Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Evie went home to her flat on Sunday night. She needed a change of clothes for work the next day, and to check that she could still walk unaided. Nicky was in the living room reading a Jilly Cooper novel.
‘All good?’ she enquired.
‘Bliss,’ Evie replied, flopping down in an armchair. ‘ Multiple bliss.’
‘Golf-boy knows what he’s doing, then?’ said Nicky. ‘He’s not just a pretty arse?’
‘You noticed his arse?’
‘A standout,’ said Nicky. ‘One for the arse hall of fame.’
‘He has a tattoo that starts on his hip bone,’ said Evie, ‘and goes down–’
‘Into the V?’
‘The blissful V.’
‘Nice.’
Nicky set aside her Jilly and gave Evie a searching look. ‘So – it’s serious already, is it?’
Evie didn’t like where this was heading. ‘You mean, am I in fake love yet again?’
‘Mate, look,’ Nicky said. ‘This comes from a place of sincere affection, but you do tend to fall hard and fast. What you don’t do is take the time to really get to know someone.’
‘And then they reveal their true colours and break my heart?’
Evie had floated in on cloud nine, but now she felt like she’d been downgraded to the standard model cloud, which was grey, chilly and damp.
‘I’m just saying – if you think he’s a keeper, then no need to rush things,’ said Nicky. ‘Enjoy the process of discovery.’
Her friend was trying to be kind, Evie knew. But she still felt chastened. Nicky was exactly right about how she’d fallen for Shaun-Tony-Jason, and though Evie could insist until she was blue in the face that it was different with Leo, the evidence was pretty damning. They’d known each other for seven days – six-and-a-half if you wanted to be pedantic. Evie might feel like she knew Leo, but how could you know someone through and through in less than a week? No matter how open he’d been, no matter how many secrets they’d shared, six-point-five days wasn’t enough time to see someone in the round, to witness how they behaved in more challenging situations. Like when they were backed into a corner and felt threatened. Or when they had to step up and be brave.
Evie couldn’t say for sure how Leo would act in either case, and that should be a warning. But did she have what it took to heed it?
‘I have faith in you, mate, I do ,’ said Nicky. ‘And I like Leo. He’s definitely a cut above your feckless exes.’
‘But I should loosen my goose?’
‘All the way,’ Nicky said. ‘Take it down like Rupert Campbell-Black’s boxer shorts.’
‘Is that what’s happening in your book?’
‘Our hero has indeed dropped his dacks aka boxer shorts,’ Nicky confirmed. ‘Now he’s kicking them up in the air and catching them on the end of his stiffy.’
‘They don’t write quality literature like that these days,’ said Evie.
Suddenly, she felt exhausted. All right, so she’d had minimal sleep since Friday night and maximal physical exertion. Oh, and tomorrow, she might lose her job. But Evie knew the real reason behind her weariness was her concern that, despite her best intentions, she was repeating old patterns yet again. It was depressing.
‘I’m going to hit the hay,’ Evie told Nicky. ‘Night-night.’
‘Night, mate.’ Nicky’s eyes stayed on her book. Rupert and his stiffy were also probably hitting the hay. Those early Jillies featured a lot of shagging in stables.
As Evie got ready for bed, she hoped she wouldn’t be kept awake by fantasies of Leo. Or worries about her job. Soon as her head touched the pillow, though, she was asleep, and dreamed of nothing until the alarm roused her at 7am.
Evie got to the office at 8.15am to find even Nigel and Ange had beaten her in. Leo, however, was not at his desk, but Evie spotted his messenger bag, so he must be around somewhere.
‘Your boss is in with the big bosses,’ Nigel told her. ‘Got summoned five minutes ago.’
‘Do you know why?’ Evie had already come up with many possible reasons, none of them pleasant.
‘Last in, first out, I’d bet,’ Nigel said, morosely.
‘You promised,’ Ange chided him. ‘No Northern pessimism until midday.’
‘It’s not pessimism, it’s facts,’ said Nigel. ‘New brooms sweep clean. Plumbing Ultra will hire their own people and pay them as little as possible. Us with our cushy salaries are a drag on the bottom line, far as they’re concerned. We’ll have to go tout de suite. Au revoir, suckers . ’
‘And how was your weekend, Evie?’ said Ange, brightly.
Now that was a question. ‘Nice,’ seemed the safest answer. ‘Apart from the ever-present worry of being unemployed, of course.’
‘See!’ said Nigel to Ange. ‘It’s not only me who’s convinced we’re for the chop.’
His head turned towards the door. ‘Ey up. Incoming at twelve o’clock.’
Leo was back, and the thrill of his presence practically levitated Evie from her seat. Over the weekend, he had asked if they could keep it professional at the office, and Evie had agreed. But there he was, looking like a young god, and it was all Evie could do not to launch herself at him and have him take her right there on the desk.
But the coolness of his manner immediately dampened her impulse to stage an impromptu porn show for the Double K staff. As he took his seat, Leo’s only acknowledgment of Evie was a brief nod, which he also gave to Nigel and Ange. He started tapping away at his keyboard. Until he became aware that everyone was staring at him.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Don’t be a berk, lad,’ said Nigel. ‘What did those two bastards want with you?’
Leo scratched back of his neck, hesitating. Finally, he said, ‘To apologise.’
‘For giving you the boot?’ Nigel persisted.
‘No,’ said Leo. ‘For hiring me so close to the sale. They said if they’d known it was going to happen, they would have held off.’
‘How can they not have known?’ said Evie. ‘Don’t those kind of business negotiations take months?’
‘Normally …’
Leo was obviously reluctant to say more. But Nigel was having none of it.
‘Spill the beans, lad,’ he said, ‘Or I’ll take your nice shiny laptop and give you a clout.’
‘Okay!’ Leo raised his hands in surrender. ‘But this stays between us, right?’
Nigel made a zipping motion across his mouth.
‘Seems that Plumbing Ultra have been after Double K for a couple of years,’ Leo told them. ‘Made a bunch of offers; Keith and Kev rejected the lot. But now there’s a new CEO, whose first move was to tell Keith and Kev that if they didn’t accept, Plumbing Ultra would set up here in competition. It would be a big investment on their part, sure, but their buying power meant they could undercut Double K by miles, and in short order, crush them like a bug. Keith and Kev didn’t want to see everything they’d built destroyed, so last Thursday, they provisionally agreed to a sale. Wanted to give staff a heads-up soon as possible.’
‘Isn’t there some law against that kind of behaviour?’ said Evie.
‘Buying Double K won’t give Plumbing Ultra a monopoly,’ said Leo. ‘So – no.’
‘You say they’ve provisionally agreed?’ Nigel asked. ‘It’s not a done deal?’
‘As good as,’ replied Leo, with a shrug. ‘There’s no way Double K can compete, so it’s the only sensible decision, really.’
‘That’s it then.’ Nigel sat back in his chair. ‘Our jobs are for the la guillotine .’
‘You don’t know that,’ said ever-positive Ange.
‘The new Plumbing Ultra CEO managed to put the frighteners on our Kev,’ Nigel pointed out. ‘They’ll have no mercy on peasants like us.’
‘Happy Monday, everyone,’ said Evie, with a sigh. ‘Is it too early to start drinking?’
Red alert! All hands on deck! Trouble is brewing and we need to be ready for action …