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“Ready to go?” he asks, once I’ve put my belt on.
“I think so. Don’t I need some kind of spacesuit to ride in this thing?”
“Don’t be fooled by Mrs Black. She doesn’t like hills very much so we won’t be scaling heights anytime soon.”
“Then, I’m ready.”
Rather than show off, he sets off slowly. It’s only when we come to any roundabouts that he really shows what it can do, no doubt because he’s too impatient to wait for doddery drivers.
“So, what are you up to nowadays?” he asks.
“Oh, for work?”
“Yeah.”
He keeps his eyes on the road but occasionally glances at me with those large blue ones of his which are extremely disconcerting this close up. There’s no doubt he sees all. This is a different breed of man to the ones I’m used to. It kind of scares me.
“I’m copywriting… freelance. Good money, actually. Better than what you’d have paid me.”
A deep laugh catches in his throat. “I knew you’d be fine, someone of your calibre. If I wasn’t such a dickhead and so honest, I’d have told you that you were too overqualified to be my PA. Although, strictly, that wouldn’t have been true. You’d have been great as a PA and because I’m exacting and not many people last five minutes with me, well… you’d have at least lasted ten before you told me to go to hell.”
I like how he’s really light and can’t help but laugh along with him. “I’d have probably ended up showing you how to do your job and you’d have had to quit and let me take over. So you could’ve just said that instead of being a weirdo and telling me that you fancy me.”
He snorts and nearly crashes into a car up ahead. Thankfully, he has the brakes to match the acceleration. “I do like a woman who can tell it how it is.”
I think about Kallie and how she’s been a little cooler with me since we had our chat. Not ghosting me per se, just cooler. Not everyone likes someone who’s honest. But I keep telling myself she just needs time to figure things out. It’s a sensitive subject and she’s getting herself together; I can more than understand that.
“To be honest, I didn’t call you because I thought you’d no doubt heard about the debacle at HypoChrissy.”
“Ah,” he says, slowing down as we come up to a light. Then he turns his head and flashes me a grin. “Well, when one of London’s most prestigious PR houses goes to the wall, it’s gonna reach even the boring money movers like me.”
The light turns green and I’m shocked more by that news than I am by the way my head hits the back of the chair as he zooms off. “It’s actually gone to the wall? I hadn’t heard…”
“Miles Farringdon, who’s a little bit of a twat… I met him at something he attended with his father, Chuck. Remember me mentioning Chuck?”
“Yes, of course. Chuck’s big in tech, isn’t he?”
“Mmmhmm, we have a lot of investors who went with his company. Great returns, really great. Anyway, I digress. So… yeah, Miles it seems was the person at… I’m just going to call it Chrissy’s because HypoChrissy is ironic, don’t you think?” I laugh loudly, making him chuckle again. “Anyway, Miles was the one at the rudder if you know what I mean. When he left, he took the biggest clients with him. Nobody trusts her.”
“Why is that, what have you heard?” I shouldn’t play ignorant, but aside from her illicit affairs, I really wouldn’t know.
“She allows her feelings to direct her business interests,” he says, and I get the feeling he’s being rather diplomatic about that. “Isn’t that why you left?”
“Well, I left because she has no morality and the way she was running that place was awful. And because…”
He glances at me with concern. “You can tell me. It’ll go no further.”
“I’m the reason he broke away from her, and I just… wasn’t ready to explain to anyone yet… and I thought you’d probably ask questions since you’re a man of the world.”
He shakes his head. “We don’t have to talk about this at all, if you don’t want to. I couldn’t care less about what she did or he did or what you did. It’s past. Sorry, but it’s not in my nature to be one ofthosepeople who has to know all the ins and outs of everybody else’s lives. I’m much better with numbers than with people, obviously… or maybe you’d have called me sooner!”
We both laugh nervously, then we go quiet for a while.
I tell him softly, “Well, I’d rather enjoy not talking about all that, so…”
“It’s honestly fine by me,” he says, “like I said, it was a big thing when he left her. I have a lot of people who know a lot of people, that’s why I find out these things. Not because I’m especially interested. But the money that comes through me does reach a lot of other people, one way or another, you know what I’m saying?”
“I get it.”
