Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
CHARLEY
I push through the doors of our office building, already a few minutes late, mostly due to the long queue in the coffee shop.
I could’ve left without being served, but the coffee from the machine at work is barely drinkable, and I like my early morning coffee to be good, really good, to set me up for the day.
Surely it can’t matter if I’m a few minutes late.
I stayed until it had gone seven the other night to finish that damn report for Miles.
I won’t get paid overtime for that or be allowed any time off in lieu, so if it takes a few minutes to get a good coffee so I can actually face the day at work, then I’m going to do it.
“There’s some post for you, Charley,” Sandra calls out once I’ve pushed the call button for the lifts.
I sigh and turn back to the reception desk.
As soon I get there I can hear the doors ping open.
I grab the envelope she hands me and spin back round.
I might just make it before they close again.
I rush in and the door swishes closed behind me.
Only then do I realise that Miles is already in the lift.
I stifle a groan. Now he knows I’m late and my chances of being able to slide into my desk unnoticed are gone.
He looks at me as if he’s thinking up the most derogatory thing to say when he spots the envelope still in my hand.
“What’s that? You know you aren’t allowed to receive personal mail at work.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” I say, looking at it for the first time.
The only mail I usually receive are mailshots from companies wanting to sell advertising space.
But this is handwritten, so it doesn’t look like that.
I stuff it into my bag so Miles can’t see it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he demanded I hand it over.
We travel the rest of the way up to the twentieth floor, which is where the business is situated, in silence.
The doors open and I hang back, letting Miles exit first. I follow, but before I get two steps he calls out to me.
“My office, now,” he barks before striding away to his corner office. I reach my desk and quickly put down my coffee and bag and shrug off my coat before following him. He doesn’t offer me a seat but I take one anyway.
“You’re late this morning.”
“I was getting coffee, there was a queue. But I stayed for two hours extra the other day to finish the quarterly report for you.”
Not liking that I answered him back, he starts a rant but I only half listen.
I watch the vein in his neck bulge and wonder why I ever thought him attractive.
I was flattered of course, when he paid attention to me a couple of months after I started working for him.
I’d just broken up with Tony, and we’d been together for nearly five years.
He was—still is—a good guy, but there was no spark there.
For either of us. We parted amicably, but even so, I was in a low place and the flattery I received from Miles was a balm to that.
We went out on a few dates, always very secretive.
We even had sex, though the thought of that makes me gag now so I try to block it from my mind.
“And I expect that to be done by Monday.” I zone back into the room and realise I have no idea what he’s saying.
“Sorry, what needs to be done by Monday?”
“Haven’t you been listening?” Nope, I’ve been pondering what an odious man you are.
“I’m just seeking clarification.” I try to make it sound like I haven’t missed everything. He gives me an exasperated sigh.
“Julia is off sick. I need all the details for the Reynolds event by Monday so I can go through it with them.”
“But it’s Friday,” I say hoping he’ll realise the tight timescale.
“Then you’d better get on with it. This is an important new client, don’t let me down,” he says and then turns to his computer, clearly dismissing me.
Julia works with corporate clients, fully arranging their events, like awards and dinners, while I work mostly in venue hire, which is slightly different.
I just hope she’s an organised person and I can find all the information.
I hurry to my desk and pull out my laptop and switch it on.
I take a swig of my coffee as I wait for it to boot up, pulling a face as it’s half cold and I prefer it super hot.
Luckily I’d finished the information marketing needed on the new venue yesterday and have some time today.
I log into the network and go to the Reynolds folder in the corporate area.
I can see that she’s started, but there’s not much information.
Just a brief outline of the event, the date, and the number of attendees.
I know that Miles will be wanting to present a range of venues with full costings for the client.
It’s going to take me all day to do this.
I inwardly curse both Miles and Julia. That seems mean to her, but I wonder if she’s off sick as she knows this is due Monday.
I quickly grab a substandard coffee from the machine—at least it’s hot—and get to work.
No one disturbs me. Miles’s treatment of me has made trying to make friends at work almost impossible. People either pity me or don’t want to get too close, as if I’m tainted by his control over me.
By five o’clock I’m still not finished, but I know I don’t have much more to go so I continue on, trying to ignore those around me shutting down their computers for the weekend and telling each other their weekend plans.
No one ever asks me that. Mostly I’ll be spending time in my expensive flat alone.
Sometimes I might go out to a club on Friday night.
Manchester has a vibrant gay scene, and I occasionally like to hang out in the gay village, but if I’m honest, it’s not for me.
I’m more of a stay at home with a book or a good series on TV kind of guy. I’m a small town guy at heart.
I finally complete the report at six and email it over to Miles ready for Monday.
Only the cleaners are in the office when I leave.
It’s the second time this week I’ve worked late, and the small smile one of them gives me as I pack up hits home at just how crap my life has become.
I’m too tired to cook, and very hungry as I missed lunch, so I grab a burger from the place under the block where my flat is and take it home with me.
I plonk my bag down on the counter in the kitchen, then I reach for a plate.
I might buy fast food, but if I’m at home, I can at least pretend it didn’t come in a carton.
I sit down ready to eat and notice the edge of the envelope peeking out of my bag.
I’d completely forgotten about it with the work Miles gave me.
I draw it out and regard it. It doesn’t look like the usual mail I receive at work.
The postmark is smudged so I can’t see where it came from, and I turn it over but there’s no return address.
I prop it up against my bag while I finish my dinner, pondering who could’ve sent it.
It came to work so it’s probably nothing important, and as I’ve done enough overtime I could stuff it back into my bag until Monday.
I’m halfway to doing that when my curiosity gets the better of me and I open it.
Inside is a folded piece of writing paper.
My mouth goes dry. Is this some sick game of Miles’s?
Is that why he sent it to work, so he’d know it had arrived.
Was he waiting in the lift for me this morning, ready to comment on it?
I wouldn’t put it past him to do something like that.
I glance around, as if he’s close and can see inside my flat.
He has mob connections, could he have it bugged?
I shake my head. This is ridiculous, I’m just overtired from the stress at work.
But still, my hands shake a little as I reach for the paper and unfold it.
Charley,
Silver Heather had a foal, Silver Arrow.
He’s ready to play this season.
He’s yours.
Please reconsider my offer to come and be the centre manager.
Gabriel
That’s all there is on the note except for a phone number.
I stare at it for a long moment, then the memories flood in.
Silver Heather was my favourite of Gabriel’s horses.
An Argentinian polo pony with wise brown eyes.
She was roan, which to me looked like she was dark pinkish grey with a frosty covering.
She was the first horse I rode when I started to learn, never minding when I was clumsy and uncoordinated.
She put up with my bumbling attempts at polo, and I played my first match on her when I was fifteen.
I obviously didn’t have any of my own horses, Uncle Pete couldn’t afford anything like that.
But Gabriel was always generous with his own.
He even joked that Silver Heather was more my horse than his.
And now he was giving me her son, or at least the chance to ride him in polo matches.
It’s too much but it’s completely Gabriel, and I can’t help the smile that breaks out across my face.