32. THIRTY-TWO
“Go on, then,” said Roscoe, head tipped back against the aeroplane seat’s headrest. “Say it.”
Other than a long, measuring look as they got in the car, Aubrey hadn’t mentioned Poppy at all. He had talked to Roscoe about football, cricket, a restaurant he’d been to, a weekend getaway with his whole family that he was dreading, and work. But he hadn’t once mentioned finding Poppy Fields leaving his flat.
Waiting for the inevitable telling off was fraying Roscoe’s nerves. As was the look of dismay on Poppy’s face when Aubrey had spotted her.
And so was saying goodbye—saying goodbye this morning after all that had passed between them and no time to talk about any of it. He squeezed his eyes shut, let out a long breath, an all-too familiar feeling of pressure squeezing his chest.
There was never any fucking time.
“What am I meant to say that you don’t already know? You’re sleeping with your secretary. And that is…not what I would have expected of you.”
“Executive Assistant. And I’m not sleeping with her.”
“Just a sleepover, then? She came round, you braided each other’s hair, told ghost stories?”
“Things…happened. But I’m not sleeping with her.”
“You don’t have to grow up in a house full of lawyers to know that’s grade-A bullshit.”
Roscoe let out a breath, opened his eyes. He toyed with the zip of his leather laptop bag where it lay on the fold-down table in front of him. “I like her. A lot.”
“You’re her boss.”
“I don’t have to be.” He flashed Aubrey a glance, got an eyeful of disapproval. “You don’t understand. She’s brilliant. She’s spent the last two years teaching herself the basics of what we do. And she gets it. She really does. She has the intuition, can see the bigger picture, and she’s smart enough to learn whatever she doesn’t already know. She might not have the qualifications or the hands-on experience, but she could give any of our juniors a run for their money.”
“Your EA?” asked Aubrey sceptically.
“If I talk to John Fisher, start her off in Research—”
“Give your girlfriend a job?”
“Move my EA into a role that develops her talent.”
“Are you forgetting the Emily Malcolm promotion rumour? Are you forgetting the whole conversation we had? That girl who thought you could get her a job if she slept with you— Oh. Wait.” Something on Roscoe’s face must have given it away. “Poppy Fields is that girl. She’s the one who offered to sleep with you in exchange for a job.”
“That’s not what this is. It’s completely different.”
“Right. Because now she is sleeping with you, and you’re going to give her a job so it’s less morally objectionable for you to continue sleeping with her? Yeah. Totally different.”
Fucking lawyers. Roscoe slumped back in his seat. “I’m not sleeping with her. And it is different.”
“Not different enough,” said Aubrey. “And not different at all to any outsider looking on. There are already rumours about you two. Do you know that? You left the Hop and Hare with her. Now you work with her. Late nights at the office, et cetera, et cetera. Even if you can somehow wrangle her into this job while keeping your name out of the process, do you think people aren’t going to be able to guess what’s going on? You know as well as I do that there are plenty of bitchy little shits at the office who will make life very unpleasant for her.”
“So I can’t help her? So her career’s fucked because of me?”
“You never should have gone there, Ross.”
Roscoe breathed an angry laugh, frustration and guilt stoking his temper. “You’re one to talk, Aubrey. Is it three times you’ve tried to hit on her?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I’d hardly call it hitting on her. One time, in the lift, I’ll grant you. The other times were nothing but friendly conversation.”
“Friendly. Right.”
“She’s very attractive,” said Aubrey blithely, as though it explained everything. As though it didn’t make Roscoe want to throw him out of the plane’s emergency exit. “It’s not as though I don’t understand the temptation, the difference is that I’m not her boss, and I’m not you. We had this conversation already.”
“Right. I’m in a position of power and influence.” He waved a hand. “I can’t have anything with her, but you and everyone else can? That’s convenient. One rule for me, and a different one for everyone else, right?”
Aubrey ignored his angry posturing and calmly crossed his legs, one of the benefits of flying business class being that he had the space to do so. “Yes, Roscoe. One rule for you—in many, many areas of your life. And ninety-nine percent of the time, you are the benefactor.”
Roscoe scowled out of the window, thumb digging into the armrest.
“If you do like her,” Aubrey continued inexorably, “you ought to be protecting her.”
“I am. I’m trying to.”
“You might need to try a little harder, Goldy, or you’ll bring every gossipmonger in BG down on her head.”
Roscoe took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he looked out of the window. White and grey, everything hazy, no idea what was land or sky.
“Now show me your notes on Hendrich Lissi.”
Roscoe glanced at him. Aubrey wasn’t down for this meeting—the one Roscoe was dreading, trying to pitch his feeble knowledge of European tax regulations to one of the industry’s best. It would be a disaster. He was going to embarrass BG. Embarrass his father.
