“I don’t give a shit.” He winks. “You’re better than her in every single way imaginable.”
“Really?” I say with a grin. “Do I have better legs than her?”
“Oh god, no. She totally blows you away in the leg department.”
I bat his arm playfully. “Thanks for your honesty.”
“Well, you’d know I was lying if I said you had better legs than her. You do have way better tits though.”
“Thanks, Max. I’m a little bit weirded-out you noticed, but thank you.”
“Hey, I’m a man – of course I noticed. I mean, I try not to notice because you’re like a sister, but . . . well, have you seen hers? You’d have to label her front and back on a date in the dark.”
“How would you see the label in the dark?”
He screws up his nose and grins. “Exactly. Therefore the danger is real.”
“Okay, enough. This conversation is so bitchy it could be lifted straight from Mean Girls. The point here is that Jadine is Lucas Bartle’s daughter. That makes all the difference in the world.”
“I don’t care if she’s the Prime Minister’s daughter. There’s no beauty in being shallow. Jadine Clark embodies everything that’s wrong with the world. If she put as much time and effort into learning how to spell ‘beautiful’ as she does pouting in bar toilet mirrors then she’d be a far more useful person.”
“We’ll have to talk about it later, Max. I have a directors’ meeting at nine. Promise me you won’t do anything stupid before that.”
His nose twitches.
“Max?”
“I promise.”
“Max, are your fingers crossed?”
He shrugs and walks away.
Finally alone in my office, I root through my bag for tools to fix my face. I have concealer, which I dab under my eyes, camouflaging the black-and-red puffiness. As expected, I don’t have mascara, but I do have a dark-brown pencil which I rub along my eyelids. I look like hell, I feel like hell and it’s taking everything I have not to cry.
I’m applying a fresh coat of lipstick when I hear a light tap on my door. It’s Ruby. She looks worried, like she hasn’t slept for a week. Her brown skin is faded and her huge dark eyes have lost their sparkle. “Hi, Violet, can I come in? I wanted to talk about you about what happened earlier. I think it might be my fault.”
A swirl of red-hot rage mixes with disappointment inside me. Please tell me she didn’t repeat what she overheard from last night. I pick each item of make-up off the sofa and toss it in my bag with a clunk.
Ruby smooths down her black pencil skirt and takes a seat next to me. “You have every right to be mad, and I’m sorry.”
The look on her face says it all. I feel like screaming in frustration, because betrayal is something I can’t tolerate. I’ve done a lot for Ruby in the past. “You told her how I feel about Ethan, didn’t you?”
She nods. Her eyes are downcast and her body is trembling.
“Okay. I really don’t have anything to say to you, Ruby. Nothing at all.” I know I’m scowling at her because my vision is obscured by my own eyebrows. “I begged you not to say anything and you promised. After everything I’ve done for you? I got you this job. I’ve looked out for you ever since you started at BMG. I can’t believe you would betray me like this.”
I stand up from the sofa and return to my desk. Ruby remains seated, her head low and her fingers interlocked nervously. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Then why did you? Why did you tell Jadine Clark something you knew was completely and utterly private?”
“She was upset. She was crying because you yelled at her over that mistake with the Japanese garden. She thought you were out to get her because she’s Ethan’s ex-girlfriend—”
“She’s not Ethan’s ex-bloody-girlfriend! He slept with her twice and can barely remember a thing about it!”
Ruby takes a succession of deep breaths as tears roll down her face. “I told her how close you two are and . . . I told her you had feelings for him.” She continues to sob, her mass of spongy curls bouncing as her body shakes. “It just slipped out, and I’m sorry.”
I sit back in my chair and watch her try to regain her composure. A tiny part of me wants to tell her it’s fine, but I’m too angry and hurt and unbelievably sick and tired of having everything I say and do flare up in my face like an errant firework. “You sold me out, Ruby. And for what? A few nights out with Jadine’s celebrity friends and a selfie to post on Instagram?”
“It wasn’t like that. I didn’t know she was going to make those posters or get Polly to message you.”
