“I didn’t want to hurt you or Ryan.”
“I don’t want to hear your lies,” he answered, voice breaking.
A car pulled up and beeped its horn. I held up my torn bodice with a trembling hand, begging him with my eyes to allow me to stay. James raked his gaze over my torso, took off his shirt and thrust it at me. I reached my hand out and for a moment I thought he’d take it to hurl me out of the house.
Out of his life.
The wad of euros he took out was for the taxi fare but I felt sleazy all the same and didn’t take it, stumbling to the door and hoping he would pull me back. When I got there I turned around. James was on the sofa, hunched over and body shaking.
I’m in no way sexist but for me there’s something shattering about seeing a strong, masculine man cry—not the light dampness that sticks his lashes together and makes his eyes glisten with emotion but real, painful tears of inconsolable sorrow. Tears that wrack his frame and leave him raw and broken.
“I love you, James,” I said. “I think I always have except I didn’t know it until now. That’s why I had to tell you the truth.”
“Get out.”
In his voice there was a ragged, implacable tone I’d never heard before. “No phone calls or texts and no stalking or I’ll prosecute you all the way to hell. Ryan is my son. If you or Alex Novak so much as try to contact to him you’ll regret it.”
The scent of James’s shirt tormented me all the way back to Valencia. I wanted to vent my grief with tears but they refused to come. When I got to the airport the next morning James was nowhere to be seen and we boarded the flight to London without him.
They say bad things come in threes and I’ll sign up to that. I lost my parents, James and Ryan, and when I went to work on Monday morning I lost my job. “Suspended pending further investigation” was the way they put it but for all intents and purposes it was the same. I was officially under suspicion for the theft of client funds.
Nervously, I faced Mr Lemane, the other partners, Greg and James across the meeting room table, my attention on James. There were tension lines around his eyes and his jaw was hard.
“James,” I said as calmly as I could, “I didn’t steal from our clients. You said you believed me, remember? I don’t know how to do the more complex banking transactions.”
He didn’t look at me. “You can explain yourself to the Metropolitan Police. The bank informed us this morning you called in the transfers personally, using your passwords. An officer will be here shortly.”
My jaw dropped. “No way! I never transferred any money. There has to be a mistake.”
Mr Lemane stood up, signalling the end of my trial. His eyes were full of disappointment and anger. “We would greatly appreciate it if you would clear your desk and vacate our premises with minimal disruption to our staff.”
James left the room without a backward glance and Greg accompanied me to the office suite like a guard dog. Did they think I would try to steal the hardware? I tried not to notice the hostile stares, making my way across the floor with my head high. Well, not bowed anyway. Somebody had set me up, but who and why? Nothing made sense.#p#分页标题#e#
I told myself there was no need to panic because I was innocent. But since when has innocence ever guaranteed justice? I slumped at my desk, not caring if Greg saw how worried I was.
“Hurry up, Betty,” he said. “My wife will be here soon and I’d hate for her to see you getting hauled off to jail. Not in her delicate condition. And don’t even think about turning your computer on. It’s heading down to the police station for examination.”
I didn’t bother to answer, staring at my desk morosely while he gloated at my misfortune. When people got fired in films they spent ages packing a cardboard box they happened to have at hand and bitching about their circumstances to a supportive colleague. No so for me. I had the Moshi Monster pencil Fleur Anise had given me, a Mars bar and Greg.
He watched me with a satisfied grin, which made me want to punch him. Then Velma buzzed through on my phone. Her cheerful voice announced the police officer as if he were a lover with a bouquet of flowers. I took one last look at James’s desk before I headed out.
“Goodbye, Greg. It was nice meeting you. Shame about the getting to know you part.”
“It could have been much better, Becks. There are plenty of satisfied women around here.”
I spun around at the door to look him over. “If we were the last two people on earth I’d find a moving island so I could keep away from you. And if you managed to haul your carcass on board I would dive off and drown rather than sleep with you.”