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

  I hope she’s not suggesting I brought this all on myself. Did I bring it on myself? “I’ve had some bad luck . . . and I have faulty creep-detection radar?”

  “I’ll buy your story about Cosmo, but this is also about Paris. Belle Oaks is one of my oldest and closest friends, and this entire episode has been excruciatingly embarrassing for me. That Les Misérables idea was fucking terrible – I don’t know what the hell you were thinking running with that. You’re lucky Ethan arrived to fix the mess, because if it had been me, I’d have tied you to that bloody barricade and shot you. Tribe lost thousands of pounds on that shoot, and we’ve just signed away more thousands to settle with her lawyers over the Vogue fuck-up. So, as you’ll appreciate, the board is demanding someone’s head for this.” Her stoic demeanour fades for the briefest of moments, and her meaning hits me like a dagger to the chest.

  “Are you firing me?” I ask, my heart racing.

  “I’d prefer it if you resigned,” she says softly. Her jaw dimples as she forces a weak smile onto her face. “I don’t want to fire you, Violet. You’re an excellent copywriter, but my hands are tied.”

  I fall back against my cabinet. I feel numb, but I also feel calm. Would this be so terrible? Maybe this is my get-out. The way I’m feeling about Ethan right now, I wouldn’t mind if I never saw him again.

  “I know this is a horrible shock. But yesterday I had a long conversation with Dylan Best, and I persuaded him to offer you a job in New York. It’s an excellent opportunity – a senior copywriting position and a two-year accelerated management programme. He said he’ll personally take you under his wing and train you himself. I urge you to consider his offer, Violet. I know you worked for BEST Inc. before you came to BMG, so you know how many ad execs would kill to get a chance to work with Dylan.”

  She’s not exaggerating. Dylan Best is literally the best in the business. This would certainly help me to never see Ethan again, but I don’t really want to never see him again. It would also bring me closer – far too close – to Ryan Rafferty. “Can I think about it?”

  “Of course. I’ll have to ask you to keep the offer confidential until you’ve made your decision.”

  “Why? Does Ethan know about this?”

  “No, and I’d like to keep it that way. As I said, this arrangement is confidential – it’s between me and you.”

  “You mean you haven’t told him because you know he’d talk you out of it.” I hold my breath and wonder if it would be possible to have my mouth surgically sewn shut. She gives me a look which says “of course that’s the reason”. “Okay. I’m sorry for questioning you.”

  “Don’t ever be sorry for doing that. Not with me. People have been throwing bricks at my head ever since I left BMG and set up Tribe. I trusted my partners and directors would pick up those bricks and help me build something awesome with them. But so far you haven’t picked any bricks up. Instead, you’ve landed half a derelict building site at my feet.”

  I can’t argue with her. If I were in her thousand-pound-per-pair shoes, I’d want to throttle me too. “I’m sorry.”

  Stella makes another attempt at a smile. At least, I think she does. It’s very hard to tell. “Let me have your decision by tomorrow evening. Lucas Bartle is keen to know your answer.”

  She walks through my front door, and I just stare after her open-mouthed, my heart banging in my chest like it’s about to yell something at her that my big useless brain wants to say but daren’t. I stand glued to the spot, for what seems like an hour but is probably less than two minutes, until the doorbell rings.

  26

  “WHAT THE HELL WAS STELLA Judd doing here?” Max asks the second I open the door. His eyes are wide with anticipation of my answer. If I hadn’t just received rotten bad news, I’d be taking the piss out of his choice of party outfit – black ripped jeans, sequined shoes, a t-shirt featuring Yoda dressed as the Elf on a Shelf, and a Santa Claus cloak trimmed with bells.

  My mouth opens involuntarily. It’s touch and go whether I’m going to blurt out my bad news or howl with laughter at his costume. “Max. You’re early. And what on earth are you wearing?”

  “Clothes. Just answer the question.”

  I walk to my sitting room. He follows me, bells jingling with every step he takes. Jesus Christ, how does he do this? How does he get life so wrong?

  “Max, you sound like a leper.”

  “Huh?” he asks, rolling up his sleeves and examining his wrists.

