17. SEVENTEEN
It was just good sense, Roscoe told himself. That’s all it was. She needed a nicer place to live, and he had one. And it cheered him up, managing to bring at least one person a little bit of happiness and hope after a few days of nothing but worry and despair.
He needed hope and happiness. Because there had been something sitting in that hospital room with him—something other than the anxiety, and the irritation with how long everything took, and the beeping noises, and the clinical, utilitarian smells, and that sense that, somewhere not far away, tragedies were taking place… There had been something creeping over Roscoe as he sat by his dad’s bed. Something hollow and cold. A long, empty shadow at his back. Because here was his dad, having stepped so close to that mortal cliff—to the dark unknown on the other side. But here also was his dad still talking about work, about an office and a report. Screens and numbers.
It made him feel he was going mad. Like he must be watching the scene from outside. Because he was still panting, breathless, shaking, after scrabbling back from that cliff edge. And yet his father seemed unmoved. There was a yawning drop below them—death, right there, so close. And his father talked of nothing but work, things to be done, while Roscoe stared down at the fathomless depths, a great nothingness stretching out all around.
Or maybe he needed more sleep.
Fuck, he really needed more sleep. It was barely mid-morning. His head hurt, his thoughts felt grainy and strange. Ten more hours maybe, ten more hours until he could drag himself home and into bed. And Poppy would already be asleep by then, but he would know she was there. The flat would not feel empty. Maybe that was why he had asked—suggested, demanded, begged—that she stay. Because last night, when he blundered, shattered, into that bedroom and saw Poppy asleep in his bed, his first thought had been, Thank God.
To not be alone. To not be entirely and absolutely alone after hours of being strong for his father, for his mother, for his heart-wrecked brother.
To not be alone had seemed like the greatest luxury he could ever wish for.
Besides, what was it all for? The work, the worry, if you couldn’t use the fruits of it to make the world a slightly better place? Money, money, money… His whole life spent thinking about it. Making it. But what was it all actually for? According to conventional wisdom, it couldn’t buy happiness. And he knew from conversations with his clients that it often brought anxiety. But it definitely could buy food and phone chargers and comfort. And it could bloody well make life easier. It could make Poppy Fields’s life easier.
That’s what he kept in his mind those first arduous weeks after his father’s heart attack. Those horrific first days back at work. The weekend he spent at his parent’s house in Mayfair, his father already back in London and hungry for company news. The following week where he fully came to understand the work ahead of him, the unrelenting constancy of it—his work, his father’s work, trying to feed his father the right kind of information, enough to keep him satisfied without over-taxing him.
He tried to remember it, too, the week after that, when he had trouble sleeping even in the few hours he set aside for it. When a buzzing blackness seemed to hover constantly at the back of his mind, and no thought he had ever seemed straightforward or simple, but as though every decision he made was being dragged over sharp rocks. Was he right, was this the right thing to do, what if he was wrong, what if he made the wrong choice, what if he fucked up, what if he couldn’t do it…? Somehow, the more work he had, the slower he seemed to do it. He spaced out, staring at his screen. He forgot what he was saying halfway through writing an email. People talked to him and he lost track of what they said. And every decision he made, every action, left him feeling sick.
And then he couldn’t breathe.
He stepped into the lift one morning and he couldn’t breathe. He caught sight of himself in the mirrored wall and he looked wild-eyed and half-mad and like a child, a fucking useless child, and he wasn’t the right person for this shit, he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, everyone was right about him, he was only here because of his name and they were right that he was a smug, talentless, fucking nepo-baby and shit, shit, shit, he couldn’t breathe…
He hammered on the lift button to stop at the next floor. Got out and staggered into the nearest gents. He rubbed cold water on his neck and face and counted slowly from ten, from twenty, black spots dancing on the white sink basin.
A panic attack. He knew what it was. He’d had them in his final year at university. But mother-fucking-hell, he could not have them now.
Roscoe’s diary looked like some trippy modern art piece, all overlapping coloured blocks, fifteen-minute stripes, no longer room for the words to display, day after day blocked out from 7am to 8pm and more calls scattered throughout the evening.
It was completely ridiculous, Poppy thought. Unhealthy. Unsustainable.
True to his word, he was never at the flat. She fell asleep before he even arrived home, and he was gone by the time she woke up. She was working hard, too. But not as hard as him. She had no idea how he did it.
She tried to protect him—fielded what calls and emails she could, answered the questions she knew how to answer, dealt with the things she could deal with, redirected work elsewhere. She tried to defer a meeting with a new client, but Roscoe reinstated it a second later with the note VIP.
Curious, she looked up the client’s name. Elliott Carter-Hall. Second son of the Duke of Molton.
Ah. OK then. She knew the Duke—by sight at least. Andrew Carter-Hall was an old school friend of George Blackton’s and came in every month or two for a chat. And he was one of the richest men in the country. So, yes, Poppy supposed that made his son, Elliott, a VIP.
She made some arrangements for the meeting, started reading the initial documents for it. At two PM, she looked up, saw Roscoe in his office, and got to her feet.
Two PM was the cut-off time. If Roscoe wasn’t out on a lunch meeting, or if he hadn’t emerged from his office to grab food by that point, Poppy went in and gave him whatever it was she had made him that day.
She knocked lightly. He was on the phone. He glanced up and beckoned her in while he spoke. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone, the sleeves rolled up. It was a hot spring day outside, and he had the window open despite the AC being on. But she knew somehow that he needed the air. He needed the slight outside touch on his skin. Nature’s breath.
