Hannah?’ Christopher rubbed his hands together as people did when trying not to betray how uncomfortable they were.
‘No,’ Hannah agreed hollowly. She should get up and shake hands, not sit here thinking someone had swapped her legs for cooked spaghetti.
‘Christopher,’ Cassie said tentatively. ‘I really feel—’
But Christopher ploughed on with the air of someone intending to get a difficult job over with. ‘Simeon’s back now,’ he pointed out. Then he smiled apologetically at Hannah as if waiting for her to join up the dots.
Feeling sick, Hannah looked at a pale Cassie. ‘What does this mean?’
Christopher answered. ‘It means Simeon can manage Carlysle Courtyard again.’ He didn’t add ‘of course’ but his blustery tone implied it.
Hannah ignored him. ‘Cassie?’ Cassie looked as if she might cry. Simeon, as crimson as his father but less leathery, stared over everybody’s heads.
Christopher snapped, ‘If you need it spelling out, Miss Goodbody, Simeon’s returned to take this project back. I’d like you to hand over to him this morning.’
Hannah’s heart thundered in her ears. ‘Cassie employed me so I’m afraid you can’t sack me.’
Christopher sucked in a huge, indignant breath. ‘Cassie, tell her!’ he barked. Then, before she could, ‘Miss Goodbody, I hold the purse strings here.’
Under the gazes of everybody in the room Hannah rose, forcing her knees not to buckle. ‘Cassie?’
Cassie swallowed audibly. ‘You’ve got every right to be upset, Hannah. Every right.’ Her eyes pleaded for understanding. ‘But Simeon’s our son.’
‘I see.’ Hannah wondered why, at times of shock, your mouth went dry. Squaring her shoulders, she said, ‘If you make the second payment, which is due today, I’ll hand over everything to Simeon—’
‘What?’ Christopher went from scarlet to puce. ‘I was expecting a partial refund. How on earth do you justify that?’
Hannah gave up her attempt to deal professionally with the person who had engaged her and rounded on Christopher with a hiss. ‘Because I’ve worked my arse off – eighteen hours a day, sometimes – to rescue this mess. I have emails agreeing to pay me a sum and I’ve only had one-third of it. Nowhere in those emails is there a proviso for the project being snatched away from me with no notice and no courtesy but I’ve accomplished everything except executing the social media plan for the final ten days and putting up the posters and delivering the flyers for the official opening. I’ve done well over two-thirds of the agreed work.’
Christopher actually took a step back. ‘Those emails were a gentleman’s agreement at most,’ he rumbled.
Hannah snapped, ‘They constitute a contract. Gentlemen’s agreements only work when you deal with gentlemen.’ Christopher had the grace to look discomfited. Unable to meet the eyes of the traders, though she felt both alarm and sympathy coming off them in waves, she steamed on. ‘And to be blunt, if the second payment isn’t forthcoming then neither is a handover. You’ll be in as big a mess as you were when I got here because the information’s not yours until you’ve paid for it.’
Christopher opened his mouth again but Hannah addressed Cassie, saying, bitterly, ‘I accepted this work in good faith and I expect to hear from you.’
The silence she left behind was colder than the wintry scene she found outside, where the last of the hail was plinking down like the final words in a gigantic icy argument.
‘Hannah!’ Daintree hurried after her, hugging herself against the winter wind. ‘Are you OK? I’m so sorry this has happened. But you wouldn’t really go without handing over?’
She looked so agonised that Hannah halted. In her fury and humiliation she hadn’t considered the innocent traders. A glance told her that a couple of the others were watching from the Posh Nosh doorway – Teo in a white apron and Mark in a brown smock. She’d begun to view the Carlysle Courtyard folk as her friends. She knew Mark lived with a cousin because his wife asked him to leave the family home, that Daintree wore headscarves because she’d developed alopecia during a past, abusive relationship. Perla and Teo had borrowed family money to start their business.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered, giving Daintree a hug. ‘But it’s like there’s a conspiracy to take away anything I earn.’ Albin considered it OK to hold back what he owed her for stock indefinitely and Christopher sodding Carlysle had so obviously expected her to roll over and accept a loss that it made her want to yowl like an angry cat. Trembling, she ran to the car and drove numbly