Aubrey smiled at Roscoe’s look. “As you know, I didn’t finish my law degree. But what you probably don’t know, is that my specialisation was…international tax law. Fascinating, right? Hard to believe I walked away from it.”
Poppy let herself into the flat and had a long, hot shower, waiting for the bad feelings to hit. But other than the embarrassment of being spotted leaving Roscoe’s by Aubrey Ford, she couldn’t manage to summon up much shame or regret. It was hard to when there was a warm, excited sort of feeling in her chest. And when her body kept remembering things that made it beg, more, please, again.
She stepped out of the shower with a flutter of butterflies low down, a tingling shimmer of remembered touch. Remembered pleasure. She saw his face turned to hers on the pillow, the line of his lashes, the glow in his eye, the sound of his low, smooth voice and the crisp, rich way he pronounced her name and she…
She was fucked, really. Had fallen deep.
Dressed, hair still wet, she made herself breakfast and ate it at the kitchen counter, looking around the big, empty flat. It was Sunday. Roscoe would be away until Tuesday. Tomorrow, work would keep her busy. But today…
Roscoe would normally go to the gym. She tried to imagine doing it herself. He had suggested several times that she make use of the building’s facilities, but she never had. They seemed alien somehow. Made for other people, not her. She didn’t even own any sportswear or a swimming costume. She imagined turning up in the cheapest the high street could offer, pale skin, chipped nails, completely clueless about how it all worked. She’d never been to a gym in her life, let alone one for…well…rich people, basically. She didn’t know the etiquette, didn’t know what equipment they had or how it all worked, didn’t know if there were lockers. Did you need a coin? Maybe it was ridiculously modern and you locked it with a thumbprint.
She might be here, living in this flat. She might now know the difference between a sherry glass and a wine glass. But she was so far from being able to move through this world the way Roscoe did that she gave a helpless little laugh as she carried her plate to the sink. She turned to survey the flat, turning quickly as though she could catch it unawares and surprise it into feeling like home.
It did not.
“Teach me the confidence thing. That’s the real difference between people like you and people like me.”
“You have every reason to be confident. You’re smart. Brilliant. Beautiful.”
She pulled a face, but only because the wobbly feeling in her chest threatened to overwhelm her. And this wasn’t like her, she told herself, shaking it away. She didn’t normally hang on other people’s opinions of her. Didn’t let them daunt her or lift her up. Everything she had achieved in life she had got by being bolshy, brave, refusing to give up. No one had wanted to give an unqualified teenager a job, but she had visited every shop on the high street, pestered every market stall holder, until the guy at the fruit and veg store said alright. A three-hour trial on Saturday morning. Up at five AM to get there on time. Unload the van, fingers freezing in the dawn air.
Six months there, six months of a few pounds and grubby notes paid cash-in-hand—to hand straight to her mother. But just as importantly: six months pocketing Retail Experience—as she typed it up on the library’s borrowed computer. Her first ever CV. It cost twenty pence a sheet to print, but that was an investment—a couple of quid to print some copies off. And then hitting the high street again, looking for signs in shop windows—Help Wanted—until she landed a job in a discount shoe shop.
She’d offered to tidy up their little back office one day. Sorted out the paperwork. Got into the habit of being the first to answer the phone. Office Administration, she added to her CV.
Twelve months there. Then eighteen at an estate agent. Office Administrator. Answering phones, fending off the banter and flirtations of the sales guys, the lettings guys… And so on. Temping. Office work. Whatever was available. Whatever paid a little more than the last. Until she arrived at BlacktonGold—and not on the executive floor, not in George Blackton’s team, but in the facilities office at first. Administrative Assistant (Facilities). Then Administrative Assistant (HR). Then Administrative Assistant (Executive Business Support). And now…
Executive Assistant to Roscoe Blackton, Senior Portfolio Manager. At least until he hired someone permanent and she went back to her old role.
Was she really going to stop there? Her career up until now had been like a set of stepping stones, some with tiny gaps between them that hardly felt like progress at all, and others with larger strides. But there had always been a progression, a sense she was heading somewhere—or at least getting further from where she had started. Why had she suddenly decided now to put a limit on herself, as though she had reached the end of her road?
Maybe it was because the next step wasn’t a step at all. It was a mad flying high jump into a different world, where her colleagues wouldn’t be hardworking girls like her but men like Roscoe. Or maybe she had stalled due to the weight of the chip on her shoulder, this feeling that she was lesser, lower, unwelcome. But Roscoe said he didn’t think that. So maybe…maybe she was the one who had put the chip there.
It was a strange idea. An uncomfortable one. The real question, though, was could she break free of it?
If she tried to do this thing, join their world, there was a good chance they wouldn’t let her. Her CV might get crumpled and tossed in the dirt—tossed in the bin for someone like her mum to empty once everyone else had gone home. But there was only one way to find out. Was she going to be a coward, or was she going to be Poppy Fields? She fired up her laptop, opened her CV, and got to work.