by Jane Lark
As soon as Phil turned to sit down, I pulled out my mobile. Jack’s number was near the top on my stream because he’d called me New Year’s Eve.
‘Why did you pass my account to Phil? And why didn’t you even look at me in the meeting!!!’
I watched him through the glass surrounding his office, Captain fucking Control! He read the text and he looked pissed off – but he still didn’t look at me.
My phone vibrated in my hand. ‘Don’t text me here, people will notice it.’ Was that all. Don’t text him. I wanted to go in there and chuck his coffee in his face.
He’d sold me the heart-pounding rush of thrilling, desperate-feeling sex. I’d had a whole sack full of it over the holidays. But the deal was over now – all I had left of his thrill rides was the rush of anger.
He’d dumped me. Without even saying he was dumping me. And the bastard had called me into the office for sex New Year’s Eve like I was one of his high-end fucking prostitutes – the only difference was I’d been free.
Jack was a prick.
It felt like I did the walk of shame around the office all day. So I spent most of it in the creativity room – hiding. But I was even more determined to come up with a fabulous idea so I could shove it in Jack’s face and make him feel guilty. He was an asshole.
Emma came into the room at one point and she rubbed my arm, in a big sister, not a boss, way. ‘Are you alright? You seem quiet today… Did you have a bad time? Are things settled with Rick?’
I smiled at her, with gritted teeth holding in the words… I had a great time, until your shithead partner screwed me over. I wouldn’t have cared if the sex had ended and been left at the cottage. But he’d called me New Year’s Eve! ‘I’m fine. Everything’s alright. Thanks.’
When the hands on the wall clock ticked over to hit five, I went back into the office, grabbed my bag and coat and walked out without saying goodbye to anyone. I put my coat on as I ran down the stairs.
When I stepped out the other side of the revolving doors, the polluted London air hit me. My lungs longed for the fresh air around Jack’s cottage.
‘Ivy. I want to talk to you and you won’t speak to me on the phone.’
Oh shit. ‘Rick.’
He held my arm
Someone came through the door behind me. Feminine heels struck the pavement. ‘Ivy…’ I glanced back. It was Emma. Her eyes said, do you need help?
No. God, I’d been grumbling to myself about Jack dumping me without words all day, and we’d only been together a week. I’d played with Rick’s feelings for years. I owed him a little more explanation time and more time to make me feel like shit for walking out on him. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Emma.’ She nodded and walked on.
I faced Rick. He was a big guy – broad and bulky, with his classic rugby build. I suppose he could look threatening and maybe Emma had thought that, but Rick was a giant teddy bear. ‘You can walk with me to the tube if you like.’
He breathed in as if that meant the world to him.
I turned and started walking – he fell into pace beside me. ‘How are you?’ I asked, to break the silence.
‘Why did you stop replying to my texts or answering my calls?’
There hadn’t been any since Jack had answered the phone, but that had been less than forty-eight hours ago.
‘I’m sorry, Rick, but you have to get that it’s over.’ I slid my hands into my pockets, trying to speak as gently, but as bluntly, as I could. I hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but nor had I wanted to continue hurting myself.
‘You don’t have to marry me; it doesn’t have to be over. Things can stay as they were.’
I breathed out. Why was he finding it so hard to get that it had ended?
‘When you asked me, you made me realise I didn’t see us as forever, and if we aren’t forever then I’ve been wasting your life. You shouldn’t want me. You should move on and find a girl who wants to marry you.’
‘And if I don’t want anyone else? All the guys have always said you’re way above my league. I’m not going to find anyone as good as you… and I don’t want to.’
We’d reached the subway and I didn’t know what to say, but he managed the moment – he slipped his arm around my shoulders to steer me through the human traffic and walked down the steps with me. He paid for my ticket too, with his card at the barrier, then paid for his, and then stepped on to the escalator behind me. Of course the flat we used to share was in the same direction as my new place, just a couple of stops away.