  “I said you sound like a leper, not a junkie.”

  He screws up his face. “That’s a disablist comment.”

  “Leprosy is a disease, not a disability.”

  “It’s a disability when all their fingers and toes drop off. Show some compassion, Violet.” He sits down on my sofa, readjusting one of his bells from underneath his bottom. “I bet I wouldn’t get any sympathy from you if I was hideously deformed.”

  “Well, you don’t have my sympathies for being hideously dressed.”

  He puts on a hurt face. His mouth opens, but then he snaps it shut again. “You’re deflecting. Do I have to ask a third time?”

  I sit down opposite him in the armchair and take a deep breath. This is going to break Max’s heart. “Stella is pinning the blame for the Belle Oaks shitshow on me. She’s partly correct. I have fucked up. But, Max, I swear I didn’t give Media the wrong paperwork for the ad. Yes, I emailed both the right and wrong artwork to them, but I didn’t hand-deliver the wrong paperwork. I didn’t even produce the wrong paperwork.”

  “I believe you,” he says, without missing a beat. “So, I think I smell a mouse.”

  “Do you mean ‘smell a rat’? Or do you think Tribe has a mole?”

  He shrugs. “This sounds like a chapter from The Wind in the Willows. Is it Georgie?”

  I shake my head quickly. “No, don’t even go there. Ethan has already tried to scapegoat her, and it was mean. She’s been really upset about it and I feel terrible.”

  “Well who, then? Someone in Media?”

  “Media buyers are sales people. They wouldn’t know . . . how . . .” I trail off as my brain clicks into gear. “Media wouldn’t know the difference between the right and wrong ad. They also wouldn’t know the difference between the right and wrong paperwork.”

  “So, that means . . .”

  I stand and start pacing the floor. Jesus, why isn’t my brain working? A jumble of thoughts take up arms and battle against each other while my gut tries to keep order. My gut knew from the beginning, didn’t it? I knew none of this made sense.

  “Stella said I had to keep what she said to me confidential, so you mustn’t say anything, but she also said Lucas was keen to know my answer . . . Lucas.”

  “What answer? What’s Lucas got to do with this?”

  “She asked me to resign.”

  Max shoots to his feet. “What the hell?” It takes less than a second for all of the colour to drain from his face. “No . . . no . . . you can’t.”

  “She wants me to go to work with Dylan Best in New York. She said Lucas is keen to know my answer. Why him more than Arthur Lovett or any of the other senior partners? What could that mean?”

  “It means this is absolutely going to be the worst fucking Christmas I’ve ever had in my entire life. Including the time my cousin Axel came to stay, ate all the nuts and went into anaphylactic shock.”

  Thank goodness I’m too busy thinking to ask for more information on that. I find my laptop and switch it on.

  “What are you doing?”

  I log on and tap in my password to access Tribe’s systems. “There wasn’t any paperwork for the Les Misérables ad, Max. I didn’t produce any. Stella said I gave Oliver Jones the wrong hard-copy design sheets and he matched them up with the wrong ad, but that’s impossible.”

  Max sits down next to me. “Do you think you were set up?”

  I nod as I access the shared server.

  Max peers over my shoulder. “Those are Jadine’s files. Do
you think this was her?”

  “It has to be, and I think her father was in on it.”

  “No . . . he wouldn’t wreck his own agency, surely.”

  I find Jadine’s Belle Oaks folder and click on some documents. And then I hit a brick wall. “Fuck! I need her password. Fuck it!”

  “Okay, just calm down for a second.” Max takes hold of my hand and moves it away from the keyboard. “IT will have someone on call.”

  “They won’t give me Jadine’s password.”

  “They’d give it to Ethan.”

  I shake my head. “No. I’m pissed off with him. I don’t want him involved.”

  Max sighs. “Bollocks. This is fucking bollocks and you know it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You need to sort this shit out with Ethan right now. It’s ridiculous. You guys are the most in-love people I’ve ever met, and I’m tired of you tearing each other apart. This is horrible for me, you know? I love both of you. I love you more than I love my own brother and sister, and you need to be together forever just like them . . . well, not totally like them because they don’t have sex with each other. At least I don’t think they do.”

  “Jesus Christ, Max. Will you watch what you’re saying?”

  He shrugs. “Hedda was the favourite when we were growing up. She won a cross-stitch competition when she was thirteen and they bought her a pony. It was before the Berlin wall came down, so there was zero competition from Eastern Bloc kids, but after that there was no stopping Hedda. Manfried and I couldn’t compete, but whilst I didn’t care, Manfried hated her. Hedda was the first to go to university, first to get married, first to have kids, then . . .” He starts to laugh and I brace myself. “Then, her husband left her for a man and, according to my parents, she and Manfried have never been closer.”

  “Max, are you seriously suggesting your brother and sister are having an incestuous relationship?” And I thought my family was dysfunctional.

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  “On Game of frigging Thrones!” I rub my brow, trying to remove the thoughts Max has just left in my brain.

  “Listen to me. You and Ethan, you’re made for each other. You’re like two birds in a cage or two beans in a can.”

  “Peas in a pod. And the last thing I want is to be caged up with Ethan Fraser.”

  “Bollocks.”

  “Will you stop saying ‘bollocks’? What do you expect me to do?” I yell in frustration.

  “I want you to fight! Don’t let Jadine Clark beat you. Don’t let Stella fire you. Don’t run away to New York again.”

  “It isn’t me who needs to start fighting, Max; it’s him. He let Jadine tear into me yesterday, and he stood back and did nothing. He never does anything. Then he went out drinking with Jadine and stupid Polly-pout-face last night – after everything.”

  Max looks at me as if I’m deranged. “Ethan didn’t go out with Jadine last night.”

  I’m confused. “What?”

  “He wasn’t out with her. He said you were having a girls’ night to clear your head, so he decided to have a boys’ night. He went to see his brother’s band play in Brixton. I dropped by with my idiot friend Marek for the last couple of hours.”

  I open up Facebook on my laptop and scroll to find Jadine’s check-in. I turn the screen so Max can see.

  “What the hell? That’s utter bullshit. She made that check-in at 10.20 p.m., and unless Ethan has a doppelgänger or has learned how to bend the space-time continuum, he was at the Crown and Anchor on Brixton Road with me.”

  “She made a fake check-in? Why would anybody do that?”

  “Because she’s a bully. Oh, and Ruby wasn’t there either. She was attending a conference today so she stayed overnight in a hotel just outside Slough.”

  “Oh Jesus, of course she did. I forgot all about that. Wait . . . Jadine wasn’t even there, was she? She’s made the whole thing up. Why the hell is she doing this? What’s wrong with her?”

  “Simple. She’s jealous. She wants Ethan, but she knows he loves you.”

  I inhale slowly, still in shock that I’m having to deal with such a ridiculous person. “I’m not sure he does love me, Max. If he did, he’d have done something – or said something – yesterday.”

  Max keeps his head bowed, the light from my chandelier illuminating his bald patch. “Then you should listen to what he doesn’t say.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He’s hurting.”

  Max’s words take my breath away. “Did he say something last night?”

  “He doesn’t have to say anything. I can tell he isn’t himself. He’s lost. It’s like the best part of him has shrivelled up and died.”

  “You’re making it sound like he’s falling apart, Max.”

  “How can’t you see that he is?” Guilt swishes in my already unsettled stomach. I need to try to think of things from his point of view. “Don’t resign. Don’t give up on him.”

  His devastation brings a tear to my own eye. I turn back to my laptop and send a message to Freja. She’ll know Jadine’s password, and because I trust her, I also tell her why I need it. A few minutes later, she replies with her own password for a file on her server called “passwords”. Thank goodness she doesn’t work for MI5.

  We spend the next half an hour in silence, trawling through Jadine’s document folders. We don’t find a thing. I’m more convinced than ever that Jadine is behind all of this, but if I don’t have the evidence I can’t accuse her.

  “Max, even if we do find something here, I don’t think it’s going to work out for me at Tribe. Do you understand?”

