It's Complicated (The Agency Book 2) Read online

  “We don’t know . . . exactly,” she says, fidgeting with a fountain pen and a spiral-bound notebook. “I sent Violet the correct ad by email, but I also accidentally sent her an email containing the Les Misérables artwork.”

  Stella lets her frustration be known with an eye roll. “So, are you taking the blame?”

  Georgie shrugs and takes a deep breath. “No. I told Violet to ignore that email, via another email.”

  “Violet appears to have forwarded the correct email to Media, but that doesn’t explain why they processed the wrong one,” Ethan says.

  Stella turns to Ruby. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know, Ms Judd,” Ruby replies in an even quieter voice than normal. “Maybe the mix-up is the media department’s fault.”

  Stella shakes her head. “I doubt it. If Media sent the wrong ad to French Vogue, they must have been passed the wrong ad in the first place.”

  “It sounds like an institutional failure to me,” says Max.

  Stella narrows her eyes at him. “Do you even know what that means?”

  Ethan speaks up. “It means a few people were at fault, including me, I guess. I’ll take the hit if I have to.”

  “You sure about that? The board wants their pound of flesh,”

  Ethan puts on a brave face. “It’s my agency. They can’t fire me, so give them my flesh.”

  “Don’t be so sure they can’t fire you,” Stella says. “You only own one per cent of Tribe. Dylan Best could buy you out with his pocket change.”

  Ethan squirms in his seat and nervously readjusts his tie. I look closely to see if he’s starting to sweat. “The problem started when we created that shitty Les Misérables ad.” Nice. My blood freezes. Ethan blamed me entirely for that idea when we were in Paris. “Georgie should never have pushed the concept through.”

  “What?” Georgie says with a gasp.

  “Ethan, that’s unfair.” How can he switch blame so casually? What on earth is he thinking?

  “Don’t get me wrong, Violet. You shouldn’t have agreed to it, but someone with Georgie’s experience and credentials should never have thought that was a good idea in the first place.” Ethan turns to the studio manager and coldly cuts her down. “Seems to me the blame lies with you, Georgie. I can forgive you getting carried away with a ridiculous idea, but you were the one who caused this by sending the wrong ad through to Violet.”

  Georgie bristles and for a moment I think she’s going to cry. “I sent the correct ad to Violet. The reason you’re coming after me now is because you’re letting your personal feelings cloud your judgement.”

  Oh, fuck, no. I will Ethan to shut up. Please remember Georgie knows about us, you moron!

  Stella throws her arms up in the air. “Alright, I get it. Either nobody is to blame or everyone is. I don’t have time to play fucking ‘I’m Spartacus’, so let’s move on to the next crisis for which we’re about to be sued. Cosmo Hines. What’s the deal?”

  “Cosmo resigned this morning,” says Max.

  “I’m well aware of that, you idiot. I want to know why.”

  Max is completely impassive. “Irreconcilable differences.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that crap. I was married to a politician for seven years. I’ve a knack for spotting when people are lying through their teeth. Lucas is friends with Cosmo’s father. They’re in the same preposterous gentlemen’s club. Did you know that? What do you propose I tell him?”

  Max shrugs. “Tell him we had irreconcilable differences.”

  Stella shoots Max a look that would strike fear into the heart of a lion. My pulse starts to race.

  “Max promised me he’d talk to Cosmo and try to get him to come back,” I say hopefully.

  She looks at her watch again. Then she looks at Max. “And did you talk to him?”

  “Not yet, but I’ll do it,” he says half-heartedly. “But if I can’t get him to come back, it’s no great loss.”

  “Is that your professional assessment, Mr Wolf?”

  Max nods and rocks back in his chair. I look at his long legs and wonder if he’s taken up chair-swinging because the seats are uncomfortable. In thirty-two years of life, Max has never found a chair that can accommodate his giraffe-like limbs.

  Stella stands up and tugs her jacket down sharply. Then she picks up her bag and briefcase and walks to the door. “You need to hold this department together, Ethan. Losing talented staff like Cosmo this early in the game is unacceptable.”

  And with that, she leaves the room.

