The Partnership (Callaghan Green Series Book 10)

by Annie Dyer

  Jackson was already in the office when I got there, his tie not yet done and his hair still damp. His expression suggested that his day had already been at least two hours too long. The weight of the world after it had eaten a five-course meal at an all-you-can-eat buffet was permanently on Jackson’s shoulders when he was in the office. Before Vanessa, that weight had been carried to whichever building he’d been in, unless it was at the gym, when he lifted it instead. Since he’d met Vanessa, his axis had shifted slightly. At work he was still grumpy, busy, cross with other’s disorganisation, but as soon as he saw a photo of Teddy or heard Van’s voice or even spoke about them, he thrived as if they were a miraculous life-giving drink.

  “What time did you get here?” I messed with a button on my cuff.

  Jackson pushed his fingers through his hair, cut the shortest I’d seen it for years. “Just after five. I stopped at half six to go to the gym.”

  “Why so early?”

  He shook his head. “Babies. When you have one, you automatically give up your right to have any sleep at all.”

  I let out a laugh. I enjoyed Teddy’s torture of my brother, although it often resulted in Jackson being grumpier than usual.

  “Claire was saying that Niamh’s been sleeping six hours already.” It was probably too early in the day to be baiting Jackson, but I couldn’t resist; it was like having a tickling stick and a really ticklish person held down in front of you and not using it. “When I spoke to her yesterday she was telling me how - ”

  “Stop.” Jackson put his hands over his ears. “I don’t want to hear it. One day, Teddy will sleep through the night and so will me and Van. Actually,” he folded his arms and looked at me through slitted eyes. “Don’t you owe us a night of babysitting? A full night? One where we can go to a hotel and lie in bed…”

  “Please don’t finish that sentence. I don’t need to be scarred!” I covered my ears. It was all an act. I was well aware that all of my siblings had healthy relationships and big smirks on their faces some mornings which told me they’d got lucky. I was just fed up of being the only one who was playing a five fingered piano solo each night.

  “Sleep, Joseph, sleep. We just want a night where we can sleep from ten until eight, with no interruptions, nappy changes, feeds, crying for no known reason, loud bangs caused by some petulant ghost – just sleep.” He rubbed his eyes with his hand. “Please tell me you owe us a night.”

  I was pretty sure I didn’t, but given I’d shelved my social life in the cellar for the duration of the year, I was happy to spend a Friday night with my nephew.

  “I can do tonight. Book a hotel. Make sure you have fresh sheets on the bed. Not like last time.”

  Last time I’d stayed over, they’d forgotten to put fresh sheets in the guest room after Vanessa’s gran had stayed. I’d not only found her underwear, but also one of her vibrators. Safe to say, it was one of my nightmares come true.

  Gran, true to form, hadn’t been in the least apologetic. She’d also defended the unwashed sheets, saying there was no point in washing sheets if they’d only been slept in for a couple of nights. Bad for the environment.

  It had all been bad for my sanity. Whatever had been saved in terms of the environment was lost again with the amount of scorching hot water I used in the resulting shower.

  “The sheets will be fresh, although if Van makes them up, you might find her passed out on them when you get there. She’s on about two hours sleep today.” Jackson lightly slapped the side of his face, trying to wake himself up.

  “Is she working today?”

  My brother shook his head. “She’s not going into the office or seeing clients. Paperwork day.”

  Vanessa ran a marketing company, which was how she and Jackson had met. The company had grown over the last couple of years, tripling in size and giving her more flexibility to be with Teddy, which is what I knew Jackson would also like to be doing, but he couldn’t get away from the office as much.

  He was the chief operating officer, still retaining a small caseload, but for the majority of the time his job was to make sure we were all doing what we needed to. He dealt with a lot of the clients and his serious persona still went down well with the more traditional businesses we dealt with.

  The look he gave me was one I recognised. One that told me he was about to land a whole heap of shit on my desk.

  “What is it?”

