A Very Accidental Love Story (36 page)

And so Eloise had braced herself, remembering that this was all for Lily and Lily alone, and had gone to see him. And the rest was history.

But somehow she couldn’t find the words to even try explaining this now. As far as Sir Gavin was concerned, she herself was tainted by association and now this was it; endgame. She’d effectively buried a story to protect Jake and now it was just a waiting game till she herself became part of the story.

‘How do you want to proceed on this?’ she asked him, surprising herself by sounding that bit calmer now. The worst, the absolute worst had happened and there was nothing for her to do now but to roll with the punches.

Sir Gavin sat right back, patting his portly stomach as though his ulcers were at him and exhaling deeply.

‘I’m very fond of you Eloise, you know that.’

She didn’t as it happened; in all her years working for him he’d never treated her with anything other than a cool, businesslike detachment. But she managed to nod her head politely enough.

‘But when your number’s up, I’m afraid it’s up. You don’t need me to tell you that this will be seen upstairs as a massive error of professional judgement on your part. You are, after all, a public figure with a profile and I’m afraid our rival papers will have a field day with this if it leaks. The editor of the paper of record must at all times be above reproach and unfortunately …’

She was, if nothing else, oddly grateful to him for not finishing that sentence.

‘Look Eloise,’ he went on, surprising her by sounding more kindly now. ‘You’re a smart woman. In your position, you must hear things. And your contract expires in a few months anyway. All I’m saying is if you happened to hear of any senior positions coming up, say at a rival newspaper, then you’d do well to pay close attention. Maybe speak to a few headhunting agencies while you’re at it. You know I’ll do my best for you upstairs to make your exit as dignified as possible and would even be happy to write glowing references for you. You will, of course, have to come upstairs to see all of us together; so we can discuss this, let’s just say further and more fully. The sooner the better too. I’ll make the necessary calls and set something up ASAP.’

She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, could barely even acknowledge what he was indirectly telling her.

‘But I need hardly tell you, I’m afraid it’s not looking good for you. Not looking good at all.’

‘I know,’ she half-whispered. Had known all along in fact, with all the linear certainty of a Greek tragedy, that it would ultimately boil down to this. How could she not have known? She just never thought the whole house of cards would come crashing down on her so spectacularly fast.

‘And if I may, just add on a personal note,’ Sir Gavin said, hauling himself up to go, ‘Eloise, really. An ex-convict? Some random jailbird? And you, of all people? You do know that this is complete madness, don’t you?’

All she could do was nod mutely. Course she knew, she thought about little else these days.

‘Must admit though,’ were his final words to her, ‘when I was first told, I was surprised. I thought Jake was quite the gentleman when we met.’

‘He is,’ she managed to say, a bit stronger now. ‘He may not have been born a gentleman but take it from me, he’s one by nature.’

Which was more than ninety per cent of the people I work with, she thought, as he closed the door on her with a decisive and very final thud.

And virus-like, the story spread. Eloise had numbly spent the morning closeted up in her office, outwardly trying to act like she always did, while inwardly panicking. Heart walloping away like it was outside of her ribcage.

Please don’t let it leak, please dear God
, she found herself praying to a God she didn’t particularly believe in.
Please let the story just end here, don’t let it get any worse … I need this job, because, well, without this job, what am I?

Sometimes brief clutches of hope would break in; after all, she did her best to reason with herself, very few people had actually seen her with Jake. Their friendship had always been so private, so personal. And really when it boiled down to it, out of all the people she dealt with on a daily basis, who really was in a position to link the two of them? Apart from Helen, only the colleagues who’d been at the directors’ weekend, that was it.

Admittedly, to her shame, she reckoned that up to a few short months ago, any one of them would most likely only have been too delighted to shop her to the media along with a pull-out colour supplement on what an out-and-out bitch she was to work for, in an effort to prise her arse out of the editor’s chair that bit faster. But surely it was all change round here now? Or was she completely misled in thinking that? She was, after all, getting on well with everyone now, so would anyone really want to rat her out?

