Her Best Friend Read online

  “Right. You’ve got a contract…?” he prompted.

  Over the next few minutes she briefed him on the situation. It made her feel sick and angry all over again as she thought about the peremptory way Reg Hanover had delivered the news. As though she was a pesky child to be shooed from the room.

  “If the contract wasn’t signed, there’s not much you can do to hold them to the agreement. You know that, right?” Quinn said.

  “This isn’t about my contract. I need to know if there’s anything I can do to protect the Grand. It’s on the town’s heritage register. Surely that means Ulrich can’t knock it down?”

  Her voice broke on the last few words and she felt immeasurably foolish.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to need some time to do a bit of research, find out more about the local heritage register and council bylaws. In some municipalities, what Ulrich is proposing is acceptable—a compromise between heritage preservation and commerce. Can I get back to you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Probably won’t be until tomorrow morning, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Try not to freak out in the meantime.”

  “Too late. And thanks, Quinn.”

  She could almost see his shrug, even though he was hundreds of miles away. “No worries, Ames.”

  He ended the call. She slid her phone into her pocket and started walking to her car.

  She hadn’t spoken to Quinn for months, had dodged his phone calls and avoided responding to his e-mails. And he’d responded to her request for help without hesitation. Without question.

  It was one of the things she’d always loved about him the most: his generosity. But then there had always been a lot to love about Quinn Whitfield. His clever mind. His kindness. His sense of humor. Then there was his body—tall and broad and strong….

  Stop it. Stop it before you’re right back at the same old place again.

  She had bigger fish to fry than lost loves and old regrets. It was far better to channel her energy into a battle she at least had a chance of winning.

  Because she’d lost Quinn long ago.

  QUINN SAT QUIETLY for a moment after he’d hung up the phone.

  For the first few seconds of the call he’d thought Amy was calling because she knew, because his mother had let something slip or Lisa had made contact to tell her the big news.

  But Amy hadn’t known. And he hadn’t told her.

  “I’m going home now, Mr. Whitfield.”

  Quinn glanced up to see Maria hovering in the doorway of his study.

  “Okay. Thanks. I’ll see you in a few weeks,” he said.

  “You have a good holiday, okay?” she said. “You work too hard. You need to rest.”

  “I will. You enjoy your break, too.”

  She waved her hand as though he was talking nonsense. He knew she cleaned a number of houses as well as his own. She probably never stopped working.

  “And maybe you should try to eat some more while you’re away,” she said.

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  She gave him a last wave before disappearing and he let the easy smile fade from his lips. She was worried about him, just as they’d been worried about him at the office. Lots of hushed conversations about “poor Quinn” and how he was working too late and how much weight he’d lost. Hence the holiday. Two weeks up north on Hamilton Island, whether he liked it or not.

  “Take some time off, Quinn. Look after yourself. No one expects you to be a machine,” his boss had said.

  Not an order, but close enough.

  Quinn sighed and raked a hand through his hair. At the moment, work was his solace. He had no idea what he’d do without it. Face the wreckage of his marriage, he supposed.

  Hard to get too enthusiastic about that.

  Even though his leave had officially started this morning, he’d been tidying up loose ends at home, and he saved the last draft of the Monroe contract before sending a quick e-mail to his assistant to let her know it was ready to be released to the client. Then he glanced down at the notes he’d made while talking to Amy.

  He still couldn’t believe she was in a position to buy the Grand, after all these years. And that he hadn’t known about it.

  She’d been obsessed with the place since they were kids. Used to drag him past it as they walked home from school every day, even though it was out of their way. It had been a clothing clearance store back then, the cinema having gone out of business years before. He used to wait beside the door while she made her way through the racks of seconds and the previous year’s fashions to stand with her head tilted back as she studied the elaborate plaster ceiling high above. He could still remember how she used to wrap her arms around her midsection as she drank it all in, as though she was scared her excitement would get away from her if she didn’t keep a grip on herself.

  It felt wrong that she’d reached such a significant milestone in her life and he’d known nothing about it. But then he’d been hanging on to some pretty big news of his own, hadn’t he? He could hardly fault her when he’d just failed to tell her that he was getting a divorce.

  He called up an online search engine. Given a choice, he’d rather work than contemplate his navel. Every time.

  An hour later he’d accessed the local council Web site and downloaded the relevant bylaws. He’d also tracked down some recent decisions on heritage protections in the Victorian Supreme Court. It was nearly eight and his stomach was hollow with hunger. He walked to the take-out Indian restaurant on the corner and bought a chicken curry he probably wouldn’t finish.

  It was cool out and he tugged the collar of his leather jacket higher on his neck as he walked back home. Two-storied Victorian terrace houses marched down either side of the street, their balconies decorated with elaborate wrought iron lacework. He stopped in front of his own terrace house, taking a moment to note the clean white paint and the glossy black trim. Wisteria climbed one of the balcony supports, and the front garden was a masterpiece of precise hedges and rounded topiary.

