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

  Ethan’s body stiffens. A slow crawl of red spreads over his skin. “What do you mean, ‘gross’?” His voice is shaky and I already wish I hadn’t told him.

  “He’s into . . . uhm . . . kinky stuff. He was just weird. It was horrible and it was degrading. He knew I wasn’t interested and he still . . . I had to ask him four times to let me go.” My voice breaks and I curse myself. I’m making things ten times worse. “I was totally clear I didn’t want anything more with him before we left the party, and he knew that. But I shouldn’t have gone anyway.”

  “What? Oh my god. This is all my fault,” Ethan stammers. His eyes glass over as he takes both of my hands in his. “Where does he live?”

  Oh for fuck’s sake, not again. “Ethan, I’ve already been through this with Max. Just leave it, please. Cosmo has . . . issues.”

  “I swear to god, Vi, I swear, I’m going to rip his fucking balls off and stuff them down his throat. Why the hell didn’t you tell me? You promised you’d never keep anything from me ever again. And as for the mugging, how the hell can you just brush that aside?”

  My own tears well in my eyes. “Because I was ashamed. Every time I think about the whole thing I feel sick to my stomach. And I feel angry, because I did get into that situation to get back at you. I let him do this to me because I wanted to erase what you said.”

  “It isn’t your fault, it’s mine. God . . . fuck . . . I’ve been such an inconsiderate, thoughtless bastard.” His face is consumed with pain. He stands in front of me open-mouthed, digging his hands into his pockets. A moment’s silence feels like it lasts for days when every part of you is yearning for dialogue.

  “I didn’t care that I was mugged. I even thought it was karma. Some guy jumped me– that’s it. But he got my necklace.”

  “Oh no. Your Laurel necklace?”

  I nod. “I’ve worn it every day for six months and I just want it back.”

  Suddenly, I feel his arms around me, holding me in the way I’ve wanted him to hold me for weeks. I breathe him in, relishing the feel of his wool coat against my wet cheek.

  Then I break away and look into his eyes. “So now you know.”

  “It kills me that you didn’t come to me.”

  “I wanted to so much, but I couldn’t. So I went to Max.” His eyes are clouded with sadness and his words strike through my battered defences. I let out a sob. “You said I needed to change. I was so angry, because I knew you were right. You said I should be friendlier and more fun . . . you said you were tired of the way I looked at you. I wanted to be somebody else, so that’s why I left with Cosmo. I understand why you’re sick of me. That’s what happens eventually. It’s been that way with every person who has ever loved me.”

  “But, Vi, I didn’t mean it.” He runs his fingers through his hair, ruffling it slightly as he tries to process what I’m telling him. “I don’t understand. Why the hell would you try to change yourself because of something I said to you?”

  I hold my breath, and with every second that passes in silence I come closer to breaking. My hands are hot, but I feel cold. “Because I’m not good enough and I never have been. And I’m not even close to being good enough. These last few weeks have been hell, and if Stella wants to fire me, then she can and I won’t care about it. You think I don’t try to be a better person, but I do. I try so bloody hard sometimes, but nobody ever notices.”

  “You’ve never cared what people think about you.”

  “No, I hide the fact that I do care. I hide it by building walls around myself to stop people getting close and finding out who I really am.” A cool breeze blows my hair onto my face, which is damp with tears. I brush my cheeks dry with my palms. “I care what you think.”

  “Then you need to know I love you.”

  The lump in my throat expands until it chokes me. “That should be enough, but it isn’t.”

  His colour changes and his eyes lock onto his hands. I catch the fear. He didn’t want to hear that – of course he didn’t. “I know . . . but you should also know it’s never been difficult to love you. You think it is, but it isn’t. Even when you’re being a total pain in the arse, I still love you. So what if other people are too blind to appreciate how amazing you are? And yeah, maybe it takes a little more effort to get close to you, but that’s a good thing. It means only the best people end up loving you.”

  I shake my head and question him with my eyes. “And that’s you?”

  “Yes, of course it is.”

  “And you still love me? After everything I’ve done?”

