28. TWENTY-EIGHT
“Destroy the whole family,” he added, which didn’t do much to fade the alarm in Poppy’s eyes. “He’s a journalist,” he explained. “Cassie works with him at the paper. He normally covers UK politics, but she says he’s been working on something to do with finance recently. An investigative piece. She doesn’t know the details. They’re not exactly on friendly terms.”
“Is that why he came to meet you the other day? He’s investigating you? BlacktonGold?”
“I think so. Sniffing around, anyway. His whole family has accounts with us. It’s the perfect cover to ask some questions.”
“He was asking about ESGs. Environmentally friendly investment options. Ethical funds. Is that what he’s writing about?”
“Maybe. Cassie wasn’t sure.” Roscoe scratched his jaw, thinking it through. “There is a lot of greenwashing that goes on. Our so-called ethical funds probably aren’t as clean as they could be. It’s something I wanted to work on, actually. Tightening up the criteria. Doing a bit more due diligence on it all. There’s so much potential for a truly ethical investment framework…”
Not that his dad would ever give him the go-ahead. Waste of time and money, in George Blackton’s opinion. But if that’s what clients wanted. If it’s what the entire bloody world needed…
“Why though?” Poppy asked. “Why would Elliott Carter-Hall want to attack you? His dad’s friends with yours.”
“Yeah. But us kids have never been that close. David and Elliott are a few years older. They grew up in Devon, we grew up in Lancashire. Practically the other end of the country. I hardly know them at all, to be honest. My dad and Andrew do most of their socialising down here in London, at their club or wherever.”
“But he hates you because…?”
Roscoe grimaced. “There’s some bad blood between my brother and Elliott’s brother. I’m not sure anyone really cares about it that much, but Elliott is…kind of intense. It’s the only thing I can think of. Cassie might have the wrong end of the stick, anyway. She has her own…history with the Carter-Halls. Now she seems to have got into some kind of feud with Elliott. I think she’s determined to think the worst of him.”
There was a pause while Poppy digested all that. She shifted in her seat. Roscoe’s eyes got as far as her knees, but he chickened out of meeting her eyes.
“I don’t want to be childish about things. But I also don’t want to get hurt.”
He had fucked up so badly. And he had no excuse other than the fact he had wanted her so badly. Enough to forget all his common sense. All his scruples and principles and good intentions. Until it was too late.
“So you don’t think we need to worry about finding horses’ heads on our pillows?” Poppy asked. “It’s not that kind of family feud?”
He chuckled. And his brain seized on the words we and our like a starving dog thrown a pork chop. We don’t need to worry…
“No. More likely Hugo and I just won’t ever get invited down to Beaford Court ever again. Which isn’t much loss.”
“That’s their house, is it?” Poppy asked, her voice teasing. “Beaford Court?”
“Yes, Poppy. It’s an absolutely enormous stately home down in Devon. Mr Darcy would have wept.”
She chuckled. “Is you watching that film like me watching EastEnders?”
“Film? Please. I read the book.”
She grinned at that. Muttered, “Of course,” and he sat there watching the amusement play over her face while his brain completely forgot to come up with something to say next. His stomach prompted him.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “I know it’s late, but I haven’t had dinner.”
He hadn’t eaten much all day, his stomach in knots. But he felt better now that Poppy was here. Talking to him. Smiling at him. Saying things like we and our.
Maybe they really could move on from his stupidity last night. As she had pointed out, they had already recovered from a similar misstep. Somehow managed to become friends. If he could handle this situation with even half the class she was, he felt optimistic they could continue being friends. And he would conquer his desperate attraction to her. Find a way to get rid of it. Or learn to live with it.
“I haven’t really kept the fridge stocked while I’ve been at the flat,” he said. “But I could order something?”
She hesitated, and his heartbeat paused, too, while he waited for her answer.
“Sure,” she said. “Free food. Why not?”
