Chapter 25
In a bid to avoid Zach, I move about the office the following morning like a shifty double agent. The only thing missing is a brown mac, a trilby and a pair of dark glasses, possibly with a fake beard for good measure. I am on edge the entire time, refusing to walk around corners without first checking the coast is clear. I manage to make it through the morning without encountering him, but realise that this charade cannot be maintained when Calvin thrusts a Tupperware box in front of me and I nearly jump out of my seat.
‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. They’re just vegan brownies,’ he smiles. ‘I baked them at the weekend.’
‘They’re so delicious,’ gushes Daisy, as I take one. ‘What did you put in them, Calvin?’
As I take a bite, the first ingredients that spring to mind are treacle, turnips and Castrol GTX.
‘Sweet potato, prunes, avocado oil . . .’
I resist the temptation to say something about the wholesale demonisation of carbohydrates having a lot to answer for, but realise Calvin’s big, puppyish eyes are looking at me expectantly.
‘Abmoludey gorggus ,’ I mumble enthusiastically, suspecting it will take most of the day to unstick this small morsel from the roof of my mouth. ‘Well done you.’
Fortunately, neither he nor Daisy notice as I fold the rest into a napkin as they’re now too busy discussing the highlights of last night’s Antiques Roadshow . Most of today is tied up with presentations, but I have a few minutes to send a couple of emails, including to the production company of My Teenage Bombsite .
I’m still not entirely sure about this project. While it showed so much promise when we held a recent brainstorm with them, they’re digging their heels in about us wanting another, more experienced firm to get involved to hold their hand. They clearly resent the implication that they’re not capable of running the show, although, as I pointed out to Andrea, they’ll soon get over themselves if we end up with a hit on our hands.
After I’ve hit send on the last one, I pick up my bag and check the coast is clear before I cross the office to head for the stairs. There’s one hairy moment when I spot someone I think could be Zach chatting near the gents’ toilets, but I manage to conceal myself behind a large potted fig until they’ve gone. I dart towards the lifts and hit the button as Brendan phones.
‘I’m about to lose reception,’ I tell him, ‘but have you managed to speak to Leo?’
As a sign of how desperate I was, I phoned my ex-husband immediately after Leo had disappeared last night and told him what had happened. He’s his father, after all. Leo might live with me but I think my mum is right on this one: his father needs to know. In fact, ideally he needs to Do Something .
There was a short pause when I said those two words.
Then, after a long inhalation, he declared bullishly: ‘Leave this with me.’
Now, he tells me he phoned Leo at lunchtime and ‘had a good chat’. He sounds very positive.
‘Do you think you got through to him about staying at sixth form?’
I spent last night googling the sports academy he wants to go to, determined to keep an open mind. Its academic performance is atrocious. I’m sure he’d have enormous fun there – which obviously I want for him, just not at the expense of his whole future.
A place like that is going to close all his options, not widen them. How do I get through to him that he needs to put the work in, get the grades, then make an informed decision about what he wants to do with his life? All this sounds so sensible I’m almost boring myself to tears.
‘No doubt about it,’ he says confidently. ‘Although, are you absolutely sure he was vaping? He was determined you’d got that wrong and you didn’t see anything of the sort. Are you absolutely sure you saw it?’
‘Yes,’ I say, through gritted teeth.
‘It’s just, I really think I’d know if he was lying. He seemed very genuine, Lisa.’
‘I bet he did,’ I mutter, though I question myself a moment later. Maybe I’m not sure. Maybe this is the dreaded brain fog I’ve heard all about. It makes people feel as if they’re losing their mind, apparently. I can’t deny I feel like that quite a lot lately.
‘Either way, I don’t think you’re going to have any more problems,’ Brendan says confidently.
‘Really? Well, that really is . . . great. So thank you. I’ll be honest, I felt like I was hitting my head against the wall last night. There was no getting through to him.’
‘I think some things simply need to be dealt with man to man.’
I feel a stab of indignation. Or is it jealousy? It’s not good, either way. The thought that I’m the one who has raised this child – single-handedly, give or take the odd weekend in the Peak District – yet all it takes to get Leo to start listening is for Brendan to sweep in and talk to him. Man to man .
I shake the thought from my head. This is no time to be petty. It really doesn’t matter whether it’s me or Brendan who makes him see sense. The only important thing is that our son gets his act together.
‘So . . . what did he say exactly? That he’s going to start revising?’
‘He’s got the message, don’t you worry. Trust me Lisa, it’s all sorted .’
‘Right,’ I say, exhaling. ‘Well, that really is brilliant, Brendan, thank you.’
‘Any time,’ he says, with a Supermanish air.
I end the call just as the lift doors open. And I come face to face with Zach Russo.
He looks me in the eye as if daring me to glance away and some odd feeling swoops in my gut that I can only compare to the first big plummet on a fairground ride. He’s wearing a suit. I’ve never seen him in one before. Our office dress code is like most places in these post-pandemic days – smart but with mostly open collars.