I leaned against a pillar when we stood in the tube carriage and he gripped the bar over my head with both hands. Rick was as big as an ox but as soft as snow. He’d been bullied at school but then he’d discovered rugby and put on inches in height he’d worked hard to swell out, and he hadn’t ever worried about bullies again.
‘Who was the guy who answered the phone?’
‘Just a guy, Rick. He’s nothing to do with you.’
‘A one-night stand?’
Yes. No. A one-week stand. Except neither of us could walk away from the other after the week. Unless I chose to pack in my job – it was an option floating around in my head. ‘No. It’s just a guy who’s a friend.’
‘What sort of friend?’
‘It really is none of your business.’ The carriage swayed along the track and jolted his body against mine. I was glad it was winter and I had my coat on, otherwise it would feel too awkward.
I glanced away from Rick, hiding from the unspoken question in his eyes: did you have sex with him?
He knew he’d been my only guy – it would shift everything that had been between us.
It had shifted every bit of ground I’d built my life on so far.
A woman looked at me from across the carriage. She looked like she was worried for me. I smiled at her, then caught a couple of other people looking. Maybe Rick’s body language looked aggressive. But he was upset. If the tables were turned, I’d be upset. I understood why he was so pissed off with me. But I didn’t know how to break the chain I seemed to have wrapped around his heart.
‘You did…’
He sounded broken. I looked back at him and saw anguish in his eyes. ‘It was nothing, okay, and it’s already over. But that doesn’t mean there’s ever going to be a you-and-me again. He shouldn’t have answered the phone to you. That would have annoyed me too. But it was only because—’
‘Did I interrupt you? Well sorry for, fucking, that.’ He pushed off the bar and turned to look as we pulled into a station. It was my stop. It wasn’t his stop, but he followed me through the doors when they opened, then his hand came down on my shoulder, steering me through the people.
When we reached the street, he said, ‘Which way?’
I sighed. ‘Right.’
He walked with me, his arm still around my shoulders, even though I’d confirmed I’d slept with someone else. ‘Steve said you told Milly you were with the guy over Christmas.’
Oh shit, was it fair of me to expect Milly to keep stuff from Steve? I was going to have to either swear her to secrecy on everything or not tell the one person I felt able to tell everything to.
But I wasn’t Jack; I wasn’t Mrs Secretive and I wasn’t a liar.
‘He’s a player. So now you can get why it’s all burned out already. I’m over him and he’s over me, and maybe that’s something you need to learn to do, move on to someone else.’
‘Maybe it’s something I never want to do’ His hand slid from my shoulder, which was probably what I’d subconsciously wished for when I’d said that. ‘Nor do I want to think of you doing it with someone like that. You aren’t like that, Ivy.’
I looked at him as I walked. That is exactly where you went wrong, Rick. Because I am like that. I am very like that. I loved every minute of it, and I want it repeated ten times over. I do not regret it. I didn’t, even though Jack had ignored me all day, even if he ignored me forever.
Before we turned into my road, a big guy walked past us, he had
his hood up, but it looked like he smiled. He looked like the guy I’d seen the night Jack had picked me up.
When I stopped outside the house my flat was in, Rick looked up at it. ‘So this is where you’re living?’
‘Yes.’
He followed me up the front steps. My heart thumped. I didn’t know if he expected me to invite him in, but it was only a tiny room. I didn’t want him in there, sitting on the bed, even to drink a mug of coffee. It would feel screamingly awkward. ‘I…’ don’t know how to get rid of you. ‘I’m really sorry, Rick. I don’t mind being friends, if you want to be friends. But I’m not sure it’s a good idea…’
‘It’s not such a bad idea if that’s all you’re offering.’
‘Okay, then, let’s be friends. Friends.’ I held my hand out to him.
He shook it and nodded, once. ‘Friends.’
