by Louise Bay
He was missing the point. “If I worked for the Sunday Mercury, that might work. But I’m at the Post. Gossip doesn’t sell our newspaper. They don’t want to hear about the four orgasms I had on Saturday night.”
The corner of his mouth twitched as if he was trying to hold back a smile. He steepled his fingers in front of him, his large hands thrust in front of me as if reminding me what they were capable of.
“I think you mean five,” he said, flashing me a grin before moving on. “So, you’re saying there’s no upside in you confessing?”
“I’m saying there’s a huge downside. This is a big enough tangle for the two of us to be sure that it’s a pure coincidence. If it comes out, no one will give us the benefit of the doubt and we’ll both be painted as incompetent, unprofessional idiots.”
“So, it’s like some kind of Cold War pact. I’m America and you’re . . .”
My brain scrambled to keep up with his line of thought. When it dawned on me, I put on my best Russian accent. “I’m Soviet Russia.”
“Mutually assured destruction,” he said, grinning at me.
“Except that it’s our careers and reputations that are at risk of annihilation rather than the planet.”
“A small distinction. And I hope we’re not going to be at war. Cold or otherwise.” His eyebrows pulsed and I remembered why I’d fallen under his spell on Saturday. Did he have any idea how good it had been for me?
“Right,” I said. “Not at war. But our pact doesn’t mean I can’t write an honest account of what I find. You can’t renege if you don’t like how the article turns out.”
“Deal,” he replied, grinning in a totally delicious way that made my belly lift and swoop.
I reached across the table to shake on it and regretted it as soon as he slid his palm against mine. Heat burned through my skin, sending a hot pulse across my body. I snatched my hand away. I’d have to avoid any incidental physical contact with him, ensure he didn’t find out who my mother was, and then write the article of my career—and everything would be completely fine.
Eleven
Madison
Sometimes I wondered if I’d just followed in my mother’s footsteps because of a complete lack of creativity on my part, but sitting in the rescheduled meeting between Nathan and his operations director, I sent up a small prayer of thanks that I hadn’t gone into business. It was so boring. I wondered whether matchsticks were actually effective at holding eyelids open or whether it was just a turn of phrase. I reached across to grab the coffee pot to top myself up. I was going to die of caffeine poisoning if all the meetings were like this. How did Nathan stand it?
“We’re exceeding our monthly and quarterly targets on every measure,” the operations director said robotically, his gaze flitting between Nathan and me as if he were following a script and was going to be marked out of ten.
Nathan didn’t seem to be taking much notice; he was busy devouring the spreadsheet in front of him as if it held the meaning of life. “Yup,” he said, pushing back in his chair. “Looks good, but see if you can get Erik to call me to run through the actuarial model before it goes to the board.”
The operations director flitted out, leaving Nathan to check his emails.
“I wasn’t sure if he wanted to impress you or me,” I said, wanting to understand if Nathan was used to people trying to put on a show like that.
“Both,” he said, clicking on an email and then fixing me with a stare. “He thinks if he impresses you, I’ll be happy.”
So he had noticed. I was starting to realize Nathan didn’t miss much.
“Is he right?” I asked.
Nathan held my gaze before he said, “I’m not trying to impress you. Not today anyway. Is that a mistake?”
I wasn’t sure if the Nathan from the wedding hadn’t been so intense or whether I just hadn’t noticed, but there was something a little overwhelming about being across the desk from him while he thought carefully about the questions I asked.
“You should just be yourself,” I replied. “So no, you shouldn’t try to impress me.”
Nathan blinked, those eyelashes sweeping across his face. “Tim likes to do a good job, that’s all. And he does. Lucky for him he’s my operations director and not trying to make it in Hollywood.” He grinned, the intensity fading away to be replaced by the carefree man I met on Saturday.
“Yeah, I’m not sure he’d be getting an Oscar any time soon,” I replied.
“He’s a good guy. Works hard and he’s loyal.”
“Is loyalty important to you?” I asked.
“Would anyone say no to that?”
“I was hoping for more than a yes-or-no answer.”
“As you know, small talk isn’t my strong suit.”
“We’re not small-talking. We’re connecting on a deeper emotional level.”
Nathan looked away, a knowing smile nudging at the corners of his delicious mouth.
Without warning, a tall, bald man stormed into Nathan’s office, completely ignoring me. “This,” he said to Nathan, slapping down a folded newspaper, “is a problem. You’re not convincing me that your mind is on the job when you’re pictured all over town with a married woman.”
Shit, was that the Mercury?
“You’re running out of chances, Nathan.”
“Giles, I told you, we’re friends,” Nathan snapped. “Nothing more.”
“I don’t care what you get up to in your spare time but keep it private. I don’t want to read about it in Mandy Mason’s column. I want your focus on Astro. Don’t disappoint me.”
My stomach dropped, and despite not being responsible for what my mother wrote, guilt churned in my gut.
Giles, presumably the chairman of Astro, swept out and Nathan unfolded the newspaper and read the column. “This woman doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” He poked at the grainy black-and-white photograph. “This photograph looks like we’re in some underground bar in the middle of the night. But we’re in Costa at eleven in the morning, for God’s sake. Nothing clandestine happens at the Costa in Euston Station.” He dumped the paper in the bin and shook his head. “Bloody Mandy Mason. She’s making my life a living hell.”