  He laughs. “Yes. I’ve always loved you and I always will.” He moves in close and reaches for my hands, holding both of them in his. I look into his eyes and I feel a low rumbling of desire. “You make me laugh. Even when you do the stupidest shit and I want to strangle you for it, you still make me laugh. I love how you say whatever the hell comes into your head and how you won’t budge when you know you’re right. I love how real you are, your truth and your honesty. I even love how you won’t answer a straight question. You’re as nosy as hell, and . . . Jesus Christ, Vi, I don’t know how we got here, but you must know that I love you.”

  A smile takes hold of me, and I can feel that it’s a huge one – the type of smile you can’t stop coming, but you’re worried in case you look dumb. He squeezes my hands again and I smile even wider.

  “I told you before that I didn’t know what happened to us, how we got here, but I do. Ever since you told me you wanted to cool things, I’ve been out of my mind trying to understand how this happened to us. It’s me who needed to change, not you. You’re the most important thing in my life, but I let you feel like you came second to my bloody job. I hate myself for being so fucking weak that I let you go.” He grips my hands and pulls me towards him. I wrap my arms around his waist. “I’ve missed you so much,” he says, stroking my bruised cheek. “I want to start spending time with you again. Tomorrow. Let’s get back on track – a movie night at my place. Takeout. What do you say?”

  Tears flood my eyes as I hold onto him. “I’d love that.”

  We head home together, but he gets off the Tube at Piccadilly Circus, and I go on to Kilburn Park. He smiles – my smile – when he leaves, and when I get home he calls to make sure I got back safe.

  I know I’ll sleep better tonight than I have in months.

  24

  I WOKE UP THIS MORNING positive that today was going to be the absolute best of days. I’m seeing Ethan tonight, and I’m feeling optimistic and focused about work. Of course, I still have the Belle Oaks crisis to get through, but I’ve dug deep enough to find the courage I need to fight my corner.

  It’s 8 a.m. when I arrive at work, but the moment I walk onto the creative floor, I’m met by an eerie silence which casts black clouds over my sunny mood. I hear raised voices coming from the centre of the floor. Lucille is arguing with Jadine, but she stops when she sees me. Strange. I’ve never known Lucille to pick a fight with anybody. She has a sleepy, tropical-island calmness about her most of the time, but I know that when she’s pushed she can erupt like Old Faithful – all steam and fizz. I certainly wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her.

  I walk apprehensively towards my office. Lucille bounds over to intercept me. “Don’t go in there,” she says. Her dark eyes are filled with an unsettling urgency.

  I don’t know what she means to begin with. I open my door and the first thing I notice is that the room is darker than normal. I step inside, and then I see . . .

  Three A1-size posters have been attached to the glass wall, shutting out some of the light and turning my safe place into a torture chamber of humiliation. The images have all been enlarged from photographs of me taken from either Tribe’s website or a brochure of this year’s AdAg Awards. I freeze in horror as I read the words. The realisation that somebody has spent hours putting this hateful show together cuts into me, and I feel pain – a real, but strange, aching pain that I’ve never felt before. I know I’m not everybo
dy’s cup of tea, but what on earth have I done to deserve this?

  The first of the posters is a black-and-white image of me wearing a clipart tiara decorated with snowflakes. “Let him go!” has been written across the top and “Snow Queen” along the bottom. My mouth gapes in horror as I move on to the second poster. In this one I’m standing next to Ethan at the Grosvenor Hotel, where we collected our AdAg award last May. “The closest you’ll ever get” is written along the top in bold pink letters, and the award I’m holding in my hand has been photoshopped into a bright-pink vibrator.

  “I’m sorry,” Lucille says. “I was going to take them down the second I saw them, but I was so angry I went on the warpath instead.” I raise my hand to signal that it’s okay.

  The final poster features a group shot of Jadine, Tom, Georgie and Ethan on the terrace of the Blue Room. It must have been when Freja and I were in the toilets – with Ruby – yesterday evening. “Tribe’s A-Team” is printed along the top, and an image of me has been superimposed in the bottom right-hand corner with “Z-List” scrawled across it.

