What She Wants (73 page)

The only problem was that they hadn’t been alone together since the Lemon Awards a week ago. She’d seen him at the directors’ meeting on Tuesday but there had been twelve other people in the room. Hopefully, he’d forgotten all about his drunken confessions. Sam dropped her briefcase and her coffee off in her office and, carrying some of the latest sales figures on Density, got the lift up to Steve’s office on the seventh floor.

Her shoes made no noise on the thick piled steel grey carpet. She entered the ante-office where Steve’s assistant

usually sat. Opposite was a smaller desk where the assistant’s assistant sat. They weren’t in yet, poor dears. Steve worked them so hard, they needed all the time off they could get. In fact, she was surprised that Steve hadn’t made them come in when he was going to be in early. He liked having his acolytes present at all times.

The door to Steve’s inner sanctum was ajar.

‘Steve, are you there?’ she said, knocking loudly on the door.

There was no answer so she peered in. Steve’s office was a huge corner one, complete with a comfy seating area with giant sofas and a modern leather armchair, which was higher than the other furniture and was where Steve sat when he was playing hardball. Victims there for an earbashing had to sit on the squashy sofas which swallowed up all but the longest-legged people. Steve sat above them on his chair, looking down like a grand inquisitor.

The other side of the room held Steve’s desk, a vast steel construction made specially for him by a rising young furniture designer. It looked more like an autopsy table than a desk. Beyond that, was Steve’s personal bathroom with its own shower. Sam had never seen it but it was the subject of some back-biting among Titus executives who wanted their own shower rooms, too.

There was some noise coming from the shower room and Sam instantly turned to leave.

‘Sam!’

She looked around to see Steve coming out of the shower room naked from the waist up, his hair damp from the shower, a towel in one hand. It was impossible to look at his skinny torso without contrasting it with Morgan’s strong, powerful one. Sam wondered briefly how Steve had the confidence to stand there in his trousers and socks with no shirt on. But then, he clearly thought he was a hunk.

‘Sorry for barging in,’ she said, backing steadily towards the door. ‘If you have a moment later, I wanted to talk to you about Density.’

‘No, don’t go,’ urged Steve, advancing towards her. ‘Sit down, I’ve got some coffee on.’ And he went out the door to the anteroom where the coffee machine was. There was no way she could leave now, so she sat on one of the squashy couches and picked up the copy of Music Week carelessly thrown on it. She’d already read the magazine from cover to cover but she wanted to give Steve time to put some clothes on. He came back in with coffee, mugs, sugar and milk, put them on the table, then proceeded to sit down in his high chair and pour. He hadn’t bothered to go back into the shower room and dress properly. Sam was disgusted. There were very few men in the world she wanted to have to stare at half-naked over coffee. Actually, there was only one and she’d already ruined her chances with him. ‘Milk?’ he said cheerfully. Sam shook her head and snatched the coffee from him, eager to be out of there as soon as possible. ‘The figures aren’t good, Steve,’ she said shortly. ‘The album just isn’t selling and the word is out, I’m afraid. You know what the scent of failure does in this business. For example, they were scheduled to have, a big interview with one of the top music mags next month and the magazine has cancelled.’ In Sam’s eyes, that was ominous but Steve shrugged, not looking too worried, so Sam continued. ‘The video shoot for the next single ran two days over because the band had hangovers every morning and refused to work until the afternoon.’ That had particularly annoyed Sam. Just before they were heading off on their tour, the band had been booked to make the video but had decided it was more important to party every night to say goodbye to all their pals. The extra days of shooting had cost Titus thousands of pounds. ‘And I’ve had Glenn Howard on the phone every day this week looking for a bigger marketing spend. He wants more money spent than was agreed in the contract. He’s also

being particularly vicious to Sophie, the marketing director.’

Steve still didn’t look perturbed. He was smiling, Sam realized, smiling goofily and those dark little currant eyes were happy. And excited. A faint frisson of unease flickered over her.

‘Don’t you worry about Density,’ he said smoothly. ‘Let me worry about them.’

‘That’s nice of you, Steve,’ she said facetiously, ‘but they’re eating into my bottom line.’

‘Show me the figures,’ Steve said, suddenly jumping off his seat and plonking down beside her. Sam’s sense of unease went on to red alert. She handed him the spreadsheets and then moved away from him.

‘There’s no need to be shy,’ Steve said, dropping the papers unread to the table. ‘I’ve wanted to talk to you all week but I didn’t know how to. This is perfect. Fate,’ he smiled.

Not so much fate as an impending sense of doom, shuddered Sam.

‘I won’t beat around the bush but you know I like you and,’ Steve’s eyes grew as warm as Sam had ever seen them, ‘I’m sure I’m not mistaken in thinking that you feel the same way.’ With that, he lunged at her, pressing his scrawny naked torso against her, one sneaky hand snaking up to grab her neck and pull her face close to his. She could smell the acid reek of his breath and feel droplets of water from his wet hair dripping onto her face. Sam was shocked at the sensation of creepy Steve Parris’s bare flesh anywhere near her body but she wasn’t so shocked that she couldn’t wriggle out before his slimy mouth got anywhere near hers. She wrenched herself away from him, got to her feet and stared at him in fury, breathing heavily with the shock.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’

Steve wasn’t the boss of a multi-billion pound company for nothing. He made all the connections instantly, worked out that Sam was genuinely sickened, and sat up, red in the face.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Sorry?’ demanded Sam, as she realized with disgust that he was covering his groin with his hands. She didn’t even want to speculate why. ‘What the hell did you think you were doing? How dare you force yourself on me?’ He must still be pissed from the night before. Why else would he make such an error of judgement? Steve’s colour began to fade. ‘I thought we’d got on so well the other night…’ he started. ‘The other night, you were pissed out of your mind and I had to manhandle you to your limo,’ she hissed. ‘If that’s your idea of getting on well, then you’re way off beam, Steve.’ ‘Look, it was a misunderstanding,’ he said, recovering his poise in super quick time. ‘We all make mistakes. I wasn’t forcing myself on you, really.’ Sam looked at him coldly. ‘You weren’t?’ she asked. ‘What were you doing, then?’ ‘Making a big mistake, honestly, Sam, please accept my apologies for that. I completely misread the situation.’ He certainly looked contrite although whether it was because of what he’d done or fear of her slapping him with a sexual harassment suit, Sam couldn’t tell. She could feel her own pulse slowing down and she began to think logically about what had happened. Her initial reaction had been instinctive. Now she needed to be politic. The worst had happened and she needed to smooth it all out. There was no manual on how to pleasantly rebuff your boss without causing maximum grief. There should be, Sam reflected bitterly. ‘Please forgive me, Sam and let’s forget this happened,’ Steve said, the big boss again, being magnanimous even half dressed. He got up and held out a hand. Sam had to admit, he had balls. ‘How can we forget this?’ she said evenly. ‘Are you trying to tell me that this little incident won’t affect our working relationship?’

‘Hey, Sam,’ Steve got up as he talked, went into his bathroom and came out pulling on a shirt, ‘haven’t you ever acted stupidly with a colleague after a gig when you’ve all been drinking, or at one of the conferences? C’mon, nobody’s that much of a professional. Let’s just pretend this happened late one night when we all should have known better and forget about it. Peace?’

Sam stared woodenly at him. If she did nothing, would it go away or would Steve make her suffer for humiliating him? Maybe, just maybe, they could manage to forget it all.

‘I’ll forget it if you promise me that you never mention this to anybody,’ she said.

Steve winced. ‘You think I’m going to be talking about this?’ he asked incredulously.

‘I mean it,’ she insisted. ‘No drunken gossip about the time you tried it on with me, OK? And this had better not affect our relationship here or my career, do you understand that?’ Her voice was hard as nails.

‘Sure,’ he said.

‘I’ll make you suffer, Steve, if it does,’ she warned.

‘Get with the programme, Smith,’ he snapped. ‘This is the big boys’ club you’re in now.’

She glared at him.

‘OK, OK, sorry I said that,’ he said holding his hands up in apology. ‘But we’re grown ups, Sam, and we’ve got a company to run. There’s no time for games here.’

‘I sincerely hope not,’ she said finally.

She turned to leave, but not before she saw his face hardening with humiliation and anger. As she walked to the lift, Sam sighed heavily and wondered if she’d just made a terrible mistake.

An hour later, Hugh phoned.

