by Ilana Fox
‘A word in my office,’ Joshua said to Jo sharply after Madeline closed the meeting. Jo froze – had he found out about her moonlighting? She nervously walked into Joshua’s exquisite corner office, and forced herself to look at her boss rather than the view of London below.
‘I’m slightly concerned about your commitment to the job, Joanne,’ Joshua began, gesturing for her to sit and speaking to her in the cold tones she recognised from the meetings he had with the accountants. ‘You seem distracted, you’re making mistakes, and that yawn in the editorial meeting was, frankly, an embarrassment,’ he said to her, looking her up and down with barely concealed distaste. Jo guessed that he would have preferred her to dress like some of the girls on the editorial team, or better still, be a more glamorous PA who was sexy as well as efficient. Jo tried not to feel defensive. She didn’t have any free time to lose the extra weight that was piling back on.
‘If I was one of those new age human resources types I’d ask if you have something on your mind, if you have personal problems you’d like to share with me.’ Joshua stared at Jo intently, but before she could speak he continued. ‘But I’m not one of these namby-pamby liberals and the mere thought of your private life bores me. If you have issues outside this office sort them out, because your filing has gone downhill and these letters – the ones I was going to send to the board – are full of mistakes.’ Joshua pushed a pile of letters across his smooth walnut desk to Jo and she saw at least five words ringed in red. He’d clearly asked another one of the secretaries to go through her work. She hoped it wasn’t Debbie.
‘I’m really sorry,’ Jo began, but Joshua cut her off.
‘In this industry we don’t have time for apologies. I expect better from you, Joanne, and frankly I’m disappointed. You were hired to be my assistant, and I expect you to assist me, not cause me more problems. You can be replaced in a flash, and mark my words, if you don’t get up to speed you will be.’ He let his eyes linger on the damp patches appearing under her armpits, and Jo spotted a small, cruel smile playing on his lips. He was enjoying this.
‘Do I make myself clear?’ he drawled, and Jo burnt red. If only he knew she was his elusive star writer, she thought, with her fists closed so tightly that her fingernails dug into the palms of her hands. Jo took a deep breath and forced herself to keep her voice under control.
‘Yes, sir,’ she said, neutrally, and Joshua leant back in his chair and smirked.
‘Good. I thought you’d understand. Now, get me a black coffee,’ he said, and he paused, thinking something through. ‘And while you’re there why don’t you go and ask everyone on the editorial team if you can make them a drink,’ he said. ‘Circulation is up, and I think it would be nice if, in future, you helped the team with their creativity by running their errands.’
When Joshua saw the anger flashing in Jo’s bright green eyes he laughed, cruelly. ‘Well, you did say you wanted to be part of the team.’
*
A week later Jo felt like the living dead. Lucy had told her that Madeline wanted three new features within ten days, and Joshua had increased her workload, telling her that Edward Sampson-Brown, the finance director, needed some urgent filing that meant she had to spend two evenings a week in the accounts office organising spreadsheets. When Jo got home at ten in the evening all she wanted to do was fall asleep, but instead she pulled out her freshly bought laptop and lost herself in making her features sparkle. Other girls would hate having two intense jobs on the go, but to Jo writing in the evenings was a reward, something she craved even when her body cried out for sleep. However, as Madeline’s demands on her new writer’s productivity increased Jo found that in the daytime her eyes began to blur, and her head pounded. She managed to pull herself together when Joshua was around, but in between tasks she let her eyes shut for a few minutes, only snapping out of her haze when the phone rang.
That morning, Joshua took great delight in telling her that his whole personal filing cabinet needed to be reorganised, and that he wanted Jo to do it while he was in a meeting with an advertiser. Jo looked at him with a heavy heart. She already had to photocopy articles to give to the secretaries, arrange the food for the monthly editors’ lunch, and was also in the middle of a difficult phone call with the distributors, who said they had not received a renewed contract from Garnet. As she slowly stood up to walk into his office, Joshua focused on her bottom, and she realised she was past caring if he found her attractive or not. Through her sleep-deprived daze she thought she could hear Joshua chuckling behind her. Jo slowly turned round to face him.
