Breaking Joseph (18 page)

They had not
bothered him. On the contrary, he treated them with reverence and
kindness–something I didn’t expect.

Perhaps that
was why they bothered
me.

Chapter 10

On Thursday
morning, I skipped running and went into work early. The office was
refreshingly silent and the light of the new day splashed over the
walls in a mural of yellow and gold. At my desk, I lifted my
contract out of the top drawer and began to read.

It was all very
standard stuff, but given my profession, I wasn’t given to signing
things without going over them first. My old Parker fountain pen–a
graduation gift from my late grandparents–sat in its display box in
my bag. I’d brought it in especially for the occasion. They would
have been so proud of me.

Proud of the
solicitor, anyway. Maybe not so much the soliciting.

“You’re awfully
eager this morning,” Sadie chirped.

I jumped in my
seat. “Jesus! You scared me.”

“Oops. I
thought you’d have heard me.” She gestured to the garment bags
she’d dragged in. “Dry cleaning. Bane of my life, seriously.”

“How many suits
does he need for one ball?”

“Oh, these
aren’t Joseph’s. They’re mostly for Yves. If I don’t sort it, he’ll
turn up reeking of whiskey and socks.”

“Sounds…appetizing.”

“Yeah. Just
what I signed up for when I answered the ad for a glittering and
fabulous PA.”

“Let me help
you with those.” I tucked the contract back into the drawer and
scooped a couple of bags from her arms. “I’m sure working for Joe
has its more interesting moments.”

She flashed me
a rather wicked grin. “And you would know.”

“What would she
know?” Matt limped toward us with slightly more grace than the day
before. Slightly.

“Dry cleaning,”
I muttered.

Sadie glanced
at me. “Indeed.”

Matt noticed
the bags thrown over our shoulders and winced. “I’d help, but–”

“But you’re
maimed,” I said quickly. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

I helped Sadie
arrange the suits in Yves’ office and collected the receipts from
the hangers, pressing them into her hands.

“Are you all
set for tonight?” she asked.

“I think so.
Not entirely sure what it’s all for, but still.”

“The Queen’s
Trust. It’s a youth charity,” she said. “They send underprivileged
kids away to boarding schools and on work experience placements. We
usually host a couple of students every year or at least,
litigation does. You can imagine how many teenagers want to visit
the rock and roll world of tax law.”

I dodged a
potted plant in the corridor. “I did.”

“You were
special.” She laughed. “Anyway. There will be the usual
stuff–presentations for the best students, an auction with various
donated bits. Joseph sent a script this year.”

“A script?”

She checked her
watch. “He owns a couple of older Joss Whedon scripts–you know,
Buffy, Angel,
that kind of thing. This one has annotations,
notes, doodles. It should fetch something hefty.”

It wasn’t easy
to reconcile his split character: the wolf in the shadows who spent
his evenings fantasizing about improper behaviour with rolling
pins, and the woodcutter who gave up his favourite things for
charity and paid whores to go away because they seemed unhappy. But
then if I knew myself, I knew a bit of him, and knew all the acts
were equally self-indulgent. Still…weird seeing them from outside
the shell.

“Sadie.” Matt
caught her elbow as she passed. “Don’t suppose you found out if I
could give this thing a miss tonight? What with my stupid leg.”

“Erm.” She
paused, her eyes darting. “I believe his precise words were:
I
don’t fucking think so.
”

“That’ll be a
no, then,” I said.

Matt waited
until he thought nobody could hear him. "Cunt," he muttered under
his breath.

* * * *

Clemmie had
offered to do my hair and makeup, which I assumed was an excuse to
escape from her love-corpse flat. Not that I complained, of
course–she was as deft with a blusher brush as she was with all she
cooked, and nobody could straighten my hair with such precision, or
line my eyes with quite as steady a hand.

Still, the
spectres of truths untold lingered between us, and she seemed so
miserable that I couldn’t bring myself to share any good news. If
Joseph could even be classed as that, anyway. Aidan was hardly
enthusiastic.

“He’s taken all
the pictures down,” she said mournfully. “All the ones from our
Thailand trips, the ones with my brothers…our holidays…everything.
The whole place is bare. It doesn’t feel like home anymore.”