I turned to press the code in to open the door, then turned back; he was watching me, he hadn’t turned away. I didn’t open the door. ‘And no crazy texting, Rick. Please. No pleading messages. No middle- of-the-night calls… It was getting ridiculous. I care for you, but I don’t want to be with you. I’m sorry.’
He stared at me for a moment, his eyes shimmering, but if it was tears, he held them back, and then he said, ‘Okay.’
I turned to look back at the keypad and pressed the code in again. Then glanced back. Rick was still standing on the step behind me.
‘I’ll see you around.’ Go away.
‘Yeah.’ He turned and finally walked down the steps. I pushed the door open, then looked back just as he did too. I lifted a hand.
He lifted his hand.
Pride stormed through my soul as I walked inside and checked my post box. I’d handled that really well. Better than Jack. And better than Rick too. I’d intended to get in and immediately ring Jack and let rip… But now… I didn’t want to be like Rick. If Jack wanted to sweep Christmas and New Year under a rug, let him. I could deal with it. I could even deal with his cold-shouldering me at work. Christmas had been a wonderful experience, but now it was time to get back in the present and move on. I had more memories to make. So fuck Jack. I was not going to let myself react to his arrogance.
I felt better – like I was on top of the cliff.
In a few weeks I’d look back and be proud of myself for handling this so well and taking control of it.
Greg, my landlord, came out of his flat on the ground floor. ‘Hi, Ivy.’ He smiled at me.
I hadn’t got the measure of him yet; he was nice, but almost too friendly. He was up-in-my-face friendly.
‘Just got in from work?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m going to the pub – you can come if you want?’
I smiled awkwardly. ‘Thanks, but no thanks. I’m not really in the mood.’
‘Well, okay, but if you ever fancy it…’
He smiled again as I walked past him.
He was probably twenty years older than me, and his over-friendliness bordered on creepy sometimes. I’d never feel like going for a drink with him. I had a sense he’d take it the wrong way and I didn’t have any desire to make any memories with Greg. ‘Have a good time.’ I started climbing the stairs.
Chapter 9
I looked at my phone as it vibrated again. Another vicious outpouring of threats to rip my balls off from Sharon. I leaned back on the sofa. God, the place was so silent.
I’d got used to Ivy being around.
I went into my texts, not to reply to the one from Sharon, but to look at Ivy’s. The first text she’d sent me. My answer was what showed, ‘Don’t text me here, people will notice it.’
She hadn’t texted me since she’d left work though, either. I looked at my watch. Seven. It was still early. Ivy’s text stream was third down on the screen. Above it was the last text from Victoria agreeing to me taking Daisy out next Sunday afternoon. I was hoping it was going to become a regular Sunday thing.
I opened up Ivy’s text stream. ‘Why did you pass my account to Phil? And why didn’t you even look at me in the meeting?’ Because every time I think about you I think about sex. It’s not professional.
I’d been stupid to think we could go back to work and everything would return to normal. Shit, all I’d been able to think about all day was her. I couldn’t look at her and not think about the sex.
I didn’t know what to say to her, either.
My phone vibrated again, but this time it rang and my solicitor’s name flashed up. It was late for him to be calling, well past proper office hours, but he was like me – he worked until the job was done. I answered. ‘John. Hi.’
‘Hello, Jack, I have some news you need to be aware of.’ That sounded ominous.
I stood up and turned to look out of the floor-length window behind the sofa, at the nightlights of London. ‘What?’
‘I heard some news from a friend who works with Sharon’s solicitor. He thinks she’s put a private investigator on to you since we locked down the accounts.’
Awesome.
‘She’s trying to dig up evidence that’ll help get more money out of you. So if I were you I’d keep yourself clean until this is all over. No women. Work and home, and nothing else, I can fight anything she raises to claim a higher settlement but when we’re putting the case forward for you to have Daisy stay over, I wouldn’t put it past Sharon to use any information like that to blackmail you, so keep yourself on the straight and narrow.’
‘I am on the straight and narrow.’
