Chapter 21
Recent transactions:
Instead of working on our Eurostar back to London, I spend the majority of that time in a daze with Spencer lightly snoring
on my shoulder. At passport control, I sheepishly asked what he was up to tonight, in the hopes of avoiding my final destination,
but he’s meeting friends for drinks and to discuss a new show. I played it off, too embarrassed to acknowledge that I was
so desperate for someone to talk to about the last twelve hours. A turgid pavement greets me as we step out of St. Pancras.
Spencer waves goodbye, rolling his suitcase down to the underground. I pull up Citymapper on my phone and for a moment forget
I gave up my flat. A plan that felt much more sensible when sleeping on the sofa in the conference room was still a week away.
Waiting for the bus outside the station, a cold wind bites at my cheeks as I watch a young couple quietly chatting and giggling under the lamplight, holding each other for warmth in their own little world.
My mind drifts to kissing Oliver, how quiet the street was compared to the roaring of London traffic.
He’s still in Paris but I can’t help but feel him here.
You can have him or the truth, not both.
Flicking on the light switch in the office brings everything into focus in one fluorescent, squinting glow. I stare at the
four identical desks, only distinguished by the individual knickknacks and photos identifiable to the three of us who occupy
this space full-time. Spencer has a few things but not for decoration. An empty notebook, a Burt’s Bees lip balm, and an Owala
water bottle were left behind while running in for a few days, cashing the check, then hauling out in the direction of his
latest project. In a way, his life seems quite nice. Not having to rely on yourself for a paycheck, instead floating in and
out of jobs, not letting anything affect you because you’re not truly responsible for anyone or anything other than yourself.
I head into the meeting room to hunt through my moving boxes for some fresh underwear. At least I had the foresight to wash
almost all my clothes before spending an entire night folding them into neatly organized boxes. Sometimes being type A is
a good thing. My finger presses the dimmer switch, and I scan the room with a downturned mouth. Maybe the building’s cleaner
has moved them? I deliberately labeled them things like “merchandise” and “printer paper” in thick black Sharpie pen so to
not arouse any suspicion that this is my new place of residence. My feet pad around the table, leaving my carry-on suitcase
by the door. No boxes anywhere. With panic rising, I check one more time. I’m tired. My brain probably just didn’t register
them. Finally, my eyes land on a neon-pink Post-it note stuck to the middle of the conference table.
Call me if you ever want to see your boxes again.
C x
The rising panic is immediately subdued and replaced by confusion.
“Why do you have my stuff?” I ask down the receiver.
“I needed a bargaining chip,” Cecily says. I can hear an oven fan whirring in the background.
“And what are your demands?” I say, a smile creeping across my face.
“My only demand is that you get in the Uber that will be pulling up in . . .” I hear a series of taps against the phone. “. . . six
minutes.”
“So you’re holding my clean underwear hostage and now you’re actively kidnapping me?”
“Yes . . . but in a friend way,” she clarifies, the sound of a popping cork punctuating her statement. “We’re celebrating
Paris, and the other bottle of champagne is chilling in the fridge for you.”
“You don’t have to do this,” I say, the guilt rising up my throat.
“Too late, Isaac is on his way in a Fiat Punto. Au revoir!” She hangs up before I can protest further.
Thirty minutes later I’m on the outskirts of central London, staring at the exterior of a fancy town house.
Ivy runs the length of the thin five-story building, making the city home feel like you’re stepping into a countryside manor.
I’ve never been to Cecily’s parents’ place, but by the looks of things, my dirty jeans and T-shirt with a mystery stain are probably not guest appropriate.
Before I have a chance to pull back the wrought iron lion-shaped knocker, the door swings open.
My eyes sting as I embrace Cecily, the scent of roasted chicken wafting through the entryway. “Smells amazing.”
She smiles and takes my suitcase before shouting over her shoulder, “Please hold all praise until after you’ve tried my cooking.”
I laugh as I follow her through the quiet black-and-white tiled entryway into the midnight-blue kitchen lit by antique sconces.
“Where are your parents?”
She shrugs. “Oh, they are never here. I think they are in the Maldives at the moment. Maybe Bora-Bora.”
Cecily has the kind of parents who are so rich they don’t specifically have job titles. They serve on various boards of businesses
and organizations in an advisory capacity and spend their days throwing events and charity auctions. You can’t really blame
them for preferring to advise from a luxury cabana next to the topaz-blue ocean and white-sand beach. Cecily once suggested
we ask her family for money as a way to fund Wyst, but they much preferred the idea of her getting into the family business
of galas and balls.
Cecily has everything but a present family.
She’s an only child. In her words, her mum was very much a “one and done” kind of mother.
Providing an heir to the family fortune, she put her life of fundraisers and meetings on pause to raise Cecily in good standing and taste until she was eighteen, then carried on with her life as though her daughter didn’t exist. I’m sure a lot of people would kill for Cecily’s life, but now, viewing it from the inside, it seems incredibly lonely.