  “You need to take these to Stella and report her,” Lucille says, but I don’t respond. My pulse is racing and my brain feels like it’s burning through my skull. I stand still in my office, suffocated by the wall of degradation. I can’t take my eyes off it. All I can do is stare at the posters whilst simultaneously trying to keep my body upright.

  “What the hell is this?”

  I turn around and see Max in the doorway, holding a takeaway coffee cup in one hand and a carrier bag full of groceries in the other. I look at Lucille, whose round face and kind dark eyes are full of sympathy. “Jadine made these?” I ask. She nods her head.

  “You’re kidding me,” Max says. “This was Jadine and not a ten-year-old child? Actually, my seven-year-old nephew wouldn’t do something this fucking childish. Right. I don’t care who her father is, I’m getting Freja. She needs to be fired for this!” He starts to march out of my office, presumably to start World War Three.

  “Wait! Max, this is complicated . . . and personal. Besides, I don’t want her to think she’s getting to me.”

  He reluctantly comes back inside the room. He opens his mouth to say something but then stops himself.

  Lucille starts taking down the first poster. “When somebody is trying this hard to upset you, it’s because they know you’re better than them. Don’t react to her, but do what Max says. This is gross misconduct, so Freja needs to fire her bony arse.”

  I sigh. “This is the last thing I want to deal with right now. Fuck it . . . and fuck her! I am not going to let her beat me. She’s trying to upset me, so I’m going to laugh and show her I’m not upset.”

  “But you are upset . . .” says Max.

  “That’s irrelevant!”

  “I don’t think you should let her get away with it,” he protests.

  Lucille places the Snow Queen poster down on my desk. “She’s gone too far here. This is too much, but the worst people can teach us the best lessons. If we let them.” I mull over her soundbite. What can I learn from this, aside from some people are utter shits? “I’ll get back to work and leave you two to talk.” I thank her and she leaves.

  I carefully take down the remaining posters, ignoring my instincts to rip them down whilst crying and screaming blue murder. But I refuse to let her bully me – absolutely, categorically refuse. Max comes to my side and helps me. “Why is she doing this?”

  I shrug. “Multitude of reasons. Could be because I yelled at her for booking a really stupid film location. Or because Cosmo has fed her a ton of lies about Monday night.”

  Max’s nostrils flare. “So she’s decided to fight a bonfire with a nuclear bomb.”

  “Seems like it.” I peel the last poster – the “A-Team” one – down from the wall then pick the last of the Blu-Tack from the glass. I sigh as my thumb brushes over the image of Ethan’s face. I take a deep breath, and tears fill my eyes.

  “Don’t you dare crumble.”

  I turn away from the glass wall so nobody can see me and I sit down on the sofa. “I don’t want to crumble, Max. Believe me.”

  He looks down at the poster that I’m still gripping in my hand. “Ethan won’t know anything about this.”

  “Hmm? Oh yeah, I know that. It’s just . . . she wants Ethan back, so that’s why she’s doing crap like this and spreading rumours, trying to humiliate me. I bet they’re all laughing at me.”

  “Let them laugh. They’re wrong and they’re nothing.”

  “Max,” I say with an eye roll. “How would you feel if it was you?”

  “Honestly? I wouldn’t give a shit, but I get that you’re upset, so I’ll put her straight.”

  “You’ll do no such thing.”

  “I will. Someone needs to tell her how spoilt and cruel she is. Who the hell does she think she is, doing this to you? You’re an agency director and she’s on probation as a film producer. She thinks her father makes her untouchable.”

  I laugh. “She is untouchable.”

  Just then, I hear my phone ping. I pick it out of my bag, expecting a text message, but instead on my screen is a Facebook Messenger bubble with the face of a woman I don’t recognise. Intrigued, I click into the app and read the message:

  Violet, you are psychotic.

  “Oh my god.” I can’t help but laugh as my life jumps up yet another notch on the bizarre scale.

  “What is it?”

  I show Max the message. “What the . . . ? ‘Polly-Dolly Banana’? Is that her real name? Who the hell is she? She must have the IQ of a bloody turnip.”

