Breaking Joseph (25 page)

I shot Poppy a
glare and she shrugged, twisting the pencil that hung from her
lips. I wondered if she was nervous about Matt trying to make a
scene–it seemed awfully inconspicuous. Still, he had just learned
about Charlie.

“Leila!” he
urged.

“I’m not in the
mood.”

Two security
guards arrived in their navy blue uniforms and they checked through
my bag. I hung my head as they walked me to the lift. Was this how
Bhan had felt? It was revolting.

I’d barely
stepped out of the building when I heard a haggard voice behind
me.

“Leila!” Matt
shouted. It was no mean feat to take the stairs with his screwed
leg. “Listen to me.” He caught my elbow and we played a little tug
of war on the pavement until passing suits knocked us against the
wall.

“What do you
want?” I said, exasperated.

“Why are you
leaving?”

“You know why
I’m leaving!” I swung my bag at him.

He caught it
easily, clamping it still. “What are you talking about? Do you
think I’d have dragged myself out here just for the sake of
it?”

“I don’t know.”
I started to walk again and he gripped my shoulder.

People began to
stare.

“Has he fucked
you over?” he said.

“Who, Joseph?
No.” I peeled his fingers away. They were cold. “But then you know
that already, don’t you?”

“No, I
don’t.”

I wanted to
believe him but I couldn’t afford the trust. Besides, where else
could Poppy and Isobel have gotten that picture without prompting?
Nobody had more motive to give it to them than Matt.

“Why didn’t you
say that you knew Charlie?” he said. “Tell me he isn’t one of your
clients. Please?”

“Good luck in
your new job,” I said quietly.

“Don’t you
fucking walk away from me!”

But I did, and
he let me. I left him reeling for the second time since we’d known
each other. Before, I’d walked off to a different bed with a
different man.

Now I’d made
yet another bed, and there was nothing to do but lie in it.

Chapter 13

On one hand, I
was proud that I’d remained composed for the walk back. On the
other, having to lug such a heavy bag along had served as a great
distraction, and at home, I slumped my shoulders and let the
nightmare sink in.

I was no longer
going to be a lawyer.

Well, I hardly
needed any of this crap.

One by one, I
launched my textbooks at the hallway mirror. The first few bounced
off and made a miserable heap on the carpet. I couldn’t even trash
my own flat properly.

I grunted as I
swung the next tome and the crack as it hit the glass was violent.
Satisfying. So was the next. Soon, the floor was peppered with
frosty shards, and the tears on my cheeks were colder still. The
corpse of the mirror crunched under my heels as I staggered to the
kitchen and poured myself a large glass of wine. It was ten AM.

No point in
moping. I wouldn’t succumb again. Nor would I plot the blood-sodden
deaths of Poppy and Isobel, though Charlotte waved a machete and
hissed through her teeth. I was knee deep in shit and no playing
card was about to hand me another spade, so I did what every tax
lawyer does when things went wrong: I made a spreadsheet.

Calculation
suggested about two months until my money ran out. Three at a
frugal push. Then I’d still have another three months of my rent
contract to pay and God knew what else. Clearly, unemployment was
not an option.

After way too
much wine–to smooth my trembling voice, of course–I called a bunch
of recruitment agencies. All I needed was one good appointment, and
I’d find another contract. Could run away in the dust of this and
hope nobody saw where I went.

Matt kept
calling and I kept ignoring him. It seemed like a good idea to just
switch my phone off and avoid any mention of the past twenty-four
hours.

I was tired
then. I think I fell asleep.

* * * *

“Lei-Lei?” A
loud bang rattled my front door. “I know you’re in there, I can
hear the TV!” Aidan yelled.

I peeled my
drool-soaked face off the sofa and rubbed the sleep from my eyes.
Another
bang!
made my pulse stutter.

“You had best
not have taken any pills!” Aidan called through my letter-box. “I’m
going to count to three and then I’ll have to break down the–”

“All right.” I
went to stand up, but…bleugh. The world of upright people was cold
and fizzy. Better to crawl.

I reached the
door on sore knees and flicked the latch, clutching the handle as
it swung open. “What do you want?”

Aidan pulled me
up by the waist. “Matt said you quit your job.” He tucked my hair
behind my ears and then lurched back as I dry-retched toward him.
“Jesus. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

I wiped my
mouth. “What time is it?”

