A Wild Affair (23 page)

“Jess! How lovely to see you. What a nice surprise.”

I couldn't believe it—he was walking toward me, arms outstretched like we were old friends.

“Nice surprise? You think reading that article in
Advertising Today
was a nice surprise for Max?”

Hugh's expression flickered slightly and he pulled me over to a corner of the reception area, out of earshot of anyone else. “Yes, I read the article today,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “Poor old Max, eh?”

My eyes narrowed. “Poor old Max? You told them, you bastard. This is all your fault.”

“My fault?” Hugh's eyes widened. “My dear girl, I don't know what you mean.”

“You told
Advertising Today
about the deal. I know it was you.”

“You know. And that would stand up in a court of law, would it, Jess?” He was laughing at me, I realized with a shock. Counting to ten silently, I took a deep breath.

“You want money? Is that it?”

“Money?” Hugh shook his head. “How very uncouth you are, Jess.”

“Tell me how much you want to make this go away.”

Hugh looked at me for a few seconds, then started to laugh. “And there I was thinking you were good at your job,” he said, shaking his head. “Dear Jess. Don't you see? It's too late for money. Even if Chester believed that I was the leak—which I absolutely deny—what good would that do? The information would have come from you. And you, presumably, got the information from Max. Ergo, he leaked it. Don't you see? There's nothing you can do now.”

“But … but …” I stared at him in incomprehension. “But you can't … You won't get away with this.”

Hugh winked. “I'm on track for partnership now. My bonus is going to get me a down payment on that Mercedes I've always wanted. Then again, I deserve it. I treat my clients with integrity. I'm not like Max; I don't let them down when it matters, blabbing to newspapers to make myself look good.”

“Max didn't talk to a newspaper and you know it,” I said angrily.

“I know nothing of the sort,” Hugh said, shrugging. “But I do know that this is a game, Jess. A game which you've lost. So deal with it, move on.”

“Move on? Move where?” I asked incredulously. “You've wrecked my life.”

“Get a new one,” Hugh said dismissively “You could come and work for me if you want. Scene It's a great firm, and people have actually been promoted without even having to marry the boss.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “You bastard.” I stepped back. “This may be a game to you, Hugh, but it isn't to me. I'm going to tell Chester it was me. I'm going to make sure he knows what you're like. Then I'm going to resign from Milton Advertising, Chester will dump you and your crappy firm, and you will go back to being the pathetic loser that you are.”

Hugh smiled. “You've got it all worked out, haven't you.”

“Yes,” I said stiffly. “I do.”

“Good for you. So you're going to tell Max you slept with me, you're going to tell Chester that you told me about the takeover, landing Max with a prison sentence for leaking sensitive company information, and Milton Advertising will be no more. Great plan, Jess. Really top-notch.”

My mouth fell open. “So we did sleep together?”

“Now you've hurt my feelings,” Hugh said, affecting a disappointed look. “You mean you can't remember? Ah well, I'll get over it. Max, on the other hand, may not. He's lost a client, Jess. He'll get over that. Think about it before you take away everything else he's got.”

I swallowed uncomfortably. “I think I underestimated you,” I said, my voice hardly audible. “You're not a pathetic loser. You're a twisted, evil, manipulative bastard.”

Hugh smiled. “You flatter me,” he said, standing up and walking back toward the lift. He pressed the button and the doors purred open immediately. “Don't be bitter, Jess, it doesn't suit you,” he said as he got into the lift. “Gives you wrinkles.”

And like that, leaving me staring after him, he was gone.

I CALLED HELEN as soon as I got outside. I was breathless, dizzy, gasping for air—I felt like I was having a panic attack. I probably
was
having a panic attack. And Helen being Helen, she called Ivana and Giles, just for good measure, and told me to meet her at a café around the corner in twenty minutes. I sat at a table in the café and waited for the others to arrive, my eyes looking straight ahead blankly, my mind going around and around in circles until I had to stop thinking completely because it was making me nauseous.

