Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

Sasha? I’ve been doing a lot of weekend work too. It gets terribly busy on
Saturdays. Very hard to get time off.’ Alicia’s voice had become brittle. ‘I did
ring a couple of times. Did your mother tell you?’
‘Things have been pretty manic at Lewins. You … you know what it’s like,
Will. We’ve got a new partner. Chap from New York. Bains. Dan Bains. You
come up against him at all?’
‘No.’
‘Bloody man seems to work twenty-four hours a day and expects everyone
else to do the same.’ You could hear the man’s palpable relief at having found a
topic he was comfortable with. ‘You know the old Yank work ethic – no more
long lunches, no smutty jokes – Will, I tell you. The whole atmosphere of the
place has changed.’
‘Really.’
‘Oh God, yes. Presenteeism writ large. Sometimes I feel like I daren’t leave
my chair.’
All the air seemed to disappear from the room in a vacuumed rush. Someone
coughed.
I stood up, and wiped my hands on my jeans. ‘I’ll … I’m just going to fetch
some more logs,’ I muttered, in Will’s general direction.
And I picked up the basket and fled.
It was freezing outside, but I lingered out there, killing time while I selected
pieces of wood. I was trying to calculate whether it was preferable to lose the
odd finger to frostbite rather than put myself back into that room. But it was just
too cold and my index finger, which I use for sewing stuff, went blue first and
finally I had to admit defeat. I hauled the wood as slowly as possible, letting
myself in to the annexe, and walked slowly back down the corridor. As I
approached the living room I heard the woman’s voice, weaving its way through
the slightly open door.
‘Actually, Will, there is another reason for us coming here,’ she was saying.
‘We … have some news.’
I hesitated by the door, the log basket braced between my hands.
‘I thought – well, we thought – that it would only be right to let you
know … but, well, here’s the thing. Rupert and I are getting married.’
I stood very still, calculating whether I could turn round without being heard.