I find Spencer irritating at the best of times but I can’t imagine what it would have been like to grow up in a world of adults, without any siblings and cousins and barely any friends to grow up with.
She blinks away an emotion I can’t quite place as she hands me a glass of fizzing champagne and clinks our glasses together.
“And anyway, it’s good they’re out of the house because I want to hear all the filthy things you got up to in Paris.”
Before dinner, she brings me up to a room on the fourth floor with varying shades of cream, green, and oak. The wooden sleigh
bed takes up the majority of the room, with a sage-green accent chair in the corner matching the curling vine print wallpaper
in the en suite bathroom.
The bedside table has a tray stacked with essentials you’d find at a five-star hotel: fancy shampoo and conditioner, lavender
pillow spray, moisturizer, toothbrush, toothpaste, and hairbrush.
“I’ll just be here for the night,” I say, a nervous laugh escaping my mouth as I realize I’m probably being a massive inconvenience.
She makes a “pfft” sound and waves away the notion. “You can’t launch a successful business while sleeping on a lumpy sofa.
Stay as long as you need.”
“Thank you for this, for everything.” My throat tightens as I pull her into a tight hug before collapsing onto the soft bed.
She flicks her hair cartoonishly. “Now, freshen up and be downstairs in twenty minutes for the worst roast of your life.”
I laugh, balancing the base of my glass on my stomach. “Just keep the drinks coming, and I probably won’t notice.”
After a deceptively delicious dinner, we lounge in Cecily’s bedroom with bowls of tart apple pie and creamy custard.
Subtle pops of blue, yellow, and pink add a youthful edge to Cecily’s room’s Georgian-style moldings and old furniture.
I lean on a pillow decorated with multicolored velvet bows against the iron bars of her bed frame.
“I can’t believe you didn’t miss your train.” Cecily’s astonished face makes me smile.
I roll on my back, lock my fingers over my full belly and stare at the ceiling. “Oh trust me, I wanted to, but I think in
the end it was best we didn’t have a repeat of the night in Rome.” As the words leave my mouth, I know in my heart they’re
not true. This time felt different, like something more. And something more is incredibly dangerous.
“I don’t think I should see him again,” I affirm to myself and Cecily.
Her mouth hangs agape. “What? Why?”
“It’s too risky.” I take a nonchalant sip of my wine, as though this thought hasn’t been emotionally, physically, and mentally
plaguing me for weeks.
“But that’s why it’s so hot!” She throws a pillow at me. A puff of fresh linen and vanilla hits my nostrils. “How often do
people get to have a scandalous affair where neither of the parties are committing adultery?”
“Yeah, I’m just committing identity fraud,” I remind her, whispering as though the whole building is bugged.
From what I’ve heard, Cecily’s family has every inch of this place under observation.
More for monitoring the movements of their only heir rather than necessarily for her safety.
“I’m lying to a guy I really like about who I am; it’s not fair.
I either need to stop things from going any further or tell him the truth.
But then if I tell him, it makes him an accomplice and that puts his job at risk.
Even if he hates his job, I don’t want to be the cause of him losing it.
Morally, I have to break things off, even if I don’t want to. ”
She scrunches her face and holds a palm out. “Does it even count as a crime if you aren’t technically stealing anyone’s identity?”
I raise my eyebrows before taking a much bigger swig of wine. “I don’t know about in the eyes of the law, but in the eyes
of Odericco Investments, yes.”
Cecily lays back on the bed, considering. “Hmmm, nope, sorry. I think the hidden identity thing makes it much, much hotter.”
My mind briefly slips back to last night, his hand grazing my thigh, bunching the fabric of my skirt in his fist. Barely able
to contain himself from lifting me up, hooking my legs around his hips, and having me against the old door in the rain.
I swallow the feeling. “He doesn’t even know my real name; there’s no explaining that without everything else. It would be
impossible to have any kind of normal relationship with him. I couldn’t hide the truth from him forever. No matter which way
you swing it, eventually it would go wrong.” I nod to myself. “Better now than when we’re both too invested.”
Cecily’s shoulders deflate as she sighs. “Yeah, you’re right. When are you going to tell him?”
“Maybe after the ball? That’s the final event in Vienna.” I internally swoon at the idea of being with him at a black-tie
ball but shove the idea back down.
Cecily blinks, shaking her head. “Hang on a second. Did you just say a ball? In Vienna?”
I run a hand through my hair. “Yeah, it’s where they’re announcing the winners.
We can’t afford the tickets, but I got word that every other finalist company will be in attendance.
I need to find a dress for it and everything.
Do you have time to come with me to H he’s been at every other TechRumble event. I can’t imagine he’d miss the final evening.”
She holds out the dress bag to me to try on like my Fairy Godmother. “Then you should definitely wear this.”