  He’d been so proud of this place when they’d signed the papers two years ago. A little scared, too, of the debt they’d been taking on. But Lisa had sold him on the risk, convinced him that they needed to live in the right suburb, drive the right kind of cars, have the right people over for dinner. She’d always been ambitious. Keen to kick the dust of small-town Australia off her heels. It was one of the things he’d always admired about her.

  He hadn’t realized that she’d outgrow him one day, too.

  He walked up the path to the front door and slid his key into the lock. He braced himself, then pushed the door open. And there it was—a wash of jasmine and spice. Lisa’s perfume, even though she’d been gone for nearly a year. He caught an echo of it every time he came home. Something he could definitely live without.

  He walked to the kitchen, dumping his dinner on the counter before crossing to the rear of the house and flinging the French doors wide open. The house needed airing out, that was the problem.

  He upended his curry into a bowl and grabbed a fork from the drawer. Once the divorce was finalized, this place would go on the market and he wouldn’t have to worry about her perfume anymore. Then he could move to an apartment, maybe some place in the city. A bachelor pad, full of high-tech gadgets and the kind of non-fussy furniture he preferred.

  Quinn stared down at the messy curry in his bowl. This was not how he’d imagined his life would look at thirty. Not by a long shot.

  He took his dinner to the study and immersed himself in the work he was doing for Amy. Another hour of research and digging and he had the information he needed to help her with her cause. He picked up the phone, then put it down again without dialing.

  There was something he needed to get straight with himself before he spoke to her again. He’d lied to her earlier when she’d asked if Lisa was there, leading her to believe that Lisa was out for the evening rather
than long gone. Which went far beyond simply not telling her the marriage was over.

  Why hadn’t he told her, the way he’d told his parents and his colleagues at work and his and Lisa’s mutual friends here in Sydney?

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. Leaned back in his chair.

  The truth was, he hadn’t wanted his oldest friend to know that his marriage was a failure. Which was a great gauge for where his head was at the moment, wasn’t it?

  Maybe he really did need this holiday.

  He hadn’t been lying when he told Amy that he’d been thinking about her, though. He’d been thinking about her a lot. About the conversations they used to have lying in the tall grass at the bottom of her parents’ yard. About the way she always used to call him on his bullshit. About the times all three of them, he and Amy and Lisa, had gone swimming in the lake after dark.

  All of it a far cry from the polished, finely honed world he occupied now. The corner office. The partnership in the prestigious law firm. The expensive European car. The soon-to-be expensive divorce.

  Quinn shook his head. He really needed to get his head out of his own ass. Too much time on his own these days and he started thinking things to death. This was why he worked late. And why he was reluctant to spend two weeks on an island somewhere pretending to read a spy novel.

  He palmed the phone and dialed Amy’s cell. She answered after one ring and he knew she’d probably been hovering by the damned thing, hoping he’d call back, even though he’d said it wouldn’t be until morning.

  “Quinn,” she said. She sounded breathless. Scared.

  “Good news. I’ve done some digging, and the Grand is listed on the town’s heritage register for both its interior and exterior architectural features. Which means that any development has to preserve the interior as well as the facade.”

  “Oh my God. Thank you. Oh, Quinn. Thank you.” Her voice was thick with emotion.

  “Don’t get too excited yet. Ulrich’s proposal shouldn’t have ever made it past first base. But it did, which means council are prepared to flout their own bylaws if given enough incentive.”

  There was a long silence from the other end of the phone.

  “But once I point out that they can’t do that, they’ll have to reject the offer, right?” Amy said.

  “Not if they think they can get away with it. If the money’s big enough, people will do just about anything, Amy. I’ve been doing some checking, and Ulrich Construction has the contract to build the extension on the school gym, the new wing on the library and the new medical center over near the day spa. I’d say Barry Ulrich and the council are very nicely tucked up in bed with each other, wouldn’t you?”

  “Oh.” She sounded nonplussed, and despite the seriousness of the situation, he had to smile. Amy had always been too busy thinking the best of people to see the worst.

  “The council was probably hoping that they could slip this under the radar while nobody was looking.”

  “Well, that’s not going to happen,” she said. “Not while I’m still living and breathing.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “So, what do I do? Go to the meeting, let them know that I know what they’re up to?” He could hear her taking notes.

  “For starters. Take people with you, make sure there are plenty of witnesses to keep the councillors on their toes.”

  “Dad can get his cronies from the Chamber of Commerce to come along. They can throw a bit of weight around when they want to. And Denise knows a guy at the local paper.”

  “Perfect. I’ll draft up a statement for you to read. Something with enough legalese in it to give them pause.”

  “Good. Pause is just what I want to give them. And then some.”

  “I’m heading off on holiday tomorrow, but I’ll get the statement to you by morning, okay? And you can reach me on my cell if you need me.”

  “Oh. Okay.” There was a short silence. “Where are you guys going?”

  Now was the time to correct her, tell her that he was going on holiday alone. That Lisa had left him.

  “Hamilton Island. Couple of weeks of sun and surf.”

  “Sounds good.”

  He drew a meaningless squiggle on the page in front of him. “Yeah.”

