THIRTY-FIVE
“Liv,” said Aubrey, eyeing the smiling woman at his door with extreme reluctance.
“I got lucky. Arrived at the same time as a delivery for another floor. Thought I’d save you the sound of the buzzer.”
He said nothing, silently noting the raindrops on her auburn hair, wondering if he could get away with closing the door in her face.
“Come on,” she said, smile softening. “I know you’ve been having a terrible morning. I came as soon as I heard. Don’t forget I’m a lawyer. I might be an invaluable friend right now.”
“I know plenty of lawyers.”
She grinned. “But none as good as me.”
“None as vicious,” he muttered.
“And that’s exactly what you need,” she said, patting him on the chest and stepping past him into the flat before he could protest.
He closed the door in irritation and followed her into the living room where she sat on the sofa, arranging herself, perfectly at ease, rain-mac unbuttoned to reveal the deep, somewhat unprofessional V neck of her black dress.
“Do you still get that amazing Colombian single source coffee?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
She got up. “I’ll make it. You look like you could use one.”
She brushed past him on the way to the kitchen, leaving a trail of perfume strong enough to trigger his headache all over again. Or maybe it was her presence. That was very much not helping his mood, nor was the sound of cupboard doors and cutlery as she rooted happily through his kitchen.
“Liv… Look… Can you go? Please.”
Pausing her hunt for cups, she turned. For a moment she looked at him, and the smile on her face faded into regret. Sorrow. A deep, heavy sympathy that sent unease curling coldly up his spine.
“Aubrey… I didn’t just come to help you, although I will, don’t doubt it for a moment. I came because I know the truth. And I thought it would be best hearing it from an old friend, not a stranger.”
Aubrey frowned, mentally batting away the ‘old friend’ comment to deal with later. “Know what?”
Liv’s sympathy deepened further, eyes almost shining with tears. “Who it was. The person who leaked the emails.”
“Who?” Aubrey asked, though everything told him he was walking into a trap. To his doom.
Liv smiled sadly. “It was Evie.”
Aubrey jerked back. “No. Not you, too. I’ve already had this conversation with George. It wasn’t her.”
He tensed as Liv stepped towards him, but she walked past him, back into the living room, and got her phone from her bag. She tapped at the screen for a moment, then handed it to him.
“I’m so sorry, Aubrey.”
They were emails. Screenshots. But not his emails, not BlacktonGold. It was Evie’s name. A half-dozen or so emails sent between her and an FTP account.
—Yes, I understand the plan. He’s arriving on Saturday. It’s almost definite that he’ll bring his laptop. It’s a working weekend…
—I’ll have to get friendly with him, be in the room when he’s using it…
—He’ll think I’m after Domnall. He won’t suspect what I’m really doing…
—Don’t worry. I can be persuasive when I want to…
Everything was silent for a very long time. Aubrey held the phone, looked at the words, a distant ringing in his ears. Maybe this was what death felt like, a strange, detached part of him thought. The point where consciousness leaves the body. Escapes the ruined carcass. Gives up. No hope.
Except dying wouldn’t hurt so much. Or there’d be an end to the pain, anyway. This… This was…
He sucked in a breath, phone falling to the sofa, black rectangle on the leather.
“Was she?” Liv asked. “Very persuasive? I suppose she must have been.”
She came over, tried to put a hand on his shoulder. He lurched away from her touch.
“Go away. Get out of here.” His voice was low, dangerous, but she ignored him.
“You don’t want to be alone right now, Aubrey. I can imagine how you’re feeling.”
She couldn’t. Didn’t have a heart to be broken. Broken again, and worse… Somehow even worse than the last time…
“Where is she right now?” Liv asked.
“Out.”
“Left this morning, did she? Early? Before the story broke?”
Aubrey turned away, hand over his mouth, holding back he hardly knew what, wouldn’t have been surprised if it was blood. God it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt…
Was he so stupid? How had he not seen? It had seemed so real… Surely it was real… She hadn’t really…
I can be persuasive when I want to…
“Let me make you that coffee,” Liv said. “Sit down. You’ve gone white, Aubrey. Jesus, you’re shaking…”
She had a hand on his arm. He shook it off, moved away across the room.
“Get out, Liv. Just go.”
“I’m not leaving you in this state.”
She went into the kitchen. Aubrey’s eye fell on the phone, still on the sofa where he’d dropped it from his numb hand. He wanted to smash it, pound it to dust, as though that could erase it, make it untrue.
Liv came back and held out a coffee. When he made no move to take it, she put it on the coffee table, then sat back down on the sofa, putting the phone back in her bag. Hiding the evidence. As if it was so easy to move on.
“George will come after you for breaking the gagging clause and for releasing confidential information.”
She looked at him when he didn’t reply.
“You don’t want to mess with his lawyers, Aub. They’d give my guys a run for their money.”
He walked to the window. Leant there looking at the rain streaking the glass. The sky and the world were grey. Evie would be out there in the cold and the mud. In the garden he’d bought her. A wrench of pain swept through him, so sharp it left him shattered, his lungs ragged, heart torn. But he made no move, just watched the rain tumble down the glass.
“You can make it all go away,” Liv said.
“How?” He glanced at her.
She patted her bag. “You have what you need to prove it wasn’t you. This is enough evidence to put Evie in the frame.”
“No.”
“No?”
That was all the reply he could give. A fierce, intractable no .
Liv smiled, coaxing. “George isn’t going to sue his own daughter, Aub. She won’t come to any harm, I’m sure.”
Aubrey was very far from sure about that. Evie had hurt BlacktonGold, and George would find a way to punish her for it, public or not. And it was illegal, what she had done. If word got out…
“No,” he said again.
“This can save you!” Liv exclaimed. “You can’t want to protect her after what she’s done to you. She used you, Aubrey. Lied to you. Manipulated you. And now she’s thrown you to the dogs, ruined your career. This case could bankrupt you. How can you possibly still care a shred for the girl?”
“Because I love her.”
Again: the only reply he could give. The simple truth.
Liv’s face hardened, angry red flooding her cheeks. “Then you’re an idiot. But I won’t let you ruin yourself for her. I’ll take the evidence to George myself.”
Aubrey took a quick step towards her. “You will not.”
Liv stood, pulling her bag onto her shoulder, all her cool composure gone. “I will. I’ll save you. And you’ll see which one of us you should have chosen.”
“You will not,” Aubrey repeated, voice low and hard. “Because you know as well as I do that your supposed evidence is inadmissible. Illegally obtained. You have no police warrant to access Evie’s emails. HallardPuck might act like they’re above the law, but they are not, and neither are you. If you so much as breathe a word about Evie’s involvement in this, I will come after you with every dirty secret I know from the sixteen years I’ve spent regretting the day we ever met. Now get out of my damn house.”