  He mumbled something completely unintelligible, but I caught one word: Hartfords.

  Dread infiltrated my every vein.

  “Did you say Hartfords?”

  Jackson nodded.

  “Did you refer them to a different practice?”

  Jackson shook his head.

  “Did you tell them I was emigrating to the Seychelles?”

  “That would be a lie.”

  “No, it wouldn’t, because if you agreed to take on another case from them, I will be emigrating to the Seychelles and sending you a postcard from the beach while drinking my Paloma cocktail and being fed grapes. David Hartford is not worthy of the label ‘human being’.” There wasn’t much I felt strongly on: I could accept it if people got my coffee order wrong or bought me the wrong size T-shirts, but working with the Hartfords again was a hard limit. They were two brothers who owned a chain of mid-range jewellery stores across the country. Both were arseholes.

  The sigh from Jackson was enough to power a wind farm for two weeks. “I’ve said yes. It’s a big case. It will be high profile. You wanted a high-profile case and given what it entails, I think you’ll be the best person to lead it. And you have Georgia starting - and she’ll be able to help.”

  “Who are they trying to sue now?” Georgia, that was her name. I’d had Georgie in my head. Glad to know it now so I didn’t cock it up on Monday.

  “Each other. They’re selling the business, only neither are agreeing to a fifty-fifty split. I’ve left a message for Ebby to see if he can act as the forensic accountant for us.” Jackson pinched the top of his nose. “Anyway. I need coffee and to let Van know you’re babysitting tonight so we can go somewhere to sleep. Thanks for that, Seph.”

  I shook my head, watching his back as he walked away. “When are you giving me the rest of these details about the Hartfords?”

  “Later. Monday. You have a meeting with David at midday.” The last word was pretty much lost in a yawn. “Coffee. Need coffee.”

  I watched him go, grinning, but at the same time feeling a pinch of envy that he’d been kept awake all night by his son. I was looking forward to a Friday night boys’ night with my nephew. I knew that said it all.

  My twin was studying a photograph on her phone when I found her in the archives to take her for lunch. Payton wasn’t always the best at taking breaks from her work; she’d forget to eat regularly, which meant she’d turn into some angry six headed beast mid-afternoon who was significantly hangry. I’d promised Owen I’d try to keep an eye on her during the day, as a pregnant and hangry Payton wasn’t what the world ever needed. We were trying to keep the arrangement from Payton, as any form of planning that she wasn’t involved in, was likely to send her into a category four storm, where Owen and I would become chopped debris.

  “Everything okay down here?” I’d tried to walk as noisily as I could. For some reason I’d inherited some stealth-like gene that meant I was regularly accused of scaring the shit out of my family. I didn’t do it on purpose, not most of the time anyway.

  “Urgh.” Payton turned around to look at me. “I was trying to dig out a file that Dad led on about twenty years ago it settled and it wasn’t uploaded to the shared drive.”

  I folded my arms. “This is what we have juniors for. They do shit like this, just like we had to.” I wanted to yell that being down here, in the cellars where it was damp and cold, was not the best idea. Plus, the steps weren’t even and Payton could easily trip over her own feet. Yelling, however, would do no good whatsoever. It would only get me sworn at.

  “True. I might
send Portia down here later.” Her expression turned evilly joyful.

  Portia was one of the juniors, employed because her father knew ours and owed him some sort of favour or had taken pity on the fact that Portia hadn’t had any success in landing a job and hadn’t managed to get on a legal practice course yet. She was young and entitled, used to having people to wait on her, rather than her being at someone’s beck and call. Payton had very much enjoyed having her in her department so far.

  I nodded. “That’s what she’s there for. Fancy grabbing lunch?”

  Payton’s face lit up. “Yes! Food. I forgot I was getting hungry when I came down here. How about gyozas with soy sauce from that place around the corner?”

  My own stomach rumbled. I’d happily eat anything. “Your call, you pay.” That was the usual rule, even with pregnant women.

  She grumbled and shot me daggers, but less than five minutes later we were out of the office doors and walking at the speed of marathon runners to a little eatery whose tables and chairs were plastic but the food was gourmet.

  She didn’t start talking until she’d inhaled three of the gyozas and gulped half a bottle of water.

  I ignored her lack of table manners. Mine were no better and I didn’t have the excuse of being a hangry pregnant woman.

  “I met Georgia on Monday.” She pushed another gyoza into her mouth.

  “Georgia. The new partner.” I popped open a can of cola. “What’s she like?”

  Payton swallowed. I was convinced she had the jaw skills of a boa constrictor with the rate she was eating. “She’s really nice. Smart. You’ll get along well with her and I think she’ll bring a lot to your team. You won’t have to nanny her through cases either; she’s had tons of experience.”

  “Good. I need someone to help out with the fee earners who still need their arses wiping.” We had three, decent, recently-qualified solicitors who all had great skills and amazing potential, they just needed my opinion before proceeding with anything, and by anything, getting a phone call at eight in the evening to check through an advice they’d written wasn’t unusual.

  Payton nodded, her mouth full again. I busied myself with the noodles I’d ordered and wondered whether I had enough food. It was a common issue I had.

  Payton gestured to the server for more gyozas, giving him a big smile. “How was Shay after his big night out?”

  I shook my head, despairing. “It’s like he has a magic hangover cure. He sent me a selfie this morning of him at the top of the London Eye. Apparently, he’s gone off being a tourist for the day. There was a blonde in the selfie, not one I recognised from yesterday either.”

  “He’s a bigger manwhore than you ever were.” She sat back and seemed to swallow a burp. “I don’t think I can eat anymore.”

  “That’s probably a good thing, seeing as you’ve just devoured everything they’ve prepped for the next two days.”

  “You’re not meant to say things like that to your pregnant sister.”

  Her eyes were on my noodles. I moved them closer to me. I knew Payton and I knew she wasn’t beyond making a grab for them from across the table.

  “You’re not meant to eat like a caveman after a hunt! Anyway, about Shay.”

  She eyed me this time, instead of my noodles.

  “What about Shay? Maven told me he was looking for his own place.” She sipped her water a little more politely this time.

  I shrugged. “He isn’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because Shay’s doing one of four things: he’s at work; he’s at the gym; he’s in a bar partying or he’s with a woman. Or two.”

  “You sound like this wasn’t exactly the same thing you’d been doing up until you had this huge personality change which no one can get their heads around. Don’t be Judgy McJudgy Face.”

  I looked to the ceiling and asked whoever was on duty to grant Owen a sainthood. His very being meant that we didn’t have to put up with Payton for most of the time.

  “I’m not.” I really wasn’t. I’d lived Shay’s current lifestyle and found it very satisfying. Until it wasn’t.

  “Do you have a single friend we can set him up with?” I’d been thinking about this. If Shay was to start seeing someone, his nights out might cease ending with either me carrying him home or having a parade of randomers walking into the kitchen looking for sustenance to support a second – or fourth, as Shay would argue – round.

  Payton’s eyes narrowed. “Are you suggesting that I sacrifice one of my friendships to the god of one-night stands?”

  I twisted my mouth to one side and thought. She had a point. I’d tended to be a serial dater, apart from one patch when one-night stands – often not even a night – were my candy.

  “It might occupy him for longer than a night.”

  She shook her head. “Shay doesn’t do longer than a night. And I’m not feeding him anyone I know. I can’t take that responsibility. I was in a restaurant a few days ago; when I went to the bathroom there was a woman sobbing in there and he was the cause. Apparently she thought she’d met her Prince Charming – the best lay she’d ever had – and he never called back.”

  “How did you know it was him?”

  “Because the idiot gave her his name. She’d already stalked him across social media from what she was saying.”

  I wanted to suggest that maybe someone had pretended to be Shay, but I knew that would be bullshit.

  “I think he’s slept with half of London and he’s only been here six months.” My noodles weren’t tasting that good anymore.

