Chapter 46 Liv
Chapter 46
Liv
It wasn’t long past 5.30 a.m. when I pulled into the car park. Me and the two yogis I’ve taken on rotate who unlocks and closes the studio each day, and today it’s my turn for the early bird start.
The novelty of walking through these corridors and knowing this place is mine has yet to wear off. Brandon and I have stepped far from our comfort zones to be where we need to be, and I’ve done things he isn’t aware of to push us over the line. But as I gaze at what I’ve accomplished, I am convinced the end has justified the means. It doesn’t stop the hairs on the back of my neck from prickling each time I’m alone here though. Whenever I open the closed door to my office, I am hesitant just in case Harrison has returned. It’s unlikely, as he made his point with his last visit. But I can never be a hundred per cent sure.
I still don’t miss my life in the capital. Bow’s gentrification enabled us to make a huge profit on our flat two years after moving in. That, alongside my bank job and online work, afforded us a decent deposit on a small house and a suitable building to use as a studio in our commuter belt of choice, Northamptonshire. But we still needed to take out a loan. Our only obstacle was Brandon, who, along with a friend, ended up bankrupt when a gym they had invested in before we met proved unsuccessful. So I had to secure a loan on my own.
I applied to each of the high-street banks because I didn’t want my employers knowing I was planning to quit my job. And one by one, they declined. Their excuses echoed: I was newly qualified with an unproven track record in the health and well-being industry; I didn’t have a sufficient back-up plan; I lacked collateral; my debt-to-income ratio was too high. And they never allowed me to forget that I was married to a bankrupt.
Harrison, Murray & Kline was my last resort. I was PA to Michael Murray, grandson of one of the founders. But internal regulations meant that Murray deciding upon my application for a loan would be a conflict of interest, so instead I was interviewed by Lord Robert Harrison, an arrogant bulldog of a man who couldn’t have looked any more like the Monopoly mascot Uncle Pennybags than if he had worn a top hat and monocle. I’d remained in touch with his former secretary, Mary, who, before resigning, had been signed off on long-term sick leave due to the stress he put her under. She loathed the man.
‘He will turn your application down,’ she’d warned me weeks earlier when we met at a café far from the bank. ‘But he’ll make you feel as awkward as possible before he does it. He might even make you beg, because he gets off on humiliating women.’
‘So I’m wasting my time?’ I asked, deflated.
‘That depends. How far are you willing to go?’
‘How far will I need to go?’
Her response was a wry smile.
For ten long minutes, Harrison silently pored over my accounts in his wood-panelled office as I shifted from buttock to buttock opposite him. For reasons I had yet to learn, he’d invited two lawyers with him into our meeting.
‘You’ve saved a lot of money, particularly over the last three years,’ he began.
‘My husband Brandon has a lot of social media followers who subscribe to his personal-training videos,’ I explained. It was a part-truth. ‘His earnings are paid into my account because of the bankruptcy I mentioned earlier. Next year he hopes to be discharged from his debts.’
‘Will he be joining you as a director in your proposed business?’
‘No, he will be a paid employee.’
‘ A paid employee ,’ he scoffed.
One lawyer smirked.
‘So your earnings, beyond the generous wage we pay you, are actually your husband’s?’ he continued.
‘Yes, and of course I pay tax on them.’
‘So just to clarify, this money has nothing to do with the adult content you also provide for an OnlyFans page?’
He pushed his glasses down his nose and glared at me. I swallowed hard.
‘Olivia,’ began one of his po-faced lawyers. ‘Background checks on your income revenues have revealed you provide services of an adult nature which contravene your contract with Harrison, Murray & Kline, as they risk bringing our business into disrepute.’
I was readying myself to protest when Harrison swivelled his laptop in my direction and played a video of Brandon and me. It was a two-year-old clip of him naked and handcuffed to a hook on the wall while I slapped his buttocks with a wooden paddle. Our faces may not have been identifiable, but our voices were. How on earth had they discovered this?
I don’t know if it was out of nervousness or if the video was a prime example of the absurdity of what Brandon and I were prepared to do to follow our dreams, but I laughed. A proper, vocal laugh out loud.
‘You find this funny?’ Harrison asked.
‘Of course it is,’ I replied. By this point, I had nothing to lose. ‘This business means everything to us and we’ve been willing to do anything to reach our goal. Do you think I’m happy we’ve had to raise money this way? Of course I’m not. But can I see the funny side of it? Yes, I can.’
Harrison shook his head in dismay.
‘As an executive personal assistant, you are one of the faces of this business,’ the lawyer continued. ‘If a client was to recognise you, how do you think that might reflect upon our image?’
‘I’d be more interested to know how they recognised me,’ I replied, perhaps a little too flippantly. ‘So I assume my application has been refused.’
Without waiting for an answer, I gathered the paperwork I’d brought with me and slipped it back inside my folder.
‘It’s more serious than that,’ the second lawyer said. ‘I’m afraid what you have been doing is a terminable offence.’
Now that came as a surprise.
‘You’re sacking me for something I’ve done that has nothing to do with my actual job?’
‘Not if you are willing to resign with immediate effect and sign a non-disclosure agreement. Lord Harrison has more than generously agreed to pay you for the next three months, and you will also receive a generous reference.’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘Then we will suspend you without pay and begin disciplinary procedures. What’s it to be, Olivia?’
For a moment I wished I’d brought the wooden paddle I’d used on Brandon to knock twelve shades of shit out of Harrison and his cronies. I looked to him, his arrogant, fat face radiating smugness. Then I gave them my answer.
‘I’d like to speak to Lord Harrison alone, please,’ I said calmly.
Both lawyers shook their heads vigorously.
‘That’s not possible,’ said the first.
I directed my attention towards their employer.
‘I think you’ll find it is possible,’ I told him.
I took a breath as I removed my phone from my handbag, accessed my photographs and showed Lord Harrison an image.
His face paled and he slowly balled his fists.
‘Give us a moment,’ he ordered his lawyers.
‘I would strongly advise—’ began the second one.
‘Now!’ he yelled.
He waited until the door had closed before he spoke again.
Eight days later, I received a severance offer including two years of full pay, a guaranteed investment from the bank in an empty studio property, and a favourable mortgage on the family home of my dreams. In return, I signed a non-disclosure agreement in which I agreed never to make public the online conversation he and I had where I’d pretended to be a fifteen-year-old boy and he had solicited me for sex. It had occurred a week before our meeting, in a chatroom that Mary, his former secretary, had informed me she’d found in his computer’s search history.
I’d saved the explicit images of himself he’d sent to my alter ego, and messages where he’d offered money for the boy’s photos. The stupid old fool had even paid for a train ticket for the lad to travel to London to meet him. Mary had also supplied me with details of the apartment Harrison rented in central London and regularly used to entertain young male sex workers. Neither the bank – which footed the bill – nor his wife and four children had any idea of the arrangement.
Brandon still doesn’t know our new life was mostly funded by blackmail. Not once but twice. I was forced to go back to Harrison when the heated flooring needed to be replaced. It’s the only secret I’ve ever kept from my husband. But that’s not what pricks my conscience. It’s that Harrison is a paedophile and I’ve chosen to keep that quiet, to benefit myself. I’m a mother. I should know better. My moral compass is highly questionable, to say the least.
Inside my office, I open the windows to allow in August’s fresh early morning air. I take deep breaths to try and rid my mind of the memory of Harrison, but he stubbornly remains. I know that to my friends and the outside world, I’m a self-made woman. But inside, I hate that I’m not. Blackmail alongside my OnlyFans work means that my little empire has been built on the foundations paid to me by the parts of myself I have sold to men.
And that leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth.