A Wild Affair (22 page)

I WOKE UP TO FIND Max hovering over me, coffee in hand. I couldn't believe I'd actually fallen asleep—I'd thought I was going to be up all night worrying. But it turned out I had managed to nod off after all, and from the smile on Max's face I almost started to wonder if I'd imagined everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours.

“Morning, gorgeous,” he said, handing me the mug. “Would you like some toast?”

I looked at him uncertainly. “Um, okay,” I said. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine,” Max said firmly.

“What time did you get back last night? I fell asleep …”

Max grinned sheepishly and I noticed the bags under his eyes. Okay, so I hadn't imagined anything. “You've just gotten back, haven't you?”

He shrugged.

“And did you speak to Chester?”

“Not exactly. He's still refusing to take my calls. But I am fully confident that the situation will resolve itself. I just need to find out who spilled the news to
Advertising Today
and then everything will be okay again.”

I gulped. “And how are you going to do that?”

“Contacts,” Max said sagely. “On the magazine. Don't worry, I'll get to the bottom of this. And when I do …” His face darkened briefly, then the grin reappeared. “So, toast with jam coming up. Or would you prefer honey?”

“Jam's great,” I said weakly. “Just the ticket.”

“Or croissants? I bought some croissants on my way home. What do you think?”

I looked at Max carefully. He looked wired. His eyes were rimmed with red and his face was drawn and pale. “I think toast will be fine. In fact, I'm getting out of bed. I'll do it. You go and have a shower.”

“Great. See you in a bit.”

I pulled myself out of bed and wandered into the kitchen, an ominous feeling in my stomach. There was an open tub of Pro Plus caffeine tablets on the table and ground coffee spilled on the floor. This was not like Max. Not at all. I tidied up a bit, made some toast and ate it halfheartedly, then jumped in the shower as Max was getting dressed. Max was still smiling forcefully when I emerged from the bedroom. He was going to get sore cheeks if he kept this up, I found myself thinking. He was going to have a meltdown.

I didn't say anything, because I didn't know what to say. So instead I just got ready for work and watched as he opened and shut his briefcase several times to check that he had everything, and followed him out of the apartment, and into his car—the same routine we had every morning, only this morning things were different. A bad different.

“So … what are you going to do?” I asked him tentatively as we pulled into the parking lot of Milton Advertising.

“Do?” He carefully parked the car and turned to me, a quizzical expression on his face.

“About Jarvis,” I said. “Other than try to track down the real source of the story?”

“Other than that?” Max said thoughtfully, as though I'd asked him what he thought about the stance of the Burmese government after the recent cyclone.

“Yes,” I said, my tone more insistent now. “What are you going to do about Chester?”

Max shrugged, turned off the ignition, and turned to me. “There's nothing I can do except find the source. Chester won't speak to me. That's all I have.”

I nodded uncertainly. “And in the meantime, should I carry on working on the campaign? Should I assume it's all systems go?”

A little frown flickered across Max's face. “Maybe you should direct your energies elsewhere,” he said. “For a day or two. Until this has all blown over.”

“Okay.” I looked at him carefully. “So I'll tell Caroline and the creatives to work on something else, too?”

“Great. Yes, sensible,” Max agreed, moving to open his car door, evidently keen to end this conversation.

“Only they're going to want to know why,” I persisted. I could feel that I was picking away at a fresh scab, but I didn't know what else to do. Max was looking straight ahead, one hand gripping the door and the other gripping the steering wheel. “Should I tell them? Or should I make something up? I mean, they'll have seen
Advertising Today
, won't they, so it won't be long before they guess anyway …”

“Fine, so tell them.” Max turned toward me, his eyes glaring. “I don't know why you're asking me stuff when you seem to have all the answers. Do what you want. Do what you think best. I'll … I'll see you later.” He swung open the door and got out of the car, slamming the door behind him before marching off toward the office. I left it a few minutes and then, slowly, I followed him.

