Just Friends (The Agency Book 1) Read online

  There’s nothing worse than showing the worst of yourself to someone you admire.

  ***

  When I leave the conference room, Ethan is waiting for me outside. He pulls me into an empty meeting room along the corridor and shuts the door behind us.

  “What happened?” he asks, an unmistakeable look of dread in his eyes.

  I shrug. “I got my arse kicked. No big deal. I deserved it.”

  “No, you didn’t deserve it. We need to tell Stella.”

  “Tell her what?”

  “About Ridley. She’ll be on our side; she hates him. She might be able to help.”

  “She may be on your side Ethan, but she isn’t on mine. She doesn’t get me. Besides, I don’t need any help with this.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Ridley just played you in there. You know exactly what he’s doing.” He runs his hand through his hair, and his jaw clenches as he looks at me in exasperation. “Jesus, Vi! What’s it going to take for you to let me in?”

  I fold my arms around my body, my back stiffening at yet another dig at my coldness. “I can fix this myself, Ethan. Please trust me to do the right thing.”

  He throws up his hands in frustration, the veins in his neck bulging. Then he sighs, perches on the end of a table and looks at his feet. “If anybody should be sorting this out, it’s me.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  He folds his arms and drifts away in thought for a moment. “Because this has nothing to do with you. I’m involved. I was with Carly – Ridley knows, Malcolm knows, hell, even Stella knows. I’m connected to this, so I should be the one to fix it, not you.”

  I let out a sigh. I should be kinder to him. I know he’s trying to protect me and that he still feels guilty about his alleyway dalliance with Carly. But I can’t involve him in this. I don’t want to dump a bucketload of mess on top of our relationship when we’re both still confused about what’s happening to us. I daren’t let him know about the information I’ve been given or what Ridley did to me, so I think up an excuse. “Ethan, can you remember when you tried to fix Sharon Taylor from Hexatex’s problem?”

  “Do you have to bring that up?”

  “You know why I’m bringing that up.”

  “That was a one-off. I didn’t know she had a thing for me.”

  “You didn’t know she had a thing for you before she groped you at Hexatex’s campaign launch party, or after?”

  He screws his face up. “Before, obviously. I realised during the dance. And it’s not funny – she practically violated me!”

  “Yes, and you fixed it by snogging the face off her best friend half an hour later.”

  “I thought that would give her the message.”

  “It gave her the message you’re a dick,” I say, shuddering at the memory. “She cried on my shoulder for the rest of the night after I inadvertently ended up in the ladies’ loos with her. Do you have any idea what that was like for me? I don’t do empathy – that’s not my area.”

  “Okay, okay, I take your point, but that was different to this. I just think Stella could deal with this better. She’s an exec, you’re not. You shouldn’t have to put yourself at risk and take on other people’s burdens.”

  “You forget I promised Malcolm I wouldn’t tell anybody. He and Stella don’t get on. That would be a really bad thing to do to him.”

  “Nobody gets on with Malcolm. Well, nobody except you.”

  He’s having a dig again. He pretends he doesn’t mind that Malcolm has had it in for him ever since he started BMG as a graduate trainee, but every now and again his insecurity bubbles to the surface. Ethan needs to be liked, so if somebody dislikes him he takes it personally. He’s yet to realise that Malcolm’s dislike of him says everything we need to know about Malcolm, and absolutely nothing about him.

  “The fact that I’m one of the few people Malcolm likes – and trusts – means I’m best placed to help.”

  “So how are you going to do that, huh?”

  “I have a plan.”

  His lips thin and he folds his arms again. “A plan you won’t tell me about.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you . . . I just can’t.”

  “Why? This can’t be just about Malcolm.”

  I say nothing for a moment. Ethan’s right – why am I taking on everyone’s problems? Why did I just apologise to Ridley for calling him a vile pig, when only last week he had me pinned up against the door of his office, attempting to blackmail me into sleeping with him? Bravery would be pressing sexual harassment charges against him, not this . . . not whatever stupid plan I think I’m going to come up with to make everyone happy. And no matter how wonderful I think I am at fixing stuff, every now and then my ingenious plans go BOOM!

