It took a few minutes of hanging her head between her knees for the dizziness to abate and for her erratic heartbeat to return to normal.
Okay, this was just a setback. She could handle it.
Just because it would be hard to find a decent flat to rent in London at short notice didn’t mean she wouldn’t find somewhere else. She’d have to be proactive though and make sure to put all her feelers out, then respond quickly to any leads.
That could prove tricky now that she was working so closely with Max and she was going to have to be very careful not to mess up on the job, because it looked as though she was going to need things to work out there more than ever now.
* * *
The rest of the week flew by for Max, with Cara turning up exactly when she said she would and working diligently and efficiently through the tasks he gave her.
Whilst it was useful having her around to take care of some of the more mundane jobs that he’d been ignoring for far too long, he also found her presence was disrupting his ability to lose himself in his work, which he’d come to rely on in order to get through the fiercely busy days.
She was just so jolly all the time.
And she was making the place smell different. Every morning when he came downstairs for his breakfast he noticed her light floral perfume in the air. It was as though she was beginning to permeate the walls of his house and even the furniture with her scent.
It made him uncomfortable.
He knew he’d been rude during their first lunch together when Cara had asked him about the house and that he’d been unforthcoming about anything of a personal nature ever since—preferring to spend his lunchtimes in companionable silence—but he was concerned that any questions about himself would inevitably lead on to him having to talk about Jemima.
Work was supposed to be sanctuary from thinking about what had happened and he really didn’t want to discuss it with Cara.
He also didn’t want them to become too sociable because it would only make it harder for him to let her go after the promised month of employment.
Clearly she was very good at her job, so he had no concerns about her finding another position quickly after her time was up, but it might still prove awkward when it came down to saying no to full-time employment if they were on friendly terms. He suspected Cara’s story about taking voluntary redundancy wasn’t entirely based on truth and that she and Poppy had cooked up the story to play on his sympathy in order to get him to agree to take her on. While he was fine with allowing his errant friend to push him into a temporary arrangement to appease her mollycoddling nature, he wasn’t going to allow her to bully him into keeping Cara on full-time.
He didn’t need her.
After waking late on Friday morning and having to let an ebullient Cara in whilst still not yet ready to face the day, he had to rush his shower and hustle down to the kitchen with a pounding headache from not sleeping well the night before. Opening the fridge, he found that Cara had stocked it with all sorts of alien-looking food—things he would never have picked out himself. He knew he was bad at getting round to food shopping, but Cara’s choices were clearly suggesting he wasn’t looking after himself properly. There were superfoods galore in there.
He slammed the fridge door shut in disgust.
The damn woman was taking over the place.
Cara was in the hallway when he came out of the kitchen a few minutes later with a cup of coffee so strong he could have stood his spoon up in it. She waved a cheery hello, then gestured to a vase of brightly coloured flowers that she’d put onto the hall table, giving him a jaunty smile as if to say, That’s better, right? which really set his teeth on edge. How was it possible for her to be so damn happy all the time? Did the woman live with her head permanently in the clouds?
They’d never had fresh flowers in the house when Jemima was alive because she’d suffered with bad hay fever from the pollen, and he was just about to tell Cara that when he caught himself and clamped his mouth shut. It wasn’t a discussion he wanted to have this morning, with a head that felt as if it was about to explode. The very last thing he needed right now was Cara’s fervent pity.
‘I thought it would be nice to have a bit of colour in here,’ she said brightly, oblivious to his displeasure. ‘I walked past the most amazing florist’s on my way over here and I just couldn’t resist popping in. Flowers are so good for lifting your mood.’
‘That’s fine,’ he said through gritted teeth, hoping she wasn’t going to be this chipper all day. He didn’t think his head could stand it.
‘I’ll just grab myself a cup of tea, then I’ll be in,’ she said.