TWENTY-FOUR
“You’ve been a busy boy,” Liv said, leaning back in his office chair, smiling at him as she twisted it side to side. “Domnall’s very pleased.”
“Get out of here, Liv. I’m not in the mood.”
His mind was oddly blank, as though he was watching it from afar, couldn’t hear what was happening inside it. The death of another career, he supposed. Starting again at nearly thirty-five. George would ensure his name was mud. He knew the man well enough to know he would punish him tenfold for every word he’d just said.
Liv got up and came over to where he stood by his desk. She leant against the edge of it, still smiling while he stood there blankly, staring at the possessions on his desk as though he’d never seen them before.
He ought to find a box. He ought to leave everything, touch nothing. He ought to make a copy of his industry contact lists. Surely there was someone he knew who would give him a chance?
“Trouble in paradise?” Liv asked.
She put a caressing hand on his arm and he pulled his sleeve away, going around to sit at his desk, finding the computer unlocked, his emails still open. On autopilot, he started to make copies of anything that might be useful.
Liv watched him, more serious now, no longer smiling. “Something is wrong, isn’t it? We could get a coffee. Talk about it.”
“There’s no one in the world I’d rather talk to less.”
“We’re still friends, Aubrey. Sixteen years doesn’t just disappear.”
He gave her a disbelieving look. “Are you mad? We’ve never been friends. Even when we were together, you were never my friend. Do you even know what the word means? You’re a back-stabbing manipulator. A user and a liar.”
She gave a breath of laughter. “You weren’t joking about being in a bad mood.”
“Please go away.”
He didn’t hear her reply, his attention caught by a new email. It was from HR. Immediate notice of termination of employment contract. Two week’s pay, how generous. And a lengthy settlement agreement. He scanned it quickly. A gagging clause, preventing him from discussing his work here with any individual or new employer. And a non-compete clause, restricting him from working for any competitors. Standard stuff. Possibly not enforceable. He’d have to speak to a lawyer.
He laughed darkly to himself, opening his desk drawer and taking out his favourite pens, his leather notepad. He got up, put them in his laptop case but left the laptop itself on his desk. It belonged to BlacktonGold.
“Going somewhere?” Liv asked as he pocketed his phone—that at least belonged to him.
“Hot date.”
“With Evie, I presume.”
No, at the job centre.
But he felt a flip in his heart, a crack of light in the gloom that he was trying not to look at too closely in case it burnt him. If he didn’t work here, if his hands were clean… Then she might… It might be possible to…
“I looked her up online, you know,” Liv said, laughing slightly to herself. At herself. “It’s so embarrassing to admit. You made me jealous, Aub. Finally, after sixteen years, when I woke up to the fact there might be someone in the world who could steal Aubrey Ford away from me… I had to find out how she did it. Who she was, this woman who could compete with me.”
Aubrey paused, wary, not trusting a single word she said but unable to walk away when it was Evie being spoken of.
Liv tilted her head, studying him with a disbelieving sort of smile. “She’s not at all what I imagined. I thought it was just posturing—the veganism, the charity work. The typical socialite posing. A few social media snaps wearing a t-shirt for whatever cause is in fashion, a few prettily worded platitudes. But she’s actually the real deal.” Liv shook her head, amused, amazed. “Once I started digging, I found her everywhere. Video clips of her giving speeches at the student union. At protest marches. Her name published on letters for every cause imaginable. Photos of her saving turtles on tropical beaches, cleaning oil off birds, building schools in Africa. If there’s ever been a cause anywhere in the world, Evelyn Blackton’s been in the middle of it.”
She gave Aubrey another incredulous smile, eyes wide. “And do you know how I know it’s all real?”
“How?” he asked reluctantly.
“Because she’s stunningly beautiful, and yet she never posts a single photo of herself. She’s never posing. It’s all real.”
Aubrey said nothing. None of this was news to him. He was sure Liv had a point, but she only now began to come to it.
“It just makes me wonder…” she said.
“What?”
“You and her… How does it work? With so little in common?”
It doesn’t.
The thought came immediately, viciously, betraying him. Liv saw it in his eyes, her smile twisting, sensing victory.
“It makes no sense to me,” she continued. “Saint Evelyn and you , Aubrey. Are you going to turn vegan? Get rid of the leather sofa you love so much? I remember when we bought it. You like it so much you held onto it after we broke up. All your lovely leather shoes, and the way you hated getting cat hairs on your clothes when we’d visit my parents. Your absolute hatred for spiders. I mean, you really do hate the things. Do you kill them in front of her? Does she let you do it? Your favourite food is steak. Your favourite breakfast is poached eggs. We once went to France and spent a whole weekend doing little but eating cheese. When we weren’t in bed.” She laughed. “Coffee au lait. Can you imagine butterless croissants? Aubrey… What on earth do you have in common with this girl?”
He felt every stab just the way Liv had intended. Every word a cut, lacerating his faint hope, leaving it in tatters. He held it all inside him, refused to let Liv see the mess she had made.
“Mostly just sex,” he said, picking up his coat. “The sex is excellent.”
Liv laughed, his parrying cut glancing off her. She was impossible to hurt. She didn’t care enough.
“I’m sure it is, Aubrey. But that doesn’t make a relationship, does it? I know what you want, everything you dream of. Marriage. Children. You proposed to me when we were twenty. You’ve been dying to set up your little family forever. Do you really think she’s the one? She hates almost everything that you do, that you are, that you enjoy. You’re wasting your time, Aubrey. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. You have no future with that girl. No future at all.”
“And yet I’d still choose her over you.”
He left Liv standing there in his office—not his office anymore: his past love in his past life. He left BlacktonGold for the last time after ten years of working there. And he left without hope, Liv’s words ringing in his ears, a mere echo of what he already knew.