  “Violet, please . . . let me in.”

  My heart aches in my chest. I want nothing more than to let him in. I feel my eyes begin to water and I try to force the tears back in with sheer willpower, but it’s no use. I take a deep breath. “I want to,” I say, flicking a tear from my face. “You have no idea how much I want to, but I’m scared . . .”

  His expression changes from mild annoyance to complete bewilderment. “Why?” he asks, lowering his voice to a whisper. “What are you afraid of?”

  “Of doing the wrong thing.” I walk to the door and open it. “If I don’t get this right I could hurt a lot of people . . . so, please, if you care for me, just let me work it out.”

  20

  I WORK ON MY COPY for the rest of the morning while Ethan is locked away in post-production with Wendy. I managed to push all the Ridley business to the back of my mind, but I know I haven’t done my best work. In fact, when I make a trip to the art studio later in the afternoon, Max pretty much tells me his ‘awesome’ graphics are wasted on the shit I’ve written. Max is usually more helpful than this, but he always says what he thinks, so by the time I leave him my mood has crashed through the floor.

  Ethan, Will and Pinkie are all at their desks when I return in the foulest of moods. None of them look up as I thud myself down in my chair. I know I’m being a drama queen and I’d kick my own arse if it were physically possible, but today has been awful. This is what happens when I stop thinking rationally and let my guard down. I become unpredictable, volatile, terrifying . . . as unstable as my cranky boiler the second the temperature in North London dips below zero.

  I switch on my computer and mindlessly faff around. I’m working hard at looking busy, but in reality I’m doing bugger all.

  “I’m sorry for earlier,” I hear from behind the cubicle wall that separates my desk from Ethan’s, and my mouth reacts with an involuntary smile I couldn’t disguise even if I wanted to.

  “You’re sorry for what, exactly?”

  He peers over the separator. “I need to speak to you.”

  “About what?”

  “You know what.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  I look over the cubicle wall at him. His short, choppy brown hair is brushed up off his face, and his eyes are wide and earnest. “I’m sorry for butting in, but I had to say something.”

  “I just wanted to find a way to help everybody, Ethan. I didn’t want to leap in. I needed to think it through first.”

  “I know. I only wanted to help you, so I have.”

  The gigantic knot in my stomach tightens and I can’t breathe. “What are you saying? Please tell me you haven’t done something stupid.”

  He lowers his voice and his eyes scan our area. “Not here. We’ll talk later.”

  Will and Pinkie mustn’t have much work at the moment as they’ve been having Temple Run tournaments all day, whilst flying their gossip around the office. Yes, you heard that right – fly. Will likes to scribble down gossip, fold up the paper to make a paper aeroplane and then fly it across the office. The amount of times he’s piloted his poisonous planes into the wrong hands is incredible, yet he never learns his lesson, and now he’s recruited eager-to-please Pinkie Pinkerton, who ap
pears to have the sense of direction of a pissed seagull.

  I turn to my side to see Pinkie has wheeled his chair so close in his attempt to eavesdrop that he’s practically sitting on my lap.

  “Fuck off, Pinkie!” I yell at him. I think I could kill someone right now, I really do.

  He tuts and shuffles back to his own space next to me. “Can’t blame a man for trying,” he says under his breath.

  “Trying what? Trying to get my knee in your groin?”

  Will sniggers. Pinkie turns very pink. I let it go.

  Ethan stands up. “Come with me. We need to talk.”

  He leads me across the floor to Diego’s vacant office. My palms are already sweating when I grab the handle to close the door behind us. I study his body language, my heart hammering in my chest. He’s hanging his head and he can’t make eye contact. “What have you done, Ethan?” I ask as he sits down on the sofa. He motions for me to join him, but I can’t. If he’s close it’s going to be that much easier to hit him.

  The colour drains from his face – peach to pink to white. “I’ve been with Stella – working – all afternoon, and I told her.”