“And if you had, you’d have stopped her?” Her face says it all. Of course she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t dare. I wheel my chair under my desk and fix my eyes to my computer screen.
“I am truly sorry,” she says as she stands and walks towards the door.
“I accept your apology, Ruby. But I won’t ever forget what you’ve done.”
* * *
At lunchtime I head out to get a wrap and yoghurt from the Pret a Manger near the station. When I pass my team on the way back, I notice Ruby is sitting at her desk in the corner and . . . shit. She’s still crying. God, I hate this. Bianca has wheeled her chair over to sit next to her, and Tom, Will and Pinkie are all cooing around her like she’s a kid who got a yellow balloon for her birthday instead of the pink one she’d asked for. I want to tell her to get over herself.
As I walk past, Jadine appears. She looks at me like I’ve just shot Bambi’s mother, and my struggle to maintain the high ground comes clattering around my ears.
“What’s the problem?” I walk over to where they’re all huddled around Ruby.
“She’ll be okay,” Bianca mumbles.
“Maybe you should take this to the break room. There are people trying to work.”
I start to walk away again when I hear Will’s voice. “For god’s sake, Jadine, leave it.”
When I turn back around, Jadine is standing with her hands on her hips, golden hair cascading around her shoulders like she’s a seventies porn star who’s just filmed a fumble in a cornfield. “You’ve upset Ruby. Yesterday you spoke to me like I was shit on the bottom of your shoe, and as for Cosmo? Half the office thinks he’s a perv because of you, and he’s done nothing wrong. I shouldn’t have made those posters, but someone needed to tell you what a nasty piece of work you are.”
A splinter of insecurity twists in my stomach. I decide to bite my tongue.
She holds her head high and looks down on me, which is easy to do given she’s almost a head taller than I am. “It’s time someone nipped this behaviour in the bud. Tribe is my dad’s agency. He’s worked hard for it and you’re ruining the vibe of the whole place. You’ve already wrecked an entire campaign and cost him thousands of pounds. And why? Because you love someone who’ll never love you back?”
I want to scream out loud that he does love me. I want to tell the world. I suck in a lungful of air to stop myself and attempt to count to ten. I make it to three. “You’re very lucky I haven’t taken matters further, Jadine. What you did this morning was disgraceful. I’m a director of this agency and you need to show some respect.”
She steps forward and laughs in my face. “Respect? Why? You’re only here because Ethan pities you. My dad knows you’re useless – he called you out on your shit leadership skills from day one. It’s only going to be a matter of time before you get fired for messing up on the Belle Oaks account. You hate me because you’re jealous.”
“I don’t hate you, Jadine. I’d have to care about you to hate you, but I don’t. You’re nothing to me.”
“And you’re nothing to Ethan.” She tosses her hair back and laughs, glancing around at her clique to make sure she’s taking them all along on the ride with her, but everyone looks uncomfortable. “God, you’re pathetic. Why on earth would he love somebody like you anyway? Did he reject you? Is that why you ended up in Cosmo’s bed?”
My jaw drops. �
��I have never ever been anywhere near Cosmo Hines’s bed and don’t you dare insinuate otherwise.”
“Really? You’re still playing the part of the frigid Ice Queen? Why don’t I give all the members of your team a quick summary?”
Will leaps in. “That’s not necessary, Jadine.”
“You’ve said enough. Nobody cares,” adds Bianca.
Warmth fills my chest as my team jumps to my defence. I hope that will be enough to make her stop. I turn away and start walking back to my office.
“No, I’m sure you all want to know what happened, so here it is,” shouts Jadine. I don’t turn back. “Violet was naked in Cosmo’s bed, moaning into his ear, telling him she wanted more. Letting him do whatever he wanted to her. Then she realised she was with the wrong guy, so she ran off crying like the special snowflake she thinks she is. Well, she’s not special. In fact, I actually think there’s something seriously wrong with her. I think she needs professional help.”
