Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
Somehow, I got through the rest of that afternoon.
I couldn’t look at Jamie. Just the sounds of him tapping his keyboard, twiddling his vape because he needed the nicotine hit but was too busy to go outside, even the rasp of his beard against his skin when he ran his fingers through it, sent shivers down my spine.
He had caught me off guard when he kissed me, and I was equally defenceless now. I’d hurt him in the place where he was most sensitive – his ego and his pride. And he wasn’t going to move on from that.
I didn’t know what form his revenge against me would take, but I knew it would come.
I didn’t even fully understand why he wanted revenge – for rejecting his sexual advance or for not making one of my own in the first place; for knowing too much about him; for not choosing him even though I no longer had Sam – but I was sure he would.
And when it came, I would be caught unawares, unless I could think of a plan to strike first.
There was no point in going to Jasper and telling him what I knew.
Jamie had already dealt with that, convincing Jasper that it was all happenstance, and I had no more proof than Jasper did anyway.
Also, deep down, I suspected that given the choice between believing me – a woman from a different background to his own, with none of the social connections and savoir faire Jamie brought to Devereaux Partners, with only my years of experience of working hard and kowtowing to rich people enabling me to do the job in the first place – and believing Jamie, Jasper would pick Jamie every time.
I’d got it wrong, I realised. Not just recently, but when I first joined the company and Jamie had welcomed me with his best winning smile and said, I feel like you and I are going to be friends.
Right then, I should have made the decision to keep him at arm’s length, to work with him as a colleague but nothing more. But I hadn’t.
Sam had known, though. Right from the beginning, when I’d invited Jamie to our housewarming and Sam had said the next day, He seems a bit dodgy. I’d just laughed and brushed off his concerns, because I thought I knew better and I wanted to trust Jamie.
I had trusted him, and I hadn’t trusted Sam.
Big mistake, Georgia.
At last, I heard Jamie push back his chair. I heard the familiar click of his shoulder as he stretched – buggered my rotator cuff playing squash, he’d told me, years before – and the rattle of the buckles on his laptop bag as he closed it.
‘Knocking off time,’ he said, as he always did. ‘Nighty night, Georgia.’
Today, though, I was sure I could detect a hint of menace in his voice that had never been there before. Or was I just imagining it?
When his footsteps passed behind my desk and the scent of his aftershave faded from the air, I felt tension I hadn’t been aware was there leave my body.
This was the time when I should be getting ready to go home to Sam.
I should be picking up my phone and texting him to say I was just about done, asking him if he fancied meeting for a drink or some food, or which of us would be cooking dinner at home.
I should be looking forward to the moment when I’d see his face and give him a kiss hello, and we’d tell each other about our days.
I should be going to bed with him tonight and waking up with him in the morning.
But that wasn’t going to happen – not today and not ever again.
The realisation of what I’d had and lost hit me with fresh force.
In no time, it would be autumn – Sam’s favourite season of the year.
He’d get out his battered shearling aviator jacket, the leather worn away at the elbows, and the beanie hat that made him look like Cartman from South Park, but which he loved because his granny had knitted it.
Then it would be Christmas, and he’d get excited about making mulled wine, which I’d pretend to enjoy because it made him happy.
In January, it would be his birthday, and he’d buy himself a Colin the Caterpillar cake, just in case everyone else forgot, even though they never did.
And I wouldn’t be there to do those things with him.
I wondered if he would do them anyway, and if he would think of me.
He’d done them before we met, so presumably he would do them still.
Presumably he’d done them when he was with Ava, and afterwards thought of her when the leaves on the trees turned, Christmas approached and he turned another year older.
I stood up, having shut down my computer and packed my phone and water bottle into my bag on autopilot, and found myself thinking of Ava, as I’d done so often over the past couple of months.
But I wasn’t thinking of her now with resentment or wariness, the way I used to.
She had loved Sam and lost him too. She would have gone through all those firsts without him that had once been firsts with him.
And she had survived, the way everyone does when their heart gets broken, even though it doesn’t feel possible at the time.
I rummaged in my bag and located my phone again. Before she left the flat, Ava had said, almost tentatively, Do you want to take my number? In case we need to talk?
At the time, I’d been so blindsided with shock at what she’d told me that I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to see or talk to her again, although I’d entered her number in my phone anyway.
But I wanted to talk to her now.
As I stepped out of the building into the sunlit street, I pressed send on a text message.
‘It’s no problem.’ Ava smiled at me over her cappuccino. ‘I’m off to the theatre later, so there was no point going home after work. I’ve joined a group of single people who meet up once a month and do different activities. I’m the youngest by about thirty years, but it’s good fun.’
I looked at her with respect. Somehow, I’d never thought of her other than in the context of her being Sam’s ex, and more recently as a survivor of terrible trauma. But of course she was more than that – she was a person with a life and a job and presumably a family and other friends.
Seeing my surprise, she went on, ‘Elizabeth, my therapist, encouraged me to join. I’m a bit nervous meeting new people, so this seemed like a safe way to do it. Especially since I’m not ready for online dating yet – or most probably ever.’
She grimaced and then laughed, and after a second, I joined in.
‘It’s amazing you can laugh about it,’ I said. ‘I’m like… if something like that happened to me, I don’t think I’d ever laugh again.’
‘Oh, you would.’ She smiled. ‘It takes a while, but you get there. Everyone does.’
