Free The Forgotten Girl by Kerry Barrett

into making Patti’s job my own, and returned to London a year later to carry on climbing that career ladder.
    I missed Damo of course. I thought about him a lot during my time in Sydney and even when I returned to London. But I didn’t see him again until he showed up in my office.
    Now, sitting opposite him, I was amazed he didn’t hold more ill will towards me.
    â€˜Damo,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry about what happened. With us, I mean.’
    He shrugged.
    â€˜Long time ago,’ he said.
    â€˜I know.’
    My mouth was dry. I hated apologising.
    â€˜I handled it all really badly,’ I said. ‘And I still think about you a lot. I’m sorry if I hurt you.’
    Damian looked up at me. He had odd greeny-brown eyes, which looked bright in his brown face – he was still tanned, even though the London weather had made him paler than I’d ever seen him before.
    â€˜I’ve not been moping for five years,’ he said, bluntly. ‘We had a great thing, but it ended and we moved on. We’re over it. I’m over it. Aren’t you?’
    I swallowed.
    â€˜Of course,’ I said in a squeaky voice. I couldn’t look at his face so I focused on his arms instead. His buff, brown arms… Nope. His face was better. I was over it. At least, I had been, until he turned up in my office.
    I took a deep breath.
    â€˜Give me six months,’ I said. ‘I’ve got some brilliant ideas to turn the magazine around, but I need you to help make it work. Six months is all I need.’
    Nine months would be better, but somehow that sounded much longer.
    â€˜Six months,’ Damo said. He wiped his plate with a piece of naan.
    â€˜That’s it,’ I said, hoping to appeal to his flighty nature. ‘Six months.’
    â€˜Is Jen in?’
    â€˜She’s in.’
    â€˜All right,’ Damo said. ‘I’ll do it.’
    I swallowed the squeal of delight that rose up in my throat and instead I gave him what I hoped was a professional smile.
    â€˜Great,’ I said. ‘I’ll let HR know.’

Chapter 12
    Getting Jen and Damo on board was the easy bit, I knew that. But I hadn’t quite expected the rest of it to be so hard.
    We’d finished the Back to Basics issue, and moved on to Body Confidence. I was very aware that I’d already been at Mode for a month and basically done nothing. My deadline was getting closer and things hadn’t changed. I hardly did anything but work and sleep, although I had to confess that was nothing new. And despite all that, I couldn’t help thinking my ideas were dated and tired. I spent ages poring over back issues of Mode and Grace, trying to find out where we’d gone wrong but I hadn’t yet hit on the magic formula that would make our readers come back.
    It was Monday, the Back to Basics issue had been on sale for a week, and I was getting a bit antsy about getting some early sales figures which I was expecting that day.
    And I knew I had to have a catch-up meeting with Vanessa too, which I was dreading. She’d gone from being obstructive and rude, to being outright hostile – I wanted to get to the bottom of it.
    She slid into my office a little while later and sat opposite me in such a sulky fashion that I almost expected her to stick her tongue out.
    â€˜Hi,’ I said, cheerfully, gathering together my pile of old issues of Grace and Mode and dumping them on top of the vintage issues Emily had given me.
    Vanessa gave me a tight smile and I suddenly felt angry. I had worked with all sorts of people over the years, some nice, some not – and she was just one more. If she didn’t like me, fine, but we had to work together.
    I took a breath.
    â€˜Vanessa,’ I said. ‘Do we have a problem?’
    She flushed.
    â€˜What kind of problem?’
    â€˜You tell me,’ I said. ‘You’re sullen, unhelpful and you obviously don’t like me. But