  “Wait . . . You’ve done what now?”

  “I was worried about you, so I told her.”

  My skin burns with rage and betrayal. How could he? “Ethan, I asked – no, I begged you. How could you do this?”

  He stands up and walks over to me. “Look, it’s going to be fine. Stella’s our department head. She knows about Ridley and Carly now, so she’s going to have a good think about how to handle this so nobody gets hurt.”

  I can’t process his words. All I hear is noise. “You had no right, Ethan. No right!”

  He swallows hard. “Stella has bypassed Ridley and sent the ad straight through to Stuart. Ridley knows she knows about Carly, so now he won’t be able to affect our work. Look at what he did in that meeting earlier today. He was playing games, and I’m not having him affect my career—”

  “This isn’t about our jobs, Ethan. This is about somebody’s life.”

  “Malcolm?” He shakes his head in disbelief. “You mean you’ve fallen for his sob story?”

  I narrow my eyes in confusion. I hadn’t once thought that Malcolm was being disingenuous. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”

  “If I have no idea, it’s because you refused to tell me. What do you want me to say, Vi? I’m not sorry for putting us and our careers before Ridley sodding Gates. Stella knows Ridley is holding something over Malcolm’s head now, so she’ll get together with Gordon Gray and the rest of the board and try to sort it out.”

  I feel like my lungs have exploded. I open my mouth and almost choke. “You . . . you told her about Malcolm too?”

  “Yes, I had to.” He runs his hand through his hair as if he’s sweeping away his guilt. “Look, you have to work out your priorities here. Max is fine, I’m fine and you’re fine. It’s over as far as I’m concerned.”

  “I’m not fine,” I say, fighting the nausea that’s threatening to engulf me. “I trusted you. I can’t believe you’ve done this.”

  He looks at his feet, the toe of his shoe dipping into the burgundy loops of the carpet. “I’m sorry, but I had to.” He raises his head. “It’s just that nothing pisses me off more than people I love lying to me.”

  “I didn’t lie to you . . . I . . .” I stop talking and my breath catches in my throat. What the hell? Did he just say “people I love” again? Damn. I was so close to convincing myself that he really meant he loved me platonically when he said it the other night – that he was just drunk and confused. Now I’m back to wondering why he thinks he’s in love with me when I’m so totally and obviously wrong for him.

  His face reddens as he realises he’s just dropped the L-bomb whilst sober this time. “I’m sorry, but I did this for the people who matter – you, me and Max.”

  In a perfect world, Ethan taking a trip to Blushing Meadows would draw us nicely into a discussion about our changing relationship, but it doesn’t and it won’t because neither of us want to go there. So up goes yet another row of bricks on that wall I’m building to protect myself from him. It’s getting pretty high now, isn’t it?

  “So are we good now?” he asks, turning the page to a completely different chapter and leaving me stuck like a battered bookmark in the old one. “All this will be okay, you know.”

  I take a deep breath, knowing I’m about to take us to a place I don’t want to go – knowing we’re not heading over the rainbow. I’m not opening the door to a happy, Technicolor Munchkin-world. Instead, I’m taking us into the eye of the tornado, and I’ve no idea what will happen afterwards. “I spoke to Ridley again last week. Before we went to Cumbria.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  I mentally click my heels together three times, but sadly I’m still here. “I confronted him about Carly and I told him to leave Malcolm alone, and . . .” My heart swallows my voice as he clenches his jaw.

  “And what?” He stands and comes closer. “For Christ’s sake, Vi, you’re shaking. What happened? Just tell me.”

  I want to put the brakes on and call back the flying monkeys, but how can I when he’s just told me nothing makes him madder than people lying to him? Sorry, “people he loves” lying to him. “Ridley . . . kind of . . . threatened me.”

  His eyes grow large. “He what? He threatened you? What did he say?”

  Oh crap, why did I start this? What the hell was I thinking? “I can handle him. He’s just a horrible, disgusting slimeball. He doesn’t bother me.”