Poppy was very, very, very weak. Colossally stupid. She ought to be avoiding the man. Keeping a professional, emotionally safe distance. But, her idiot brain argued back. But…
She had to work with him next week. Had to be around him at the office. So it made sense to get used to being around him like this, to cover up all the memories of skin and kisses with perfectly normal conversation. Put Roscoe Blackton back in the box, seal him away, so the feel of his mouth didn’t flood her brain during meetings.
So she said, “Sure,” and Roscoe ordered Chinese. It was just around the corner, he said, would only take ten minutes, he said. Would you like a drink? he said. And she said, “Sure.”
Poppy stood with a glass of wine, studying the books on one of his bookcases. They were a mix of cheesy science fiction, old spy novels from the seventies, and huge tomes of economic theory and history. Did he ever get the time to actually read them? She suspected he was the type of person to buy books optimistically, full of good intentions, only for life to interfere. Currently, the titles on the spines she looked at seemed to say things like This Is A Bad Idea and Why Are You Here? and Remember That Thing He Did With His Tongue? Poppy took a large mouthful of wine. Sure, That Will Help, said the next book. Poppy turned away in disgust.
“Do you even get to spend much time here?” she asked Roscoe.
He’d just brought some plates through from the kitchen and put them down on the coffee table. He picked up the remote control and flicked the TV on. Yes, thought Poppy. Fill the silence.
“Not much,” said Roscoe.
“Seems a pity when it’s so cosy.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “But you know what work’s like.”
She walked closer, stopped by the sofa, one hand on the cushioned back. “How has it been? The…um… What you went to the doctor for?”
He paused, and she apologised for asking, their mutual awkwardness getting all tangled up together. Roscoe broke through it with a smile. “It’s fine, Poppy, honestly. It’s nice that you asked.”
He picked up his wine from the coffee table and toyed with its stem, not meeting her eyes.
“It’s been better. A bit better. Since my dad came back. Some of the pressure’s off.”
“But you’re still managing his clients.”
“Yeah. He needs to take it easy, though. Far easier than he is.” Roscoe shook his head. “He’s barely slowed down at all.”
“That doesn’t mean you need to make yourself sick, too.”
He gave her a self-conscious glance. “I know. I’m not. I mean… I’m not trying to. If I had any choice… If it were possible to work less…”
“Does the medication help?”
He took a sip of wine. Scrunched his face up. “I haven’t started taking it yet. I’m still deciding.”
“But if the doctor…”
“It has side effects. It’s not…not a miracle cure. I took it before for a year or so. And it definitely helped. It was definitely the right choice back then. But now… I feel like… Like this anxiety is situational, you know? Last time it felt more…more existential. I was in the final year of university trying to prove something, trying to figure out my path. But now… I guess I feel in some ways I have proved myself. That I can do the job I want to do. I know I can. The problem is… I’m not actually doing that job.”
“You don’t like the PM role?”
“I love the PM role. But my dad wants me to do this tax thing instead. Wants me in management, leadership. And it’s the whole…trying to do two things at once, trying to force myself to care about this thing I really don’t care about, and knowing that my dad only has more of the same in store for me… That’s when I start to feel panicky—when I’m failing people, when I can’t do what they need me to do. And I don’t see a way out of that. He wants me to be something I’m not. And I’ve spent twenty years, the whole of my life that I’m capable of remembering—I’ve spent it all proving I am exactly who he needs me to be. And it turns out I’m not. I don’t think I can be.”
Roscoe put his glass down, shoulders tense, scrubbed a hand over his face, about to apologise, brush off all of what he’d said. But Poppy didn’t want him to do that. He didn’t need to erase the truth he had just spoken, the way he constantly erased himself to be who his father wanted.
She went to him, put her hand on his arm. “Maybe the man you are is better than the one your father wants you to be.”
He gave her a shaky smile, a sheen of tears in his eyes. He put his hand over hers, found her fingers, wrapped them in his. “Thank you. But I don’t think I know how to be anything other than my father’s son.”
The doorbell rang, their food arriving. Roscoe flashed her a tight smile, but she had the feeling he was desperately grateful for the interruption.