  I laugh again. “I have absolutely no idea who she is – if we’d met I think I’d have remembered her by name alone.”

  “Well, she’s clearly an idiot. Just look what she’s doing with her face. Why do women pout like that on photographs? Zero men find that attractive, you know.” He takes my mobile for a closer look. His brow concertinas as he starts clicking around my phone apps. “Oh, for the love of bierwurst. She’s just blocked you.”

  “Wow. That’s brave of her.” I’m playing this as upbeat as possible, but I’m getting angrier by the second.

  “Who the hell sends a complete stranger an abusive message and then blocks them? And she’s calling you psychotic? That’s irony at its finest.”

  “I’d lay a bet she’s incapable of processing irony, Max.”

  “We need to do something about this. It’s intimidation or harassment, and it’s definitely bullying.”

  “I wouldn’t dare admit I’m being bullied by people this stupid and spiteful. A lion doesn’t lose sleep over the opinion of sheep.”

  “Cool saying.” Max taps into his phone and searches for ‘Polly-Dolly Banana’ on Facebook. “Oh, here we go.” He shares the screen with me and scrolls through her visible posts. At least ninety per cent are pouting duckface selfies with bar toilet backdrops. The rest are check-ins at the gym or vaguely targeted bitchy memes. “Oh, here’s a surprise.” We both shake our heads in unison at a whole bunch of pouty photos of banana-girl with Jadine.

  My anger fades to apathy. How have these soulless, vacant nonentities invaded my world? And more importantly, how do I get rid of them? I’m dreaming up a few options when I’m distracted by Max tapping on his phone. “What are you doing?”

  “Sending her a message.”

  “What? Oh, Max, don’t. Seriously, just ignore her. I don’t want to give the silly girl any space in my head.”

  “Sorry. Too late.”

  Oh god, I’m going to kill him. He shows me his phone and I gasp in horror.

  Who the hell are you and why are you sending abusive messages to my friend? Just so you know, Violet Archer has more class, talent and intelligence in her little finger than you have in your entire body.

  Oh. My. Fucking. God.

  “Max, are you mad? This is exactly what she wants. They don’t deserve a reaction. Plus, I don’t want to give Jadine a gigantic stick to take from me and beat
me over the head with.”

  A few moments later Max’s phone pings and my stomach bungee-jumps.

  “Is that her?”

  “Yep.” He starts to laugh and shakes his head as he reads. I nudge up beside him and he angles the phone so I can see.

  Your friend has upset somebody I love dearly, so how dare you insult me? For your information I have both talent and intelligence, in fact I’ve just graduated from a more prestigious university than she attended. As for all the class she supposedly has, seems it isn’t enough to snare her hot boss.

  “The idiot has blocked me now.” He pops his phone in his jeans pocket. “What the hell’s she talking about – ‘prestigious university’? Didn’t you go to Cambridge?”

  I nod. “And Harvard.”

  “Oh god, she is a turnip. But then again, turnips are useful and relatively good for you. She’s good for nothing. She’s a useless steaming pile of pig shit, just like her friend. I’m never speaking to Jadine again after this. I’m going to give her the full shun. My great-great-great-uncle Wolfgang emigrated to America in the eighteen hundreds and founded an Amish community, so I know all about shunning people.”

  “Max, is that story real?” I try – and fail – to stop myself bursting into laughter.

  “Yes, of course it’s real.”

  “So your great-great-great-uncle was called Wolfgang Wolf?”

  “Yes. What’s wrong with that? Good, solid German name.” I laugh until my sides split. “If you’re not up for shunning her, let’s just boot her out and be done with it. Aside from being a bitch, Jadine Clark is a bloody idiot. She can’t write a sentence without a misplaced apostrophe and at least three spelling mistakes. She spelled photograph with two fucking ‘f’s last week. I’m German, but I could write better English than her when I was five. It’s a wonder she’s managed to survive into adulthood. Operating a spoon would confuse her.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “I’m trying really hard not to be judgemental of people and their failings here, but you’re making it impossible.”