Chapter 35
The drive back to Hackney was stop-start as I hit the evening rush hour.
The whole drive was filled with a kaleidoscope of brake lights and choked breaths.
I left the radio silent, craving space to untangle what had just happened, but my thoughts moved like oil on water.
Each time I tried to grasp one feeling, it slipped away, contaminated by another.
I climbed the three flights up to our flat, but my legs felt borrowed from someone else’s body. The key trembled against the lock like a tuning fork, taking four tries before the door finally opened. The moment I stepped inside, the familiar smell of Amina’s vanilla candles nearly broke me.
My flatmate looked up from the sofa where she was folding laundry, took one look at my face, and immediately dropped the T-shirt she held. Behind her, the neon sign screamed Queer & Fabulous! at me. I felt anything but.
“What’s wrong? Why do you look like that time I shrunk your favourite jumper by accident?”
I opened my mouth to speak and nothing came out except a strangled sob. I sank onto the sofa beside her, pulling out the crumpled email with shaking hands.
“It was all a lie. All of it.”
Amina read the email twice, her expression growing more thunderous with each line. “What the actual fuck?”
My thoughts exactly. “I confronted her. Just now. At her dad’s house.” The words came monotone. “She said it wasn’t what it looked like, but then she admitted it was the plan all along. To manipulate me into selling.”
Amina let out a low whistle, shaking her head. “I’m so sorry, Pop Tart. I know you were into her, even though you were trying your best not to be.”
“She said she was trying to make her dad see sense. That I changed her.” I sniffed in a very unattractive manner. “She said she loves me in front of her dad and Margot.”
“That makes it all better then, doesn’t it?” Amina’s voice was sharp with sarcasm. “She only planned to emotionally manipulate you for a few months, but then she had a change of heart. What a saint.”
“Amina—” Even I wasn’t quite sure why I was jumping to Eliza’s defence.
I was damn sure she didn’t deserve it.
“No, Pops. There are no ifs and buts here. When somebody shows you who they are, believe them.” Amina turned to face me fully, her dark eyes blazing. “This woman has been playing you since day one. She studied you, then figured out exactly what buttons to push, what vulnerabilities to exploit.”
The brutal honesty hit like a slap, but I needed to hear it. “I feel so stupid.”
“You’re not stupid. You had your doubts but she won you over.
She was good, I’ll give her that. But she doesn’t have your best interests at heart.
” Amina pulled me into a fierce hug. “You’ve been hurt by people who were supposed to protect you before.
She was supposed to be your mentor, your business bodyguard.
She wasn’t supposed to sleep with you, make you promises, and then break your heart. ”
The parallel between Eliza’s betrayal and all the times people had let me down before — first Gran, then Dad, then Mum — was too close to the bone.
“I really thought she was different,” I whispered into Amina’s shoulder. “In Switzerland, when she told me she was falling for me, I believed her.”
“Maybe some of it was real,” Amina said more gently. “People are complicated. She might have caught feelings, but that doesn’t make what she did okay.”
My phone had been buzzing intermittently for the past hour, but I’d been ignoring it. I didn’t want to hear whatever Eliza had to say. Now it rang again, the shrill sound cutting through our conversation.
“It’s probably her.” I didn’t check the screen. “I don’t want to talk to her.”
“Good. Let it go to voicemail.”
But a short while later, there was a sharp knock on the door.
Amina and I looked at each other.
“If it’s Eliza, I’m going to commit murder, just so you know.” Amina scowled as she got up to answer it.
But it was Katy’s voice that echoed from the hallway. “Poppy?” She bustled in and gave me a tight hug. “You’re not answering your phone, and I was worried.”
“Shit.” I’d forgotten about Katy. After leaving hers earlier, she’d made me promise to text her updates.
Amina moved her laundry from the sofa and Katy sat where it had been.
“Shall I put the kettle on?” Amina asked. It was a rhetorical question. Tea made everything better.
“What happened?”
I told her everything. About confronting Eliza, then the admission that it had all been planned from the beginning. Katy listened in stunned silence, her expression growing more horrified with each detail.
“That manipulative cow,” she said finally. “And I liked her! I thought she was genuine.”
“She’s good at what she does.” Then a memory of what she did to me flashed through my mind. I wasn’t lying. She was good. “She fooled us all.”
“But this affects more than just your love life,” Katy said, her practical mind already jumping ahead. “If they’re planning to sell the company...”
“Then we’re all fucked.” The reality of it was starting to sink in properly now. “Max has Margot’s ear, you need the money, and I’m still nine months from having any control. If they decide to sell, there’s nothing I can do to stop them.”
Katy was quiet for a long moment, and I could see her working through the implications. The share dividends helped with the girls’ expenses, but a lump sum from a sale would secure their futures completely.
“What are you going to do?” she asked finally.
“I don’t know.” I hadn’t assessed my options yet.
It was too soon. “Fight it, I suppose. Maybe talk to Margot. See how far along this new deal is. Talking her out of a deal with Max was one thing. I could play on the fact that all our staff would lose their jobs. That the Highland base would close. But with SwissTok interested? I think Gabriel would keep the Highlands on. It wouldn’t be so catastrophic.
But it would mean we’d lose what Mum and Gran took so long to build. ”
Katy rested her head against the sofa. “Why do you want to keep the company this much? If the numbers stack up, this deal is the best we could possibly hope for.” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “Is it just grief, or do you actually want this?”
I took a deep breath, then shook my head. “It’s not just grief. I want to do this because it’s the right thing to do. Also, because I don’t want to be haunted forever by an unhappy ghost.”
Katy smiled then, taking my hand. “What Eliza did was terrible, and I know you’re hurting. Sleep on it, but if you still want to run the company, then I’ll speak to Margot, too. But this is also your chance to walk away.”
I couldn’t do that. I was all in with Voss Watches, just like I was with Eliza. Unfortunately for me, I had no control over either of their outcomes.
“I can’t just give up,” I said. “This company is all I have left of Mum. If Margot can’t see that, then she doesn’t know me at all.”
“Then fight.” Amina put three steaming mugs of tea on the coffee table. “Margot loves you. Make her wake up and see what’s in front of her.”
I nodded, feeling something hard and determined crystallise in my chest.
It was time to speak to Margot without Max in the room.