Chapter Thirty-Six
Olly was leaning against a wall texting furiously when I came out of the hotel. I stood next to him, searching for Jacob’s number in my contacts. ‘You okay?’
‘Fine,’ he said, eyes fixed on his phone.
I hit Call on my phone and Jacob picked up in two rings. I told him that there had been a hitch in proceedings which I would explain later, and said he and Amber would be leading the brainstorming sessions that morning.
‘What?’ Jacob groaned. ‘Really?’
‘JFDI, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘I’ll make it up to you somehow.’
‘Venice sucks,’ he said, and put the phone down.
I stared at the phone for a long minute then smiled at Olly, who had finished his texting. ‘Don’t you love the smell of crisis in the morning?’
He smiled back, but half-heartedly. We walked together, quietly, along the street, dodging tourists.
‘Shall we start again?’ I said. ‘Are you okay?’
He opened his mouth, and I could see he was about to brush me off again.
I put my hand out, not allowing him to break eye contact. ‘What’s wrong?’
We stepped to the side of the street in tandem.
‘I’m just not sure how to be with you,’ he said softly.
‘Wanting to cool it? That was pretty quick. And I don’t want to get caught up in a rollercoaster situation where we keep misreading each other.
Look.’ He put his hands in his pockets, straightened his shoulders.
‘I get it, if you want to step back, I’m not going to force anything. ’
I stared at him, unable to frame the right words.
He took in my doubtful expression. ‘Message received.’ He gave me a strained half-smile. ‘No worries.’
I swallowed hard. It had been difficult enough telling him I didn’t see him as casual.
Saying more was downright petrifying. But what was more scary?
The idea of losing him entirely before we’d even begun.
I looked into his eyes. I had five seconds to decide it.
To decide to break my cardinal rule. No work relationships.
No mixing business with pleasure. But then again, I’d already broken it.
‘I was scared,’ I said.
His eyes fixed on my face. I had his attention.
I ploughed on. ‘I’ve worked hard to get where I am.
Mixing personal and professional hasn’t worked for me.
’ I felt my lip curl. Jack Dillane. ‘And let’s be honest, if things went bad between us, you’d be the local stud, I’d be slut-shamed.
And even without that’– my voice faltered – ‘my instinct is always to pull back first. To test, if you like. But I don’t want this to end. When I say this, I mean us…’
‘I know what you meant.’ His voice was hoarse, his eyes darkening and brightening at the same time. I pressed my body against his, raised my lips to his. We kissed tenderly. ‘So you want this?’ he said. ‘For the avoidance of doubt.’
I nodded. ‘But if we go for it,’ I said, ‘don’t fucking hurt me.’
I saw the words ricochet through him. ‘I’d do anything other than that.’
Our phones chimed in tandem. We let go of each other; Olly glanced at his. ‘The verdict’s in,’ he said.
The butler showed me and Olly into the lounge area of the suite.
Ajax had forwarded the message from the newspaper editor to our emails, and we opened it on our phones: a three-line missive which said they planned to run the story the following day unless, dot dot dot.
The picture was also attached and I gazed at it gloomily.
I’d hoped it might be blurrier than I remembered, but this was no magic eye image; Ajax’s identity was clearer than clear, and it had been taken in broad daylight.
It wasn’t as if he could claim he’d got drunk at the masked ball or something similar.
I was looking at it when the bedroom door opened and Esme and Ajax emerged. They stood together in front of us.
‘We can’t go ahead with the wedding,’ said Esme. ‘That’s our decision.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Olly, formally. I nodded in agreement.
Unexpectedly, Ajax burst into tears.
We all stood there, awkwardly, in the silence.
‘Okay,’ I said, when Ajax had finished sobbing. ‘I’m going to suggest something.’
Everyone looked at me expectantly; I gestured for them to sit down.
‘Your statement only has to be short. Give just enough information – or non-information – for everyone to wonder what has happened, but we can make it clear it’s amicable.
Meanwhile, one of us should get on the phone and negotiate with the editor, an exclusive interview with Ajax on our return, which we can prep for in detail. ’
Ajax put his head in his hands. I glanced at Olly, and he nodded. ‘I can call the editor,’ he said. ‘I know him, and Ajax is my guy after all.’
I made a deferential head tilt. ‘Absolutely. I’ll do the statement draft.’ When I looked at him my expression probably said and then can we go back to bed please, because I saw him swallow hard and suppress a smile.
Esme was rubbing Ajax’s back. He really did seem inconsolable, his serenity completely gone.
‘Let’s all take a breath,’ I said. ‘Try to relax, Ajax. We have enough to do the statement.’
Olly slipped away to call the editor. Esme persuaded Ajax to go and lie down, got on the hotel phone and booked a massage for him that afternoon. Then she sat quietly near me, sipping a coffee.
‘Is he all right?’ I said, as I tapped away, quietly typing out a noncommittal statement and reading it in my mind again and again. ‘Does he need a doctor? A therapist?’
She gave a cheerful exhalation. ‘He’ll see both when we get home.
He’s just shocked that someone found out what he was doing.
It’s that invasion of privacy. Plus, I think there was about five percent of him that thought we might actually get married.
He’ll be fine, though, once he’s cried it out.
He’s like a little rubber ball. Bounces right back. ’
I glanced at her. She was dressed in leopard print trousers and a cream silk blouse, barefoot, her hair loose and wavy, her signature red lips and purposefully smudged eyeliner just so. As she gazed out of the floor-to-ceiling windows, out at the lagoon, she looked almost meditative.
‘You seem… calm,’ I ventured.
She gave a quiet little laugh. ‘I know I don’t say it, Lizzy, but I do always expect things to go wrong. I… want it, even. Chaos fuels art. I’ve been drawing all morning; I’ve got ideas stacking up in my brain. It’s normal, boring, everyday life that really gets to me.’
‘I see.’ I carried on typing. Decided not to tell her that I really loved boring, normal life.
A quiet day, that would be good. A walk in the park with the sun on my back.
A slow breakfast. Preferably – I practically whispered it to myself – with Olly there, making me laugh.
But then Esme and Ajax were used to having money and autonomy now, so literally any kind of day was available to them.
Experiences could be bought; so could people.
No wonder the ordinary lost its appeal. Everything lost its appeal, if it was all there for the taking, minimal effort required.
‘Someone needs to get on the phones and cancel the investors’ meeting,’ I said. ‘I can ask Sasha to start making calls?’
‘Oh,’ said Esme airily, ‘don’t do that.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I’ll be fine to speak tomorrow.’ She nodded, smiling cheerily. ‘It’s going to be a splash, isn’t it? It’ll be great for Chroma. What’s the saying? There’s no such thing as bad publicity? Also, the hotel has set everything up, including the most amazing flower displays. No need to waste them.’
I sat very still. Since when did she care about wasting flowers? ‘Maybe you want to speak to Ajax about that?’
‘No.’ Her smile was impermeable.
‘And if I advise against it?’
‘Then I respectfully ignore your advice.’
‘Right,’ I said.
Later on, I was going to go back to my hotel room, try to do a shoulder stand, maybe even a plank, and then I was going to lie in corpse position until things clarified for me.