  Payton raised one single eyebrow, a freaky thing that only she and our mother could do. Ava and I had missed out on that gene.

  “I think half is an exaggeration. He’s at work most of the time and before you say it, I’m not thinking about what he does on his breaks. But,” she leaned over the table and took my noodles. “I’m interested as to why you think Shay’s lifestyle’s an issue. Especially given that this was you for many months.”

  I looked at the door and then through the window. Anywhere but Payton’s eyes.

  “I like to know who’ll be in my kitchen in the morning before I go to bed.”

  She snorted. “I would’ve thought you’d have been loving having someone to go to bars with. After Callum got with Wren you were all lost soul-like, even though he was hardly ever in the country anyway. We all figured that having Shay would be good.” She paused. “For you.”

  “So I didn’t move back in with anyone?”

  Payton shrugged and picked up her half eaten gyoza. “Yeah. We’d have all had you back in our spare rooms, you know that, but…”

  “It was time I grew up.”

  She had the grace to look uncomfortable. “Well, yeah.”

  “Did Claire pass on her honesty pills for pregnant women?” Payton was blunt, but never this much. That was our elder sister, Claire’s job.

  She rolled her eyes. “We love you, Joseph, and we don’t want you to change, but everyone worries about you. Especially now.”

  I frowned. “Why now? I’m working really hard. I’m not out partying every night. I haven’t hooked up with a random woman for months…”

  “That’s why we’re worried about you. We’re worried you’re not enjoying yourself. Apart from Max. He’s hoping this phase lasts because your billing hours are through the roof.”

  “Good to know the hard work’s appreciated.” I leaned back in the chair. “And that you lot still care.” I gave her a half smile because I knew she’d be feeling like shit right now. We were twins and we’d always pretty much gotten along well. If I had news, she’d be the first person I told, and apart from Owen now taking first place, vice versa. “But I needed a change and I’m sick of being the party boy who can’t be relied on.”

  “We do rely on you, Seph. You make everyone smile. You’re fun and energetic and you see the best in everyone. You’re the antithesis of Max.” Her smile was back.

  “I know.” I didn�
�t lack confidence. I knew my strengths. “But I want to be more. I’m jealous that everyone but me has the beginnings of their own family, and I know that means meeting anyone right now would be stupid. I love being an uncle and I know I’d like my own kids – I’m just not in the right place right now for that to happen.”

  Her nod this time was slow. “You need to grow up.”

  “I need to be able to take myself seriously and not feel as if I live in my brothers’ shadows. That’s the problem when you’re in a family of massively successful people. It’s hard to find a podium you think you deserve.” Saying the words felt like a weight was flying off my shoulders. “I want to be a success in my own right.”

  “You already are.”

  She wiped at her eyes.

  “Shit, Payts, I didn’t mean to upset you. Owen’ll kill me.” I leaned over the table to wipe at her cheeks, just as I had when we were kids and Shelly Davis had called her every name under the sun because I wouldn’t go out with her.

  “I cry at anything. Hormones. I cried on Owen last night and that was because I’d finished the book I was reading.” Her jaw clenched.

  “Lucky Owen.”

  “I know. Maybe you need to take him for a night out. He’s stressed with the stores at the moment – one of his managers has left – and he then spends his evenings trying to look after me. And you know I’m not good at being looked after.”

  All the more reason for her never to know that I reported back to Owen on whether or not she’d managed to eat regularly. If she knew, we’d be her next meal.

  “I know. You’re pretty good at looking after yourself.”

  Her eyes filled up again, then hardened, as if a fast frost had just hit. “You’ve sworn off dating haven’t you?”

  I bit my thumb nail.

  “Seph, when’s the last time you slept with someone?”

  I shrugged.

  “Bullshit. Men always know the answer to that. Unless you’re Shay.”

  I shrugged again.

  Then winced as she kicked me in the shin.

  “Before the trip to Iceland.” Which was six months ago.