Zach has a tie. Midnight blue, the same colour as his eyes. It’s juxtaposed with a white shirt that looks specifically designed to highlight how tanned and smooth the skin on his neck is. Meanwhile, his jacket, in a steely grey, emphasises the breadth of his shoulders, with a single button that meets precisely in the middle of that muscular torso.
He looks like a Hugo Boss model, all polish and attention to detail.
He looks – there’s no other way of putting this – insanely hot.
I consider running away, but as the lift begins to close, he puts his hand against the door to stop it.
‘Getting in?’
I swallow, then nod. ‘Yes.’
I step inside and the doors close.
We both look straight ahead for a few silent seconds and the only thing that fills my head is the intense, now familiar smell of him, with top notes of something else.
‘Like a mint?’ he asks, offering me a Tic Tac.
So that’s what it was.
‘No thanks,’ I say, followed by a stab of paranoia that my breath smells.
He turns his head to look at me.
‘I texted you a few times,’ he says.
I fix my eyes on the doors. ‘I know.’
‘Are you feeling a little . . . weird about what happened on Friday night?’
Weird is one word. Horny is another.
All I can now think about is the slide of his tongue against mine. The feel of his triceps beneath my fingers. The warm wetness of his mouth on my neck. An unwelcome heaviness settles between my legs.
‘I am, yes.’
I keep my eyes firmly ahead until I can resist no longer.
‘Are you? ’ I ask.
‘Sure,’ he shrugs. ‘But nice weird. You are one hell of a kisser, Darling . . .’
His eyelashes lower to my lips. My breath hovers somewhere in my chest . Oh my fucking hell. I want to kiss this man so badly. I want his hands on my behind again. The muscles of his chest pressed against my breasts. I want to tilt my face and relinquish myself so his tongue can move deeper and deeper into my mouth. I realise from the look on his face that something, if not identical, then certainly similar, is running through his head.
The doors open.
‘Ahoy there!’ says Giles, who shuffles in between us.
The presentation is taking place in our largest meeting room – in front of more than 100 people. I’ve never felt entirely comfortable with an audience of this size – too many flashbacks to being cast in the school play, as one of Miss Hannigan’s orphans in Annie . But Zach looks so relaxed you’d think he was on vacation.
I slink to the back and take a seat next to a twenty-something bearded guy I recognise vaguely as being new in IT. He’s watching a trailer for the Japanese Godzilla on his phone, looking very much as if this is the last place he wants to be.
I sit next to him and, recognising me as someone senior, he coughs and puts his phone away. I consider reassuring him that I too have been known to multitask during meetings. But he probably doesn’t want to know about my pelvic floor exercises, or that I had to stop when Rose pointed out I’d never entirely mastered the art of doing them without simultaneously pulling strange facial expressions.
Krishna is on first, for an introduction about the need to take time out of our day-to-day jobs and ‘future proof’ the business. This is followed by a session with some guy from a consultancy, presenting his research about ‘the viewer experience’, before we split off briefly for a break. Then it’s Zach’s turn – to deliver a talk called ‘Innovations in free ad-supported streaming TV’.
I already suspected he’d be polished, confident and slightly overfamiliar, because everyone in the LA office is. At the risk of sounding like a West End theatre reviewer, he is that – but also more. He’s engaging and funny. Whip-sharp and charismatic. And, above all, he has substance. Even the IT guy next to me – who during the first part of proceedings was unquestionably listening to a true crime podcast on his ear pods – is enthralled.
When he’s finished talking, he takes questions. The first, he works through with the same cool confidence as his presentation. But then someone from marketing puts his hand up and asks a question.
‘Don’t you think it would be better to focus less on what will be going on in this industry in the future and more on now?’
‘We need to focus on both . Every business does, just as every industry does. Assuming you want a job in five years’ time?’
Zach fails to hide the fact that he considers it a stupid question and the guy blushes and sits back in his seat. Perhaps that’s another reason why ‘not everyone is a fan’, then.
I try to hold that thought for the rest of the day. To make it bigger in my mind than it possibly deserves. To tell myself that, he might be fanciable, hot and oozing charisma, but he’s arrogant too. Which is yet another reason – as if I needed one – to stay away from him. To push him right out of my mind. Immediately.
It proves to be easier said than done.
As I’m driving home that night, I am determined to keep all sexy thoughts, especially flashbacks – well and truly out of my mind. Except at one point when I click on Spotify. I press play and when ‘Wuthering Heights’ comes on, unable to listen to it one more time, I skip forward to the next Kate Bush song.
‘The Sensual World’.
I feel my spine prickle and consider moving on, before chastising myself. Come on, Lisa. You’re enough of a grown-up to listen to a song without letting your mind drift to places it shouldn’t be. I click on the indicator and drive as a dreamlike sound fills the car. The soft, swirling woodwind and breathless vocals make the hairs on my forearms stand on end. My imagination ignites. Her voice meanders to one particularly stirring line – something about slipping between breasts – and I’m forced to slam my hand on the off button. Then I turn down our street and see Leo with a group of friends, puffing on a vape.