He checked his
watch. “Half seven. Lei–”

“Fuck.” I must
have knocked myself out on bad Chardonnay. Well, at least this
little episode hadn’t sucked away any of my class.

“What happened?
Is everything okay? Because it does not sound okay.”

My bleak future
swam before me, panic gnashed its jaws and my whole body began to
jerk. “No.” I wept. “It isn’t.”

I can’t
remember if I walked back to the sofa or if he carried me, but I
sobbed into his chest for a long time. A soap on TV turned into a
documentary, and then that turned into the news. Aidan never said a
word; he just stroked my back, cradling me in the crook of his
arm.

“I’m sorry,” I
said.

“Don’t be
silly. Are you ready to spill?”

“I can’t,” I
croaked. “I’m not allowed.”

“What do you
mean, not allowed?”

“They said if I
told…I’m just fucked, Aid, okay? I’m fucked.” And then I started to
cry again.

“Oh, please. I
won’t breathe a word, I promise. You can’t not tell anyone.” I’d
never heard Aidan sound upset before. It was unnerving.

“I can’t, I
can’t.”

“I don’t go to
your office, I won’t tell Matt–”

“Fuck Matt!” I
balled my fists. “It’s his fault. Did he tell you that?”

Aidan narrowed
his eyes. “What?”

“He helped–he
was part of it. I can’t believe he’s lied to you as well.”

“He was pretty
cut up, you know. I don’t think he was putting it on.” He tipped my
chin with his fingers. “Now I swear, I won’t get you into trouble.
What’s happened?”

I pulled
together the words, tried to force them into sentences. Some of
them snapped on the way in. “Two girls in my office…they found out
I was a whore.”

Aidan
stiffened.

“And they
blackmailed me,” I sobbed. “They made me dump Joe and leave my
job.”

“God. I’m
sorry.”

“Matt gave them
the photo, the one from the website. They said he did. I know he
had it…”

“I’m so sorry,
baby.” He folded his arms around me and began to rock. Then his
tone went sour. “Pair of fucking pus-weeping sores. What happens
now?”

“Uh. I don’t
know that I’ll be able to get back into law. I’m going to try, but
I won’t get a reference and I don’t know how I’d fudge it
otherwise. It’d be hard to explain away the past two years.”

“What? You gave
everything up for that photo, seriously? You’re not even on the
website anymore, you could have argued the toss!”

“But it was me,
and I was on the website,” I said. “If the partners believed it,
how long until it ended up in the news or something, and my parents
found out? It’d kill them. I have to take responsibility, Aid. I
took Isobel’s boyfriend and Poppy’s job. I broke Matt’s heart and
rubbed his face in it every day. I can’t argue with any of those
things, when I think about it.” Charlotte could, but she was still
face down in cold vomit.

“Oh, come on.”
He looked me sharply in the eye. “How was it Poppy’s job, exactly?
I thought you kicked everyone’s arse to the moon there?”

“Well, I did,
mostly. But–”

“Okay. So she
was pissed that she lost out to you. So what?”

“She talks like
I got the job because I was screwing Joseph,” I said glumly, “and I
suppose that might still be true.”

“Bollocks. She
was jealous,” he said. “You know how I feel about him, but I doubt
he’d dip his pen in the office ink if it wasn’t the best fucking
ink in the place. And as for what’s-her-face. The ex-Mrs Marquis.
Are you telling me she had no idea what he was like?”

I shrugged
weakly. “I don’t know. Even if she did…I still got involved with
him when I knew they were dating.”

“And they were
about to elope and make babies, were they?”

“No.” That
little image almost raised a smile. “But I have what she wants–or
what she thought she wanted.”

“Yeah, well.
You’ve been underhand with her. Even I can’t deny that.” He stroked
the hair from my face. “But you haven’t murdered anyone, Lei-Lei.
You’ve spent a long time ignoring the fact that the men you screw
probably have wives, girlfriends, whatever. It changes the way you
look at things, and while that’s kinda screwed, this is
disproportionate in sheer wankiness to whatever it is you’ve
done.”

I hung my head.
“You think?”

“I’m a whore
too, remember. Playing for your team, biased to buggery. But
Poppycock would have found another job and Ex Mrs would have found
another boyfriend. Your career might not recover from this.”