‘Catrina had a baby girl this morning at six o’clock!’ he announced joyfully.

‘Oh Hugh,’ said Sam, ‘I’m so happy for you both. Is Catrina OK? Was it a difficult labour?’

‘You’ll have to ask Catrina about that for an accurate

assessment,’ he laughed, ‘but I brought her to the hospital at midnight, she had the baby at six and she never said anything about us not making love ever again! The baby’s beautiful, six pounds four ounces and the image of her mother.’ Sam felt her eyes flood with tears at the thought of a fragile miniature Catrina. ‘I’m so pleased,’ she said again. ‘When can I come and see her?’ ‘We’re leaving it to just family tonight, so how about tomorrow?’ ‘Perfect, I’ll see you there.’ Sam ordered flowers for Catrina and made a mental note to buy her some of her favourite Chanel No 19 perfume. Sam knew that the baby would get lots of presents but she felt that Catrina had done the hard work. Sam left early that afternoon, exhausted from her early start and worn out with the upset of the day. It was still glorious outside and at half four, the sun was still bright and warm. Sam walked through the streets, enjoying the feeling of sun on her face and thinking about the events of the day. She wasn’t upset by Steve’s overture. Shocked and disgusted, yes, but not upset. Because Sam didn’t feel scared or threatened by Steve Parris. If she had, then his assault would have been truly terrifying. But she wasn’t terrified: just angry and worried about the consequences. It would be so much easier if she could just tell someone and charge him with sexual harassment. But then, women at the top slid to the bottom faster than a player landing on a ladder in snakes and ladders if they made the mistake of filing harassment charges. Only the very brave went that route. Sam’s career couldn’t survive that sort of bravery. She thought too about Hugh, Catrina and their new baby. All her friends had their lives in order, all except her. She went into a delicatessen she liked and bought some goat’s cheese, olives drenched in garlicky oil, ciabatta bread

and slivers of smoked chicken as a treat. Then she hopped in a cab for home. In the apartment, she made a salad of the chicken and put some of the goat’s cheese on ciabatta under the grill for a starter, then opened a bottle of wine. As she waited for the goat’s cheese to toast, she flicked through the last pages of her magazine.

The back few pages were dedicated to women who’d changed their lives, according to the strap line, and this month the person featured was a woman Sam recognized.

She’d been a high-profile London banker who’d given it all up to buy a rundown property in the Dordogne. And she was happier than ever, she said, pictured beside a wooden beamed barn with a field of misty lavender in the background and a smiling, barefoot toddler on her hip.

It looked heavenly, Sam thought wistfully. How much longer would she be able to stand it at Titus?

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Hope knew she’d made an irreversible decision the day she put Millie’s name down to start in September at the Redlion National School. Putting Millie’s name down meant she was officially staying in Kerry. There was No Going Back. The reasoning behind the move was simple: she loved Redlion and, if she had to be anywhere without Matt, it might as well be where she felt loved and happy with close friends around her, instead of in Bath where she’d remember their past life together every time she opened a cupboard in the house in Makings Lane. It was as easy for jet-setting Sam to visit Kerry as it was for her to visit Bath, so there really was no reason to go back. She hadn’t mentioned the school to Matt. What would have been the point? There was no point getting maudlin, Hope told herself, as she drove into Killarney with the kids in the back of the car, to buy new clothes for the kids - and a pair of stretchy trousers for herself to cope with her suddenly exploding pregnant belly. She’d told nobody about her pregnancy yet, not even Sam, which was hard. Initially, Hope had wanted to be well past the first three months of staring nauseated into the toilet bowl every morning before she actually said anything to anyone. However, at over four months, she was still sick every morning and she still hadn’t told anybody. Telling people would mahe it real, that she was now a separated mother of two with a baby on the way. She could give lectures on how not to live your life, she reflected in her lighter moments. The only (slim) consolation was that at

least she knew the baby was Matt’s. Imagine the sheer heartbreak of not knowing who the father was.

Dr McKevitt had referred her on to Mr Murray, a charming, debonair gynaecologist in the local hospital and Hope had wondered did he have a terrible time with besotted female patients falling in love with him because he was so kind to them when they were vulnerable. He’d been very kind to her too but there was no danger of her falling for him. She’d had enough of that kind of thing.