I stand frozen at my office door with my back to everyone. I should go inside, but I can’t. A cyclone of rage rises through my body as nausea settles deep in my gut. “None of that is true,” I say in a whisper to anybody who will listen.
I slowly turn around, then for probably the tenth time in the last month the bottom crashes out of my world. Ethan is standing directly behind me. When did he arrive? How much did he hear?
More importantly, why didn’t he leap to my defence? Or shout Jadine down? Or fire her on the spot?
I go inside my office.
“Violet, wait!”
He follows me inside and closes my door. I turn around to face him. “That was what I’ve been trying to tell you about her.”
He stares at me, completely dumbstruck. “I’ll speak to Lucas about her.”
“Don’t bother,” I say. “I need to get out of here. I’ll take the rest of the day as holiday.”
“What about tonight? I want to see you.”
“I can’t, Ethan. I wouldn’t be good company tonight. I need to be by myself.”
“But, Vi—”
I pick up my coat and bag and walk to the door. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”
25
ETHAN CALLED ME LAST NIGHT. After Jadine humiliated me in front of the entire office and I cancelled our date, he rang to ask if he could come around. I put him off with a lie. I told him I was planning a girly night in with Freja and Georgie to talk things over, but in reality I stayed home alone and overthought everything that it was possible to overthink about. I fell asleep reading my Kindle – some totally unrealistic romance about a billionaire CEO with ripped muscles (naturally), who falls in love with his assistant. Just what I needed, huh? Maybe I should have gone the whole hog and watched frigging Love Actually.
I called in sick this morning.
And I wasn’t even fibbing. Well, not much. You see, I am sick. Yesterday at approximately quarter to one in the afternoon, just after I’d confronted Jadine, I realised I was suffering – physically and emotionally – from heartache. Then, when I switched on my phone this morning at precisely two minutes past eight, this Facebook check-in notification sealed the deal:
Jadine Clark is drinking cocktails at Milk & Honey with Polly-Dolly Banana, Ruby Sloan, Penny Piper and Ethan Fraser.
There’s a line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “Et tu, Brute?”
It’s the only phrase that fits.
I cried for an hour, then I switched my phone off.
I half expected Ethan to call my home phone, but he didn’t. All day I was waiting for my doorbell to ring, but aside from the postman and a courier wanting to leave a parcel for my upstairs neighbour, nobody called.
All day, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him. After everything she’s done to me, why would he go out with them? Almost four years of friendship has told me that Ethan would turn up to the opening of an envelope if drinking and dancing were on the cards, but I still can’t comprehend why he would do this to me.
So today I realised something else. Every single steamy romance novel and fluffy chick-flick is entirely responsible for the pain I’m feeling. They all lied to me. They led me to believe that heartache is romantic, but it isn’t. They told me my happy ever after was just around the corner, but it wasn’t. They all must be written by women who hate women, because there’s absolutely no beauty in this. My heartache started one rainy day in May when Ethan told me he was in love with me. I already knew I’d fallen in love with him too. I knew it from the way my stomach leapt when he entered the room. I knew from the way my body responded when he smiled “my smile” at me. But ever since Tribe launched, my symptoms have turned into bone-deep cuts. It hurts when I have to work with someone he’s dated, or had a fling with, or one-night-only screwed. It jars when he’s thoughtless or he doesn’t understand me. Worst of all is the razor-sharp agony of knowing he’s incapable of fighting for me.
I wish I knew how to treat the symptoms. I already know there’s no cure.
Tonight is the night of Tribe’s Christmas party. It’s two weeks until the big day, but in mid-December you can’t go anywhere in London without hordes of half-cut office workers wearing tinsel and Santa hats falling and puking all over the pavement in front of you. I can’t say I want to go. I don’t like Christmas and I hate parties. Actually, there’s still a very good chance that I won’t go.