“Jess! Jess, I've just been talking to Elle's lovely personal assistant,” Caroline said, rushing toward me as I walked through the main glass doors. “Such a sweet girl. Anyway, she was saying that
Elle's calendar is getting really booked up—she's got this underwear launch and then she's going to Australia for two weeks and then there's a couple of school concerts she can't miss and so she really needs to know when the Jarvis launch is going to be. I mean, not the actual launch but you know, when she should start carrying the bag. Her personal assistant said she'll need to schedule it in.”

“She needs to schedule in carrying a bag?” I looked at Caroline nonplussed; she nodded seriously.

“It needs to like, work with what she's wearing.”

Of course it did. I sighed. “Okay,” I said. “Look, I'll get back to you, okay? And in the meantime, there are some bits and pieces from the Superfoods campaign I'd really like you to work on for the next couple of days, if that's okay?”

“Superfoods?” Caroline looked at me in utter shock. “But there's like sooo much work on Jarvis. I'm getting like phone calls every five minutes with questions, and the project plan has got like ten things on it with red traffic lights, and we've got loads that are amber, and …”

“And a couple of days out will give us new perspective,” I said firmly. “We do have other clients you know, Caroline. Clients who depend on us.”

“Of course,” she said, reddening. “I mean, you know, obviously. I mean …”

“Good,” I said, walking over to my desk and putting my bag down. “I'll email you some stuff over, okay?”

She nodded; I could feel her big eyes staring at me but I refused to meet them. It was true; Jarvis wasn't our only client. We had lots of business. Loads of other really exciting campaigns. Like the Superfoods one. They wanted to attack the trade press with a string of adverts promoting their … I opened up the file to remind myself what they were promoting, then felt my heart sink. Their Investors in People accreditation. That was it. Still, people
were important, weren't they? Investing in them mattered, right? This would be fun. This would be … worthwhile. I quickly emailed the spec over to Caroline with a cover memo, then leaned back in my chair.

“Jess, got some images for you to look at.” I looked up to see Gareth walking toward me. “It's the backdrop for the Project Handbag launch. We've got a few alternatives—some photographs that are more abstract, and then there's one that's kind of interesting, but I'm not sure because …”

“Actually, I'm kind of tied up right now,” I said, interrupting him midsentence. “But Caroline's got a spec for Superfoods that she'll need to talk to you about.”

“Superfoods?” Gareth looked at me uncertainly, then grinned. “Oh, right, a joke. Sorry, been too submerged in this campaign and I've forgotten what humor is. So anyway, have you got a moment?”

I sighed. “No. And I wasn't joking. To be honest, I think we're all focusing just a little bit too much on Jarvis and Project Handbag, you know? We're in danger of becoming a one-trick pony. So if you wouldn't mind switching your attentions to Superfoods for just a day or two, that would be great.”

“You're really serious?” Gareth was staring at me now. “What the hell? Jess, do you realize how much work there is to do on Project Handbag? Do you realize how many hours my teams have been putting in? This is going to be huge. It's going to win us awards and put us on the map. You yourself told me only a month ago that nothing else mattered for the next six weeks.”

“Right,” I said, swallowing uncomfortably. “You're right. But I just think a bit of distance … a bit of refocusing …”

“What's wrong?” Gareth said, his voice suddenly quieter. “What's happened?”

“Nothing's happened,” I said, rolling my eyes. “What, I suggest
we do some work for one of our other clients and something has to have happened?”

Gareth moved closer. “Tell me, Jess. Tell me what's going on.”

“Nothing!” I stood up and pushed my chair away. “Nothing is going on. Just for God's sake, can we stop obsessing all the bloody time about Jarvis Private Banking and Project Handbag? You'd think that nothing else in the world actually mattered.”

His mouth was open; Caroline's was, too. Then, suddenly, Gillie was walking over. “This to do with the article in
Advertising Today?”
she asked, her face ashen.

“Article? What article?” Gareth asked, his voice more agitated now. Caroline rummaged around on her desk and dug out a copy, which he grabbed from her immediately. “What's going on?”

“No article,” I said, feeling my mouth going dry. “It's nothing. Honestly, there's nothing going on at all …”

“This?” He held the article up for me. “It says we're going to be getting more business.” His face crumpled in confusion. “It's a good piece,” he said.

“Exactly,” I said immediately. “It's a great piece, and everything is okay, and all I'm saying is …”

“Not that article,” Gillie said, raising an eyebrow. “It's the one online. The interview with Hugh Barter.”