‘I think it’s time we got you a bit more active in your role here,’ he said, laughing and eyeing the rings of flesh round Jo’s stomach. ‘Maybe get you walking up and down the stairs carrying magazines. We wouldn’t want you to break any more chairs, would we?’ Joshua was referring to an incident that had happened the week before, when Jo had sat on an already broken chair in the canteen and had crumpled in a heap on the floor. Nobody had helped her up.
Jo looked down at her stomach, knowing that if she opened her mouth to tell Joshua to go fuck himself she would instantly be sacked.
‘Oh, and by the way, there’s a birthday in my diary and I need you to send a present for me. It’s in the top drawer on the right-hand side and it needs to be wrapped. Send it to her by three o’clock, will you?’ Joshua turned on his heel and walked off, and Jo set about reorganising his filing cabinet, wondering how it was possible that he could make it so messy so quickly. She had only tidied it last week. As Jo opened Joshua’s desk drawer to get out the birthday present, she was slightly put out to see a silky thong on top of Joshua’s black diary. Jo sat back in the black leather Eames chair and stared at them. She’d never seen such a sexy pair of knickers before – they were a tiny scrap of coffee-coloured wisps held together by the thinnest threads of silk, and there were glimmering creamy beads dotted around the satin and lace. Jo gulped, and imagined what it would feel like to wear knickers like these.
Jo gingerly pushed the Coco de Mer knickers aside and opened up Joshua’s black diary, sighing when she saw his handwriting was worse than ever. Jo rubbed her tired, blurring eyes and found the entry he’d meant – ‘M—’s birthday, do not forget.’ Jo looked at the knickers again, this time visualising Madeline in them, and grimaced. She’d put the present and card that Joshua had already written in Madeline’s pigeonhole by three o’clock, and she hoped that the editor would never know that her husband had made her wrap them up.
At half past three exactly Jo knew that her time at Garnet Publishing was at an end when Joshua stormed towards her with a red mark on his face from being recently slapped.
‘You stupid fucking bitch,’ he hissed at her loudly, as Jo’s mouth dropped open in surprise. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?’ Jo shrank back in her chair, and the whole editorial team went silent as they watched Joshua yell at her. His voice had taken on a rough edge and he dropped his ‘t’s – a sure sign that he was furious. Jo glanced at Madeline who was watching the exchange with a hurt expression, and as Joshua pulled her into his office she wondered what she had done wrong.
‘Is this some petty revenge for me making jokes about your blubbery body?’ Joshua said sharply, as he glared at her before slamming his glass door shut so nobody could hear what they were saying. His chocolate-coloured eyes were glinting with anger. ‘Is this meant to be a practical joke that will have everyone in fits of laughter? Because believe me, Joanne,’ he spat, ‘nobody is laughing.’
Jo tried to think of something she could say that would defuse the situation and failed. She hadn’t expected Joshua to find out she was Olivia Windsor … and she certainly didn’t think he’d have reacted so badly.
‘I should have told you sooner, I’m sorry, I didn’t think—’
Joshua interrupted her. ‘You didn’t think? Oh, I think you thought all right,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You planned the whole thing so Madeline would receive the knickers meant
for Marina. I don’t give a damn why you did it, but I want to make sure you don’t make things worse so sit here and shut up while I think.’ Joshua pulled on the blinds that gave his office complete privacy – something Jo had not seen him do the entire time she had been his PA – and he began pacing around the office muttering to himself.
Jo looked at Joshua curiously, and realised with a rush of adrenaline that she had got to him, that she had riled the man who Forbes had called one of the most level-headed businessmen in the country. He wasn’t annoyed at her for writing under the name of Olivia Windsor – he didn’t even know about it – but he was furious that she had accidentally sent his wife some sexy knickers meant for one of his girlfriends. Jo wondered what was in the card he had written, and why he couldn’t pass the thong off as a sexy present from husband to wife.
‘So the lingerie wasn’t meant for Madeline, then?’ Jo asked tentatively, and Joshua gave her a hard stare before laughing harshly. He opened his desk drawer and threw his black diary at Jo. It hit her hard on the stomach and she could feel her skin stinging underneath her blouse.