“So basically,” I concluded at the end of my slightly tearful explanation of the horrendous turn of events, “if I tell Chester the truth, he'll be able to sue Max for leaking the information, and Max will find out about me and Hugh. But if I don't tell him the truth, Milton Advertising will still be screwed and I'll hate myself forever.”

Everyone digested this for a few minutes as we shivered against the cold—Ivana's smoking habit had forced us out of the café we'd been sitting in and into its “terrace garden,” which constituted a plastic table and several chairs that wobbled violently every time you moved.

“You boom-boom with dis men?” Ivana asked eventually, blowing out a puff of smoke.

I shrugged helplessly. “I guess I did. I mean, I don't remember, but …”

“You don' remember boom-boom? Thet is not good,” she replied. “Thet is what you nid worry about.”

I sighed. “I don't want to remember. I wish it had never happened. I can't believe it did. It's just not me. It's just so …” As I cringed, my eyes welled up with tears again. “I hate myself,” I managed to say through tearful gulps of air. “I even hate myself more for being self-indulgent enough to be sitting here hating myself when I should be doing something instead.”

Helen raised her eyebrows, then leaned forward. “Okay,” she said. “Okay, let's just think this through. So, we have Max.” She took my cold teacup and put it in the middle of the table.

“That's Max?” Giles asked.

Helen nodded. “So we have Max. We have you. We have Chester, and we have Hugh.” She lined up Giles's glass of apple juice, her own latte cup, and Ivana's espresso in a line. I looked at her expectantly.

“Yes? So?”

She was staring at the cups intently, then she let out a deep sigh. “Oh, I don't know. You're sure your mother can't help? Couldn't she shag Chester senseless, then talk him into thinking that the deal was a terrible idea in the first place and to take Max back with open arms?”

“No,” I said flatly. “She couldn't get out of our apartment quick enough. To be honest, I don't even want to think about her. I wish I'd never met her.”

“Mebe she think the same,” Ivana said darkly. I stared at her in surprise.

“What? What did you just say?”

Ivana didn't say anything; she just looked at me defiantly.

“My mother,” I said, drawing breath, “has only ever taken from
me. She's taken money, she's taken Chester, and now … now she's taken Max.”

“She no tek Max. You do boom-boom with this Hugh perrrrson,” Ivana said, her face contorting slightly. “She give birth to you, no? She get big scar. She carry you around for month and month getting fat, getting tired, getting upset for no reason …”

She trailed off and I found myself staring at her. “Ivana, are you crying?” It seemed so unlikely that I looked heavenward to check for rain. Ivana tossed her head backward.

“Mebe was hard for her. Mebe she no happy you come along, but she mek best for you. Is all.”

Now we were all staring at her. “Ivana,” Helen said tentatively. “Honey, is there something you want to tell us?”

Ivana turned around in a huff. Then, slowly, she turned back to face us.

“Mebe I am pregnant,” she said, her lip quivering slightly. “Mebe I am shit scare.”

“Shit scared,” Giles said, reaching a hand out cautiously. She looked at it curiously and, eventually, he withdrew it.

“You're having a baby? Oh my God.” Helen wrapped her arms around Ivana, who managed a half smile. I joined in and Giles did, too, warily.

“You're going to be a mother,” I said, momentarily forgetting how shitty everything was. “Oh my God, that's amazing.”

“Not if ungrateful child het me,” Ivana said dolefully. “I will be crep mother. Sean good father, but bebe needs mother, too.”

“You'll be a great mother,” I said immediately. “And your baby will love you.”

“How you know?” Ivana asked, sobbing now. “You no love your mother.”

“I …” I frowned. “I don't not love her,” I said after a pause. “I just …”

“Yes?” Ivana asked, her eyes full of hope. It wasn't an expression I'd ever seen on her before.

“You'll be great,” I said immediately. “You'll be full of good advice. Look what you did for me, after all!”

Ivana shook her head. “That is with men. I know men. I no know bebes. I no know nothing.”

“You'll learn,” I said quickly.

