A Wild Affair (10 page)

“No!” I shook my head sternly. “I'm not going shopping and I'm not going to buy a helicopter. Okay?”

“Suit yourself,” Hugh said lightly, then he leaned forward, his eyes shining. “Come and work with me, then.”

I looked at Hugh uncertainly, waiting for the punch line, but he looked dead serious.

“Noooo. Don't be silly,” I said halfheartedly.

“I'm not being silly. Scene It needs good people and you're one of the best. I heard about the Project Handbag pitch. Everyone did. You come to Scene It, and Jarvis will come with you. You know it's going to be an award-winning campaign, don't you?”

I glowed. “You really think so?”

“Of course I do. Is it true you've got Princess Beatrice lined up to help promote it? I mean, that's a stroke of genius. How the hell did you manage that?”

I smiled. “Oh, that was my assistant Caroline. She has friends in high places.”

“And you had the insight to hire her. Jess, you're going places, and Scene It can get you there quickly. Come. Work for us. Just think of all the finance clients we'll be able to bring into the fold! We'll steal them from right under Milton's nose.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said firmly. “No, I won't steal clients. Not even Jarvis.”

“What? Jess, don't be ridiculous. You won the pitch—he's your client.”

“No,” I said emphatically. “He's Max's client. Anyway, there are lots of other banks around.”

“Which Milton will get because they have Jarvis,” Hugh said patiently, as though talking to a small child. I shook my head and downed the rest of my drink. “No,” I said seriously. “They won't.
They're going to be busy now that Jarvis is …” I stopped suddenly.

“Is what?” Hugh asked curiously.

“Oh, nothing. Although my glass seems to be empty” I said, grinning as I handed it to Hugh. He took it and gave me a little bow.

“Of course, madam. But come on, you can't leave me dangling like that. What, is Jarvis merging with someone? Taking someone over? Sponsoring the Grand Prix? What?”

“I can't tell you,” I said, my attempt at being enigmatic slightly ruined by my slurring voice. I realized I'd had one drink more than I should have had. Maybe even two or three. But I didn't care. I was enjoying myself. “My lips are sealed.”

“Suit yourself,” Hugh said, moving closer, his eyes twinkling into mine. “Although if you're going to come and work for my firm, your loyalties should be to us, really.”

“They should?” I asked teasingly.

“Oh yes, they certainly should.”

“I see,” I said. “Well, I'll have to think about that.”

“Good,” Hugh said, so close now I could feel his breath on me. “Because we get jealous, my firm and me. I'd hate to think you still had … loyalties toward Max.” His lips touched mine so lightly it almost felt like it didn't happen.

“Jealous?” I asked, my heart skipping a beat. “Well, I wouldn't want that.”

“
He
caused you that pain, didn't he,” Hugh said, his voice more earnest all of a sudden. “Max, I mean. You can't let people do that to you, Jess. You can't give them the satisfaction of hurting you. Screw him. He's not worth it. Leave him, leave Milton Advertising, and come and work with me. And bring Jarvis with you. I'm serious. Really serious.”

“You are?” It seemed so easy. So straightforward, as though the whole Max incident could be put behind me, a page ripped out of
my journal, a bad dream woken up from. Or rather, a wonderful dream with a shattering ending.

“People like you,” Hugh continued, “you're loyal and you work hard and you give. But you never get anything back. It sucks. But it doesn't have to. You've got to look out for yourself, Jess. That's what I do. You've got to think about number one; damn the others, do what makes you happy, do what gets you ahead. You worry about someone else, and you've lost, straightaway. Live for now, Jess. Live for you.”

I nodded. He was right. Of course he was right. I'd known it all my life. It's what Grandma had told me, day after day. Well, that and “you'll never be a beauty, Jessica Wild, mark my words, so I suggest you study hard because there'll be no man to keep you.” But she'd been wrong about that. Maybe I wasn't a beauty, but I wasn't doing too badly. Max wasn't the only one meeting other people, wasn't the only one capable of having an affair. And Hugh Barter was quite the catch. Marcia, my former boss and Anthony's girlfriend, had fancied him rotten when he'd worked at Milton Advertising.