‘Can you read, Joanne?’ Joshua said quietly, and for the first time Jo could hear menace in his voice. With shaking hands Jo opened up the diary, and she felt her heart sink when she saw that Joshua’s entry read: ‘Marina’s birthday, do not forget.’ Jo silently closed the diary and shut her eyes. Shit. She’d been so tired she’d skipped over the name. Joshua took the diary from Jo and tore out the page with the birthday reminder on it, ripping it into tiny pieces that fell to the floor like confetti. He stared at Jo for what felt like the longest time, and then he spoke.
‘You are going to apologise to Madeline for your sick practical joke, you are going to do it in front of everyone who works on Gloss, and then you are going to walk out of this office and never come back.’
‘But it wasn’t a practical joke,’ Jo began nervously, but Joshua cut her off with a glare.
‘You’ll say it was or there will be hell to pay. Come on,’ he said menacingly, as he took her by the arm again and dragged her into the open-plan editorial office. Everyone watched them curiously, and Jo could see the concern in Lucy’s eyes. Joshua made Jo stand in front of Madeline.
‘Well? What have you got to say for yourself?’ Joshua said, as he turned to Jo impatiently. He rolled his eyes at Madeline, and suddenly Jo felt a flash of anger sear through her body. Yes, she’d made an embarrassing mistake, but it wouldn’t have happened if Joshua weren’t having the affair in the first place. Jo looked from Madeline to Joshua, and wondered what would happen if she told the truth. Taking a deep breath Jo gathered up all her strength and forced herself to be brave.
‘Don’t speak to me like that,’ Jo said, her voice wobbling slightly. As she concentrated on looking calm she heard gasps from the editorial team – nobody spoke to Joshua with anything less than reverence, as the Garnet name had always commanded respect. Jo refused to play by the rules any more, and she spoke in a low, measured tone. ‘You may pay me peanuts to pick up your shirts and do everything but wipe your bottom, but you don’t pay me nearly enough to listen to you talking to me like that.’
Joshua burst out laughing, amazed that his fat, mousy PA had such a bite on her. He thought it was all an act and that she would crumble. ‘Oh, is that right?’ he said in an incredulous tone. ‘I’d say we pay you far too much to sit on your fat ass to do nothing but eat.’ He looked around the office and was clearly pleased he had an audience. When Madeline had opened the package and card written for Marina – one of London’s hottest new models who had just turned seventeen – she’d marched over to Joshua and slapped him, hard, before dropping the knickers on his lap as he looked at her in shock. Joshua was determined to make sure Jo carried the can for this one.
Jo gave Joshua a sly little smile. ‘I’d say you pay me far too much to write as Olivia Windsor, certainly, but I don’t think all the money in the world could pay me to carry your spunk-covered suits to the dry-cleaner’s again.’ Jo didn’t take her eyes off Joshua, and she was dimly aware of Helena giggling in the background. She thought she could see a small wave of fear wash across his face, but if she had it was gone in an instant, and he grinned at her before turning to Madeline with a smug expression.
‘See? I told you she was delusional.’ He walked around the office making sure all eyes were on him. ‘Now she’s pretending that she’s Olivia Windsor.’ He rolled his eyes and spun on his heels to look at Jo. ‘Of course you are, sweetheart. Why on earth couldn’t I have guessed that? Your brilliantly worded letters and tantalising minutes from meetings have always had me on the edge of my seat!’
Jo remained rooted to the spot. ‘I am Olivia Windsor,’ she said firmly, her eyes ablaze with fire. ‘And I’ve written the best features this magazine has ever seen. When you didn’t look at my portfolio I decided I’d make my own chance. And I fooled all of you.’ Jo surveyed the editorial team, who looked at her doubtfully. She caught Lucy’s eye and noticed she suddenly looked very pale. ‘Tell them, Lucy,’ Jo said confidently, and she watched Lucy shrink down in her seat. She shook her head ever so slightly, and refused to meet Jo’s gaze.
