Cake at Midnight

by Jessie L. Star

  She said it so fast it took him a moment to understand her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ari’s head shoot up and his typing falter.

  It was not what Theo had expected. He’d been avoiding Ann because he was sure, as one of O’Connor’s biggest admirers – even after what he’d done to her – she was wanting to put a good word in for him. He’d even thought she might have wanted to ask him to reinstate O’Connor as part of their team. It galled him to have read the situation so incorrectly, to have been the one assigning O’Connor a greater level of importance than was warranted in this instance. Still, he’d beat himself up about it later.

  ‘You think?’ he asked carefully, waiting patiently as Ann fiddled with the hem of her blouse and flushed a couple of shades pinker.

  ‘Yeah. We ran into each other at the coffee cart a few weeks ago and she bought me a coffee and was just asking some general stuff about the team, which I thought was okay. But then, we keep running into each other and her questions are getting to be more about if you’re talking about future projects, what the team’s business plan looks like for the next financial year, if you seem distracted or distant. And today she asked about whether you’ve mentioned that girl you went to your sister’s unveiling with and it just all feels a bit . . . pointed.’

  Given the circumstances, none of these questions came as a surprise, but Theo felt his stomach sink anyway. He would’ve liked another couple of weeks before Harry Anderson’s job offer was found out by Vanessa.

  ‘Has she said why she’s asking?’ He didn’t think Vanessa would’ve been that indiscreet, and was proved right as Ann shook her head.

  ‘I know it’s what she does – it’s her job – I just thought you’d probably want to know.’

  He forced himself to relax his shoulders, to hide how interested he actually was in this information. ‘And?’ he asked slowly. ‘What have you told her?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘Nothing concrete, just vague stuff. I wouldn’t tell her anything I didn’t think you’d want her to know. You’re . . .’ She faltered for a moment, but then said, ‘you’re a good boss.’

  It was clearly awkward for her to say, it was certainly awkward for him to hear, but he smiled anyway. ‘I appreciate that. Thank you for telling me.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ She seemed cheered by his thanks, but then her face fell again and she had a quick look around before she added, ‘Could you not . . . could you maybe not tell her that I told you? Vanessa’s an Allsopp, I don’t want to get in trouble.’

  ‘You know I don’t break confidences.’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded so enthusiastically she looked momentarily like a bobble-head doll. ‘I do. Okay, well, I’ll leave you to it then. ’Night.’

  ‘Have a good evening.’

  Theo watched Ari wait until Ann turned out of sight and then leap from his desk and into Theo’s office, practically slamming the glass door behind him.

  ‘I didn’t know!’ he hissed. ‘Since when does Herself start poking around and I don’t know about it? I’m sorry, Bossman, that’s a serious lapse.’

  Theo waved his hand dismissively. ‘You can’t know everything.’

  Ari looked incredibly affronted. ‘Knowing everything is my job. I’m not having some rich-girl master manipulator outdoing me. And, speaking of the master manipulator, she’s obviously onto you.’ He hitched himself onto the corner of Theo’s desk, looking grave. ‘It’s not going to take her long to figure out where you’re considering going. Abort! Abort!’

  ‘I’m not afraid of Vanessa,’ Theo said stubbornly and Ari snorted.

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  ‘I admit it’d be easier if she didn’t know about the offer on the table,’ Theo continued, ignoring his assistant’s typically accurate assessment, ‘but it doesn’t ostensibly change anything.’

  At that moment, his mobile started to vibrate and, seeing Giovanna’s name on the screen, he snatched it up, forgetting about Vanessa in an instant.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, much too quickly, swivelling in his chair to avoid the smirk he just knew Ari was sending his way.

  ‘Hey.’ It was less of a word, and more of a sigh, completely different from the bouncy way she’d talked to him less than an hour ago.

  ‘Are you–’ he started to ask at the same moment she said, ‘Could you come–’

  They both stopped and then Theo said, ‘Come where?’ He was already standing and grabbing up his keys and wallet. ‘Where are you?’