He winked at me flirtatiously and took a sip of his drink. Emboldened, I did the same. I was going to get seriously drunk, I decided. For the first time in my life I was going to throw caution to the wind and have some fun. In fact, forget
some
. I was going to have
a lot
of fun.

THE NEXT MORNING I woke up tentatively, the way you do when you know instinctively even before you've opened your eyes, that you probably want to hold off doing so for as long as possible. Usually it's when you've been drinking and you know that the minute any light gets under your eyelids you are going to be hit by the most almighty hangover.

I opened one eye first, as a precautionary measure. My head was throbbing, but it was bearable; a couple of Tylenol and the day would be manageable. Kind of. But it wasn't the hangover or threat of one that was causing me concern. It was my whereabouts. It was who might also be with me. I edged myself up the bed slightly and took a look around with my one half-opened eye. A white duvet. That was all I could see. I opened the other eye, closing it swiftly when the light hit it like a punch to the head. Holding my hand over my eyes protectively, I opened them once more and took a proper look around.

The good news was that I was alone. There was, as far as I could tell, no one else in the bed with me; the other good news was that I was wearing a T-shirt. The bad news was that this was not my bed. It was not even my apartment.

The room was quite nice, as rooms went—harmless off-white
walls, a comfortable bed, some oak shelves in the corner straining under piles of books. On one shelf was a book titled
Bluff Your Way in Literature;
on the shelf below were larger books with titles like
Losers Get Nowhere
and
No More Mr. Nice Guy
. To my relief, there was no sign of Hugh. No telltale clothes on the floor, no indent on the pillow next to mine. Sighing, I pulled myself up.

The door opened suddenly—too suddenly for me to have dropped back and feigned sleep. Instead I was face-to-face with Hugh. Hugh in a robe. Anxiously I edged backward, pulling a pillow behind my back.

“I didn't want to disturb you.” Hugh smiled. “I always get up early.”

“You didn't?” I looked at him uncertainly. Had we … Had anything happened between us the night before? I racked my brain but couldn't remember a thing.

“I brought you coffee.”

“Thank you. Really, thank you,” I managed to say, taking the coffee, and spilling it immediately; he took it back quickly and placed it carefully on the bedside table.

“Don't mention it,” he said easily. “So can I give you a lift?”

I frowned. “A lift?” Were we meant to be going somewhere? Had I missed something?

Hugh didn't say anything; he just kind of smiled expectantly. And then it hit me. “Can I give you a lift” was the code for “it's time to leave now.” Of course.

“Oh, no,” I said, forcing a bright smile onto my face. “I mean, I'll just … get dressed, then I'll be on my way. Lots of things to do, actually.”

“I'm sure,” Hugh said, his expression unreadable. “I'll just leave you to get ready then. Shower's in there.” He pointed to a door and I nodded gratefully. He didn't seem to be moving.

“Great!” I said. “I'll see you in a bit then, shall I?”

He nodded and started to turn around. Then he popped his head back through the door. “Last night was … unexpected,” he said.

“Yes.” I gulped, still rather hazy on what had actually happened. “And by ‘last night,’ you mean …”

“You and me getting on, I mean. Having fun. It
was
fun, wasn't it?”

He was looking at me uncertainly and I forced a smile. Getting on or getting
it
on? “Sure. It was lots of fun.”

“So maybe we could do it again sometime.”

I smiled uneasily. “Um yes. I mean, I guess so.”

“You could take me out to dinner.”

I frowned. “I could?”

“Somewhere fancy. Somewhere expensive.” He grinned, his eyes twinkling. “Somewhere millionaires go.”

I felt myself blush. “Oh, right. Oh, well, actually this millionaire tends to just go out for pizza mainly.”

“Oh dear me,” Hugh tutted. “Well, we'll have to see what we can do about that, won't we?”

“We will?”

