Chapter Thirty-Nine
It was hard to run in Venice. So many people.
So many cobbles. And I wasn’t wearing trainers, but my pointy-toed boots, which looked smart but were pretty brutal on my feet.
They slowed me down, so it felt like a miracle when I saw Olly, ahead of me, his dark head bobbing as he strode down the street in double quick time.
‘Olly,’ I called, ignoring people looking at me. ‘Olly!’
He turned and saw me, his expression darkening. As I advanced towards him, he put his hands out to stop me getting near him. It was a simple gesture, but I felt like I’d been slapped.
‘Don’t,’ he said.
I stopped in my tracks.
‘I— I wondered why you’d rushed out,’ he said.
His voice was rough, but I heard the hesitation in his words, and it made my heart squeeze, made me want to reach out to him.
When I did, he took another step back. ‘I guess it turns out that thing you had with Jack wasn’t as dead as you said it was.
Thought you’d give it another try, is that right? ’
‘What?’ My mind was racing. ‘Where has this come from? And how did you know where I was?’
‘Where you both were, you mean.’ His expression was brittle. ‘Your PA came to me. Said she was worried about you, that you were in a state over an ex-partner. That you might be indiscreet, feed him information, because you were desperate to get back with him.’
I gave a croak of disbelieving laughter, but Olly did not smile back.
Someone snapped at us in Italian. I pulled him to the side of the street. Another stucco wall, pale pink, this one; a lantern above us that looked as though it was at least two hundred years old. Bad stuff happening in this beautiful place, again.
‘And you believed her?’ I said.
‘I didn’t. Until I saw you.’
I shook my head. ‘She’s playing games. She’s trying to manipulate things.’ I saw the incomprehension on his face, realising I hadn’t shared my disquiet over Sasha. ‘Also, you know me. I would never go against what I’d agreed. Never feed someone information behind your back. This is me, Olly.’
‘I’m not sure I know the real you, Lizzy. I asked you where you were going and you could have told me. You were hiding it – that points pretty clearly to guilt.’
His words turned my blood to ice. But even worse was the way he was looking at me, as though he had entirely disconnected his emotions.
Sniper stare. Mixed in with my hurt was that flicker of fear from the past, a legacy of Jack: he’d always wanted to know where I was, what I was doing, usually so he could criticise it. Criticise me.
‘I don’t have to tell you everything,’ I said, coldly.
‘I guess I have my answer about the pictures, then,’ he said.
The ice in me transformed into fire. ‘What the hell does that mean?’
He swiped open his mobile phone and handed it to me.
‘This was posted ten minutes ago,’ he said.
It was the Skirmish gossip site edited by Jack, and the sight of it made me short of breath.
Under the headline ‘Secrets and Lies’ was the line ‘Kinky Sex Games of Cheating Millionaires.’ There was the Ajax picture.
Then a picture of Esme, in her masked ball outfit, dancing with, er, Neil: a grainy mobile phone shot obviously captured by Sasha.
The caption referenced ‘indiscreet games in their Venetian sex dungeon with multiple partners.’ It was at one hundred thousand views.
Instinctively, I refreshed the page. One hundred and five thousand views.
I felt sick. I looked up at Olly’s face, at the wall he had put up behind his dark eyes. ‘You think I knew about this?’
He blinked, and I saw a flicker of doubt. ‘You’re one of four people in Venice who had access to that picture of Ajax. If all of this is concocted, then what were you doing with Jack? Sitting there, laughing, having sunset cocktails at the edge of the canal?’
‘I was freezing my bloody tits off,’ I hissed.
‘And it was him laughing, not me. I’m not the person who’s obsessed with Jack – Sasha is.
They’re together, and it must have been her who gave him those pictures.
He messaged me today and wanted to see me.
I thought I could make the situation better in some way.
Damage limitation.’ I gave a hollow laugh.
‘That man singlehandedly torched eight months of my life, and you think, what? I want to jump back into bed with him? I can’t believe you think that about me. ’
‘So how did she get the picture?’ he said.
‘God, you still don’t believe me, do you? She has access to my inbox.’
He stood there, his brow furrowed, considering my words.
But for me the conversation was already over.
I was sick and tired, the core of me retreating into nuclear winter.
How could he have thought that? It struck me, hard, that in Olly I thought I had found someone who knew me instinctively on a deeper level.
Who somehow had absorbed and understood all the different bits of my life, and still liked me.
That he was someone who would always think the best of me.
For him to doubt me was devastating. It was easier to be angry; to step back from a situation which had made me much too vulnerable.
Mixing the personal and professional was always a terrible idea. My bad for forgetting that.
‘Think what you like,’ I said, hearing the ice in my voice.
‘Okay,’ he said at the same moment. ‘I get it.’
‘Oh, I’ve convinced you, have I?’ I said, dredging sarcasm up from the emptiness I felt. ‘Because you were one step away from calling it in to Ajax, weren’t you? Were you looking forward to getting me fired?’
He stared at me; he couldn’t deny it.
‘I trusted you, Olly. Why couldn’t you trust me?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Olly said abruptly. ‘I went off the deep end. Everything was pointing that way. Plus, I was jealous—’
It was my turn to put out my hand to stop him. ‘I don’t want to know your reasons for wanting to throw me under the bus. It’s clear we don’t know each other at all. This was all a big mistake, so let’s consider it over as of now. Great nice guy act, by the way. You even had me fooled.’
Without looking at his face, I turned and marched in the opposite direction. I heard him call my name, but I kept going. I walked and walked until I was streets away, and I knew he wasn’t following me.
As I walked, I looked through my phone and dialled a UK number. When it was answered in two rings I exhaled with sheer relief.
‘Lennox?’
‘Hey, Lizzy. I heard the news.’ Lennox was the head of our internal IT systems. He was also one of the most practical people I’d ever met, and had never got on board with the idea of the Chroma app. For a moment I blinked, wondering which news he was talking about. There was so much.
‘Sad they’re not staying together,’ he said.
‘Yes, absolutely,’ I said, thinking, oh, that news. ‘Listen, I need you to block a member of staff’s access to the EKArts system. All drives, and emails.’
‘Right.’ I could hear the hesitation in his voice. ‘Whatever you say. You’ll put this in writing?’
‘As soon as I get back to my hotel room. But you need to lock them out immediately.’
‘Understood.’ I offered a prayer of thanks for his cool efficiency, even if I was closing the stable door after the horse had bolted. I could hear him typing. ‘What’s the name, please?’
I took a breath, looked out at the sweet glassy blue of the Venetian sky. I was shivering against the cold.
‘Sasha Robinson,’ I said.
It was only when I got to my hotel room that I finally allowed myself a moment.
Changed into my pyjamas, emailed Esme about what had happened, looked at pictures of Pebble on the phone, sent by the luxury cattery she was staying in (another line on my spreadsheet).
I even put a coat on over my pyjamas and went to reception to see how I could order in some cakes and hot chocolate.
The receptionist frowned and nodded gently.
As I turned away, I heard her say in Italian, ‘This lady is very sad’.
This lady was very sad. But it was only sitting in the bath later, my tension unlocked by the warm water, that I allowed myself the space to cry.