Playing for Keeps: A fun, flirty romantic comedy perfect for summer reading. Rosa Temple

on it for support. The tiny office window above me was open and I reminded myself to close it after Stella left. I wanted her to leave. I didn’t want to talk about Hugo. Not now. Not after all this time.

      Stella tentatively rose to her feet. Great, I thought, she’s leaving and taking with her whatever reason it was that made her come here in the first place. Did Hugo send her?

      ‘I’ve gone about this all wrong,’ Stella said, wringing her hands. She stooped to pick up her bag, hooking it over her shoulder but stopping to make eye contact with me.

      ‘Hugo doesn’t know I’m here. If he did, he’d kill me.’

      ‘Why would he kill his girlfriend?’ Maybe I’d had a lucky escape after all.

      ‘I’m not his girlfriend.’

      ‘You said you were in love with him.’

      ‘I didn’t. I said I loved him. As far as Hugo is concerned I love him as a friend. We’re the best of friends in fact.’

      ‘Stella, I don’t mean to pry but you look like a woman in love.’

      ‘Do I?’ She bowed her head. ‘Not that Hugo would ever notice. And I’ve never told him. It would be a complete waste of time. He hasn’t loved anyone, or allowed himself to, not since you. No one could hold a candle to you, Magenta. Not in his eyes. No one.’

      I swallowed hard. I began to tidy away imaginary things on the otherwise tidy table, straightening the interview chairs, tucking them under the table so tight the front wheels were almost off the floor and would surely tumble backwards.

      ‘I had to come,’ Stella went on. ‘Hugo is back in the UK. For good this time. Or so he says. He’s up in Cumbria at the family farm, staying with his dad for a few weeks longer before…’

      ‘Before what?’

      ‘Well, he’s coming to London. There’s a part of London that’s dear to him and that he’s been missing a lot lately.’

      ‘You mean he’ll be living here now? Permanently?’

      My mind cast itself back to the months following my and Hugo’s absolute and final breakup. Hugo didn’t take no for an answer at first. He continued to try to change my mind and take him back. But I’d told him, over and over, I couldn’t go back to him. I was in love with Anthony. He finally let me go.

      Stella cleared her throat and began tracing a finger over the grain in the wood of the table separating us.

      ‘He’ll be here permanently,’ she said. ‘But maybe temporarily too.’

      ‘Well, that makes no sense.’ I gave a weak laugh.

      Stella looked me in the eye again.

      ‘Hugo is sick, Magenta. Very, very sick. He would never have contacted you himself. He wouldn’t want pity or anything like that. He promised himself he’d try to forget you but I know he never really did. He went out with a few women, once or twice, you know? But I think it was only ever physical. He never told me he’d fallen in love.’

      ‘Not even with you?’

      ‘No one since you, Magenta. I know. Like I say. We’re the best of friends. It’s how he sees me and I accept that. But… but I wouldn’t consider myself a friend if I didn’t come and tell you about his health now. He’s going through a bad time and it’ll only get worse.’

      ‘I’m sorry to hear that, but I can’t…’

      ‘Please, Magenta. Go and see him. When he comes back to London. Just once. That’s all I ask. I know how much it would mean to him.’

      It was my turn to look down at the lines running through the wooden table. My immediate reaction was, yes, of course I’ll go and see Hugo. How could I know he was sick, living in London and never once go and see him? But in the split second that followed and before I could ask Stella for his address, I thought of Anthony. He wouldn’t be happy about it. I know there was a lot of jealousy there as far as Hugo was concerned, and I think the feelings of jealousy and hate were mutual between them. That’s why I’d never told Anthony Hugo had been in London at the very start of my relationship with him. As far as he was concerned, Hugo was out of my life, out of the country and back in the place he’d called home for nearly ten years. Brazil.

      ‘You know, I really think we should let sleeping dogs lie, Stella,’ I said. ‘What could I do for Hugo that a good hospital couldn’t? I’ve got the addresses of some good hospitals over here. I could—’

      She shook her head and sighed. ‘That side of things is already taken care of.’

      ‘I’m glad,’ I said. ‘Look, I appreciate you’re trying to do a good turn for a friend and everything but it’s just not a good time for me and it’s not a place I should go. Not now. You know I’m seeing someone, right? It’s been, what, over three years since I saw Hugo and I’ve been with my boyfriend for as long.’

      ‘You mean Anthony?’

      ‘Yes, I mean Anthony. Jesus, if you know so much about my life then you’ll know it took almost for ever to get over Hugo that first time around. I did a lot of soul-searching before agreeing to meet up after ten years. I have… I had a lot of feelings for Hugo when we got back together. But it wasn’t going to work. He didn’t have my heart, Stella.’ I put my head down again. ‘I only wish you had his and he had yours, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?’

      ‘Oh, I’ll be there for Hugo, no question about that. But I had to come here. I had to at least try to make you see he needs you right now.’ She held her palms up to me. ‘But I should go. Like I say, this wasn’t his idea, it was mine, and now I know I should never have come. It was crazy. This whole thing is crazy. Just forget I was here. Would you?’

      I nodded. ‘And please, before you go, please understand why I’m refusing.’

      ‘I do.’ Stella backed away to the door and opened it softly, stepping out while still looking into my eyes. ‘Look, before I go… please just hear me out.’ She put up a hand and then dipped into her straw bag, pulling out a well-used notebook with a pen clipped to the inside sleeve. Flicking through, she turned to some coloured pages at the very back that all seemed to have notes and scribbles on. She tore the corner off the red notepaper and started writing.

      ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

      ‘It’s my name and number. You know? If you change your mind.’

      I looked at her as if to say, please don’t do this, and she read that, very plainly, through my eyes.

      ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Forget it. I understand.’

      She looked around the room one last time and then over her shoulder. Nervously she tried to return the pen and notebook and the torn-off piece of paper to her straw bag. ‘He’s very proud about what you’ve accomplished. Good luck, Magenta. With everything.’

      Without a look back, she was gone. She left a wave of incense and lavender behind her and also the little piece of paper on which she’d written her number. Somehow we’d both missed seeing it flutter to the floor when she was fussing over her bag, nervous and looking very much on the verge of tears, or maybe angry with herself for coming here in the first place. I stooped to pick up the number. I held it over the wastepaper bin for a few seconds but something made me stop. Think. I decided to hold on to it just for a while and then I’d shred it at work for safety reasons. You know, confidentiality and all that.

      My conversation with Stella was definitely the strangest I had that day. Even stranger than the one with the homeless woman who had found her way to the back office while Riley’s back was turned and asked me and Anya if we wanted to score some weed. Anya had contemplated the offer but when I said we were busy seeing candidates for a job, she sat down in the interview chair and refused to budge until we agreed to see her audition piece for Les Miserables.

      ‘It