  “No!” he shouts in desperation, his head snapping up from his iPhone. “I’m sorry, I know you’re having a bad time, but I can’t work there without you. Cosmo is probably going to come back, and Georgie is a complete pain in the arse.”

  “Why don’t I find a job close by, instead of in New York, and you can come with me?” My eyes water and I give his hand a squeeze. “I’d miss you too. Who else is going to keep up my supply of spongey Polish biscuits?”

  “Mrs Singh has stopped selling them. Can you believe it? She told me I wasn’t buying enough and I should have told all my Polish friends to shop there. I told her for the fiftieth time that I wasn’t Polish and I didn’t have any Polish friends. Then, she called me a liar because Marek was with me. He told her he wasn’t Polish either, but she wouldn’t believe him. She thinks I’m teasing her.”

  “Wait, Marek isn’t Polish?”

  “No, he’s Slovakian, and don’t you bloody start. I’m going to miss those biscuits. I’ve asked her to get me a box next time she’s at the wholesalers, but she told me to get lost and die. She said it serves me right for pretending to be Polish. I don’t know how Mr Singh puts up with that woman!”

  “Oh, Max. That’s so funny.” I can’t help laugh, but Max is deadly serious and very put out. He loved those biscuits.

  “Oh fuck. Oh shit and fuck. Oh mein Gott!”

  My stomach cartwheels. “What is it?”

  “I used the same password to log into Jadine’s email. She’s so dumb. Why is she using a password her boss knows for her email?” He rolls his eyes, then the veins in his head pop angrily as his jaw tightens. “It isn’t her. It’s her father.”

  He passes me his phone and I read the email in silence, rage building up inside me with every word.

  “Call a taxi, Max. We’ve a party to get to.”

  27

  THE TAXI RIDE TO MARYLEBONE happened in a blur. I vaguely remember Max chirping random threats about who he’s planning to murder into my ear, but the noise was hushed by the sound of my own pulse beating angrily into my eardrums. I don’t know if there’s a name for that sound, but I think “blind fury” might come pretty close.

  The five-star Landmark Hotel has been turned into a winter wonderland for Tribe’s Christmas party. The dancefloor resembles an ice rink: glossy white square tiles lit with a sparkle of tin
y lights. The live band is already playing on a stage decorated with winter trees when we arrive. A singer dressed in a smart tux belts out “White Christmas” whilst a lady dressed in a floaty vintage dress plays an ice-white grand piano. We’re so late that we’ve missed dinner, but dessert looks like it’s about to be served.

  “Come on, let’s find our table.” His eyes dart around the room filled with hundreds of colleagues and clients before his gaze lands on a table plan attached to an easel. He drags me over to it and starts searching for our names.

  “Violet?”

  I turn around to find Freja and Georgie standing behind me. Both of their faces are strained with anxious creases.

  “Ah, there I am!” shrieks Max, oblivious to their presence. “Table eight. Oh fuck, they’ve sat me next to Georgie. May as well write off tonight if I have to spend the evening in the company of that massive fun-sponge . . .”

  Shit. He never fails, does he?

  Georgie’s already frosty expression turns even icier. “Funnily enough, Maximilian, you’re the last person in this entire room full of people that I wanted to sit next to tonight – and that was before I knew you’d be arriving dressed as the Grinch.”

  Max looks down at his clothes. I notice his silver sequined shoes again and I’m reminded of the tap-dancing classes my mother forced me and Laurel to attend when we were kids. Laurel was brilliant of course, winning trophies for her poise and elegance. I had the rhythm of a drunk sailor. “The Grinch is green and furry,” Max says indignantly.

  “So who’s that on your top?” Her glare intensifies and the colour drains from Max’s face.

  “You mean Yoda? For fuck’s sake, Tally, this is basic stuff.” His brow furrows at her shameful lack of geek pop-culture knowledge. “You spent far too long being Meryl Streep in Out of Africa.”

  “I don’t know that movie either, but forgive me for working my backside off trying to save lives in Africa instead of going to the cinema.”

  Max rolls his eyes and Georgie glares at him. Then he notices a waiter carrying a tray stocked with little bowls of steaming artisan Christmas puddings over to table eight.