It had officially been two months since Kaia had started her new job. Enough time had passed to allow her to judge each and every person she worked with, identifying who she liked and who she would desperately try to avoid every day, which turned out to be most people.

Despite two months passing, Tommy's instructions to Kaia about letting him know if Lizzie ever said anything confrontational to her had yet to be used. Lizzie had been civil with Kaia, but no more or less friendly towards her than she was to anybody else.

To Kaia, it seemed like Lizzie was a miserable woman who'd never known true happiness. From what other people had said, it wouldn't have surprised Kaia if it was true that Tommy had broken Lizzie's heart, because the way she acted and the fact her face looked like thunder every day certainly gave the theory some credibility.

In the first couple of weeks, Kaia noticed how Lizzie would disappear for handfuls of time throughout the day, half an hour here and half an hour there. She never told anybody where she was going, but Kaia's guess was that she was sneaking off to see Tommy.

As more days passed, Lizzie began leaving the office less and less. In fact, three whole weeks had passed without her leaving unannounced at all. As nosey as she was, Kaia had to settle for the fact that she would probably never know what happened between Lizzie and Tommy, no matter how much she thrived off office gossip.

Bonnie and his girlfriend had been round at the house more often than not, and Aberama had been at home increasingly less ever since. Kaia didn't blame him, though, she didn't want to be sat trying to read her book hearing the floorboards and bed frame creak upstairs either, but she didn't really have anywhere else to be when she wasn't at work.

It was a Saturday evening and the sun had just set. Kaia had, for the first time ever, been invited to go for a drink with the two girls she'd made friends with at work. She'd been waiting around all day to start getting ready, having little else to do apart from take a walk around the fields behind her house or read her book.

Once she was ready, opting for a black satin mini dress with a white Pearl necklace and matching earrings that belonged to her mother, Kaia left in the direction of The Garrison.

It was a cold evening and the thin shawl she'd thrown over her shoulders was doing her no favours to keep her warm, the frost biting at her skin as she kept her head down and hugged her arms across her body as she walked.

She eventually arrived, spotting Bethany and Eliza through the window and quickly headed inside, taking a seat beside both of them.

"Champagne?" Bethany held up the bottle in one hand and an empty champagne flute in the other.

"Yes, thank you." Kaia smiled and rubbed her hands together to warm them up, the heat from the fireplace beside them slowly bringing colour back into her face.

The girls sat and spoke for a while, mostly continuing the gossip about other women in the office, which was pretty much all they ever spoke about at work.

Kaia was glad she'd found other girls on the same wavelength as herself. A lot of the women in the office were the type to be married with children, slaving away after their husband and crying baby whenever they weren't at work, they'd definitely look down on the type of woman Kaia was. Bethany and Eliza were different, though. They were both similar to Kaia in the sense that they had absolutely no intention of settling down with a man anytime soon, and they had far more fun not knowing who's bed they'd end up in whenever they left the house.

Kaia wondered if that would happen on that particular night.

"So what do you think to him? We've not actually asked you yet I don't think."

Kaia hadn't realised she'd zoned out until she looked up and saw Bethany staring at her with an eager smile on her lips.

"Of, of who?" She stuttered.

Bethany rolled her eyes, "Of him!"

Kaia glanced over her shoulder following the direction of Bethany's gaze, her eyes falling upon Tommy Shelby. He was sat on a barstool with a glass of whiskey in his hand, the rest of the bottle beside him. He was alone, but that didn't shock Kaia, he struck her as the type of man to enjoy his own company.

"What about him?"

"Oh come on," Eliza tilted her head, her voiced laced with sarcasm, "You can't tell me you wouldn't jump into bed with him."

Kaia stared at him. He was conventionally attractive with a chiselled facial structure and piercing eyes, broad shoulders and big hands. He was tough, which always made women swoon, but Kaia had always grown up thinking that Thomas Shelby was the most miserable man on the planet, courtesy of her father's words, anyway.

Aberama Gold was right, though. Kaia wasn't sure she'd ever seen Tommy smile, let alone laugh. He always had a solemn look on his face as if he'd just left a funeral, which in one way or another, he probably had.

"Sure," Kaia shrugged her shoulders, "He doesn't seem like much of a talker, though. Do you think he knows it's legal to smile, too?"

