The Chocolate Run by Dorothy Koomson Page B

love you.’ It aggrieved me to admit this sometimes, but whenever Matt wasn’t off in Paris being International Marketing Director for his company, Jen was the centre of his world. I’d have loved it if he was a neglectful bastard and then I could have licence to dislike him as much as he hated me. ‘I could never say that so certainly about Tommy or Karl.’
    ‘But you’re still number one, you know,’ Jen said. ‘You’re still the one I tell everything to.’
    ‘Mmm-hmm,’ I replied. I told Jen everything too. Except this one thing. It was only a small thing. Anyway, it probably wouldn’t last with me and Greg. In fact, I give it two months. Three at the most .

‘hmmm, a man or chocolate – put it this way, you’ll never be sat around waiting for a bar of chocolate to ring you’

chapter eight
    her!
    ‘ Who are you?’ Renée’s voice said sharply across the office.
    Martha didn’t flinch, didn’t even seem to notice. I did. I glanced away from my computer screen at my boss.
    Renée’s professionally shaped eyebrows were hunched together; her red mouth was taut with indignation. ‘ What? ’ she barked into the phone.
    Long pause as the other person spoke.
    ‘Why should I remember you? Did you save my life or something?’
    Martha smirked, but she would. It was always me who panicked when Renée got like that on the phone because she was invariably talking to someone we should be aiming to be nice to.
    ‘You write for who?’
    See? I shoved my chair back, almost dislocating a couple of vertebrae in the process, and ran the distance to Renée’s desk. Three-quarters of the way there, I flung myself across the desk, narrowly missing the pencil holder and her precious stapler, and jabbed my finger on the ‘secrecy’ button on her phone.
    ‘Give me the phone,’ I said, with my hand outstretched. Time was when I could fling myself onto the desk and get the phone out of Renée’s grip before she could react, but over the last year she’d got very adept at snatching it out of reach while I was mid-air.
    Renée clutched the receiver to her chest like it was her firstborn. ‘No.’
    ‘Renée,’ I cooed, ‘give Amber the phone.’
    She shook her head. She hadn’t shouted since she went overboard on Monday. As I predicted, my day off gave her something to think about. So this journalist who had innocently picked up the phone to find out about our Festival was, in fact, dealing with a woman who had four days of anger simmering away, ready to boil over.
    ‘Give me the phone and I’ll let you slag off the new London Film Festival brochure all afternoon.’
    Renée’s eyes flickered as she saw what was on offer: an afternoon of nit-picking, sneering and downright bitchiness that I wouldn’t temper. There’d be no ‘Come on, Renée, be fair,’ while she went on and on. It was tempting . . .
    ‘I’ll buy you chocolate and then make you coffee,’ I added.
    Tempting, but not tempting enough, she still clung to the phone.
    ‘And,’ I said, playing my trump card, ‘you can critique their website.’
    Words Renée longed to hear. I’d always stopped her having a go at their website because ours wasn’t much better. In fact, ours was in desperate need of resuscitation and I’d decreed we could only slag off the things that we did better than LFF. Renée’s hand shot out as she handed over the phone.
    I hit the ‘secrecy’ button. ‘Hi, sorry about that, the Festival Director had to take another call, how can I help? I’m Amber, the Deputy Festival Director.’
    ‘Hi, Amber.’
    Oh. Good. Grief. Her. HER!
    I’d know that affected, nasal voice anywhere. I should’ve let Renée abuse her. I gave up my trump card for her. HER! Her, the journalist from hell. The nutter journalist from hell who’d tried to get me sacked.
    Last year, in an almost identical incident, Renée’s phone had rung and Renée under sufferance had answered it. She’d been speechless when some woman had started