The Vintage Teacup Club Read Free

Holiday to Blondie, and something told her that her orchids weren’t going to respond as well to ‘Atomic’ as they did to ‘Summertime’. She chose one of her favourite Aretha songs instead. As she put the iPod down, a memory nagged at her; there’d been a day when half of her music collection had been quite different; once upon a time her flowers had listened to the Strokes and old Led Zeppelin tracks, whether theyliked it or not. She forced the thought away – that had been a lifetime ago, and each month that passed she felt more distant from the woman she’d been back then. She’d thrown away the photos; her early thirties weren’t a time she needed to revisit. Bluebelle du Jour, exhausting as it could sometimes be, kept her busy and energised, and Charlesworth had really begun to feel like home. The best thing of all was that she had complete control over everything in her life, from the timing of her breakfast coffee to the way her flowers framed the lawn. When she plumped her cushions they stayed that way. Maggie had worked hard to find the balance she had now – and while it looked like Lucy Mackintosh was going to be a tough customer, it would take far more than her demands to unsettle that.
    She bent over her Netbook one last time, unable to resist checking if the supplier had been able to reply to her message after all.
    There was a new email, but not the one she’d been expecting. From:
Dylan Leonard
. Maggie sat down in her wicker chair, to steady herself. A cool chill rushed over her skin. Christ, she thought. Some things justwon’t stay buried.



Chapter 2
Jenny
    ‘“
A Vintage Affair … retro accessories, mother-of-the-bride outfits
”? What’s this, eh, Jenny?’
    Oh crap. I looked up from my screen to clock my boss Zoe leaning down over me, our faces nearly touching. The eyebrow she’d raised had disappeared under her blunt-cut black fringe. I’d watched her go out for a cigarette five minutes ago but must have missed her come back in, darn it. I clicked to minimise the wedding fair website, silently cursing the open-plan layout in our office. I took in a lungful of the familiar cloud of tobacco and Chanel that clung to Zoe.
    ‘Sorry, Zoe …’ I said, turning to face her again. Why did she always manage to rumble me likethis? ‘I’ve finished the stationery order, so I was just …’ My sentence trailed off when I realised she had a wry smile on her face.
    ‘Oh chill out, Jenny,’ she said dismissively, standing back up to her full height. ‘I’m only teasing.’ She smoothed an untidy strand of her shiny hair back into place. ‘God knows you give enough of your life to this place. Focus on marrying whoever this man is who’s been keeping you sane.’
    And
breathe
. It was a good mood day.
    Zoe was the advertising manager, and her look was hard-edged, all
Pulp Fiction
hair and tailored trouser suits that gave her a terrifying sleek silhouette. She was notorious for her steely front while keeping the ad sales guys in line and the unpredictable, fierce temper that could leave even the MD trembling. But sometimes, like today, I caught a hint of something more human about her.
    The pressure had been on at our magazine,
Sussex Living
, to start generating more cash through advertising – the lifeblood of the regional glossy – and with another sales target approaching most of us were tiptoeing past the advertising department – and
especially
around Zoe. Somehow, to date I’d dodged the bullets. As an office manager I wasn’t closely involved in ad sales, and I certainly wasn’t a threat. I also had a little ammunition of myown: a while back Zoe had drunkenly confessed to me about sleeping with Ryan, the nineteen-year-old post boy, after a night out. I’d never dream of using it against her, but she didn’t know that. I noticed that he still gave her a wink when dropping off her letters in the morning and more than once I’d seen her shrink behind her computer screen.