The Christmas Party (23 page)

As she went to tiptoe out, a head popped up from behind the sofa. Despite the gloom, Kirsten recognised Louise.

‘Oh.’ Her hand flew to cover her mouth, but the exclamation was already out.

‘Mrs Benson,’ Louise said, straightening her dishevelled clothing. ‘I can explain.’

It was then that Kirsten noticed the man who lay full-length on the sofa beneath Louise. She backed away as quickly as she could. Kirsten didn’t need to see this. To catch Tyler in the very act of betraying her. She could hardly see him in the dim glow of the firelight, even if Louise hadn’t been shielding him, but she didn’t need to look any further to identify who it was. Who else could it be? The sucker punch of emotion to her stomach told her all she needed to know. She saw him scrabble at his clothes.

‘How could you, Tyler?’ A sob caught in Kirsten’s throat. ‘Here of all places? How could you do this to me again?’ She backed away, legs shaking. She’d known that Tyler was unfaithful to her. Of course she had. But this? How could he be so carelessly blatant? And at the office Christmas party? Kirsten felt nausea rising. All she wanted was to get out of here, and
now
.

‘Please Mrs Benson,’ Louise cried out. ‘This is not what you think. Wait!’

But before Louise could say another traitorous word or Tyler could start to try and sweet-talk her as she knew he would, Kirsten turned on her heel and fled.

Chapter Twenty-seven

The Magnificent Marvo seemed to be much more drunk than was desirable in a magician who was about to cut him in half, and Tyler was sweating profusely. Clearly Marvo had also been enjoying the free bar.

Tyler was locked in a long black box on the stage. A box that looked way too much like a coffin for his liking. Marvo, in Tyler’s mind less than magnificent, was lurching alarmingly, buzzing chainsaw still in hand. The box was tight all around him. Just his head stuck out at one end, his feet at the other. The edge of the hole for his head was pressing down on his Adam’s apple and making it hard to even swallow. Yet every second, there was a nervous gulp travelling down his throat.

Tyler, terror mounting, wanted to shout out to someone to help him. But how could he lose face in front of the staff? They were all cheering and whistling at his discomfiture. He had to man up and act the good sport. He hoped he didn’t piss himself.

This was probably the worst thing he’d had to do in the name of team bonding. There’d been that time in a restaurant in Hong Kong when he’d eaten live prawns that had just had some kind of alcohol poured on them, presumably to stun them enough to cope with their fate – much like the staff of Fossil Oil. But all that had resulted in was a night spent with his head down the loo of his five-star executive suite. A small price to pay for showing you had more bollocks than anyone else.

But this? This looked properly dangerous.

The Magnificent Marvo brandished his chainsaw with glee. The staff roared their approval.

‘Don’t struggle,’ he said in a theatrical manner to Tyler. ‘You swon’t feel a thing.’

His eyes look mad, Tyler thought. And not entirely pointed in the right direction.

‘Well,’ Marvo added with a cackle, ‘not much.’

The magician slipped the whirring chainsaw into a groove in the box around Tyler’s middle. Subconsciously, he sucked in his tummy. He wanted to stay as far away from the blade of that chainsaw as humanly possible. Even though it was a fake. It had to be, didn’t it? It still looked far too bloody realistic for his liking.

Beads of cold sweat were running down his forehead and his armpits were uncomfortably sticky. He should have just said no, bowed out gracefully with a self-deprecating smile. More pertinently, it should be Lance who was in this box. Preferably with the chainsaw at his neck.

It was all the fault of that bloody Simon Conway. If he hadn’t been here watching, Tyler would have made some excuse to stop this. But as it was, he couldn’t. There was no way he could lose face with Conway here.

What was he doing back now, anyway? And working at Fossil? The thought irritated his brain, buzzing like a particularly persistent wasp.

It was bad. Ominously bad.

Kirsten would be furious when she saw him too. He wondered where she’d got to. He sincerely hoped she hadn’t come across Simon yet. He couldn’t bear it if, even after all this time, her eyes still lit up when she saw him, as they always used to.

He’d have to find a way to get rid of Conway. There was no way there was room in the Fossil Oil universe for both of them. Conway was kryptonite to Tyler’s Superman.

Fretting about Conway, he hadn’t realised that the chainsaw was now cutting deep into the box. His mouth was drying and his ears rang with the distressing whine of the saw.