“I know,” I
sniffed, and then wet tears lined my cheeks once more.

“So you’re
going to take your ginger ninja-ness and tear them a poorly-toned
new one, right? One that seeps. Make them
seep
.”

“Ah…”

“Not
ah
.
This is war. This is the fucking winter of our discontent! You
pathetic–”

“Hey! Not
pathetic. I’m trying to be dignified, okay? For once.” I wiped my
eyes. “If I stay quiet, I’ve got a chance of turning this around.
Eventually.”

He snorted.
“You are doing this for your career, aren’t you? Not to protect
that shit?”

“Matt would get
implicated too, sooner or later. All three of us might have ended
up jobless.”

“Oh, I see. I
see.” He rolled his eyes. “You’re taking one for the team.”

“It’s what
whores do,” I mumbled.

“Get a grip,”
he said affectionately. “And what’s this about Mattman joining
forces with the wanks of evil? He loves you.”

“Not enough,
apparently,” I wept. “I don’t know where else they could have found
that photo.”

“He sounded
pretty upset on the phone. All seven times.”

I wasn’t the
only one fielding Matt’s calls, then. “You just don’t want to
believe that your tortured jizzboat fantasy is also a vile
betrayer.”

Aidan wagged a
finger at me. “He would not! Anyway. He mentioned something about
you knowing his stepdad?”

Space of my own
was suddenly very inviting, and I pulled away. “Did I ever tell you
about Charlie?”

“No.” He
crossed his legs on the sofa. “This is going to put you back in bad
film territory, isn’t it?”

Yep, should
have saved some wine. “We were lovers for about five years.”

Aidan’s eyes
darted left, then right. “You and Matt’s stepdad,” he repeated.

“I
know.
”

A shocked smile
cracked his face and he stared back like an evil Cheshire cat.
“
Char
lotte,” he said. “You’re a hooker with a Charlie habit.
You shameless cliché!”

I scowled at
him. “Cheers.”

“And let me get
this straight–Mattman knows nothing about it?”

“No. Well. He
knows something now,” I said drily. “I’m not planning on telling
him the rest.”

He pulled a
cushion into his lap. “Is that why you dumped him?”

“Sort of,” I
admitted. “It kind of served as an excuse, actually.”

“Jesus.” He
shook his head in disbelief. “Any more skeletons in the closet,
while we’re at it?”

“Nope.
You?”

“Hundreds. But
it’s your turn to look bad and I wouldn’t want to steal the
limelight.” He paused, scrunching the cushion. “What are you going
to do?”

“I don’t know.
Denial’s not really going as well as I thought it would.”

“What about
your parents?”

I pursed my
lips. “I was mostly thinking that I wouldn’t tell them at all.”

“Oh.” He nodded
sarcastically. “Yeah. Good call.”

“Fuck off.” I
tried to muster a smile through the tears, but it wouldn’t be
tempted.

Aidan patted my
thigh as he hauled himself up.

“Where are you
going?” Don’t leave me! Hello, inner whiny bitch. And I used to be
so hard. Ugh.

“Shush, it’s
all right.” He held his phone up. “I’m going to take myself off
call and order a pizza, okay?”

“Okay.” I
pulled my knees up to my chin. “See you in a bit.”

Chattering, he
disappeared into the hall. A shower seemed like a good idea.

Except…when I
stepped into the steam, the tiles turned to Joseph’s muscled flesh
and the hiss of cascading water became his breath in my ear. I’d
come in to wash the day away but now I soaked in forbidden memories
and murdered desires, and I felt his palms rough against my
buttocks, his teeth dragging on my shoulder in his lover’s mural of
bites.

He had
embroidered his will onto my skin. That much would heal. His words,
though, had sunk deeper, little heat-seeking missiles that awaited
detonation in my chest.

It had been
just a day since I was naked like this and beside him, and already,
I had begun to mourn.

By the time I
emerged in my little robe, Aidan slobbed on the rug with a pizza
box and an impossibly large Coke.

“Come,” he
ordered. “Gorge. You need it.”

I sank down
next to him, hair comb in hand. “I’m not really very hungry.”

He shoved a
giant wedge of ham and pineapple in my direction. “Have one
slice.”