God, she was weird.
She shook herself and stopped staring at him—at his pale face, the shadows under his eyes, the frown at the corners of his once smiling mouth. She put the sandwich box down on his desk, right in front of him, meeting his eye with a determined look as he continued talking on the phone.
He seemed to be arguing—debating—with whoever he was speaking to, talking quickly, firmly, the faintest note of exasperation hidden under his forceful politeness. Something about a long position taken on one of the Asian indices. Poppy listened in as she picked up a stack of Post-It notes and a pen. The caller was questioning the model. Roscoe was explaining why he was right—and he was. Poppy completely agreed with everything he was saying.
She finished writing her note and stuck it on top of the sandwich box, tapping it with her pen, because Roscoe’s eyes were still on hers. He glanced down and a smile broke over his face.
I WILL SPOON FEED YOU.
It was what he’d said to her the night she fainted in his office. Still smiling, he touched two fingers to his brow. A salute. Yes, ma’am.
She gave him one last stern look, her own smile fighting to peek out, and left him to school his caller on the finer points of Chinese tech.
Later in the week, Poppy looked up as Roscoe hurried past her desk. His next meeting wasn’t for fifteen minutes—that initial face-to-face with Elliott Carter-Hall, the Duke of Molton’s son.
Those fifteen minutes passed, and Roscoe hadn’t returned. Poppy wasn’t meant to be sitting in on that meeting, but she always kept an eye on his schedule and whereabouts. Maybe he’d headed straight down to the meeting room from wherever he’d been going.
Five minutes later, one of the receptionists from the client lounge called to ask if Mr Blackton was on his way. Poppy reassured her he was, then, frowning, tried his phone. It rang once, then cut off.
Worried now, she got up and headed down the corridor the way he had gone. It led to the stairs. But before those were the staff bathrooms. She frowned at the door to the gents. She couldn’t exactly look for him in there. She turned away, trying his phone again. Once more it rang, then cut off. But she heard the echo of its ring from behind her.
If he was in the gents, then he’d been in there for a while. Grimacing, awkward, unsure, she tapped lightly on the door, holding it open with one shoulder, head averted to look down the corridor. “Roscoe? Sorry. Are you in there?”
Nothing.
“If you are… Just to remind you that Elliott Carter-Hall is here. But I can tell him to wait. Or I can reschedule.”
She heard him swear. A tap running.
“Poppy…”
His voice sounded hoarse. Odd. A little like it had that night he’d walked into the flat like a zombie.
“Is everything OK?” she asked.
“Yes. No. Shit.”
“Can I come in?”
No answer.
Cautiously, she pushed the door open and stepped inside. He was at the row of sinks, his back to her, hands braced on the basin. He caught her eye briefly in the mirror then dropped his head. But what she saw in that brief look made her heart lurch. Panic. Despair.
“Roscoe? Are you OK?”
“I’m just… I’m fine. I’m just having a panic attack. I get them… But it’s fine. I’ll be fine.”
She hurried over to his side and placed a hand on his back, gingerly rubbing a circle. Then again, more firmly, as he took a sharp breath and let it out slowly. He was staring at the sink, head hanging low, as though there was an answer to be found down the plughole. An escape.
“It’s OK,” she said. “You’ll be OK.”
He nodded slowly. “I know.” His voice was tight, as though he was forcing the words out. “They pass. They always do.”
“Let me get hold of Elliott. I’ll cancel that meeting.” She was already fishing her phone from her pocket with her spare hand—the other was still rubbing his back. She felt as effectual as a small child patting the muscled flank of an enormous stallion.
Roscoe shook his head. “Don’t cancel. I’m fine.”
“You look like you’re about to throw up.” She loaded her voice with dryness—with the arch tone he so often used on her.
He smiled slightly in response.
“These Carter-Halls,” she continued, “I know they’re friends of the family, but surely that means they’ll cut you some slack?”
“Andrew, the Duke, is friends with my father. But his sons… The oldest, David, was engaged to one of my neighbours until my brother… Well. It’s a long story. But David and his brother Elliott don’t have any reason to like my family.”
“So screw ‘em, then. Let him take his money elsewhere.”
Roscoe gave a hollow laugh. “My father would kill me. I need to make a good impression. He wants this account.”
“But your father wouldn’t want this, would he?” She gestured vaguely towards the sink, as though all this—Roscoe’s stress and panic attack—was held within its blameless enamel bowl. “He wouldn’t want you half-killing yourself for the sake of the company?”
Roscoe didn’t look at her, but she saw the corner of his mouth lift in a wry smile. “Well… He might have to think about it. Weigh it up. And I couldn’t guarantee what his answer would be.”
Poppy made a noise. Not a polite one. “I’m cancelling this meeting. I’ll rearrange it for early next week.”
“No. I’m fine.” He let go his white-knuckled grip on the sink and straightened, flashing her a smile that held more than a trace of embarrassment. “Really. I’m OK. Thank you for…” He trailed off, let out a long breath, looking away.
“I’ll come with you.”
“What?”
“The meeting. I’ll sit in on it. Be moral support, whatever. I read through the documents he sent over. I know his situation, his goals. I can step in if you need me to. Let me help, Roscoe. And you can tell him…” She laughed slightly. “You can tell him I’m an intern.”