The Magnificent Marvo lifted his free hand and gestured to the crowd. ‘Do you really want me to cut him in half?’ he shouted.

‘Cut! Cut! Cut!’ they brayed.

Tyler scowled. They could sound not
quite
so enthusiastic at his discomfort. There surely must be some trick way that this worked. But the Magnificent Marvo hadn’t yet let him in on it. Then, as the shouting became louder, Tyler was sure he felt a nick on his stomach. His eyes widened in fear. Surely he’d imagined it?

There was another. This time it was more than a mere nick, it was definitely a cut, which made him wince in pain.

‘Aaaagh!’ he cried out. ‘You’ve cut me, mate!’

‘What?’ The Magnificent Marvo was clearly struggling to hear him above the noise of the chainsaw and the rowdy audience.

There it was again. This time it really hurt.

‘You’ve fucking cut me!’ Tyler called out at the top of his voice, just as Marvo killed the chainsaw.

All the staff fell quiet now.

‘You’ve cut me,’ Tyler repeated.

‘It’s impossible,’ the magician said.

‘You have!’

The Magnificent Marvo jerked back on the chainsaw. He grinned at the aghast crowd, but now there was sweat on his forehead too. Hastily he gave the chainsaw to his assistant.

Tyler couldn’t wait to get out of the box. There was a disconcerting trickling of warm fluid round his waist.

One of the women in the front row gasped. ‘There’s blood!’

Tyler twisted his head, making the edge of the head-hole slice into his neck. When he looked, sure enough, spots of blood had dripped out and fallen on to the stage.

‘Oh, Christ,’ Tyler said. ‘Get me out of here! Now!’

Hurriedly Marvo unclipped the hinges that held the box shut. He swung it open, his grin fixed firmly in place. The audience stood frozen with bated breath. With an air of reluctance, the magician looked down at Tyler.

‘Oh, fuck,’ he said.

Then, hitting the stage with a resounding thud, The Magnificent Marvo fell into a dead faint.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Now I’m panicking horribly. ‘Quick, quick,’ I say to Josh. ‘We have to go after Tyler’s wife.’

Honestly, I’ve never moved so fast in my entire life. Josh is still tucking his shirt back into his trousers. ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ I scold.

‘I didn’t really want her to know that it was me here,’ he admitted. ‘Imagine what Tyler would say?’

‘But now she thinks that you were him.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ he assures me. ‘There’s nothing to worry about. Really. As soon as she bumps into Tyler again, she’ll realise her mistake.’

I’m doing my very best to rearrange my rumpled clothing. My dress was rucked up almost round my waist and one of my boobs was making a bid for freedom. I stop and look down at him. ‘Do you think so?’

‘I don’t know what made her think it was her husband in the first place. If she’d have come and got a better eyeful, then she’d have realised it was me. We don’t even look similar.

‘I’m not sure she was in a fit state to be thinking rationally.’

‘Probably been hitting the booze like everyone else.’

I give Josh a long, hard stare. ‘Except you.’

‘Can’t afford to lose my licence. The price I have to pay is watching everyone around me get wasted.’

‘Including me?’

‘You’re hardly wasted, Louise.’

But there’s no denying that I’ve had far too much to drink to be thinking straight. ‘This was stupid,’ I say. ‘I don’t know what got into me. I never behave like this. Now look what’s happened.’ I put my head in my hands.

‘Hey.’ Josh sits up. ‘We haven’t done anything wrong. You got a bit tipsy and let a colleague kiss you. That’s all.’ He grins at me. ‘And very nice it was too.’

I smile back when I don’t want to. I want to be cross. Cross with myself. Cross with Josh. Cross with Tyler too.

‘This isn’t me,’ I tell Josh. ‘I have limits, barriers. I’m not the sort of woman who snogs a random man on the sofa.’

His face falls. ‘I didn’t realise I counted as a “random man”.’

Now I’ve pissed him off too. ‘You’re not. Well, you are.’ I let out an exasperated sigh. ‘You know what I mean.’

Josh reaches out and takes my hand. ‘It’s the Christmas party, Louise. The entire point of it is for everyone to get lashed and behave inappropriately with their co-workers. It’s the one time of year that everyone lets their hair down. If you haven’t done that, then you’ve had no fun at all.’

‘I feel as if I was having too
much
fun,’ I confess as I scuffle round on the rug searching for my shoes, which seem to have disappeared under the sofa.