“You’ll make a
new home,” I insisted.

“I don’t want
to!” She stamped her foot and her heel squeaked on my wooden floor.
“It’s not like I don’t think we should split. I’d been thinking it
for a while. I just wish I could go back to the point where we
started to go rotten and do something, you know? Lance the
boil.”

“Nip it in the
bud.” I twisted so she could reach another section of hair. “Though
you’ll never know if it was a bad bud to begin with.”

“I suppose
so.”

“Clem.” I
brushed her knee. “You are gorgeous and talented and funny. You
don’t need
him
, for God’s sake.”

“And yet it
appears that he doesn’t need me either.” She sank down next to me.
“Would it be okay if I stayed here tonight? I really can’t face all
those empty walls.”

“Of course it
is. I won’t be home until late, mind.”

“I was being
nosy earlier–there’s wine and chocolate in your fridge. I’ll be
fine.” She sniffed a bit. “Now let’s get you sorted before the cab
turns up.”

I scowled. “Do
I look that bad?”

“You look like
an utter whorebag. Sit still and let me salvage a few scraps of
class.”

I felt so
inadequate trying to console her. I had no idea how much it hurt to
lose a partner of years. Charlie and I had never made any promises,
nor had demands or designs on each other; we drifted apart amicably
and I had not cried. While I’d loved him in a fashion, it had not
consumed my life. As for Matt…the end was brutal, but swift. It
wasn’t the same. I just wasn’t qualified to make Clemmie feel
better.

“I could bring
you home a bit of tipsy posh totty,” I suggested. “They’ll be ten
to the dozen tonight. I’ll have the sofa and I’ll just put a film
on really loudly.”

She paused with
the eyeliner as she giggled. “I’ve had enough of the posh ones.
They’re all condescending twats. I want someone a bit more rough
and ready next time. And older. He has to know what he wants.”

“Older is
definitely a bonus.”

“Well, maybe
not as old as your Charlie.”

“Fuck off.” I
laughed. “Fifty isn’t old. Anyway. Don’t knock it before you’ve
tried it!”

“Seriously,
though. Did he have grey pubes? Was his ball sack all swingy and
sagging?” She made a little cradle with her fingers, flung it over
her shoulder, and I stuttered with laughter.

“No, no, Clem!
You vile cock botherer!”

“Seriously,
though.” She straightened her face. “I’m too Thai to be with an
antique man. Everyone would think he’d ordered me online.”

I tittered,
though shame turned corporeal in the corner. Men had ordered me
online a hundred times.

Clemmie waved
me off as the car pulled up and I climbed in next to Joseph.
Wordlessly, he smiled and eased my long skirt up to observe the
shoes he’d bought. His nod of approval made me twitch against my
sheer knickers.

“You look
good,” I said shyly, gesturing to his dark blue suit. The fabric
had that subtle sheen to it that made me desperate to reach out and
stroke.

“Thank you,
sweetheart.” He fondled my knee. “You look filthy. And lovely.”

“We’re
sickening, you know.”

“Let’s hope it
doesn’t get any worse. People will stop being scared of me at the
office and I’ll have to bite the head off a small mammal at the
next meeting.”

“You’re the one
who wanted us to go together,” I said pointedly.

“It’s not as if
nobody knows. We were hardly very discreet in New York.” He cleared
his throat. “We’ll just have to avoid Isobel.”

I blinked. “I’m
sorry–Isobel is going tonight, and you haven’t told her about
us?”

My skin
simmered in panic and I saw her tear-stained face again in the
toilet cubicle.
You were never involved with him, were you?
I’d forgotten this moment would come, the one when she’d realize
I’d played her false. I felt sick.

Joseph frowned.
“Why would I rub it in like that?”

“Because she
loved you and this is a shitty way to find out how quickly you’ve
moved on? Because I told her we were never involved?” I clapped
damp palms to my temples. “Oh God. She’s going to know you were
cheating with me.”

He spent a fat,
swollen moment adjusting his tie. “There’s not a lot we can do
about it now.”

“Yes, there is.
You can warn her.” I closed my eyes in an attempt to stay calm. It
didn’t work. “I told Matt. He wanted to know.”