  There was a pause and then she said, possibly in an even smaller voice than the one she’d used before, ‘You’re not going to like it.’

  15

  He didn’t like it, that much was obvious as Theo emerged through the trees ringing the edge of the green space that hosted The Brother. Even in the pale twilight, I saw the wary way his eyes flickered over the sculpture and then immediately away, but I just hadn’t had the energy to drag myself to a less fraught location.

  I stood and he strode over, his chin up and shoulders broad, looking every bit the in-control, successful businessman that he was. And, god, it was such a relief to see him. He was just so solid and reassuring, so lacking in the furious hurt that Dec had hummed with.

  As he reached me, I sagged and then leant forward to press my forehead to his shoulder, my arms hanging loosely by my side. It was an awkward pose, but I couldn’t hug him, not with the feel of Dec enfolding me still so recent.

  I felt Theo’s hand cup the back of my head and then heard him ask, ‘I take it things didn’t go too well with Declan?’

  I liked that he used Dec’s actual name, rather than his AHC-preferred last name, but the question itself was a tricky one.

  ‘Yeah,’ I admitted, ‘“not well” pretty much covers it.’ Stepping back reluctantly, I crossed my arms across my chest. ‘He’s pretty angry.’

  ‘And aren’t you?’

  I looked up at him in surprise and he clarified, ‘It’s not been thirty days, has it?’

  We hadn’t talked about that night when I’d asked Theo how long he thought it took to get over someone since it’d happened – hadn’t talked about Dec at all, in fact, since we’d agreed to be modern about our semi-relationship. He’d always been the elephant in the room, though, or one of the elephants at least. Frankly, with all the Leventises, Vanessa, Dec and ‘no expectations’ elephants we had tramping about in the background of our interactions, we probably could have started a circus.

  ‘No, but Dec wanted to tell me . . .’ I trailed off, wondering how on earth I was supposed to bring up Dec’s accusations against Theo without making them sound like, well, accusations. ‘And it doesn’t sound right to me,’ I added as I sank onto the bench behind me, ‘but I don’t think Dec would lie to me about it either, so I’m just a bit . . . confused.’

  ‘Tell you?’ Theo hesitated for a moment, then joined me on the bench, leaving a gap between us that felt a kilometre wide.

  ‘About you kicking Dec off your team at work and, um, how you got together then broke it off with your fiancé. Oh god!’ I buried my head in my hands. ‘It sounds so stupid and gossipy when I say it out loud. Actually–’ I lifted my head again, ‘–it is stupid and gossipy. Forget I said anything, I’m sorry, none of this is any of my business.’

  There was a long silence after I’d spoken, and the last of the paler patch of sky darkened into proper night as Theo stared straight ahead.

  I’d offended him, I must have. I would’ve been offended, were I him. After all the time we’d spent together over the past month and how continually kind and supportive he’d been to me, to then go and throw stuff in his face that I didn’t know anything about? Well, it displayed none of the respect or grace Aggie would’ve wanted from me, that’s for sure.

  I turned to him, about to apologise again, but he spoke before I got the chance.

  ‘Declan’s removal from my team is something I’ve agreed not to discuss. And I’m not saying that to criticise you for asking,’ he added, no d
oubt seeing my stricken expression, ‘I’m just explaining why I won’t talk about it. It’d be going back on my word.’

  “Theo the honourable”, I thought.

  Still, agreed with whom not to discuss the details? With Dec? If so, Dec had not been sticking to his end of the bargain.

  ‘With regards to my relationship with Vanessa, however, there are probably a number of details I could set straight.’ His language was so formal, so business-like, that it felt like he’d switched off the Theo I knew and brought Killer into play to get him through the conversation.

  ‘Honestly, you don’t have to–’ I started, but he shook his head.

  ‘I’m aware Declan isn’t one of my biggest fans, so I can imagine the story he’s told you. I’d like the opportunity to offer my side of it.’

  Put that way, it was fair enough, but I still felt wretched for bringing it up and was about to suggest we leave it for tonight when he asked, ‘Do you remember when I told you about my mentor?’