  Ethan takes my hand in his. “Then why are you trembling?” He searches my eyes until I look away. “Violet, you need to listen to me. I’m going to ask you this again, and I need you to tell me exactly what he said – word for word – and I need you to tell me the truth. If you don’t, I’m going to find out from him, and I can’t promise he’ll still have all his teeth when I’m finished.”

  Fuck. This is part of the reason why I didn’t tell him in the first place. I’ve seen Ethan fly off the handle twice before – both times due to his brother getting himself in trouble, and both times he solved the problem with his fists. “He . . . um . . . propositioned me.” His eyes pop and I can see his Adam’s apple grind against his shirt collar. “He was being a dick. He . . .” I take my hands back and cross my arms in front of me as my vision blurs into watery shades. I curse myself for being weak, yet again. “I’m sorry. I was stupid.”

  “Violet,” Ethan says firmly. “What did he say?”

  “He said he would back off Malcolm if I slept with him.”

  “He fucking what? He said what?”

  His face is burning so red I’m afraid to look at him. “He was awful . . . horrible. When I close my eyes I can still hear him, smell him and feel him . . .”

  “Feel him? Did he touch you?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Violet, just tell me.”

  “He held my arms tight and pushed me against the door. Lucille heard everything, and if she hadn’t interrupted him . . .”

  No sooner have my words hit him than he unleashes the dogs of war. He bites down hard on his bottom lip until I’m certain I can see blood, his skin darkening to red and his eyes screaming havoc.

  And then he’s gone.

  I call after him, but he’s striding so fast down the hallway he either doesn’t hear me or he’s ignoring me. I have to break into a jog to follow him. I shout after him again, but I’d have better luck herding an eagle in sight of a rabbit, and I can’t move fast enough in my stupid bloody heels. To make matters worse, everybody on our floor has stopped working. I suspect Will is building a hangar and terminal building for the amount of paper aeroplane traffic he’s expecting to fly in.

  Ethan disappears through the doors to the stairwell, and I know exactly where he’s going. Should I follow, or should I get help? Who can I trust? Christ, I’ve never had so much shit happen in one fortnight. I kick off my shoes, pick them up and sp
rint down the stairs, practically jumping down the last few before swinging open the doors to the fourteenth floor. Ethan disappears to the right, but I go left.

  ***

  Stella Judd is in her office with Malcolm, of all people, when I barge through the door, gasping for air as if I’ve run a half-marathon. “It’s Ethan. He’s gone after Ridley.”

  It takes a moment for Stella to process what I’m telling her, but Malcolm shoots straight to his feet, bearing the expression of a man who’s just been told his house is on fire. His moustache springs to action, followed by the rest of him, and he heads off in the direction of Ridley’s office. Stella and I follow him, and my shoulders sag in relief when we spot Ethan in the hallway, striding headlong in the opposite direction.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Fraser?” Malcolm yells as Ethan silently rushes past all three of us and slams into the men’s toilets.

  The stout frame of a terrified Lucille Monroe comes into view behind him, her dark face beaded with sweat and her eyes wide with concern. “Ridley’s in there,” she says between giant pants for air as she clutches her chest. “What the hell has that man done now?”

  Stella doesn’t hesitate before barging into the men’s loos after him, Malcolm following behind her. I hang back for a moment. My pulse is rocketing and I feel like I’m about to drop to my knees. Lucille places her hand gently on my arm. “I gave you the power to bring him down,” she says softly, yet so meaningfully it’s as if she’s speaking straight to my soul. “Don’t react to him and don’t let that young man react either. Do everything you need to do.”

  I follow the others into the toilets, bumping into an account exec who’s obviously been interrupted mid-pee because he’s still zipping up his trousers. I make an apology then clatter through the inner door to find Ethan pinning Ridley to the wall by his neck. They both look like they’ve had a swing or two at each other already. Ridley’s face is red and swollen, and Ethan has a cut lip. His knuckles are cut too, and I don’t know who has got the better of whom, but I suppose the guy with his hands around the other’s neck is calling all the shots.