“So why are you telling us now?” Ginny asks.
“Because Effie knows.”
“It’s that serious?” Nur asks. She’s a mother. She understands.
I nod. It was serious from the start. That’s what Anders knew, and that’s why he proposed. He gave up control so that I could have it. Because he knew I needed it. And he trusted that I'd eventually catch up.
“Well, there's only one thing left,” says Chloe. “Is he any good at sex?”
“I absolutely, categorically, will never tell you that.”
“Well, he’s shit hot at everything else. He’s got to be bad at something. It’s only fair.” Ginny complains.
“Except the world is not a fair place.” I pat her gently on the shoulder. She can make of that what she will.
Nur squeezes my hand again. “We are all really happy for you,” she says with a stern glance at the younger ones. “You've beenalone a long time. We're just glad you found someone who will treat you well.”
“He does treat me well.” And that’s the end of it.
I don’t see Chloe again until late afternoon when she hurries up to my desk as I’m closing everything down, ready to go and fetch Effie. Her eyes are alight and she’s panting slightly.
“We’ve got him!” she whispers urgently.
“What?” I continue putting stuff away, my mind already having switched to my myriad of household concerns, like do I need to pick up milk.
“Piotr! We’ve found something!”
My head comes up. She has my whole attention.
“We looked for any emails or messages going to Wobbegong, but there wasn't anything other than round robin stuff. Then we looked for any emails that might be going to the Wobbegong CEO personally, or any sort of version of his name. Nothing.”
She pauses, “Then I thought to search for the information Piotr might have sent. And bingo! We found a direct message to RuinLord.” She holds out a phone, showing me the evidence. “But I can’t find who that is.”
“RuinLord?” I sit up straight. Where have I heard that? Then my brain fires, ping, ping, ping, and I’m back in the conference hall with Piotr staring at a bald man.
My smile shines wide. “It’s a gamertag.” I almost can’t believe this. “Used by Conrad Mars.”
“The CEO of Wobbegong.” She breathes out the last words.
I flop back into the chair. I never realised how much stress I was carrying from the threat of Piotr’s legal action until this moment.
“Oh my God! Chloe, you are a genius.” I’ve never wanted to kiss a girl until now.
She drops her eyes, embarrassed by the praise. “It wasn’t just me. The IT team helped.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I say. “Do you want to be the one to tell Anders? He’s in his office. You can go straight through.”
Her eyes widen as alarm spreads over her face. “Can’t you do it?” she asks.
When I nod, she flees.
It feels good to be vindicated. There was always a niggling doubt in my mind that I’d got it wrong, that Cerium and its employees would pay for my mistake. That’s the price of leadership and actually, I realise I don’t want it. If I had to deal with things like that every day, I’d never sleep. I’m sure you get used to carrying that level of stress, but I don’t enjoy it. Not the way Anders does.
I knock before opening the door. For once, he’s behind his desk. But he pushes back his chair and stands when he sees me. We cross the room, moving towards each other until we stop just short of touching.
“You’re looking happy,” he says. “What is it?”
I look up at him, my grin widening with the joy of being the one to give him the news. “Chloe found a DM from Piotr to Conrad Mars, giving the original launch date, sent the day of the meeting where we decided it. We have our proof.”
