Page 16 of Love or Your Money Back

CHAPTER

Freddy is in the middle of an important phone call when Kat comes striding into his office looking like a pink, paper doily. She slams a pile of banknotes on his desk. His banknotes, he guesses.

‘I didn’t need the whole five thousand pounds,’ Kat announces. ‘This outfit was significantly cheaper than your budget.’

Freddy apologises to the head of the State Bank of Indira and hangs up. ‘Yes. It looks it.’

‘But it wasn’t cheap,’ Kat insists. ‘The shoes alone cost two hundred pounds.’

‘My sock collection costs more than two hundred pounds,’ says Freddy.

‘And the idea is to find a husband. Not look like you’ve already been married for forty years.

You’d be right at home in a bingo hall with all the other old dears.

How on earth did you end up dressed like that?

I didn’t think frills would be your thing. ’

‘I bumped into my aunt in the department store, and she helped me find an outfit.’

‘Your aunt who dresses like a gangster or the one who dresses like a ballroom dancer?’

‘The ballroom dancer.’

‘I should have guessed.’

‘Oh God

! This is so hard.’ Kat’s face crumples.

‘Stop!’ Freddy raises a hand. ‘Don’t do that! Don’t cry again. I can’t take it.’

Kat holds back a lip wobble. ‘I can’t do all this clothes shopping stuff, Freddy. You’ll have to sell me as a badly packaged product.’

‘I don’t sell badly packaged products,’ says Freddy. ‘If the packaging is bad, I change it. Otherwise, there’s no point in doing the placement and promotion. It’s all about the three Ps, Kat. Packaging, placement, promotion. You can’t miss one out. It just won’t work.’

‘Then call this whole thing off.’ Kat puts her head in her hands. ‘I’ll be alone and childless forever while Chris procreates with increasingly younger women. I’ll end up like Gabriela, giving my cats human names and carrying them around in specially-made bubble rucksacks.’

‘No, you won’t. You just need to think more high-end. Classy.’ Freddy notices staff have gathered outside his office, pretending to be busy, messing around with phones and documents. Bloody glass walls.

‘I’m not classy.’ Kat starts mildly hyperventilating. ‘I eat Alpen for breakfast. I buy my underwear at Tesco. And not Tesco Finest underwear. The ‘Everyday Value’ kind.

‘How many awards has Little Voice won now?’

Kat shrugs. ‘Nine?’

‘Sounds pretty classy to me. Okay, listen.’ Freddy goes to the glass wall and wraps it with his knuckle. The staff flit off like fish in a tank. ‘I’m going to help you.’

‘How?’

‘Believe it or not, Kat, I know a thing or two about fashion.’

‘Are you going to make a crass comment about seeing a lot of clothes on your bedroom floor?’

‘No.’ Freddy spins a platinum paperweight on his desk: an extremely heavy gift from a Spanish PR company which once broke a glass-topped table. ‘Well, yes, I have seen a lot of clothes on my bedroom floor. But I know about fashion for other reasons.’

‘Which are?’

‘I used to model.’

Kat laughs. ‘Oh. Wait. You’re serious.’

‘Completely serious. It may have escaped your notice, but I’m a good-looking fellow.’

‘Let me guess. You modelled underwear?’

‘Why would you make that assumption?’

‘Just a hunch.’

‘Oh fine. I modelled underwear. And while doing so, I learnt a lot about fashion designers and style. I also made some great connections. One of which happens to be in this very building. Let’s go.’

‘Where?’

‘To meet a nightmare who makes fashion dreams come true.’

‘That sounds very

cryptic. Care to elaborate?’

‘No darling, I don’t. Let’s go.’