And that’s when all her stressing and fretting would come round to one thing and one person only. The devious, behind-the-scenes machinations of Seth Coleman. She could never prove it of course, never even hope to, but knew in her waters that he was the only mole in the building with enough of a grudge against her to leak everything he knew. Christ alone only knew what else he’d done behind her back; gone through her bins maybe, rooting for dirt on her? Given the bloody chance, she wouldn’t have put it past him to sell tickets to her public execution and distribute free T-shirts with her picture on them bearing the slogan,
Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.

Every three minutes, she was online ego-Googling, checking that the story hadn’t spread to her. Typing ‘Eloise Elliot’ with trembling fingers into the search bar, yielded literally thousands of finds, but as she quickly scrolled down through them, she could see that they were all professional, articles she’d written in the past, or maybe editorials, or the odd photo of her, ghostly pale in a black suit standing alongside the T. Rexes, all looking florid and half-pissed in their suits of grey.

So then … nothing to worry about. At least, not yet.

Her luck held out till lunchtime and in the end, it was Robbie Turner, lovely, caring Robbie with a heart the size of the Port Tunnel who told her. Who had the manners, not to mention the compassion, to alert her to what had just broken. Funny thing was, that even though what he showed her put her into shock, deep shock on an almost cellular level, later on she could still recall each and every moment with perfect clarity. Could remember ever tiny detail, as though she might have to take a test on it later on.

Robbie discreetly knocking on the door. Sticking his white shock of hair round the door, politely asking her if he might have a quick word. Hours later she could still vividly recall his gently closing the office door behind him, then coming round to her side of the desk to tell her.

The story had finally broken. He’d just seen it on Twitter. About her and Jake. From a made-up-sounding user name, but then, weren’t most of them? Worst of all, there was even a link conveniently posted to a photo of her and Jake that Robbie reluctantly showed her.

Shaking, she clicked on the link and there they were, looking every inch a devoted couple. Eloise in the silver shimmering slinky dress she’d worn to the directors’ dinner that miserable night, Jake with his arm around her. She had to physically fight to stop hot, stinging tears from springing to her eyes; they both just looked so – no other word for it – happy.

‘EDITOR AND EX-CON, TAKEN ON A RECENT ROMANTIC GETAWAY, AT A LUXURIOUS FIVE-STAR COUNTRY RETREAT’, screamed the caption.

Numbly, Eloise slumped back against her chair, staring straight ahead of her. The shagging directors’ weekend. Someone had photographed them and now had leaked it onto Twitter. Not too difficult to guess who, of course, but she knew only too well she’d never be able to pin it to anyone, or more correctly, on the one person she’d have liked to, given half a chance. But no, Seth would have been far too careful for that; even this Twitter account was under an anonymous name, ‘@concerned_onlooker’. Jaysus, what kind of a user name was that, anyway? And what hope could she possibly have of ever confronting him?

Besides she had to remind herself, at the end of the day, apart from the ‘recent romantic getaway’ bit, the story was one hundred per cent true, wasn’t it? There was nothing for her to deny or contradict or even try to wriggle her way out of, politician-style; best she could hope for was that it would all blow over and fast.

Yeah right, she thought. Like that was ever going to happen. Not a chance. Not after what she’d done, and worse, in suppressing the story, what she’d tried to do. Automatically, she grabbed for her phone, feeling an overpowering need to call Jake, to tell him, warn him, if needs be to sob down the phone to him. And then she stopped herself in time, remembering all the countless late-night phone messages she’d already left for him in the past days and weeks that had gone unanswered.

Okay, so now she felt sick. And just looking into Robbie’s concerned eyes confirmed her very worst fears and pretty much told her everything she needed to know. What in fact everyone working in this building knew only too well.

That of course once a story hit Twitter, the papers were bound to pick it up at the speed of light. Twitter was if nothing else a godsend for lazy hacks; all they had to do was pick up a story there and half their work was done for them.

And it was all over bar the shouting.

But where would it all end? She knew all too well, knew from years of bitter experience exactly what investigative reporters were like and just how far they’d be prepared to dig even at the hint of a juicy story. And they didn’t come much juicier than this, did they? The work-obsessive, high-flying, alpha female Eloise Elliot … and an ex-con?

