Special Relationship (35 page)

“Katherine you are far and away the best PA I've ever had and I want to work it so that you stay with us – that's if you want to – but I now know that you sent the texts to Alex and that you sent a similar text to yourself.”

As she bowed even lower, covering her eyes, he walked round the desk, knelt down beside her and took her hand. Despite her initial reluctance he held it tight. “We made a mistake in New York, but we can sort things out. And I feel dreadful for setting you up – and so does
Tavis – but the reason for that is clear – we need to sort everything.

“Without the meeting yesterday nothing would have been resolved and neither of us would be able to move on. I feel so, so sorry for being so devious, but I haven't got long to work everything out. And I needed to know for sure.

“And do you know, what Alex did with the detective and what you did with the texts and what I did at the meeting yesterday - all, I hope, could be understood if not justified by a right-thinking person.”

She looked up at him. “So you and Alex are now...”

“No, she's away at present but I do want to be with her. If I had any doubts that I loved her they disappeared when I heard about her past the other night."

“What happened to her?”

“I'll have to let her tell you that.”

“You know Nick I don't know if I am...was...in love with you or not. I found you attractive for sure, but it was only when
Tavis told me after she'd left the post-races party how besotted you were with someone you didn't know...and when I saw how beautiful she was.. that I felt a near panic to do something. Jealousy I suppose. Or, if I'm totally honest, something missing from my own life.

“And I guess I instigated things in New York, so don't blame yourself too much.”

“Well, we were equally to blame, rather we were equally 'responsible'. One thing, I wouldn't want to take those few days back. I was happy as anything running from the waves at Coney Island.”

“I have to resign, what I did was unforgivable. And I lied to you.”

“Don't want you to resign, but what we do is up to you really. First thing is we have to draw a line under you and me as love partners whatever happens with me and Alex.

“I'm not going to come running to you if she tells me to piss off - that would be unfair – and you know, I don't know that you and me would last. We've been working together for quite some time now but you have to make an effort for us
to truly bond – like you did with the Coney Island trip – you had to think about it and plan it. You'd get bored of doing that.”

“I loved it when I was there.”

“Yes, but we were only there because you had to think what might please me rather than what might please you.”

“I don't think you are so much in love with me that you couldn't continue to be my PA, or number two as you really are - Alex and me, or not. I think it was just an infatuation because you weren't being loved the way you deserve at home coupled with Alex arriving on the scene. We had plenty of time to seduce each other in the past. Why didn't we?”

“And other than being your PA?”

“If you preferred you could move to another position here or you could even move to the New York office. But what I don't want is for you to leave the company and even if you do I want to keep you as a friend.

“The only problem with you staying in your current position is that I have to tell Alex about you sending the texts and our tryst in New York, but, really, as strange as it seems for you who doesn't know her background, I do think she will understand.”

“Probably a better person than me then,” she replied.

“You are both good people, Kath, just different histories.”

“Well, I can't really make a decision until you have spoken to her, can I?”

“Believe me, I think we are going to be OK,” he tried to assure her.

“Fuck, why does life have to be so fucking complicated?” she asked, raising her head to look at the ceiling.

“If it was easy everyone would do it.”

She smiled at him.

“You know Nick, most people would have fired me on the spot after finding out what I had done. Maybe if you did that, then it would make things easier?”

“Easier for who? I'd lose my best worker and good friend and you'd be working for minimum wage in a cake factory.”

“Piss off,” she said, wiping away her tears of shame. “I mean it would make me not like you so much.”

“I knew what you meant, idiot,” he said, squeezing her hand.

She got up and straightened her jacket. “I'm really sorry for what I did. And please tell Alex too.”

“I'm sorry for what I did too. Now, go out and kick arse before our money-grabbing traders start selling our stock again.”

She remembered Nick telling her about he had once gone to northern Spain and sat on a hotel balcony in Santander watching troops of people fast-walking the length of the beach, right by the water's edge, up and down, some of them many times. That's what got him into fast walking rather than jogging.

“You burn more calories walking than running - weird, isn't it?” he'd said, adding that the bonus was that you don't throw up or have a heart-attack at the end.

So that morning she went for a fast walk along Cromer beach. The first thing she thought as she set off was that she wished he was with her and the second was that fast-walking along the sea edge had yet to catch on in Britain. She was alone in practising the Spanish method of staying fit and felt more than a little conspicuous.

It was another bright day, the sun just starting to gain strength, but the wind off the sea at time was bracing and seagulls flapped in for scraps from the previous night like dive bombers with their piercing screeches above her head.

She'd had a phobia of birds ever since she was young, maybe six or seven when, with with her dad, a grebe from Central Park had flown into a deli.

In the confined space the bird panicked and flapped against her small head as it was trying to escape. She remembered even now how in her red coat she'd covered herself with her arms and screamed so loudly that her dad, as he later told her, was worried the NYPD would surround the place with guns prepped.

As she walked, she thought how long she might stay in Cromer. She'd got her room until the next day but after that the hotel was fully booked. If she stayed she'd have to find an alternative. She liked the place and was torn whether to go back to London sooner or later. Her foreboding was that on her return the real Nick would most likely be revealed.