John laughed. A while ago Sharon and I had been stopped by the police because I’d been speeding. They’d found cocaine in the car. John had helped us get away with it. It had been a hired car; we hadn’t even received a warning. But John wasn’t stupid, he knew it was ours but he’d claimed, how could it be ours when we’d only picked the car up an hour before and neither of us had left fingerprints on the plastic packet in the glove box; I’d been wearing gloves.
‘I am clean, John. I wouldn’t be going for joint custody of Daisy if I wasn’t. If Sharon’s hired a PI they won’t find anything.’
‘Good. That’s okay, then. But I just thought you should know.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Bye, Jack.’
‘Bye.’
My heart raced. Shit. I looked at Ivy’s text again. It wasn’t fair to drag her into this. Maybe I should let it rest for a while. Maybe it was better to play it cool, as we’d agreed in the beginning.
I didn’t know what to say to her anyway and it was the wrong time to get involved with anyone.
It was better to leave things as they were.
Chapter 10
I looked up and watched Phil. He was checking over my final presentation. I’d worked hard on it. I’d thrown myself into work because Jack had continued to be a bastard and I wanted to show him I was good at this. But I ignored him, like he ignored me. He didn’t deserve any of my attention.
‘That all looks great. I think they’ll love it.’
We’d had a couple of meetings with the Berkeley people and narrowed my ideas down to three, around one theme – we were doing the final pitch to them next week.
‘Do you want to practise the pitch this afternoon?’
‘If you have time…’
‘Yes.’
Phil had been good; he’d played the role Jack would have done, checking my stuff and coaching me, and he hadn’t tried to take my project over.
‘Have you thought about how you’re going to go through it?’
‘Yes, I have it all planned out.’ I smiled at him over the desk divider.
Jack picked that moment to come out of his office; he was pulling his coat on. I guessed he was on his way to lunch. I focused on my computer.
‘Hey, Jack.’ Phil caught his attention. ‘Did you see this stuff Ivy’s done for Berkeley?’
I didn’t look up.
‘Yeah, looks good,’ Jack said. I sensed him glance at me, but I still didn’t look up. I was done with looking at hi
m; my lust had died. He’d put out my flame, but not with sex, just because he was a dickhead.
Jack walked away.
‘When do you want to run through the presentation?’
‘Two?’
‘Okay.’
After I’d gone through the presentation with Phil and ironed out some of the weaker points, I shut myself in the creativity room and went over and over it. I thought if I went through it a few times each day around my other work, I’d know every word and be ready to do it with no cards and no ums and ahs, or hesitations.
It was six o’clock when I came out of the creativity room; everyone other than Jack had gone. He was in his office, working.
I bit my top lip as I walked over to my desk to put my stuff away, hoping Jack wouldn’t decide to suddenly start talking to me. I didn’t want to talk to him any more. He’d made it clear what he wanted – to forget he’d had any relationship at all with me outside work. All I was interested in was doing my job.
I locked my pedestal, threw my bag on to my shoulder and then walked across the room to get my coat. I was going to carry it out, to get out as fast as I could. I hated it when it was only Jack and me left – it was too uncomfortable.
‘Ivy!’
Shit.
I turned around; he was standing outside his office. His hand lifted and ran over his hair. ‘You okay?’
My expression twisted into something that must say, what? Really… Why are you talking to me?
‘I wanted to say—’ he began.
‘You don’t need to say anything.’ You saying nothing has given me the message well enough.
‘I know but—’
‘Look, if you want sex, I’m not in the mood.’ I turned to leave.
‘Ivy! That wasn’t what I was going to say.’
I looked back. He started walking towards me. ‘I’ve been sorting things out with Victoria, over Daisy and—’
‘Whatever, Jack. I need to go.’
His face twisted in an expression that said he didn’t understand. I turned away again and walked out, my fingers gripping my coat like it was a rope attached to the top of a cliff.
I breathed out in the lift as I travelled down and put my coat on.