  All eyes fall on Ethan. I hadn’t noticed the tension building inside him because I had been consumed by whether or not Max and Georgie were going to behave themselves. “What the hell is your problem with Cosmo?” he says to Max, his eyes conveying a mixture of steeliness, determination and a hint of exasperation. “And don’t give me any irreconcilable differences crap. If you say ‘irreconcilable differences’ one more time I’m going to kick your arse.”

  Max draws in a breath and I start praying to nobody again. “There’s just something about him I don’t like.”

  Ethan’s eyes narrow and I can see the tension in every muscle of his face. “Can you hear yourself? What the hell does that mean, huh? You’d only known him half a bloody hour when he resigned! This is our third week and shit like this is absolutely the last thing we need, so I’ll ask you again. What’s going on?”

  Max sinks down into his chair and says nothing.

  Georgie and Ruby look at each other in confusion. I don’t have a clue what they’re thinking, but my stomach is burning and I can feel a rush of panic.

  “Cosmo is unusual,” says Georgie. “But I don’t think anyone has ever found him as offensive as you do, Max.”

  Max thuds his chair back and stands over the table, resting his weight on clenched fists. “I’ve already said I don’t like him, and I’ve already said I’ll apologise and try to get him to come back. Now, can you all just shut up about it?” He stands and walks to the door.

  “Is this because Violet left the party with Cosmo last night?” asks Georgie.

  Max stops dead in his tracks and swings back around to face us all.

  A pain shoots to my chest. More betrayal. I glare at Georgie and see a flash of regret in her expression. “I’m not saying anything happened between you two,” she says with a shrug.

  “I hope you weren’t,” I reply.

  Max hovers behind Georgie. “Keep your opinions to yourself. This is none of your business.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Georgie says, her tone spiky.

  Ethan is very close to losing it. “If you’ve got something to say, Georgie, I want to hear it.”

  Oh fuck, don’t say it, Georgie. Please don’t.

  She takes a deep breath. “Violet left the party with Cosmo, making Max angry. You’re making me a scapegoat for the Belle Oaks ad, so you can save Violet’s skin.”

  All eyes turn to me, and my already burning stomach responds with a cartwheel. “You’re wrong, Georgie.” I say, knowing she’s right.

  “You just crossed the line.” Max swings open the boardroom door, shooting Georgie the look of death as he leaves.

  “I’m sorry, Violet, but this isn’t fair.” Georgie’s large brown eyes are glassy. I draw my anger back inside me. She tucks a shiny lock of hair behind her ear and bites on her bottom lip. “I’m not taking the blame for this. It isn’t my fault.” She stands, gathers her things and follows Max out of the room.

  Ethan, Ruby and I sit in silence. I don’t speak. I can’t. I sit frozen to my seat, waiting for the meeting to end.

  “I should be getting back too,” Ruby says awkwardly. Given she’s a prize gossip, I fully expect her to be listening once she’s outside the door.

  When we’re alone, Ethan speaks without looking at me, his eyes trained on the table. “What happened last night?”

  “Ethan, please . . . don’t . . .”

  He stands up silently. Every part of his body is tense. I wait
for him to speak again, but he doesn’t. His gaze is fixed straight ahead as he leaves the room too.

  22

  WORD IS OUT THAT BELLE Oaks is threatening to sue us. The only question is for how much. Tom and Ruby think a few thousand; Pinkie – my team member who knows the most about everything – says it’s more likely to be millions. Does Tribe even have that kind of money?

  Freja stopped by my office mid-afternoon. She wanted to take me out for something to eat and some fresh air, but I wasn’t up for it. I also wasn’t up for her ordering in from the health-food café next to West India Quay, but she just turned up unannounced with a paper bag full of chickpea and noodle dishes and a couple of kale smoothies.

  Within half an hour, I’d unburdened myself of the horror of my mugging. Freja made all the right noises, but also chastised me for not telling anybody – including the police. But then she told me something about Cosmo that I wasn’t expecting. Five years ago, his brother, Inigo, was killed in a street robbery while out jogging near their family home in Knightsbridge. He was stabbed sixteen times by a smackhead who stole two hundred pounds, his mobile phone and a pair of Nike trainers. Apparently it was all over the news at the time, but of course there are so many of these incidents in London, I wasn’t likely to remember.

