Page 84 of The Work Husband

I pushed back my chair, spinning around in the direction of Jasper’s office. But before I could get to my feet and walk the few steps to his door, I realised he had other visitors.

A man and a woman, her face and body swathed in black robes, he in white, his head covered. It was Ahmet and Farida – Zahra’s uncle and aunt.

For a second, my heart plummeted. I couldn’t be sure what they were doing here, but I was pretty certain it wouldn’t mean anything good.

Then I remembered that I didn’t have to care. I had a plan – I was going to leave. Jasper’s problems weren’t my problems any more. Feeling strangely carefree, almost numb with indifference, I turned back and smiled at Jamie.

He didn’t smile back. His face was immobile, like a poker player who’d gone all in on a massive hand and was waiting for the final card to be dealt.

‘What are you looking so happy about?’ Jamie asked.

‘Happy? Me? Not particularly.’ I smiled more widely. ‘Just having a good day. How about you?’

He tried to return my smile, but it came out more like a snarl. ‘One of us is, that’s for sure. But I think it’s more likely to be me.’

‘I guess we’re about to find out,’ I said airily. ‘Coffee?’

‘No thanks.’

So we sat in silence, coffeeless, waiting for Jasper’s door to open again.

We didn’t have to wait long. It was about twenty minutes before the door opened and Ahmet and Farida emerged, Jasper ushering them out with a courteously outstretched hand.

I couldn’t be sure, because Farida’s face was almost entirely covered by her niqab, but when she glanced in my direction, her eyes looked sympathetic, almost pitying.

When the lift door closed behind them, Jasper didn’t return to his office. He came straight over to Jamie and me.

‘You two’ – there was a muscle twitching on his jaw – ‘a moment please.’

We stood up and followed him into his inner sanctum. He gestured towards the two brocade-upholstered armchairs that faced his desk.

‘Take a seat.’

We sat. The chair was still warm from whoever out of Zahra’s aunt and uncle had been sitting there before. I wondered if Jamie had noticed his was too.

‘As you might have guessed,’ Jasper said, ‘the al-Badawis dropped in to inform me that they no longer require the services of Devereaux Partners. They were at great pains, Georgia, to emphasise that the service they received from you had been impeccable.’

I glanced fleetingly at Jamie, just in time to see him wince.

‘However’ – Jasper placed the tips of his fingers together, his elbows on the desk, and glared at us over the top of his hands – ‘the various leaks of confidential details that have come out of this office – first of their niece shopping at Harrods, and then of the arrangement yesterday with Okan Ataturk – have destroyed their confidence in our discretion.’

Two was hardly the same as various, I thought – then I remembered the leak of Cormac Kennedy’s sleepover with the woman who wasn’t Taisha and the publication of Trent Wallis’s stag-night shenanigans.

Perhaps multiple was the word after all. Surely if a head was going to roll for this, it would be Jamie’s and not mine?

‘In this business,’ Jasper went on, ‘reputation is everything. We stand or fall by the trust our clients place in us. And over the past few months, there have been multiple breaches of that trust.’

‘Personally, I think it’s disgraceful what Georgia has done,’ Jamie interjected. ‘I haven’t said anything to you until now, Jasper, because I’m a loyal person. But⁠—’

‘I. Have. Not. Finished. Speaking.’ Jasper glared, and Jamie quailed.

Yes, I thought, you take what’s coming to you. Try and blame me if you like – I’ve done nothing wrong and surely Jasper knows it.

‘It’s not long since I was forced to call you into this office and speak to you about this very matter,’ Jasper told Jamie. ‘You denied all knowledge. Vociferously, if my memory serves me correctly.’

‘I denied it because it wasn’t me.’ Jamie didn’t sound as confident as I suspected he hoped. ‘Think about it, Jasper. Who had access to the Harrods’ pictures? Who booked the Ritz for Cormac Kennedy? Who knew about Okan’s plans for yesterday? Georgia. Not me.’

‘You knew too,’ I burst out. ‘You knew because I told you. And you were at Trent’s stag do.’