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“Yes. Cole Shepherd.”
“Okay. And you can’t think of anyone else?”
“No. No-one at all.”
Keira gets to her feet, handing Livia her phone as she stands too.
I get up, and Keira looks across at me. “Invoice your hours directly to me, will you? Don’t put anything through the company.”
She frowns slightly. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is. I wouldn’t like anyone here to gossip about this.”
She shrugs her shoulders and turns, looking at Livia. “I’ll find my own way out, and hopefully I’ll be in touch soon.”
Livia nods her head, and Keira leaves without bothering to say goodbye.
Once she’s gone, Livia steps away from my desk, but I don’t want her to go yet.
“I—I’m sorry that guy treated you so badly,” I say and she stops, looking back at me.
“It’s not your fault.” She glances out the window and I move around the desk, so I’m standing in front of her.
“How did you find out? About his past, I mean?”
She turns to face me. “It wasn’t really his past. It was his present.”
“I don’t under—”
“He asked me to have dinner with him,” she says, interrupting me with a sigh. “I accepted, but then I overheard a conversation between two other women while I was in the ladies’ room. They were… they were talking about him, and what they’d all done together the weekend before, and how they were going to miss doing it all again that weekend, because he’d told them he was going out of town. I couldn’t believe they were talking about the same guy, but then one of them called him. They’d put the phone on speaker, so I heard his voice. I knew it was him, and I heard them arrange to meet that evening… all three of them.”
“Even though he was supposed to be seeing you?”
“Yes. The very next night.”
“The guy was an asshole.”
“I know he was, but our conversation was still humiliating.”
“Conversation?”
“Yes. I called him right away and told him what I’d overheard.”
“Really?” I love her style. “How did he react?”
“He tried to deny it… until I named the two women and told him I’d overheard his phone call with them. Then he told me it didn’t matter what he did, because we weren’t seeing each other yet.”
“Was he serious?”
“He seemed to be.” She shakes her head. “To be honest, in the end I was just relieved I’d found out what he was like before I had to sit through a meal with him… and his ego.”
I laugh, unable to help myself, and although she smiles, she still turns to leave. Without thinking, I grab her hand, pulling her back, and she looks up into my face, her eyes widening.
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
I can’t think what to say… I’m not sorry for holding her hand, or for being this close to her. I’m not even sorry the guy turned out to be an asshole, because it means she’s here, now… with me.