  Since finding out, I’ve thought about Cosmo non-stop. Max blamed him for my getting hurt, but all along he was probably suffering from some kind of hideous post-traumatic-stress episode. No wonder he collapsed into sobs when I was attacked. He’s probably still in shock now. I feel desperately sorry for him and feel like I should call him, even though I don’t have the first clue what to say.

  I figure I’ll mull it over later, because tonight I’m being forced to suffer a touchy-feely get-together organised by Freja. She’s invited everyone who went on the Paris shoot to the Blue Room bar in Canada Square. When I say “everyone”, I mean everyone whose arse is currently either on the line, or so far over the line that Tribe’s board members are pricing up body parts to sell.

  The Blue Room – famed for its beer-battered haddock and gastronomic Scotch eggs – is located in a purpose-built leisure area near Tribe’s offices. It has a three-storey glass frontage held up with steel beams, an industrial-style interior and a busy outdoor terrace with tables covered by stripy umbrellas. Given it’s the middle of December, the terrace area has been stocked with blankets, wood burners and patio heaters. Freja likes this because it reminds her of home. Apparently all the best bars and cafés in Copenhagen have installed the exact same cosy touches for their eternally half-frozen customers.

  I’m here under duress, of course.

  Max is not here at all.

  He point-blank refused to come, and I hate him for having bigger balls than me. A month ago I would have stuck to my guns and avoided a night of fake friendliness and empty conversations, but I guess I’m here for the same reason as Ethan – for the good of the department.

  I don’t have Max to accompany me to a secluded corner, so I take up a seat outside with the rest of the team under a striped blue parasol. Then I start faffing around with my phone. I try to look as busy as possible and start flicking through my Facebook newsfeed. One of my friends from Cambridge has just announced his engagement to some girl who looks like Jennifer Lawrence. I make a bland congratulatory comment, knowing that in the remote chance I’m invited to the evening do, I can’t ask Ethan to come with me, so I’ll either have to bribe/blackmail Max or fake a debilitating illness.

  “Budge up.” Tom Vance manoeuvres himself into a gap between me and Freja. He’s wearing a white shirt which contrasts with his olive skin and dark hair. I don’t look up from my phone. “I just wanted to talk to you about some ideas I had for JET Financial. Are you okay with me hammering things through with you first thing tomorrow?”

  My memory shoots back to Tom’s behaviour in Paris. He talked to Freja about me, then he went over my head to Tamara Lockwood. I don’t trust him one little bit. “We haven’t decided who’ll be working that account yet.”

  I continue to scroll through my Facebook timeline while Tom sits next to me, no doubt planning his next move.

  “Okay, look, I’ll level with you,” he says finally. “Freja sent me over.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “She did? Why?”

  “She thinks I crossed the line in Paris . . . and before that . . . well, ever since I started working here really.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I think we could’ve got off to a better start.” He coughs into his fist and lowers his voice. “I’m sorry.”

  I have to stifle a grin at how awkward he looks. “Apology accepted.”

  “So we’re good?”

  “We’re better.”

  “Better than good?”

  “Don’t push it.”

  “I wouldn’t dare.” He glances to an adjacent table where Freja is commanding the attention of a group of female staff members. “I think she’d rip my balls off and feed them to me.” He picks his bottle of beer up off the table and stands to leave. “Can I get you another drink?”

  “I’m good for now. Maybe later, thank you.”

  “Okay. Erm . . . catch you later then.”

  Tom heads inside the bar and I allow myself to be pleased that we seem to be getting back on track. My attention turns to the adjacent table, where Freja, Ruby, Georgie and Jadine laugh as they talk about celebrities, music, fashion, superfoods and their newfangled exercise regimes. These are all things I don’t have the first clue about, so I couldn’t join in even if I wanted to. I feel a pang of sadness. I envy their shared interests, closer friendships and the fact they’re enjoying life while I’m edging ever closer to a permanent state of poisoning everything I touch.

  As I listen to them chat, Ethan arrives. He stands next to Jadine, and she giggles like an insipid teenager again. God, how I hate that grating, fake laugh of hers. My resentment starts to build just as Jadine meets my gaze. I turn away so quickly it’s totally obvious that I was watching her. Oh, fuck her. Fuck the lot of them. Why the hell do I care what any of them think?

