Chapter 5 #2
Mel cleared her throat and Tracy picked up her coffee mug.
“The floor’s yours Simon. I’m waiting for you to explain to me why you thought it was appropriate to get your end off with one of our most valuable clients in his very recognisable private room and bloody well film it! ” Her voice crescendoed.
I started, wincing as Mel’s fist crashed into the table. Simon barely blinked.
“I didn’t film anyone.”
Tracy set her mug down. Sev sank low in her chair.
“I suspect,” Simon continued, “the camera was accidentally left on.”
Mel couldn’t pin that on either of them.
“Oh, alright. That’s fine then.” Mel’s lips thinned like she was trying very hard not to go ballistic. “Do carry on. As you were.”
Not one person in the room fell for that invitation.
“Did you not read your contract?” Mel whipcracked away from brightness. “Perhaps you thought that little conflict of interest bit didn’t apply to you? Please, enlighten me Simon. You’re the best this agency has to offer. I did assume you understood how this game works.”
This wasn’t fair. There were two of them in that film. Richard would still be a millionaire with a mansion and advertising contracts running into the next decade, but Simon had to go under?
My knuckles stiffened. Her booming at him could be the last thing I interpreted for him.
Simon didn’t say a word. Why wasn’t he saying anything?
Oh, god.
PR, I’d thought. That’d be good. I wouldn’t be stuck doling out bad news all day.
Not like interpreting medical appointments, or legal stuff.
Just meetings. Just business. I wouldn’t have to blank off every personal reaction while I delivered wrecking ball after wrecking ball to people’s lives, and got thanked for it like I’d done something admirable instead of the bare fucking minimum.
But this was it. Her firing him.
And I was going to have to tell him.
Any minute a security guard would pop up to escort him from the building, and one of Mel’s pocket lawyers would slap him with a gag order and sue him for reputational damages to the company. And I’d have to tell him that too.
“I’m waiting.” Eyebrow arched, Mel tapped at the small round face of the watch on her wrist.
Why wasn’t he saying anything? If he said something clever, like he always did, she’d go with it. There had to be a thousand ways to spin this to make it better. But Simon’s smile switched off. Eyes down. Everyone shut out.
“No?” Mel shook her head, exhaling wearily like she’d wanted him to come up with a solution as much as I did. “How disappointing.”
He’d get dragged out of this room, and I’d never see him again. We didn’t meet up socially now – we weren’t going to start after I helped end his entire career. I wouldn’t want to see me either.
“Right.” Mel planted both hands on the table, centring herself as she blinked at the polished wooden top. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”
Oh no. There had to be a way to fix this. It was only sex. It wasn’t even cheating.
Mel touched a fingertip to the bridge of her nose and flapped a perfectly manicured hand at him. “Get out of my sight. Pack your things from your desk.”
No no no.
“I expect you to—”
“Itwasn’tRicharditwasME!” Shit. Fuck. Titwanking bollocks.
I slapped a hand over my mouth, snorting a bull-breath through my nose.
The clatter of Tracy’s typing stilled.
“You?” Mel’s laser focus pivoted full force towards me. “Not Richard?”
I gulped, barely holding my ground. Nodding – that thing where your head goes up and down. I could do that.
I did that. Instead of spontaneously committing harakiri. Gold star. Round of applause. Lifetime achievement award. What planet was I on?
Mel Booker smiled like a snake swallowing an egg. “Now this is something we can work with.”
Oh god. What was I thinking? It’d take a global warming induced ice age for anyone to look at me and Simon and think we made sense together.
Sev blinked, eyes exaggeratedly wide. “Really?”
“Excuse me.” Simon slapped the table, and everyone froze. “Hi. Ben,” he signed, voice off. “You do know your entire job is interpreting for me?”
Eyeballing him, I rolled my fist slowly downwards, signing back. “Yes?”
“So do you think you could possibly tell me what the hell is going on? If it wouldn’t inconvenience you too much.” Hands short and stern and close to his body but so so loud, Simon rounded right out of serenity into Definitely Not Calm.
In fact, one might go as far as to call him A Little Bit Shouty.
Oh Christ. He was going to kill me. With his bare hands. Right after I took the gold medal for worst interpreter in the world. Mandela Memorial bloke had nothing on me.
I winced. Somehow my hands stayed steady. “Telling her it wasn’t Richard – it was me?”
Simon’s nostrils flared, eyes burning molten with fury. “What?”
The line I’d crossed was a dot from here. A tiny little full stop in size six font somewhere off in the distance.
With one efficient slap, Simon flipped the department laptop closed like he was taking my head off. I flinched. The projector blue-screened, complaining about connected devices and input channels, and he rounded the table, striding towards me.
I’d be lucky if I had any input channels left to complain about after he was done. Terror rooted me to the spot. What was I supposed to do? His boss, who I had lied through my lying teeth to, was right there, watching.
“Give us a minute, will you, Mel?” Pure charm, Simon purred at her – smile twinkling in his eyes. But his grip on my collar as he yanked me to my feet was unrepentantly steely.
“Ben and I need to have a little chat.”