Beth and Eliza just laughed, shaking their heads at her response.

"Kaia, when was the last time you smiled or laughed? You have one of the most serious faces I've ever seen."

She rolled her eyes, cracking a small but sarcastic smile. Her friends weren't wrong, Kaia rarely did smile or laugh, simply because nobody had ever made her.

"Maybe he's met his match in you." Eliza winked at Kaia and poured more champagne into each of their glasses.

"God, don't say that," Beth said, "Lizzie would eat her alive."

Kaia gulped down her drink, "What's the situation with them? Tommy said something to me about letting him know if Lizzie ever made any snide comments or anything towards me. Do you have any idea why he would've said that?"

Beth let out a sigh, "It's because you know him. Well, more so than any of us other girls in the office. Lizzie gets jealous, not that she has any right to, but someone caught her with a knife under a woman's throat just because she'd made a move on Tommy, they're not even together."

Kaia's face was unimpressed. There was no chance in Hell that Lizzie would ever get even close to pinning Kaia against a wall, but the more she thought about it, the more she was intrigued to see what she might try to do to her anyway.

"They're not together, really?"

"Nope," Eliza replied, looking a gentleman up and down who'd just walked past them and sat at a table near by, "Try your luck all you want, if you want anything more than a one night stand, you'll be disappointed."

"Evening, ladies."

Kaia froze when she heard Tommy's voice from over her shoulder. All three of the girls' eyes grew wide, praying that he hadn't overheard their conversation.

"On the house." He said, placing down another bottle of champagne in front of them all, along with three more glasses.

"Oh, no we can pay for it don't-"

"I said it's on the house, alright?"

Kaia watched as Beth blushed, looking away from Tommy's gaze as he popped the cork from the champagne bottle, leaning over her to fill the glasses.

She felt a tug on her neck followed by the rattling of a string of pearls clattering onto the floor one by one.

"Fuck." Kaia swore under her breath as she jumped to her feet, her head turning in all directions as she watched the pearls roll under seats and tables across the floor of the entire pub.

"Kaia," Tommy placed his hand on her shoulder, forcing her to look up at him, "I'm sorry, my jacket got caught on the clasp of your necklace, I'll get you a new one I-"

"You can't get me a new one." Kaia sniffed, knowing half the pearls would be lost underneath furniture and between the floorboards and the other half would be picked up by the men in the pub and kept for themselves.

"Of course I can," He followed Kaia at her heels as she grabbed her shawl and stormed out of the pub, a lump in her throat and tears welling in her eyes, "I'll get you a better one, a-"

"No," She said, pushing open the doors and walking outside into the cold once more, "That was my mother's necklace."

Kaia watched as Tommy's face fell. He looked remorseful, an actual emotion, rather than emptiness behind his blue eyes that she'd grown used to seeing now.

"I'm so sorry, I'll clear out the pub and get the boys to find them."

She just shook her head, blinking back the tears that she desperately didn't want to shed in front of anybody, let alone a man. She hated appearing weak but the thought of one of the only things she had left of her mother's being gone forever was like somebody had reached into her chest and ripped out half of her heart.

"Forget it."

"Kaia, wait!"

She didn't wait. Kaia stormed home in the cold, though she was too numb to feel it anymore. She sobbed as she walked through the door, seeing the photograph of her mother wearing the same string of pearls sat proudly above the fireplace.

Her father wasn't home and it didn't sound like Bonnie was in either, and so she locked herself in her bedroom and buried her head in her blanket, looking out of her window at the moon. She felt desperately sad, angry with herself that she couldn't keep the one possession she cared about the most safe. She just hoped that her mother would've forgiven her if she were still around, but Kaia wouldn't ever forgive herself.

A knock at the door made Kaia jump, freezing as she panicked, knowing Bonnie or her father wouldn't knock and they rarely had anybody come round to visit.

She crept forward slowly to peer out of her bedroom window, looking down onto the street and seeing Thomas stood on the doorstep. She quickly pulled away when he took a step back and looked up at the house, not wanting him to see her.

Kaia waited for a moment, staying deadly silent until she heard his footsteps fade into the distance before finally letting herself fall asleep, but not before soaking her pillow through with tears.