When she got back from her walk she asked at reception whether any rooms had become available for the day after tomorrow but the receptionist apologised and said that unless there was a cancellation nothing would be available. She started to prepare herself for her return.

Nick called Kerry again that morning but she still hadn't any idea when Alex was coming back. “Do you want me to text you when I hear from her?” she suggested.

“That might be a good idea, thanks Kerry. You know...I won't hurt her.”

“You'd better not, Nick, or you'll have me to answer to,” she replied as light-heartedly as possible while still managing to convey the seriousness of the threat.

He smiled. “Don't worry Kerry. After what she has gone through...well, I promise...I will just be honest.

“In one way I feel responsible for her and maybe I've been a bit too eager to encourage her with you. So please that's all I ask.

“She doesn't realise what an amazing person she is.”

“I know, Kerry, believe me, I know.”

He reclined in his chair and wondered whether, like Manarola coming up the hill at Ascot, he'd find enough energy and power to see everything through to the finish.

Alex spent the next day, her last at Cromer, sitting in a deckchair on the beach with a book that she'd seen reviewed in a newspaper's top ten summer reading list, but most of the time she stared at the sea, its hypnotic, therapeutic effects preparing her for what might lay in store back in London.

As the sun cooled, she returned to her hotel to collect her bag and, with the room that had provided her refuge now otherwise occupied, used a toilet cubicle to change into jeans and a warmer top than she'd needed for weeks.

As the train slowed on its approach into Liverpool Street, she noticed the tingling in her stomach and breathed deeply before pressing the switch to open the doors.

She walked to her flat, changing her bag from one side to the other to lighten the increased load, and once inside and she had eaten the ready meal she had picked up at the station, she composed herself and hit the speed dial.

“Hi
Kels.”

“You're back?”

“Yes, batteries recharged and ready to face the world.”

Kerry told her that there had been no problems in the office and that they even had been offered to pitch to a new financial website with serious backing. “And, you need to know...” she added, at the end, as delicately as she could, “Nick called.”

Her heart skipped.

“He wanted me to text him when you got home, but I thought I'd better check with you first?”

“Yes, sure, why not?” She paused. “We might get our contract back.”

“It's more than the contract, though, isn't it babe?”

“I guess so.”

“So I'll text him?”

“I'm tired of running.”

She spent the rest of the conversation telling Kerry about Cromer, the hotel, the Victorian architecture, the beach and the theatre at the end of the pier, and in enough detail to delay the time she might have to talk to him.

Kerry told her that Adrian and his new girlfriend were “on a break” and that she and Luke expected to exchange contracts on their new house in a few days.

“I'm so happy for you. Hope the house warming is going to be big and memorable,” Alex said.

“You bet ya.”

“I'll buy you some new pots and pans.”

“Well, Luke will need some stuff for the kitchen,” Kerry giggled.

There followed a moment of silence with neither knowing what to say but both thinking like twins.

“You sure you want me to text him?”

“We need to sort things, not only for me but the business.”

“He didn't actually give me a clue what he was thinking but I do hope he says what you want to hear.” She paused. “And, don't forget, I'm always here.”

“I know you are, the best friend ever...”

When she'd hung up, Alex felt alone and vulnerable again. She checked that her phone was not on mute and wondered whether he would call her that evening. He did, less than half an hour later.

“Alex.”

“Hi Nick.”

“We need to talk, and not on the phone. I'm coming over.”

“You're kidding, it's gone eleven.”

“See you in twenty,” he said before hanging up and without waiting for her reply.

Alex looked at herself in the bathroom mirror, her hair and face damaged by the salt of the sea, and quickly showered and applied cream before changing into T-Shirt and leggings. She hurried around the flat, hurling some clothes from the bedroom floor into the wardrobe and collecting cutlery that had been there from before her trip to put in the dishwasher.

The robotic vacuum cleaner that, given time, worked a treat on the wooden floors had barely completed a lap of the living room when she heard the purr of a black cab outside.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, she thought, as she squirted deodoriser. She went back to the bathroom and messed with her still-wet hair before the buzzer went. She readied herself and, without speaking on the intercom, pressed the button to release the front door.

“It's past my bedtime,” she said as she opened the door to her flat.

“Bedtime is meant for resting and you, Alex, never rest. I had a bruise to show for it.”

“Sit down,” she said, gesticulating to the small sofa that she had bought at IKEA.

“No, I don't want to sit down. You gave me time to think and now I want to tell you the results of that thinking which I could have told you before you went....wherever you fucking went. I love you Alex and I want to be with you and if you ever leave me again I will be...totally destroyed.”

She looked at him as hopelessly in love as she could imagine but she needed to know and held back her tears long enough to ask, “So you are not the man the text messages said you are?”

“I know who sent the text messages and for that I need to explain the same way you explained to me about your private detective, although this explanation is not nearly so tragic.”

“Go on,” she said.

“Can I smoke?” he asked pulling a cigarette from the packet and lighting it as she watched him without responding. Now he did sit down.

He
was nervous as he took in the nicotine and prepared himself for the make or break confession.

“OK, the text messages came from Katherine and I did sleep with her in New York...”

“You piece of shit...” she shouted at him.