Chapter 7
James
Early morning sunlight is slanting through the window by the sink as I examine my puffy face in the office bathroom mirror.
After Des and Alex went to bed, I drank too much of a bottle of whiskey I’ve stashed away in my bedroom.
It’s becoming a habit. I just want to numb everything that keeps circling around in my head like water around a drain.
I have no memory of when I drifted off. My head throbs, and the stitches on my face look like someone left a very tidy spider next to my eye.
When I close my eyes, stumbling around on the roof flashes through my head and then a sharp pain in my leg.
I roll up my pants and examine the wound.
It looks neat and innocuous, like something minor happened, but it feels so much bigger than that.
I push the cotton back down, lean forward, and wash my hands. Could I hide in here all day?
My phone buzzes with a message:
Are you still at Des’s? When are you coming back home?
Jane. She’s been messaging me every day since Des moved my stuff out, and I’ve got no idea how to break it to her that I’m never going back to our old apartment.
Losing Jane is like all my dreams just went up in smoke.
I don’t know why I didn’t see the faultlines in our relationship.
Something rock solid just shifted so suddenly under my feet, and I’ve no idea how to get back to the life I thought I had.
I slide my phone back in my pocket and head back to my desk.
A sea of project management spreadsheets dances across my screen, and I flick through them as something coils in my gut.
I’m deep into the problems with Samsung deliverables when someone moves past where I’m sitting, and my head snaps up.
Sadie. Regret swamps the odd coiling sensation.
No doubt she picked up that I didn’t want her in the spare bedroom at Des’s place.
I really like Sadie, but the idea of sharing a space with anyone, even somebody as lovely as Sadie, and subjecting them to how I am at the moment, seems like the worst idea in the world.
I’m barely holding it together in the office; trying to do that in private, too, would be impossible.
Sadie turns slightly to move past a couple of desks, back straight, caramel-brown hair spilling over her shoulders like a curtain. I blink at the side of her face.
What the hell’s happened to her cheek?
It’s thick with makeup and it looks like …
She turns away from me again, and I stare at the back of her head as she reaches her desk under the window.
The pot plant between me and her blocks my view as she sits down.
Her face looked … I grimace at the code on my screen.
Bruised? Something hot burns through my chest. Fuck.
I push myself out of my chair and pace over to where she’s sitting, twirling a pencil in my fingers.
“Hi, Sadie,” I say.
Her head is down, hair covering the side of her face closest to me. She doesn’t raise her head; her eyes are locked on her keyboard as her hands stop typing.
“Hi, James,” she says.
“How do you know it’s me if you don’t look at me?”
Behind the curtain of hair, her lips curl up reluctantly. Then she mutters, “Peripheral vision, woodsy aftershave, voice tone and content … I could go on.”
Woodsy aftershave? “Okay, smartass.”
Amused eyes flash up to mine, and that’s when I see it, the bruise across her cheekbone, heavily but clumsily concealed. My eyesight mists red. I didn’t believe her when she said she didn’t have any trouble from that asshole who turned up at the office, and now she turns up with this?
“What happened to your face?”
A flush starts up on her neck. “Do you have the right to ask that?”
Oh shit, I probably don’t. But wow, Sadie’s the last person I’d expect a sharp comeback from. Her face flushes, and her eyes are glassy as they dart away from mine.
I glance around at where the desks are starting to fill, then I lean forward and tap my pencil on her desk.
“Meet me in the conference room in five minutes, please,” I murmur.
I walk back to gather up my laptop, and head to the glass cube.
If she still lives with him, then no wonder she wants to move out of home.
Sadie stands up and makes her way slowly into the meeting room, sliding into the seat opposite me, a sheet of tawny hair still covering her cheekbone.
When her eyes meet mine, hers are somewhat red. Oh shit. “Are you okay?”
She glances at the door, chewing her lip. “Do you want me to go?”
I frown. “Go? Go where?”
“Am I fired?”
“What? No, of course not!”
She slumps in on herself a little. Why would she think I was firing her? “I’m sorry if I was intrusive with my question, Sadie …” I start.
She shakes her head. “It isn’t the best idea coming into the office looking like this.”
“You look fine. You’re always perfectly put together.”