I took a deep breath and stopped myself from telling him I’d felt the same when she’d grounded me three times the summer I was fourteen. The last thing Nathan Cove needed to know about me was that I was related to his nemesis.
He rose to his feet. “We need to head to the car. We’re off to the food bank.”
“You sure you’re not trying to impress me?” I said, trying to lighten the mood as he held open his office door.
He’d only half-returned my smile when his mobile rang and he frowned. “Give me a minute.” Before I could reply, he’d shut his office door, with me on the other side of it.
A couple of minutes of me shifting from foot to foot, wondering whether I should go and get myself a coffee, and then just as suddenly as he’d left, Nathan swung the door open. His eyes were dark and thunderous, like he was out for blood. He charged past me. “We’re going to be late.”
I scuttled after him, desperately wanting to know who had been on the phone. Was it more news about my mother’s column or something else?
As we rode down in the lift, Nathan seemed preoccupied.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
He turned to me, having regained his composure, and nodded. “Yes. Completely fine.”
“And the phone call . . .”
He opened his mouth, paused and then said. “My dentist. Rearranging my appointment.”
Nathan Cove was a terrible liar.
The lift doors opened and Nathan placed his hand at the small of my back, just like he had done on Saturday night when we’d gotten out of the lift. My entire body shivered. No unintentional physical contact had to be a rule for both of us or I wasn’t going to be able to focus.
We emerged into a basement where a Range Rover was waiting, the rear passenger door already open.
A man emerged from the shadows and gestured me inside.
Despite the kidnappy vibes, I clamored into the backseat, which seemed to be about a meter and a half higher than any normal car. I glanced around, trying to get some sense of who Nathan Cove was. But there weren’t any hints aside from the obvious wealth, which I knew about already.
He slid into the seat next to me and pulled out his phone, typing furiously. As the car pulled out into daylight, he set his phone down on the armrest and turned to me.
“Gretel says you’ve not been at the Post long,” he said.
“That’s right.” Where was he going with this? Was it just the small talk he hated so much, or was he going to try to tell me that if I played my cards right and gave him a flattering write-up, he could get me promoted? A thousand ridiculous ideas ran through my brain.
“And you were at Rallegra before?”
“Yes. The Post is a better opportunity to write the kinds of stories that matter to me.”
“They’re very different,” he said.
“Yes. But not incompatible,” I replied. “For too long women have been told they can only be one thing. You can’t be clever and pretty. You can’t like fashion and politics.”
I glanced over to find him looking at me, waiting for me to finish my thought.
“I want to know the best way to get rid of my chin hair and I want to have an opinion on whether the parliamentary system of government is the most effective. You know?”
The corners of his lips twitched. “Chin hair?”
I shrugged. “It’s a problem for more than one in ten women.”
“Well, whatever you’re doing is working. I’ve not been aware of any chin hair on you since we met.”
As well as a ban on physical contact, I might have to suggest that we shouldn’t look at each other. All the looking was . . . intense.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” he said. “I just needed to take a personal call.”
On the armrest between us, his phone lit up. It was Erik calling—the actuary he’d mentioned to his operations director.
“Excuse me again,” he said before accepting the call.
They talked about numbers, risk factors, sensitivity, deductibles, and other things that meant I couldn’t follow their ten-minute conversation before Nathan ended the call.
“Gretel mentioned you like to get involved in the details. Are you generally a detail-oriented person, or is that specific to the business?” I asked. I didn’t know much about the insurance industry, but I was surprised to find him talking in so much detail with someone firmly in the middle of the corporate hierarchy.
“I built this company from scratch,” he replied. “If something goes wrong, that’s my responsibility.”
“Because you risk getting a kicking if the share price drops?”
“I can take a kicking. That’s not the problem. I care that if the share price drops, that’s someone’s pension losing money. I care that if Astro doesn’t perform, we might have to cut costs, make redundancies. And each of those jobs supports someone, sometimes a whole family. It keeps a roof over someone’s head. Food in someone’s stomach. If being in the detail means I can protect those things, then I’m in the detail.”
It wasn’t the response I’d been expecting. I thought he’d talk to me about the share price and maintaining his position, but he was focused on the people. Not the power. Not the money.
“Sounds like a lot of pressure,” I said.
“My job isn’t high pressure,” he replied. “I don’t have to tell anyone that their child has a brain tumor. I don’t have to watch people suffer pain. I don’t have to worry that if I have an off day, someone might die.”
Before I could respond, his phone flashed with a message. From Audrey Alpern.
He said nothing but flipped his phone onto its front and placed his hand over it as if I was likely to try to grab it and force open the message.
He might be able to pretend the message hadn’t come through but I couldn’t. It was the reason he was taking up column inches on Sunday morning. “So you and Audrey Alpern are friends?” I asked, trying to keep a neutral tone to my voice.
“Old friends,” he said, eventually.