  I don’t look over again, turning back to my phone, but I can still hear the laughter and the jokes and the bravado. Jadine is inviting everybody back to the Stratford semi she’s about to move in to with Ruby and Penny. Ethan says he’ll try to make it over, and I could throttle him. Is he still trying to hurt me? I glance across to see Jadine tossing her curls over her shoulder like she’s a siren on the Argo, luring men – well, luring Ethan – to his death.

  “I got a text message from Cosmo earlier,” Jadine says, raising her voice so unnaturally that it’s more than clear I’m meant to hear this exchange. “I’m so upset he’s gone. I’m going to miss him. I’ve known him since we were teenagers. His father is my father’s best friend.”

  Oh, shit and hell. How did I forget about that? She glances in my direction. I take a huge gulp of white wine, then I shakily place the glass back on the table. If Cosmo has talked to her about me, there’s no way in hell I’m going to try to convince him to come back to Tribe.

  “I’m glad Max isn’t here,” whines Jadine. “He seemed good fun when I first met him, but now I think he’s a total bastard.”

  Ethan bristles. “Max is a good guy.”

  “In your opinion,” Jadine says with a pet lip. I try to empathise with her. I try to put myself in her place and imagine how I’d feel if I lost Max or Ethan.

  “I’ve known Max since we were at uni together. Over nine years of putting up with his . . . oddness. He’ll have his reasons.”

  “Cosmo said Max threatened him and it had nothing to do with work,” she snaps. Shit, what has he told her? I look around the seating area as the gossip starts to register with everybody’s eyebrows.

  Ethan puts his glass down on the table with a thud. “This isn’t the time or place.”

  “Come on, Jadine, you know Cosmo has a few issues too,” interrupts Georgie, who had the thankless task of managing both men. />
  Jadine’s bottom lip starts to quiver. Oh, not again. Why does she always have to pull the sodding damsel-in-distress act? “He’s my friend. I’m going to miss him.”

  “You and Cosmo were cut from the same cloth,” Freja says. “Of course you’re going to miss him.” Whoa. Was that passive-aggression? Freja heads for the bar with a grin and a snigger. I decide it definitely was.

  Jadine scowls, drawing in her sculpted cheekbones. “I just think you should fully investigate what happened this morning,” she says to Ethan.

  I leave before I say something I regret, passing Tom as I go inside and find the ladies room. I don’t need the toilet, so instead I sit down on one of the plush velvet chairs lined up in front of a row of mirrors and dressing tables. My stomach growls. I reach into my bag and take out a packet of breakfast biscuits, and an image of Ethan rolling his eyes at my food choices flashes in my mind. God knows how I manage to survive on whatever I find lying around my office or in my bag. I almost give myself a plastic-wrapper-cut trying to open the sodding biscuit packet, then I see a flash of red exit the toilet stall and move to the sinks.

  When she’s finished washing her hands, Freja comes over to the table next to me. “Come in here for some peace and quiet?”

  “You could say that.” I put the biscuits back in my bag. My stomach responds by snarling as if an angry lion cub lives in it.

  “So, I need to tell you something.” She tilts her head to one side and offers a smile loaded with compassion. “I caught Jadine talking about you and Cosmo earlier to a few of my tech guys. She told them you left the party together.”

  I straighten my back and rest my palms on the table in front of me. “I wouldn’t have expected anything less of her.”

  “I know. But don’t worry, I still tore strips off her.”

  “I hate her. I hate her more than I’ve ever hated anybody in my entire life. And that’s saying something, truly it is.”

  Freja’s lips curve into a sympathetic smile again. “I know, but all of this is because of Ethan, and you honestly have nothing to worry about. You shouldn’t be jealous of her.” She reaches into her black tote bag, pulls out a hairbrush and starts combing through her long hair, which glistens like a sheet of copper under the bathroom lights. “But if Jadine wants Cosmo back at Tribe, she’ll get him back regardless of what he’s done. She hasn’t had a father for most of her life and she’s learned how to work Lucas’s guilt to her advantage. That’s why she holds a position she’s entirely unqualified for.”