Max is due to pick me up at nine – as late as possible, of course – so I have an hour to make up an excuse. I’m dressed in a red sequined shift dress bought online from Selfridges, together with nude pumps and a Belle Oaks clutch bag. I thought the bag would add a touch of irony to the evening. I should put the hour to good use and fix my hair, but I switch on the TV and catch up with Netflix instead. I search for something uplifting, something that will ease the huge pit of dread that’s been swirling around in my gut all day. I find an episode of Modern Family that I haven’t seen, and I’m just about to press play when my doorbell rings. I look at my watch. I’ll kill him – it’s only twenty past eight.
I open my door, ready to chew Max’s head off, but I’m met by the goddess-like presence of Stella Judd instead. Then I do what I always do when Stella is near me: I swallow down my nerves and feel hopelessly, overwhelmingly inadequate.
She’s wearing a dazzling white cocktail dress with a matching white jacket which cinches in at her waist with a stiff lace ruffle. Stella always looks as if she’s just walked down a Chanel catwalk, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her wear the same outfit twice. I make a mental note to dress better, but as that would require a talent for shopping at the right shops, I know that I won’t.
“Violet, can I come in?”
My heart leaps. “Of course.” I follow her through to my sitting room and notice how immaculately coloured her platinum-blonde hair is. She must be twenty years older than me, so I’m reminded of my five wiry grey hairs with immense shame. I need to bite the bullet and dye them, but I resent doing that at my age.
“I’ve been in talks with Belle Oaks, our legal team and the board for the past two days.”
“Uhm . . . yes, Ethan said.”
“And?”
My neck muscles knot with tension. “And . . . I’ve been worried. I feel terrible about what’s happened. Georgie does too.”
“Georgie is off the hook. The woman is as dizzy as Minnie Mouse and I’m not sure how long I can put up with her bouncing around the office like she’s high on sugar and E-numbers, but she isn’t to blame for this. She sent you the correct print image; you should have checked before sending the wrong one.”
“Are you saying . . . Stella, I did send Media the correct image and the correct paperwork.”
“I have confirmation you forwarded both ads – the correct one and the incorrect one – by email. Then, you hand-delivered the wrong paperwork to Oliver Jones in Media. Oliver matched up the paperwork to the wrong image, and that is how that bloody dreadful Les Misérables monstrosity was sent to French Vogue.”
�
��What?” My chest tightens when the verdict is delivered. “That simply can’t be right. Stella, I am not lying. I absolutely did not give Media paperwork connected to the Les Misérables ad. I didn’t even produce any paperwork for it.”
The frosty, determined look she’s had on her face since she arrived is replaced with confusion. “Then where did they get the file from?”
My brain whirrs. “Where did Oliver say he got the file from?”
“He said it was hand-delivered to him by you.”
“I gave him the rights specs, Stella.” I don’t bother to disguise the anger in my voice. This isn’t right. “You’ve known me for years. Does this sound like me?”
“Ordinarily, I’d have said no. But people are talking and they’re saying you’ve been a little unhinged of late. You chose not to let me in on what happened with Cosmo Hines, so the only story I’ve heard is his. He told HR that Max threatened him because you ran off in the middle of making out with him. Violet, I don’t have to tell you how I feel about office romances. You’ve made too many terrible decisions in the past, and now I’m facing yet another lawsuit.”
“That isn’t true.” I cringe at how much my voice is shaking. “I didn’t spend the night at Cosmo’s, and I certainly didn’t sleep with him. I was only there because I was sick. Max threatened . . . I mean, he got angry with Cosmo . . . because he behaved badly.”
Her lips thin and her hands shoot to her hips. “What did he do?”
I sigh inwardly. I thought explaining that I threw a glass of wine over a client because he’d neglected to tell me about his fiancée before we slept together was the most embarrassing and intimate thing I’d ever have to explain to Stella. Looks like I was wrong.
“He came on to me, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer until I told him for the fourth time. Then I got mugged outside his house and he didn’t help me, so that’s why Max got . . . a bit upset with him.”
Stella shakes her head and exhales deeply. “Why do things like this keep happening to you?”
It's Complicated (The Agency Book 2) Page 25