“Old friends who like to party together?” I asked. From what I could tell, Nathan didn’t seem to have a type other than single and female. It wasn’t as if he was famous—not unless you read the financial or business pages—so none of his lovers were writing kiss and tells. But even so, it was obvious he had a pattern. These women, just like me on Saturday night, had no connection to him. Usually, he didn’t stick around long enough to form one.
Audrey Alpern didn’t fit his pattern. She was married. And now he was telling me they were friends.
He blinked three times in quick succession but stayed quiet. For a moment, I was transfixed by his long lashes.
I shook myself out of the Nathan Cove eyelash trance. “I’m assuming she’s still married.”
As I spoke, Nathan’s jaw tensed and his lips narrowed into a hard, straight line. “You hear me on the phone to the actuary and you assume I’m micromanaging, but there’s a bigger picture. You see a message from a friend, and you assume I’m having an affair . . .”
“So what’s the bigger picture with Audrey Alpern?” I replied, wanting to understand.
Nathan ran his hand over his head and let out a sigh. “You’re here to profile me. To shadow me. Not my friends. Not Audrey. She’s not your story. I am,” he said with such authority that his words seemed to take physical shape in the car, leaving me squashed up against the window.
Whoever Audrey was to Nathan, she was important. I just needed to understand why.
Twelve
Madison
Up until now, editorial meetings at the Post had made my stomach churn. Journalists took it in turns to update Bernie on what they were working on or pitch new ideas for stories. In every one of the weekly meetings we’d had since I started, I had nothing to say. But today was different.
We all took our seats in the large, glass-sided meeting room where Joan was already perched, laptop open, ready to take notes. Bernie strode in, papers tucked under his arm and his reading glasses teetering on the end of his nose. Before he’d even reached his seat at the top of the table, the meeting was called to order.
“Annabel, start us off. Where are you with the competition commission investigation in supermarkets?”
Annabel started to update us all. This meeting wasn’t designed to be intimidating, but that’s what it was. All the journalists in this room were experienced in my dream job; I felt like an interloper—the red-headed stepchild. Someone whose experience of journalism only extended to reviewing face creams and dry shampoo.
After Annabel, it was Craig’s turn. Craig was in his mid-forties and the paper’s business correspondent. From the number of names he dropped, it seemed like there wasn’t a person in London he didn’t know. Then the star of the show—and from what I could work out, Craig’s personal nemesis—Lauren, the political correspondent, took the floor. Lauren’s team was by far the biggest and often dominated the front pages, meaning her update always took the longest. Bernie asked her lots of questions, some of which alluded to conversations and stories that were codenamed and confidential, even to the rest of us.
Today, instead of feeling intimidated, I felt a sense of pride working at such an inspiring place where we were revealing cover-ups, shaping political discourse, and informing people of what was going on in their world. It was what I’d always wanted to do.
“Madison,” Bernie said, turning to me. “How are you getting on?” I knew Bernie was being softer on me than he was with the other members of his team but this time, at least I had a story to update him on. The only problem was, I didn’t have an angle.
“I’ve spent the week with Nathan, shadowing him and trying to build trust.”
“Is it just the working day you’re with him?” Bernie asked.
Had Bernie expected me to move in with him? “So far, yes. But I’m hoping he’ll open up a little more, talk to me about his life outside work. Perhaps even let me in on some of his dinners.”
“I need you to be aggressive and really go after this story,” Bernie said.
I agreed with Bernie. The problem was I didn’t know what exactly I was going after. “I understand. I just want him to be able to open up to me naturally.”
“Are we talking about Nathan Cove?” Craig interrupted. “Because I actually know him.”
Bernie peeked over the top of his glasses at Craig. “How well?”
“I’ve just had his assistant reach out and ask me to lunch.”
That didn’t mean Craig knew Nathan well. Nathan’s PR was on a campaign to revamp his image, and as business editor of one of the most influential broadsheets in the country, Craig was bound to be on Gretel’s list of who Nathan should win over. A lunch appointment didn’t mean anything.
“Is there a particular angle you want me to focus on when I see him or shall I just see what I can dig up?” Craig asked. “After those Audrey Alpern pictures, I’ve been hearing rumors about his tenure being cut short. Perhaps I need to see if he’s fishing for other opportunities.”
Bloody hell. Craig was trying to steal my story. I couldn’t let that happen, but how was I supposed to stand my ground against someone as experienced and well-regarded as Craig? I knew Nathan’s heart was in his job. There was no doubt about that. But shutting down Craig wasn’t going to help me. “We’ve talked a bit about Audrey,” I said, stretching the truth. “Unclear yet if that’s an angle worth exploring.” No one had to know that Nathan had shut the door on that angle, locked it, and buried the key at the bottom of the ocean.
“Maybe you and Craig should swap notes before Nathan takes Craig to lunch.”
Swap notes? Was Bernie trying to get me to give my story to Craig? “Sure,” I said, with no intention of telling Craig anything. “Happy to brief you.”
“Great,” said Craig. “We can work together.” He flashed me a smile that was all teamwork makes the dream work, but I wasn’t so naïve that I thought someone like Craig got to where he was without being ruthless. I needed to keep this Nathan profile out of Craig’s grubby hands.