in advance. But Elle liked to wing it, with mixed results. She grabbed a glass of red wine that she happened to know had been there since the previous day, and chucked it into the pan, then some basil leaves from the withered plant on a saucer by the sink. It didn’t look like much so, rather desperately, she shook some soy sauce and vegetable oil in after them.
    “Who’s hungry?” she said, clapping her hands and trying to sound like an Italian mamma. “Hey? Come and get