  She took a deep breath on the other end of the line. “You’ve been great, Quinn. I want you to know I really appreciate your help with this.”

  “It’s no big deal, Ames.”

  “It is to me. It’s a huge deal.”

  “Well.” He made another squiggle, then obliterated it in a flurry of pen strokes. “Don’t be a stranger, okay? Drop me a line now and then. And let me know how things go on Friday, okay?”

  “I will.”

  Neither of them said anything for a long moment. He could hear her breathing and he could feel the truth pushing its way up his throat.

  It’s all screwed, Ames. My marriage, my life. I have no idea what I’m doing anymore.

  “Good luck,” he said. Then he put the phone down before the truth could escape.

  She didn’t want to hear his sad story. She was fighting for her dream. And they weren’t friends the way they used to be. He’d done something wrong, or something had gone wrong and he’d been too busy with his own crap to notice.

  Same difference.

  He flicked off the lights and walked through his empty house.

  OVER THE NEXT THREE DAYS, Amy cajoled, begged, bribed and harassed her friends and neighbors until they agreed to join her at the council meeting on Friday evening. She phoned the local newspaper no less than seven times chasing Denise’s friend and finally cornered him in the butcher’s at lunchtime on Thursday.

  One of the advantages of living in a small community—you could run, but not for long, and you sure as hell couldn’t hide. She promised him a good show and he promised her a reporter. She left in high spirits.

  Quinn had been as good as his word and e-mailed her a precisely written statement to read during the meeting. It cited precedents and bylaws and subsections and clauses. She couldn’t follow most of it, but she figured that probably meant that the majority of the councillors wouldn’t be able to, either, which was good. She wanted them to be intimidated. She wanted them to know they were going to have a fight on their hands if they tried to push this thing through.

  Her great-grandfather had built the Grand in 1929. He’d commissioned an architect in Sydney and imported marble from Carrara and light fittings from Venice. He’d created a wonderful legacy for the community. No way was Amy going to roll over while some greedy developer turned it to dust and replaced it with a bunch of shoe-box-size apartments.

  She dressed carefully for the big meeting. A borrowed suit from Denise, neat and black and businesslike. A pair of new shoes that hurt her toes but gave her an extra four inches in height—very necessary since she was only five feet tall and often mistaken for a kid. She pulled her shoulder-length curly blond hair into a bun and painted her face with more makeup than she usually wore. She didn’t want anyone mistaking her for a kid tonight.

  It was only a short drive to the council chambers. Amy’s new shoes pinched her feet as she walked across the gravel parking lot toward the front entrance. By the end of the evening she doubted she’d be able to feel her pinky toes, but if she won the Grand, she figured it would be well worth the sacrifice of two small digits.

  She saw her family and friends the moment she walked into the meeting room. The public gallery was full of familiar faces—her parents, the Joneses, Denise, Maria, Katherine. Cheryl and Eric from work, a few of the customers from her parents’ store.

  A better turnout than she’d hoped for. Which was good, right?

  She made her way to the front row where tables were provided for members of the public who wanted to make notes or present evidence. She put down her bag and took a deep breath. So far, so good.

  Then she looked up and saw Barry Ulrich standing with his lawyer, a young guy in a slick suit. They were talking to
Reg Hanover and a couple of the other councillors, and everyone was smiling and nodding as though they were in complete and utter agreement with each other.

  Amy could feel the blood drain out of her face.

  Barry had brought his lawyer. And all she had was a statement from Quinn and her own very inexpert understanding of the council bylaws. She pressed a hand to her stomach. If she messed this up, it was over. The Grand would be smashed to pieces. There was no coming back from that.

  Barry glanced over and caught her eye. His smile broadened and he gave her a friendly little wave. As though this was a cocktail party, and he the host.

  Goddamn.

  She should have hired a lawyer. She’d resisted because of the expense, but it was stupid to economize when failing at this hurdle meant the end of the game. What had she been thinking with her puny little statement and her cheering squad?

  “Sorry I’m late,” a deep, familiar voice said from behind her. “My flight was delayed, and there was construction on the freeway.”

  A shiny black leather briefcase landed on the table.

  Amy turned and blinked at the tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed man standing beside her.

  “Quinn,” she said. “You came.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “LIKE I SAID, I would have been here sooner but shit happened.”

  It had been a close-run thing, but he’d made it. And in the nick of time.

  Quinn pulled a file and a legal pad from his briefcase then clicked it shut again. Only when he was satisfied that he was ready to roll did he look Amy fully in the face.

  Her blond curls had been tamed into a conservative bun, and her face was less full and her cheekbones more prominent than when he’d last seen her. His gaze got caught for a moment on her lower lip, full and shiny with gloss, then slid lower to take in her neat little suit and towering high heels.

  He frowned.

  “You look different.” He wasn’t sure if he liked it. Whenever he pictured Amy in his mind’s eye, her hair was always wild and her clothes mismatched. Most importantly, she was always laughing. The woman standing in front of him looked as though she’d had all the laughter drained out of her.