Chapter Three
Olly and I said nothing as we strode out of the Succulent Room. The Lily Room, positioned at the end of the hall, was empty. I entered the code into the keypad and turned the door handle, glancing at Olly as he held the door open from behind me.
‘Happy Monday,’ he said.
‘Right back at ya,’ I said, as the door closed behind us.
We both stood there for a moment, Olly taking in the room – a huge glass window overlooking the City, a table with an array of refreshments and a single, imperious-looking lily – while I gave a long, soft exhale in the hope of releasing some of my hidden tension.
‘So,’ I said, ‘Head of Vision, eh?’
He pointed at me. ‘Senior Director. What does that even mean?’
I conceded with a shrug. He was right. I’d gone from being a communications professional to being someone who translated Esme’s vision to the world, which had started off being just Comms but had ended up including strategy and…
pretty much anything she wanted me to do. ‘Let’s just say I’m a useful person.’
‘I’ll say.’ He poured himself a black coffee, selected an apricot Danish from the covered dish of pastries and took a bite.
‘Great building, by the way. I like the glittery glass. Apparently we’ll be moving in.
’ Was he, in a weird, imperious kind of way, attempting to twinkle his brown eyes at me?
Great: the man was good-looking, and he knew he was good-looking.
This situation was doubly annoying and I was perfectly capable of transferring all of my annoyance onto him.
I turned my back to Olly and made myself a coffee with cream.
Green tea wasn’t going to cut it this morning.
‘So.’ He sat down. ‘What’s the story? About them, and this app? I didn’t have an inkling, and that’s not something I say often.’
‘I don’t know the story other than what Esme just told me. They met on Friday, apparently.’ I chose a pain au raisin and sat down opposite him tearing scraps off it.
‘I had the impression you knew about things before they happened,’ he said, and caught my eye. ‘It’s a compliment.’
I shook my head. ‘Not this time. We’ll have to do some reconnaissance.’ I nibbled a tiny corner of pastry and assessed him as I did so. ‘Ex-Army, eh?’
His gaze flicked back to mine. ‘Since you’re asking, yes, I did notice the searing contempt with which you said the word wow. And you’re—’
‘Soft corporate world, all the way.’
‘Not so soft though,’ he said.
I raised an eyebrow. He named a few names and I waved my hand in the air to acknowledge them.
In my last job I’d had the reputation for turning around the story about companies and individuals who weren’t appearing as they wished, including for a famous footballer, which always gave me street cred.
Coming to EKArts had been about doing something rewarding, not about money.
Sure, Esme was a world-famous artist, regularly commanding six figures for her art, occasionally even seven, so she was technically a celebrity.
But EKArts wasn’t a rich person’s plaything.
Esme had established the charity – providing subsidised studios for young artists, and arts outreach for deprived communities and young people (the charity’s employees, resident on the top floor of the Hexagon, would be sleeping soundly tonight, protected by their charitable status).
Although I oversaw Comms for the charity, I was most involved in the other, legally separate, part of Esme’s empire: the commercial side.
Esme had expanded her fortune by branching out into commercial collaborations across the arts, from jewellery to textiles to hotel interiors; and all of this was bolstered by her social media following.
The kicker was, she’d long been underestimated because she was a woman, and because she was often photographed staggering out of a nightclub in the early hours.
I’d met her at a party and it was the work equivalent of love at first sight (or at first conversation) – she was easily the most interesting person in the room as well as the most persuasive.
By the end of that evening I’d agreed to work for her.
My job had involved getting people to take Esme seriously. Converting her reputation from art world wild child to respected businesswoman and philanthropist. It had been hard. Very hard.
I put down the section of pain au raisin I was holding and looked at it.
‘I can’t quite believe this is happening,’ I said. I looked up and held his gaze. ‘This stupid love affair could fuck up everything for EKArts, and for Esme. I’ve worked so hard for her brand to be taken seriously, and now she’s back on the road to trivial.’
‘You’re not a great romantic then?’ he said.
