You Can't Hurry Love

Chapter Forty-Eight

DECEMBER 24th

I couldn't put it off any longer. I've been hanging around outside the building for over fifteen minutes, waiting for someone I knew to turn up. I was going to walk in with them, you see, so I could attempt to slink past Lauren without her noticing but after all this time out here, the only people that I'd recognised were Handsy-Pete from marketing and that Romanian chap whose name I couldn't quite remember and I'd thought at the time, I wasn't that desperate.

Well as I said, a quarter of an hour has now passed and it turns out I am that desperate. I could see Lauren hovering just inside the doorway, chatting to another member of her "welcoming party" and I wanted to curse myself for being late.

It's my own stupid fault but I did have a valid enough reason. I'd wanted to check on Roland before I left and was knocked for six when his daughter had answered the door instead and pulled me straight in for a massive hug. Roland, it turns out, had finally taken my advice and called his family. That's why they were there tonight, and they'd wanted to thank me for looking after him these last few weeks. I could hardly cut them off mid-stride when they were saying such wonderful things about me. That, and I think I was secretly just trying to put off the inevitable.

The pictures. I know everyone's seen them and I know they're all going to absolutely roast me about it as soon as I step inside.

Oh well, I can't help thinking as I fluff up the tulle on my midnight blue dress and start stalking towards the entrance. I can't stand out here all evening and I refuse to let my insecurities ruin what will hopefully be a fantastic night with fantastic friends.

(And on the bright side, there's a free bar tonight so after a few margaritas, I doubt I'm going to care anyway.)

I was through the double doors and racing towards the event room with my head pointed towards the ground when I hear Lauren call out, 'Excuse me, you can't just walk through. You need to show me your ticket,' and I halt on the spot, condemned to turn back and face my doom.

I do so, keeping a forced smile on my face and the moment she cottons on to the fact that it was me trying to sneak past, the smallest look of triumph flashes across her immaculate features.

'Dorothy, I'm so glad you could make it,' Lauren says with false sincerity as she rushes forward to greet me. 'I wasn't sure you were going to be able to.'

'Why's that?' I stand up straight, trying to appear confident despite feeling anything of the sort.

'Oh, you know, after your little . . . incident.' She scrunches her nose up sympathetically and I clench down on my teeth, silently counting to five.

'Well, I'm here now so . . .' I try to skirt around her, but Lauren blocks my path with her clipboard.

'I'm just glad you decided to use the front door this time around though.' She laughs loudly, looking victorious when she gets the response she was after from her twittering disciples as they join in. 'Otherwise we'd be having to cut you out of another window and we wouldn't want to ruin that lovely, er, dress now, would we?'

She runs her eyes over my outfit with a look of derision and I clutch tightly at my purse, feeling animosity building inside of me. I wasn't going to stand for this. My dress was beautiful, and yes, maybe it didn't cost hundreds of pounds and come from a fancy shop where the salespeople look down their noses at you, but I felt fabulous in it and I wasn't about to let her make me think otherwise.

'Lauren, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you as always but I'm afraid there are people inside that are really much better company, so I'm going to be off. Have a nice night.'