Page 5 of Settling the Score

Astrid was also quick to reply. ‘I’d take your heartbreaker. Any guy who’d just walk out on a sweetheart like you deserves to be played a little.’

‘And I’d take your cheating, married, bastard ex,’ Bella threw out there. ‘Which leaves you with Olly.’ She turned to Paige, tapping the side of her lip thoughtfully. ‘And that’sperfectbecause he slunk back to England after the wedding, to his dad’s place in Cornwall. How’s your sitting schedule for the new year?’

Paige’s eyes were deer-in-headlights wide. ‘I have a few things lined up in Jan, Feb that aren’t set in stone. I have a month-long gig in Edinburgh starting in March.’ She looked at the three of them, her lips parting softly. ‘Is the place big enough for two?’

‘Yes! It’s very spacious,’ Bella promised. ‘And right on the beach.’

Paige tilted her head to the side. ‘How would he feel about a guest?’

Bella looked like all her Christmases were coming at once. ‘He does like his privacy.’

‘I know exactly how he feels,’ Paige muttered with a hint of an eye roll before shaking her head, as if to clear the cobwebs. ‘I don’t know… are we really going to do this? Maybe it’s just the alcohol talking…’

‘Good point.’ Bella’s smile slipped.

There was no lack of certainty with Astrid though. ‘Well, I sure as hell am. I don’t know about you, but I’ll sleep a little better knowing Horrible Harvey is getting his comeuppance.’

Paige’s face briefly crumpled with emotion, as though she wasn’t used to having people go to bat for her. Which only made Sienna more determined.

‘Look,’ she said, gently, seriously. ‘This only works if we all agree. And nobody should feel pressured into doing it if it doesn’t sit right.’

Bella hit her glass to the table a little emphatically. ‘Definitely.’

‘God, fuck, yes.’ Astrid visibly notched her commitment down. ‘The last thing I want to do is browbeat my new co-conspirators. Sorry. Besties.’

Sienna didn’t look at Paige. She was the one who was struggling and Sienna definitely didn’t want her to feel pressured. Instead, she glared at the poster with laser-like anger.

‘I do love a cream tea,’ Paige blurted out, then glanced at Bella. ‘I’d be safe there?’

Sienna’s heart damn near broke. What this woman had been through was just beyond – trust once destroyed was almost impossible to rebuild. Sienna would move heaven and earth to exact revenge on the prick who’d done this to her.

‘Definitely. For all his commitment-phobe tendencies, he’s a true gentleman and I know he feels terribly guilty about the jilting. Which I’m perfectly okay exploiting to get you in there. I still have his number.’

‘Oh, yes!’ Astrid’s enthusiasm was back to off-the-charts. ‘That’s agreatplan. You could text him now.’ She batted her lashes then glanced at the clocks on the wall. ‘It’s six in the evening over there.’

Sienna could sense Paige’s ambivalence shifting to acceptance. ‘Look, how about this?’ She pulled her long blonde hair over one shoulder, running her fingers through the ends in a gesture of deep thought. ‘What if Bella texts, and then… we leave it up to the universe?’

‘The universe?’ Astrid looked sceptical.

‘Yes, you know. Fate. Kismet. If he texts back while we’re all still sitting here at this table we randomly ended up at, then it’s a go. If he doesn’t? We’ve all had a laugh and filled in a few hours. No harm, no foul.’

‘Oooh.’ Astrid’s nod underscored her enthusiasm. ‘I like that.’

‘Me too,’ Bella said.

Paige nodded firmly. ‘Okay, yeah. Okay.’

Bella set about drafting a text to Olly, reading it aloud as she wrote, and then they all sat very still, and very silent, and waited.

And waited. Because this felt like a monumental shift, in the middle of pink central, a fork in the road for all of them.

And then, ping.

Bella scrambled for the phone and read to the group, ‘Is she a Roger Prendergast groupie?’

Sienna tilted her head, confused by the reference. She’d adored Roger Prendergast even as a young girl.

‘The actor that died a little while ago?’ Paige asked.