I shook my head. ‘I could really do without Ajax Banks.’ I said his name as though it was a swearword.
‘Easy.’ There was a firmness in Olly’s tone. ‘He didn’t get them into this unilaterally, did he? And Esme isn’t exactly an ideal influence on our brand either. Ajax is all about logic, science, physical fitness, finance, whereas your principal…’
‘Yes?’ I challenged him.
‘I mean, no offence, but she does quite a lot of faffing around, doesn’t she? All those melting ice sculptures and dried flowers.’
‘Not a great authority on modern art, then?’ I said, in sarcastic echo of his romantic comment, which had somehow stung me.
He sat forward in his seat. ‘All I’m saying is the potential for ruination goes both ways.’ I could see the exasperation flickering in his eyes, but he was resolutely self-contained. ‘So technically we agree.’
‘Do we?’ I said. ‘Doesn’t feel like it.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s just our bad luck that opposites attract.’
I sat back in my seat and we both fell silent. He got up briskly (he did everything briskly, it seemed) and selected another pastry with an easy grace that told of innate confidence.
I looked out of the floor-to-ceiling window, at the soft grey London skyline against the pale winter sky. ‘I don’t think I have the stomach for this,’ I said.
Olly paused in the process of forking the pastry onto his plate. ‘I mean, they’re a bit sticky, but not too bad. Fresh this morning, I think.’
‘Not the pastries,’ I said.
He frowned.
‘I’ve been in similar situations before,’ I continued, not wanting to be disloyal to Esme, so framing things as vaguely as I could.
‘Brilliant people – fragile people – prone to sudden enthusiasms, grand passions. Everything’s wonderful, until it’s not.
Which is fine if you keep personal stuff personal, but they’re mixing personal and professional together and as a cocktail, it’s, what? Dynamite? Kryptonite?’
‘Let’s go with Kryptonite. You’re not going to bail, are you?’ He looked at me steadily and I noticed amber flecks in his dark brown eyes.
His very compelling dark brown eyes.
I blinked, got a grip, and tried to logically assess him: Army posture, pristine Savile Row suit, Oxford shoes polished to a mirror shine.
Hard, impermeable, but decent. In our world, facade is everything.
You have to choose a statement and go for it.
I’d gone for Black Widow, he’d gone for Decent Chap.
An act, just like my appearance was, too.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not this week, anyway.’ As I spoke, I wondered if he would tell his team what we’d talked about; use it to my disadvantage. I was normally a brick wall, a closed book. But the blab-monster had got into me today. I shut my mouth and pressed my lips together.
Oliver was assessing me, too, it seemed. ‘For the record,’ he said, reading my expression, ‘for the duration of this – episode – what we discuss stays between us unless otherwise agreed.’
I held his gaze levelly. ‘Agreed,’ I said. Was he a friend or enemy? I couldn’t decide. It was easy to talk to him, but that guaranteed nothing.
He grinned with unexpected brilliance. ‘We’re just two communications professionals, communicating. Finish that pastry, go on, lass.’
‘Feeder.’ I pushed the plate away. ‘Let’s go. I don’t have the desire to talk strategy now, and I have a sense our role is largely going to be reactive.’
‘We do need to have a plan though,’ he said.
‘I know. But let’s talk about it later.’
He shrugged. ‘You’re the boss, Lizzy Brinks. But we’re going to have to have a proper conversation eventually.’
‘It’s Elizabeth to you, and to anyone from Resilience Needs, dot, dot, dot,’ I said.
He leaned back in his chair. ‘You’re the boss, Elizabeth,’ he said, in a very different tone. He extracted a business card from his breast pocket and pushed it towards me. ‘Can you ping me your number?’
My heart was surprisingly, but very definitely, racing. Caffeine overdose.
‘I like your schtick,’ I said, unlocking my phone and navigating to contacts, entering his number and then attaching my details and pressing Send. ‘But I’m not fooled by it.’
He raised his eyebrows and bit into the pastry as his phone vibrated on the desk.