“Leila. Does it
really matter?”

“You’re
supposed to be trying to be less of a prick!”

The driver
glanced back at us in the mirror and we both recoiled.

“All right.” He
sighed as he tugged out his phone. “Did you honestly think she’d
never realize?”

“I never
thought I’d have to face her like this. Not so soon.” In truth, I
had been so absorbed in work, Matt, Clemmie, in
him
, that it
had barely crossed my mind–and I was disgusted with myself. “What
are you saying on there?”

There was a
little beep as he sent the text. “That you and I started dating
while in New York, and that I wanted her to know before everyone
else. It’s not that hard to believe, given the circumstances. And
it’s true to a degree.”

“That’s…tactful.”

He pouted.
“Don’t look so fucking surprised.”

We waited for
Isobel’s reply, but nothing arrived except the confirmation.

The ball was
held at a large and distinguished hotel in the city. A red carpet
had been rolled out for the more recognizable guests and we snuck
in at a side door to avoid disappointing the photographers.

Nerves chomped
away at me as Joseph knotted his fingers with mine. His skin was
cool and yet our palms melted together, heat zipping up my arm to
surface as a flush on my chest. When had I become such a weak shit?
Maybe hormones were to blame. Or maybe I didn’t believe that all
this was what I deserved, that I was waiting for the bedpost to
catch fire and my notches to dissipate in wisps of smoke and
ash.

As we waited to
enter the ballroom, I looked up at Joseph and an invisible hand
smacked me round the face with the apple.

I was falling
for him.

Not the way I
had loved Charlie–that was serene, satisfied, contented.
This
was voracious and raging and so slippery between my
fingers that my knuckles ached to keep up. It was foreboding, too,
as if I knew in the same way that I felt matched to him that it
could not end well.

Could it?

What was I
meant to do?

“You could try
smiling, baby,” he whispered.

I half jumped
out of my skin. “Sorry. I was a million miles away.”

“Stop doing
that.” He brushed smooth lips against my neck. “Wherever it is you
go, I’m starting to get jealous.”

Oh
.

With our names
confirmed on the guest list, we strode into the packed room. Huge
projector screens showed clips of the Trust’s work on loop, though
the sound was drowned out by the quartet of elegant women playing
electric violins on the stage. Men in dress suits and women in
flowing gowns hovered in swarms, buzzing at each other with excited
chatter. Joseph caught a waiter with a laden silver tray, and then
passed me a Bellini in a paper-thin glass.

“It’s insane in
here,” I called.

“It’ll get
worse. Keep a hold of my arm and we’ll try to find our table.”

We didn’t get
far before we bumped into people Joseph knew, and I was soon
introduced to a string of his friends, acquaintances and business
contacts–people he had worked with, studied or lunched with.
This is my Leila
, he told them with a firm smile. She joins
the firm next month.
She is a very good lawyer
. My hands
were stiff from all the shaking and I was jittery at the mention of
our coded little phrase.

I’m telling
you so that when you hear me say it in a board room, or a
restaurant…you’ll know what I really mean is that you’re the most
lush little thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.

Maybe I didn’t
mind being the spoils of war.

It was a relief
to spot Matt and Toby loitering by the bar. I almost broke off to
say hello, but then Toby shot me a sharp glare. Ouch. Instead, I
nodded at Matt in acknowledgment.

We reached our
table just before the starters arrived. Kenji and Elise were
already there, pretending to look interested in something Yves was
twittering on in that slightly drunk tone he always had. Elise
squeezed my hand as I sat down next to her and I pressed back in
secretive sympathy.

“Leila,” said
Joseph, “you haven’t met Yves’s wife. This is Miranda.”

“A pleasure,” I
said. She looked bored already. And expensive. Her smile seemed
genuine enough–hell, if I was married to Yves, that’d be one mean
feat.

Joseph nudged
me the other way and my gaze came to rest upon the brunette next to
Sadie.

“And this,” he
grinned, “is Abi Rafaelli.”

“Abi and I are
engaged,” Sadie said, blushing slightly.

I gripped Abi’s
hand as she offered it and was struck by how dainty her wrists
were. “Congratulations,” I said. “How long have you been
together?”