‘You’re sick in the head,’ Joshua spat at Jo happily. ‘You’ve made up a pack of lies about being Olivia Windsor, and to get some sort of “revenge” on me for not looking at your GCSE artwork you’ve sent my wife a sexy pair of knickers and a forged card to make her think I’m having an affair. Well, guess what, Joanne, it hasn’t worked.’ Tiny beads of sweat had formed on Joshua’s brow, and Jo began to realise she had dug a hole for herself and there was no way out.
‘I don’t know why you have tried to harm my relationship with my husband,’ Madeline added, ‘or why you’re lying about being one of our contributors, but I suggest you get some help,’ she said calmly, putting her arm around Joshua. ‘I believe my husband, not you.’
Madeline’s voice was so cold that Jo felt a chill run down her spine. Without meaning to she had alienated herself from the industry’s most powerful couple, and there was nowhere to go but down.
Jo turned back to Joshua, and she began to feel panicked. She had not planned her outburst, and she began to clutch at straws, hoping that Joshua valued his reputation more than anything else. ‘I’ll go to the press,’ Jo whispered, and Joshua grinned at her, clearly not caring what else she said because his wife believed him and not her. ‘I’ll tell them everything!’
Joshua kissed his wife on the cheek and walked over to a phone. The editorial team watched him in silence, wondering who he was going to ring. ‘Do you really think they’d believe your lies any more than we do? Do remember, Joanne, that my family owns most of the press. And don’t even think about trying to work for anyone else, because by the time you leave this office I’ll have phoned everyone in the industry and told them you’re a liar who stupidly tried to fuck with me and failed.’ He looked at Jo and grinned, showing his wolf-like teeth. ‘The best thing you can do is to stop eating and hope that you rot into something more attractive,’ he said with a flourish. ‘But mark my words, Joanne, even if you do that you haven’t a hope in hell of getting a job on a magazine again.’
Jo felt her heart sink and she saw two security guards hovering by the double doors, waiting for Joshua’s command before taking her by the arms. Jo turned to Joshua in the hope that she could have the final word, but as she caught his eye she realised that Joshua had humiliated her so much that there was nothing else she could say.
‘Now get the fuck out of my building.’
PART TWO
Chapter Eleven
April 2004
‘Sorry to disturb you, but would you like a glass of champagne?’ A haughty voice cut through Jo’s thoughts and she opened her eyes. She’d been so busy thinking about Joshua Garnet that she’d momentarily forgotten she was on a plane, and she gripped the armrests so tightly her knuckles turned white. Jo knew she was being desperately unsophisticated compared to the other passengers in business class, bu
t she couldn’t help it. It was her first-ever flight.
‘That would be great, thanks,’ Jo said.
The hostess slowly took in how Jo’s stomach folded over her waistband, how her thighs strained against her jogging bottoms and how her grown-out hair was tatty at the ends. If Jo hadn’t been feeling so out of place and jumpy she’d have glared back defiantly, openly mocking the hostess’s thick orange foundation and obvious blow-job lips.
‘I’m sorry, but I have to check your passport for proof of age,’ she said with an amused glance, and Jo looked at her incredulously before digging out her passport, flashing her year of birth and noticing the smirk that the hostess gave Jo’s passport photo. Jo cringed inwardly and tried not to let it bother her. The harsh white light of the photo booth had caught her face at a bad angle and her chins looked treble their normal size. In her photograph Jo looked like a whale, an enormous, ugly freak.
As the hostess concentrated on pouring a glass of champagne, Jo tried to imagine what Florida would be like, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Joshua and everyone back at Garnet Publishing. Jo leant back in her chair and closed her eyes again. For the past ten minutes she’d been fantasising about marching into Garnet Tower and telling everyone that Joshua Garnet had been fucking Marina Stone, who he had clearly seduced when she had recently posed for DG magazine. The cover had been DG’s most successful as Marina had been photographed on all fours wearing nothing but Swarovski crystals scattered on her honey-coloured skin. Her full breasts hung from her taut, smooth body, her glossy red lips were slightly open, and her eyes were glazed. If the rumours were to be believed Marina always got high for shoots so she could lose her inhibitions, and true to form the cover of the magazine was strictly top shelf.