Her lips part as she stares at me. “In my big cardigans and cheap pants,” she mutters.
Wait, what? “Yes,” I say, narrowing my eyes at her. What is she talking about? She always looks great.
Her face flares red again as she turns away. Perhaps there’s more to Sadie than meets the eye.
“Obviously, you’re under no obligation to tell me, but something’s happened to your face and …” I gesture vaguely toward her head.
Her small teeth worry at her lower lip. “I’m fine, James, honestly,” she says.
“Was it your dad?” The questions keep spilling out before I can reel them in.
A few seconds tick past then she shakes her head. “You covered up for me when Jake showed up here …” she starts.
“You don’t owe me anything.”
Her eyes meet mine but I can’t read her expression.
Clearly, whatever is happening to her at home isn’t good.
Maybe it’s way more important that she move out than I realized.
I need to stop sticking my head in the sand and think about something other than my own problems for a change.
Perhaps being on my own and drinking and brooding about Jane isn’t the smartest idea I’ve ever had.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come across as overly enthusiastic when Des suggested you could take his second bedroom. I’d actually be very happy to have you there. I’d appreciate the company.”
She snorts, and my eyes narrow on her. Sadie’s not quite the original pushover I thought she was.
“You don’t want me living there,” she says.
I examine the line where she’s misapplied her makeup along her jaw. Her skin is white underneath. Something protective burns through me. I’m a jerk for making her think she’s unwelcome. And now that asshole I met has hit her when she could have been safe in Des’s apartment with me.
“It’s nothing to do with you.” I stare out of the window at the sunlight beaming down between the skyscrapers. “Splitting up with Jane …” I clear my throat. “It’s been difficult. Hard to deal with. I’m not in the best frame of mind right now to be reasonable company, so I felt …”
“Yeah, I get it.”
“Please, Sadie. I want to help. The spare bedroom will be empty when Des and Alex go to Korea, and that’s a crime when you’re looking for a place.”
“I can’t afford to rent a room downtown, James. It’d be crazy expensive.”
“Des is more than happy so long as he covers his mortgage. I’m sure we can agree on a sum that works for all of us.
Please.” How can I persuade her? Perhaps I can lean on her a little?
“While we can both pretend you ran into a door, I’m sure that’s not what really happened.
I don’t want to overstep, but I also don’t want to stand by and do nothing, either.
I’m not that person. And I don’t want to be worrying about whether there’s something going on for you outside work. ”
Sadie’s eyes widen. Fuck. Engage your brain, James.
“Sorry, Sadie, I’m not saying this right. You’re not a problem. I’d just like to help, that’s all.” I give her what I hope is a winning smile.
She runs a finger down the grain in the table. “I don’t know, James. It could be awkward with the two of us sharing a place and working together. Let me think about it.”
She hasn’t denied that she’s going through some difficulties, has she?
I shudder at the thought of her living with that man I met downstairs.
God, I don’t have the charm that Des has in persuading people.
Who needs the quiet, studious guy in charge?
What were Des and Jo thinking when they asked me to run the team?
Des straightens from where he’s propped himself against a desk at the center of the office, and I scan over the sea of faces packed into the open-plan floor.
It’s standing room only, all our workforce now squashed in for this meeting, and I make a mental note that even with expanding upstairs, we need to think about new offices.
“Okay, guys,” Des says, clapping his hands, and everyone goes quiet. “Just in case any of you hadn’t realized, I’m moving to South Korea for two years this weekend.”
A smattering of laughter ripples through the crowd. “Please remember it’s usually thirteen hours ahead. So calls at 9 a.m. are 10 p.m. my time. If you call me during the day, it will be the middle of the night for me. So don’t contact me before 6 p.m. U.S. time, or I will find a way to murder you.”
More laughter.
“I’m more than happy to take any concerns early in the morning or late at night, but your best option is to speak to Jo or James.
” He studies his hands. “There is the technical aspect of all this, but then there’s the personal side, too.
Cath is stepping up to be James’s number two, and Roy is taking over Cath’s project manager role.
Technically, no one understands more than James about the phone’s internal workings and he’s solved many a problem for me.
We wanted to hold this session today so anyone who wants to could raise any final concerns. So, please, fire away.”