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And certainly not in the eyes of some shiny editor.
Or some blushing fool of a writer.
It was obvious—and so much so that Greg clearly knew it now, too. Mabel glanced at him and saw the ripple of realization and discomfort cross his usually never anything but calm, pristine, Patrick Bateman–looking face before he managed to rein it in and smoothly change course. “Oh no, not about you,” he said. “I was simply commenting on the process itself. It can be so difficult.” And then he gave a little laugh. Threaded his fingers together in that way that seemed to sayif we were shaking hands right now, you would absolutely love it.
But unfortunately for them both, Alfie wasn’t having it.
He folded his arms across his chest.
Like a barricade between him and the two chancers in front of him.
“Didn’t seem like that’s what you were saying,” he said.
“Oh, well, then let me apologize.”
“Yeah, but for what though?”
He tilted his head when he asked the question.
Like a cat, Mabel thought.Playing with a mouse.
Even though Greg was the least mouselike person she’d everknown. He could silence whole meetings with a look. Almost the whole of Harchester Publishing quaked in his wake. His suits cost more than she paid a month in rent; his license plate declared to the world that he was a Boss.
With an eight, where the O was supposed to go.
Yet to her astonishment, for a second he did actually look cowed.
He seemed to be sweating slightly. And his eyes kept darting to the expensive water someone had laid out on the table. Like his mouth had gone dry, and if he could just wet it a little he could come up with a good explanation for what he meant. Even though it should have been easy.Just tell him he’s a big strong boy and we’ll move on, she thought at him. But he simply couldn’t seem to do it.
And now Alfie was starting to look amused.
Smug, almost, it seemed to her, in a way that was just as familiar as his accent and his anger and his overblown macho pride. Give it a second, and he’d be sneering at her the way he was sneering at Greg. Like every boy she’d ever known from high school, or played with in caravan parks on the East Coast, or been insulted by on the number 36 to Ripon.
At which point, she knew.
This wasn’t an opportunity.
It was a chance for him to poke fun at people like her.
That was why he’d agreed to this, finally, after years of people trying to nail him down. It wasn’t just the charity promise his manager had made, or a chance to prove he was more than a lunkhead, as she’d seen hinted at in various gossip corners of the internet, after that overblown reaction to the supposedly disastrous foreword he’d written to one of his teammate’s books.
Oh no, no. He’d probably spotted Greg’s massive car and his silly license plate. Or seen the lineup of writers they’d gotten to audition for him like this, as if he were a Broadway show and they were desperate teenagers who’d just gotten off the bus from Idaho. And he must have thought he’d hit the having-a-good-laugh jackpot, when Greg had finally scraped her out ofthe bottom of the barrel. Mabel Willicker, ghostwriter to such luminaries as some nobody onEastendersand that bloke fromBake Offwho’d cried so much on his cake he had turned it salty.
It was a contemptuous arsehole’s dream come true.
He barely had to do anything to make her look foolish.
Then he could just flounce off, in a huff he could pass off as righteous. And even though it sank her heart to think it, she could tell she had it right. She felt it before he leveled those inky eyes on her, as he answered for Greg.
“Or maybe I should give it a guess: you think I’m a big hairy manimal who’s never gonna be able to work well with this here human cupcake,” he said. Then just for good measure, he flung a finger in her general direction. As if nobody were going to know that he meant the woman in the pale pink dress with the cherry-covered cardigan to match. Or understand that this was almost definitely a jab about her weight, on top of the rest of this mess.
So really, was it a surprise that she snapped?
Probably, considering she was well known for being the sunniest person on earth. But the thing was—even sunny people had their limits. And apparently, being thought of as a gross joke by a disgruntled ex-footballer was one of them.
“You know what? Actually, now I think about it, Greg, I’m pretty sure this was a mistake,” she said. Shakily, it seemed to her. But by god, the words were fully formed. Those were whole and polished sentences that had come out of her. And they sounded almost annoyed, too.
So annoyed, in fact, that she had the satisfaction of seeing his smile drop.