“Hugh Barter?” I stared at her. “What about?”

Gillie brought up the article on my computer. “See for yourself,” she said.

I leaned down immediately and started to read. “Scene It to pick up Milton pieces,” I heard Gareth say, reading out the headline. I didn't even react; I had to know what he was saying. I scanned the first paragraph, then my eyes jumped out on stalks,
Hugh Barter told us yesterday how unfortunate Milton Advertising's problems are, coming at a time when they finally seemed to be on the rise … He said that the firm had hit problems ever since Max Wainwright
took the reins … Milton Advertising is understood to be having significant financial problems … Hugh Barter said that he had every sympathy for the firm and made the bold move of promising that Scene It will take on any of Milton's clients in a seamless transition to ensure that their own business is not affected by Milton's meltdown. Only yesterday, Milton's largest client, Chester Rydall, was understood to have dropped the firm over leaked information …

I couldn't believe it. It had to be a sick, sick joke.

“How long has this been live?” I asked.

Gillie shrugged. “About half an hour, I think. I only just got sent the link. It's going around the office.”

I felt myself go cold. “And Max knows?”

“I'd have thought so,” Gillie said, frowning. “Doesn't he have the
Advertising Today
front page as his homepage?”

“Oh God,” I said.

“Are we really in financial trouble?” Caroline asked, her voice quiet and trembling slightly. “I mean, isn't Jarvis like our biggest client?”

“Yeah, Jess,” Gareth said, his voice catching. “What did it mean about leaked information? What's going on? Is the firm going under?”

“No, it's not going under,” I said staunchly. “There are no financial problems—Hugh bloody Barter is up to his pathetic tricks again.”

“But we're not doing any more work on Project Handbag?” Gareth asked accusingly. “And that's just a coincidence?”

“Okay, there are a few problems with the Jarvis account,” I conceded. “But that's it. We've got plenty of other clients. Everything is fine.”

“Yeah, loads of clients. That'll be Superfoods and that nail polish company that never pays its bills,” Gareth said, shaking his head wearily. “Thanks for telling us, by the way. Great leadership, Jess.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but he'd already turned and stalked off.

“So what do we do now?” Gillie asked, folding her arms across her chest, then refolding them. I'd never seen her so nervous. “Come on, Jess, what's the big idea? I like it here. There must be something we can do.”

She looked at me expectantly; Caroline was looking up at me, too, her face full of trust. I looked at them for a few seconds, my mind racing, my heart aching for Max, for everything the two of us had worked so hard to build.

“We do nothing,” I said, in a low voice. “I, on the other hand, am going out.”

The Scene It offices were on Kingsway a dreary, gray, and busy street that lay between Holborn tube and Temple—it thronged with anxious-looking public sector workers and students from the London School of Economics clutching pads of paper and heavy textbooks that would no doubt lead to back pain later in life. And then, in an unlikely spot, was a building that, had it not been for the rather funky pink-and-turquoise sign on its door, you would probably walk past every day for forty years and never notice.

A man looked up at me from the front desk with a bored expression. “Yes?”

“I'm Jessica Wild, here to see Hugh Barter,” I said, trying to keep the anger out of my voice, doing my best to look like the sort of person he wanted to let into the building rather than a crazed madwoman out to wreak vengeance.

“Hugh Barter.” It wasn't a question; the man sighed and turned to his computer where he keyed in some letters. “How are you spelling Barter?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Personally, I'm spelling it you-total-bastard-and-I-hope-you-rot-in-hell.”
Okay, I didn't say that. I just spelled it out through slightly gritted teeth.

“Right. Here we are.” He pressed another button. “He's on his way down.”

“Thanks.” I started to pace, suddenly feeling rather hot. I wanted to hit Hugh, not talk to him. I wanted to throw myself at him and push him to the floor and kick him and make him hurt like Max would be hurting right now. But I knew that wasn't a sensible approach. I was going to have to talk to him, even though I would barely be able to look at him, so strong was the contempt I felt for him. And then, just as I was trying to work out if I'd ever hated anyone more than I hated Hugh Barter, I heard the elevator door ping open.