  I thought back to that first night we’d walked back to our building and nodded. ‘The difficult one?’

  ‘Yes. Christian Lechstein. He’s a legend in the industry, the holy grail of mentors. It was something of a rite of passage at the business faculty I attended to request he work with you, even though no-one ever expected to be accepted.’

  I pulled my legs onto the bench, shuffling myself around so I was sitting cross-legged, facing him.

  ‘But you were?’ I prompted, trying not to show how uneasy I was at having even one part of Dec’s story confirmed.

  ‘Yes. In my final year at university I received a phone call from Lechstein agreeing to mentor me until I was successful in my first workplace consultancy position. He was known as a difficult person, as a tough negotiator, so I expected him to be strict. What I didn’t expect was the obvious, all-encompassing resentment he exhibited towards me from day one. The arrangement was voluntary, there was no requirement for him to work with me, but he made it clear he begrudged having to have anything to do with me.’ Theo’s voice was even, he sounded and looked every inch the composed narrator, but this disengagement from his own story, and the way he was still refusing to look at me, spoke volumes.

  ‘Lechstein was the one who suggested we talk each day and I shadow him half a day a week, but he acted as if I’d been the one demanding such constant access. His attitude made things so difficult that, if I hadn’t been learning so much and making so many valuable contacts, I would’ve called the deal off. In fact, I did once, but he just rang me the next day at the usual time and, when I tried to protest, told me that we had an agreement and there was no more to talk about. As far as he was concerned, he would cease mentoring me when I got a job, and not before.

  ‘When it came time for me to start applying for positions, I assumed a desire to get rid of me was behind his insistence that I apply for each and every job that came up, including one at a firm called Jessop & King that called for much more experience than I could claim. I couldn’t believe it when my application was successful, but I told myself it was pay off for the hard work I’d put in with Lechstein.’

  His mask slipped for a moment and I heard a sour self-deprecation in his tone that made my chest thrum with sympathy.

  ‘That first year at Jessop & King was the hardest of my life,’ he continued. ‘I literally lived at work, sleeping on the couch in reception and keeping a supply of shirts and an iron in my filing cabinet. I was determined to prove wrong all the people, including myself, who’d thought I wouldn’t be able to do the job straight out of university. And when I succeeded I was so proud of myself. I thought I’d conquered a real challenge, that I’d proven I wasn’t just the Leventis or Apperston name. What I didn’t know at the time was that all I was actually doing was proving I was a McKillop.’

  I sat up a little straighter at that last bit. In essence, his story so far had matched Dec’s, but that made it sound like . . .

  I opened my mouth to ask for clarification, but he was already speaking again.

  ‘I worked at Jessop & King for four years. It was a fast-paced and intellectually driven environment that suited me, and I was promoted twice. I thought, after having such different interests from my family growing up, that I’d finally found my place. In my third year I started receiving interest from headhunters, but I didn’t engage with them. As far as I was concerned, Jessop & King had shown a great deal of faith in me in appointing me in that first role, and I had no intention of betraying that trust.’

  He took a deep breath and flicked a quick look at me before looking away.

  ‘Near the beginning of my fourth year, however, right after winning the Aver Award, I was approached by a woman called Vanessa Allsopp from Allsopp, Hudson & Clarke. AHC were, are, Jessop & King’s direct competitor and I told her from the very beginning that I wasn’t interested in going to work for my rival. She was persistent, though, and the offers for my defection became more and more generous. It developed into a sort of game, each of us seeing how far the envelope was going to be pushed, each of us strong-minded enough to assume that we’d ultimately be the one to win out. Vanessa is confident and smart. And beautiful,’ he added, almost as an afterthought, ‘and, before long, I started to enjoy her company separate from the ego boost of the outrageous employment package she was offering. We met often, weekly lunches or dinners that, after the first couple of months, no longer had anything to do with work. We were dating.’

  The ‘d’ word caused a little frisson between us, an awareness of how the word was so specifically not being applied to whatever we were doing.