And suddenly she thought about Lily. Could she possibly be dragged in too? Would anyone make the connection between Lily and Jake? An ice-cold panic seized her at that very thought; she had to get hold of Helen, warn her to stay indoors and to keep Lily well out of sight till she could get home herself …

‘Eloise? You OK?’ poor Robbie asked her, eyes brimming over with concern. Eloise half jumped, but then she’d been so wrapped up in panic and trauma, she’d almost forgotten she wasn’t alone. ‘Because you know I’m here for you. We all are. And if there’s anything I can do?’

Somehow, she managed to hear what he was saying to her, even managed a weak, watery smile back up at him.

‘I know Robbie, and thank you,’ was all she could get out though and even that was a big effort without bursting into tears. ‘You’ve been so kind, always. But if you’ll excuse me … There’s someone I just need to talk to.’

Never in her whole life had Helen Elliot worried about her sister. Never had to. Worry? About Eloise? The woman who could run the country with one hand tied behind her back? Miss Independence? Pointless exercise; if you did, she’d just brush aside any well-intentioned concerns and tell you to stop acting like such an idiot for stressing over her, when she was so clearly and outwardly fine.

Not now though. Now Helen was well and truly sick with worry over her.

Ever since that bloody weekend away, she thought distractedly, as she picked up Lily’s toys from the family room floor and put them all tidily away. Helen had carefully been navigating Eloise’s moods and could see all too clearly that she hadn’t been herself since then, not once. Right up until that point, she’d been so warm and friendly, chatty, full of banter, fun to be around, whereas now it was like she’d just retreated back into herself, and went around the place silent and morose most of the time.

It was like a film had descended over her, so all you could see was a lonelier, sadder woman with a chip taken from her heart, coping admirably the way she always did, but without that wonderful lightness of spirit there’d been about her for so long.

Of course, Eloise still rushed home every evening from the
Post
to get to see Lily, still got to read stories to her and have a bit of playtime with her before bed, which these days was the only time Helen saw even a tiny hint of a sparkle back in her coal-black, tired eyes. But otherwise, chats with her were now virtually monosyllabic. Helen would ask her if she was OK, and be told, ‘Oh, you know, fine. Same old, same old. Just might slip into the study to catch up on some emails.’

Nothing more. She was like a closed book.

Helen knew only too well it was all because of Jake, but the million-dollar question was, what should she do next? Eloise had told her everything that had happened between them and for once Helen, usually so good at automatically knowing how best to deal with blow-out rows – after all, she’d had a lot of experience with Darren – didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t begin to understand what Jake must have felt at realising the truth and part of her couldn’t really blame him for needing a bit of time out.

Providing of course that’s all this was; time out.

But it had been close to two weeks now and still no word from him, nothing. No answer to any of Eloise’s calls to his mobile either, not a thing. And now the ever-patient, even-tempered Helen was starting to feel a bubbling up of anger at him; yes, so Eloise lied and deceived him and had been uncharacteristically stupid, but wasn’t there even a tiny part of him that wanted to get to know his gorgeous daughter? What about Lily in all of this? It seemed crystal clear to Helen, that if ever two people needed their heads bashed together, it was Eloise and Jake.

You could always contact him at the language school on Camden St., she’d suggested hopefully to Eloise one night, and had been immediately brushed aside, but then brute stubbornness was the one quality in her sister that Jake hadn’t miraculously managed to sand down a bit.

So much for that, then.

And now, even worse, it seemed that Jake had walked away too. He’d even moved out of Helen’s flat, lock, stock and barrel and neither of them had a clue where he’d gone.

It was Helen who’d discovered this, slipping round there one evening unknown to Eloise, when she was upstairs putting Lily to bed and reading her a story. Because she just couldn’t stand this any more. Couldn’t take one more day of her sister’s black-eyed melancholy that seemed to seep into the very walls of the house, affecting all of them, dragging everyone down with her. If she and Jake needed a catalyst to at least get the pair of them talking again, then Helen was more than happy to oblige. Because anything was better then watching Eloise slowly sink deeper and deeper into the walking depression she’d been streeling round the place with lately.