My mum always used to tell me that if you keep your shoes on and both feet on the floor, then you won’t come to too much harm. I’m beginning to think she was absolutely right. It’s excellent advice that I must pass on to Mia as soon as she hits puberty.

‘I don’t want you to think that this is who I am.’

‘I don’t. I promise you.’ He makes a little gesture that might be crossing his heart.

I’m worried at how far this might have gone if Kirsten Benson hadn’t interrupted us. I hate to admit this, even to myself, but I was quite happy getting all cosy with Josh Wallace. That was foolish of me.

‘I’d hate to become the subject of a water-cooler discussion with Tyler,’ I continue. ‘I know what he’s like. He’s bad enough as it is. I don’t want to be the butt of his sexist jokes.’

‘I hope you know that I’m
not
like that.’

I turn to him. He’s propped up on the cushions now, attractively tousled and looking for all the world as if he can’t see why I’m making such a fuss.

‘I don’t though, do I?’ I reason. ‘This is the first time we’ve even met properly. We’ve just had passing chit-chat in the office, that’s all. Until tonight we hadn’t even had a proper conversation, and now look what we’ve done.’

He grins at me. There are little dimples in his cheeks which are irresistibly cute. But it’s thinking like that which got me into this situation, and I must stop it at once.

‘We haven’t really done very much though, have we?’

‘I’m the mother of a small child, Josh. I have to be responsible. I barely date, for fear of bringing someone unsuitable into her life.’

‘Not a word of this will pass my lips. Particularly not to Tyler Benson,’ he swears. ‘And I won’t even tell your daughter that you’re a Bad Mother either.’

While he chuckles at my humiliation, I grab a cushion and swat him with it. ‘I am
not
a bad mother!’

‘Of course you’re not.’ Then he stops smiling and stares at me intently. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself, Louise. When did you last have a night out? When did you last do something a little bit outrageous?’

I can’t even remember. ‘I think it was July the seventeenth.’

‘Last year?’

‘Two thousand and six.’

‘Then it’s probably time you did it again.’

He takes my hand and squeezes it. In the firelight, his eyes gleam. If you ignore the wild goings-on in the marquee outside, this is a very romantic setting. No wonder my head has been ever so slightly turned.

‘I’m not looking for a quick fling,’ Josh says. ‘That’s not who I am either. I’m a one-woman kind of man.’

‘I don’t know. This has gone too far, too fast.’ I pull my hand away. I don’t want to compromise my position at work. I don’t want to get a reputation. This job is too important to me. If Tyler hears that I’ve been free and easy with Josh, then it might give him ideas too. ‘Let’s just pretend this never happened.’

His face is sad when he says, ‘If that’s what you want.’

‘I do.’ I make sure that my dress and its contents are jiggled back to where they should be. ‘Now I’d better go after Kirsten Benson. I have to explain to her. All I want is to make sure she hasn’t got the wrong end of the stick. I can’t have her thinking you were Tyler.’

So, before Josh can say anything else, I dash out of the library and hurry to find Tyler’s wife to tell her that – much like me – she’s made a terrible mistake.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Tyler was bleeding. Everywhere. While the Less Than Bloody Magnificent Marvo was being revived, his lovely assistant helped Tyler out of the black box, which seemed to have taken on even more coffin-like proportions. His legs were shaking, unsteady, and he wasn’t entirely convinced that he wouldn’t soon be lying on the floor next to Marvo.

Across his stomach there was a thin red line which oozed blood. His favourite dinner shirt was shredded. Below that was another cut, underneath his belt, which had sliced through his trousers and boxer shorts. Any lower and his manhood would have been in serious danger. Tyler shuddered at the thought.

The crowd were still whistling and cheering even though there was blood –
real blood!
Perhaps they thought it was all part of Marvo’s marvellous act. Well, Tyler knew better. And, the very first thing he’d do in the new year would be to sue the arse off the magician for trauma. You always assumed these things were totally foolproof. Not so, it seemed.

One of the half-naked firemen who’d been wandering round all night with Karen from Customer Accounts jumped on to the stage. He threw The Magnificent Marvo over his shoulder like a sack of spuds and unceremoniously carted him away.

No one seemed overly concerned that Tyler was mortally wounded.

‘Do you do first aid?’ he asked Marvo’s assistant.

‘No.’ She looked at Tyler blankly. ‘This has never happened before. There are some serviettes here.’ She handed him a
Merry Christmas to One and All
napkin.