“Definitely. In the meantime, I'll leave you to get ready, shall I?”

He closed the door. I didn't move for a few minutes. I felt like I'd landed in a parallel universe. But eventually I pulled myself out of bed. I didn't know what had happened between me and Hugh, didn't know what he thought was going to happen in the future. But I did know that I had to face Max. I did know that lying under the duvet—especially Hugh Barter's duvet—was simply not an option.

I felt rather strange walking down the road, and it wasn't just my stomach. It was the fact that I was walking down a road I didn't know, in an area—Kennington—that I'd never been to, having
stayed the night in someone else's flat, the someone else being a man and a man I'd kissed and who knows what else. It felt so utterly wrong, like I'd suddenly stepped into someone else's life and didn't quite know how to handle myself. I didn't even know who I was anymore. The day before I'd been Jess; I'd been me. I'd known where I was, what I was doing. Now … now I had no idea. I knew it was a cliché, that line about having the rug pulled from under your feet, but that was exactly how I felt. Like I was in a free fall. Like I was Alice in Wonderland and had no idea when I was going to land again, or how hard the ground below would hit me.

I didn't even know where I was going right now. Back to Helen's to face questions about where I'd disappeared to? Back to Max's flat to face the inevitable showdown there? I shuddered at the thought. Helen's then. Actually, come to think about it, she hadn't appeared to be exactly worried about me. I mean, if she'd disappeared on a night out, I'd have at least called. Okay, so actually I probably wouldn't have, but only because Helen did that sort of thing all the time. If it had been me—you know, some kind of out-of-body-me-but-not-me—then I definitely would have called.

And then I remembered. I'd turned my phone on silent.

Quickly, I dug it out of my bag and turned the sound back on. Immediately, it started to flash and vibrate. I braced myself, because as soon as I'd remembered turning it off I'd remembered the reason, too—the calls from Max, the beeps from my messaging service, then more calls from Max—I dialed my voice mail and listened.

“Darling, it's me. Listen, did you say you were going home? I think I left a file on the kitchen table—if you get a minute, could you give me a call? There's a number in it that I need—I think it's on the top page. Love you.”

I hailed a cab and gave the cabbie Helen's address.
Love you? Really?
I sniffed self-indulgently.

“Jess? You okay? Haven't heard from you. Hopefully you're lost in a daze of wedding shopping. Well, love you and see you later. What do you fancy for supper?”

“Jess? Where are you? I'm at home and you're not here and there's something strange about … Hang on, where's your toothbrush? And your creams. And … Bloody hell, your clothes? What's going on, Jess? You're worrying me. Call me. As soon as you get this.”

“Jess, this isn't funny. I'm going to call the police if you're not back soon. Do you know how worried I am? How irresponsible this is? How … No. No, it's fine. You have your reasons. Just please, Jess, whatever it is, tell me. I'll make it better. Please, just call me. Just let me know you're okay. Okay?”

My lip was beginning to quiver at the sound of Max's voice. He didn't sound like a stranger who'd cheated on me; he sounded like my Max. My lovely Max who cared about me and who would never be all over some woman called Esther, would never betray me in any way at all.

Except he wasn't, I reminded myself. He was making payments to her from our joint account.

“Jess? It's me. Where are you?” It was Helen. “Ivana said you were talking to some guy at the bar.
Are
you talking to some guy? I can't see you! Give me a call.”

“Jess.” It was Max again. “It's four
A.M.
and you're not home. I'm at my wit's end. I'm going to go to Helen's now to see if you're there. I don't understand. I'm worried, Jess. Please call me. Please.”

Max sounded terrible. Frantic. My stomach was lurching and it wasn't just the cab's poor suspension.

“Jess! Bloody hell, Jess, where are you? I've been so worried about you. And Max is here. We just got back and he wants to know where you are and I've got no idea what to tell him! I don't
even know where you are. I'll say I don't know. Oh shit, no, Ivana's just told him you were out with us. Ivana! Come here! Oh bloody hell, Jess. Call me when you get this.”