“And I nid work. Can't work and love bebe. I vill be crep mother.”

“No!” Helen said, shaking her head vehemently. “You can work and have child care. Maybe a nanny. She could come to your work …” I caught her eye as we both contemplated the sleazy Soho bars that Ivana worked in. “Or, you know, not. Either way, you'll be fine. We'll all help.”

Ivana looked unconvinced, wiping away a tear. “You will? Why?”

“Because you helped me,” I said firmly. “You're our friend.”

“Really?” Ivana asked.

“Really.”

“And you'll be a great mother,” Helen said. “Honest you will.”

Looking slightly happier, Ivana took out another cigarette, then, seeing our shocked faces, put it back again and threw away the pack. “See?” she said, rolling her eyes. “Already it starts. Already what I want not important anymore. Is all about bebe.”

No one said anything for a few seconds. Then Ivana shrugged. “Will be best bebe, though,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Better than one any of you would hef.”

“Way better,” I agreed immediately.

“No doubt about it.” Helen nodded.

“Sadly I'll probably never find out just how great my potential baby could be,” Giles said, then, on seeing our expressions,
blanched slightly. “And a good thing, too. Compared to yours, Ivana, any baby of mine would be crap. Crep, I mean.”

Ivana started to laugh and soon we were all at it, even me.

“I'd better go,” I said eventually, reluctantly pulling myself up. “I've got some thinking to do. Bit of self-flagellation, walking in front of a bus, that sort of thing.”

“Oh Jess, don't go,” Helen said, trying to pull me down. “We'll come up with something. Just give us a bit more time.”

“There isn't any more time,” I said, sighing. “I really have to get back to work.”

“Look,” Giles said suddenly, pulling his apple juice back from the middle of the table. “I don't really know much about nondisclosure what-d'you-call-'ems, and I don't know much about insinuating things, but it sounds like Max, well he's having a hard time of it, right?”

I raised my eyebrows. “That's one way of putting it, yes. I'd say life isn't really a bed of roses for him right now.”

“So why not focus on the one thing that might cheer him up?”

“You mean sex?” Ivana asked, her head popping up, then slumping down again. “Not like me. I will be fet soon. No boom-boom. No for Ivana.”

“Not sex,” Giles said patiently. “The wedding. Weddings are happy occasions, right? They bring families together, they make everyone hopeful and optimistic about the future. So focus on that. Stuff the business. Work schmirk. Think big picture. Think fantasy, think flowers, lose yourself in it. And by the time you're back from your honeymoon you'll both have forgotten all about this Chester bloke and Hugh and all the rest of it.”

“Just forget about it?” I asked uncertainly. I didn't want to insult him, but it was the stupidest piece of advice I'd ever been given. “Giles, I don't think you quite understand. Focusing on the wedding isn't going to cut it. We're losing our biggest
client—lost him, in fact—and it's all because I slept with some sleazy bastard who is going to rub Max's nose in it at every opportunity and if I try to do anything he'll tell Max he and I slept together. And you want me to talk to Max about our first song?”

Giles looked hurt. “I'm just saying that when the shit hits the fan, that's when you put on your happy face and pretend everything is okay.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “So basically, your solution is complete denial?”

“Denial works.” Giles nodded vigorously. “It's the English way. My parents still think I might get married someday. To a woman.”

Helen stifled a giggle. “They do? Really?”

Giles nodded earnestly. “It works for them. For us. I mean, I know all those activists would have me pin them down and force them to watch me dance to Kylie's latest single, and I do; I love Kylie. I just don't do it around Mum. She thinks I'm playing hard to get, waiting for the right woman.”

“But she must know you're gay,” I said. “I mean it's obvious.”

“Not to her,” Giles said patiently. “She only sees what she wants to see. Just like she chooses not to notice my dad's affairs. And he chooses not to know that her credit card bills are spiraling out of control. Well, he did until the bailiffs came around last week. I had to lend her some money. And some clothes.” He bit his lip. “I'm not saying it's a perfect system …”