Maybe I’d get over losing Sam, eventually, and laugh and move on. I’d have to – I had no choice, any more than Ava had had a choice about carrying on with her life after what happened to her.
Politely, I asked her a bit about the show she was going to see, and she told me, but I was conscious of time passing and the need to talk properly to her before she headed off to meet her singles group.
‘So, I…’ I began, once I’d bought us each a second coffee. ‘I don’t know if you really want to hear this, or if it’s appropriate to tell you or whatever… but Sam and I have split up.’
Her face fell in genuine distress. ‘Oh no. Not a trial thing any more?’
‘It doesn’t look that way. We still need to work out all the practicalities. But I don’t think he’s… I don’t think he’ll forgive me for the way things turned out.’
‘Georgia, that’s… I’m so sorry. That’s awful. I feel like it’s because of me.’
Vehemently, I shook my head. ‘It’s not. I’d have thought that, a few weeks back. But it’s really not. I did a stupid thing and it all kind of spiralled out of control, and here we are.’
‘You don’t have to tell me what happened,’ she said. ‘But if you want to, it’s okay. I’ll listen.’
Hesitantly, with a load of backtracking, but as honestly as I could, I explained to her about Jamie’s idea and how it had all backfired.
‘At first Sam didn’t seem to be taking any notice,’ I said. ‘But he told me afterwards he thought it was all fake.’
‘So if he knew that, what was the problem?’ Ava asked.
‘Apart from him realising I was acting like a total dick?’ I grimaced.
‘Well, I wouldn’t have put it quite that way myself.’ Ava’s smile was gentle.
‘There isn’t another way to put it, unfortunately,’ I admitted.
‘I was a complete idiot. But I was so wound up and insecure and jealous about you, when Jamie – Jamie Baldwin, the guy at work whose idea this all was – suggested it, it seemed like a great idea, and then by the time I realised it wasn’t, it was too late. ’
‘Why? Did something happen?’ Speaking more softly now, she leaned across the table.
Slowly, I nodded. ‘I… This might be triggering for you to hear. I probably shouldn’t be telling you. If you want me to, I’ll stop.’
‘It’s okay. I’m kind of used to hearing difficult things.’
‘I guess he’s liked me for a while. Or not liked me so much as wanted to take me away from Sam. Not because of me but just to prove he could.’
As I spoke, I realised I was confronting a truth I hadn’t been able to see before.
‘He’s kind of a player,’ I went on. ‘It’s like, he’s a good-looking guy. He could have any woman he wanted. But he wants the ones he can’t have, and the ones he can, he uses and then dumps. But I thought I was different. I thought he and I were friends.’
‘Men like him don’t see women as friends.’ Ava’s voice was harsh, her eyes as cold and still as pebbles in a stream. ‘I don’t think they even see us as people.’
‘I don’t think they do either,’ I admitted.
I remembered the dead birds Jamie had dumped on my desk – not because he thought I’d want them but to provoke a reaction from me.
Because he could. ‘Anyway. He and I went out after work. Just as mates, I thought. I thought he was comforting me because I was upset about Sam. But on the way home afterwards, he… he tried to kiss me. Well, he did kiss me.’
‘And you didn’t want him to?’
‘It took me totally by surprise. My back was against a wall, and he was kind of holding my hair’ – Ava winced – ‘while he kissed me. That was all that happened. He didn’t hurt me – it was a misunderstanding, really.
I’m fine. But Sam’s friend Jared saw us, and he told Sam, and Sam’s like, “So it wasn’t a stupid game after all.
” And now it’s all over between me and Sam.
I wanted you to know that it’s not because of you.
It’s because of Jamie. And me, obviously. ’
Ava was still looking at me. She’d been listening intently as I told my sad little story, but her eyes were somehow far away.
I was about to carry on – maybe to ask her to intervene with Sam, or to look after him, or perhaps just to thank her for her time and say I hoped she enjoyed her show. But I didn’t say anything because I heard footsteps behind me and breathed in a waft of a familiar fragrance.
It was the same violet scent Jamie always wore.
I shivered, even though there was no need for me to be afraid.
I was in a public place. I was perfectly safe.
Jamie hadn’t hurt me like Ava had been hurt, and I had no reason to think he ever would.
But the idea that he might be here, overhearing my conversation with Ava, watching us, was deeply unsettling.
I couldn’t help looking around. Behind me was an elderly man in a smart suit and a bright yellow tie patterned with parrots.
His partner was holding his hand – another man in a suit, his paired with a lilac cravat.
One of them was wearing the same cologne Jamie used – it was by Le Labo, he’d told me once.
It wasn’t Jamie at all.
I turned back to Ava, giggling with relief. ‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry. You must’ve thought I’d seen a ghost. It was that smell. I thought he might be here, and it freaked me out.’
Then I realised that Ava, too, looked like she’d seen a ghost.
‘This Jamie,’ she said slowly. ‘Jamie Baldwin. Do you happen to have a picture of him anywhere?’
Picking up my phone, I realised my hands were slick with sweat.
I navigated to the Devereaux Partners’ Instagram feed and found the photo Jamie had taken of him and me outside Hadleigh Hall, the sun shining on our faces, the elegant facade of the house behind us.
Silently, I slid my phone across the table to Ava.
Her face was white and set as she looked at it.
‘That’s him,’ she said. ‘Perry’s friend Jamie, who was in the club with us that night. I recognised that cologne too. And… Georgia, he… he held me by my hair too. I cut it all off, afterwards.’