  ‘It was a conflict of interest, obviously,’ he went on, framing it like a confession, as if I’d accused him. ‘But one I thought I’d mitigated by making it clear that I wasn’t going to accept her offer to work at AHC. Still, we both knew that we walked a fine line. Neither of our firms would’ve been pleased to know we were in a relationship, and so Vanessa’s role as headhunter worked in our favour, giving us an excuse to meet. I was so focused on how far our liaison pushed the professional boundaries that I didn’t see the real trouble coming.’

  ‘The emails?’ I asked and he nodded.

  ‘The emails. That bit’s probably as Declan told it. Jessop & King downsized their IT department and, upon being fired, an employee called Leif forwarded a series of the CEO’s more compromising emails to the entire company. Most of the contents came as no surprise, under-the-table deals and unflattering assessments of various members of the board. What did come as a surprise, at least to me, was information regarding McKillop having paid Lechstein to mentor and then promote me to the company. I’d had no idea, none. I’d picked up that things may not have been going as well as they perhaps previously had with his consultancy, but Lechstein was incorruptible in my mind. I’d thought he was above the politicking and back-scratching that goes on in this business, had admired him for it, even. Still, it transpired that McKillop was one of Lechstein’s biggest accounts and when the client had said “jump”, he’d jumped. Lechstein and King were old school friends and it apparently only took a few lunches and bottles of wine for King to agree to take me on.’

  Maybe Dec would’ve said that nepotism was still nepotism whether you knew about it or not, but Theo’s ignorance, his obvious repulsion, of what’d been done on his behalf made all the difference in the world from where I was sitting.

  ‘Were you close to your dad, then?’ I asked gently. ‘Your biological one, I mean?’

  Theo made a soft scoffing noise. ‘At the time of him paying Lechstein to mentor me I hadn’t spoken to McKillop for three years, and even then it’d only been one conversation to tell him I was taking his last name, but not to read anything into it. Being a McKillop was something I could legitimately lay claim to and, if I’m honest, something I knew would annoy Philomena and Harvey, but I made it clear that adopting the name didn’t mean I wanted anything to do with him.

  ‘It sounds harsh,’ he added, glancing at me again as
if to check whether I was judging him, ‘but McKillop spent my entire childhood trying to get to Philomena, to the Leventis name, through me. He runs a freight company he inherited from his father, a relatively stable job and industry, and yet there’s something about him that craves notoriety. From what I can tell, he’d been trying to get Philomena to give him the time of day for years before she chose him to get revenge on Harvey with. And he was thrilled when she became pregnant with me, seeing me as the way into their exclusive club. I was very young when I realised his periodic threats to sue for custody were nothing to do with me, that he only ever wanted to be around me if it meant being seen as part of the Leventises.’

  ‘For god’s sake!’ Theo looked at me in surprise, his eyebrows raised at my sudden exclamation. ‘Is there anyone in your life who doesn’t find some way to screw you over?’

  He considered me carefully. ‘A couple of people spring to mind.’

  I felt my mouth round into an ‘oh’, but he moved on before I could vocalise it.

  ‘So, because I hadn’t seen him for years and because my existence, separate from my family’s, had barely ever seemed to register with McKillop, I hadn’t foreseen his arrangement with Lechstein. And, if it’d been intended as a way to make up for his years of disinterest as he’s been trying to tell me ever since, it backfired. Finding out at the same time as everyone else . . . it was difficult.

  ‘As I said, I hadn’t been courting other offers from organisations, but I definitely noticed when they dried up. I couldn’t stay at Jessop & King, not after the email leak, but I refused to leave the industry altogether. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and I wasn’t going to be driven out of the sector I’d worked so hard in, that I’d been excelling in. Still, despite winning the Aver one year, I was a pariah by the next, becoming a sort of cautionary tale for new graduates. I was damaged goods, and the only firm that’d still take me–’

  ‘Was AHC.’

  ‘Yes. I tried to tell myself that they could see through the scandal to the high-level work product I could bring to the firm, but there was no denying it came down to my relationship with Vanessa.’