Humbug (7 page)

All three of them looked at me, expectantly. Evidently, I was indeed expected to try the cake here and now. Taking the plate from Tim, I picked up the spoon and cut through the chocolatey mound, loading up the spoon before stuffing it in my mouth. Tim beamed.

It was a nice enough supermarket-bought cake, nothing special, but once I’d swallowed, I pronounced it to be the most delicious yule log I’d ever tasted and Tim grinned delightedly. When I glanced at Rob, he was looking me with a curious expression on his face, as though I’d surprised him, and perhaps in a good way, for once.

“Come on,” Rob said. “You can have the rest in the kitchen with your cuppa.”

Amazingly, I ate all the cake. I’d inadvertently skipped lunch, so I was hungry, but it wasn’t just that. There was something about the dense, milk-chocolatey flavour, with its froth of fake cream that felt weirdly nostalgic to me, reminding me of childhood Christmases. I slurped down a mug of scalding tea with it as we chatted about inconsequential stuff.

When I was finished, Rob looked at the empty plate, then at me. Raised a brow.

“What?” I said. “I was hungry.”

“I’m just surprised. You never eat cake at work.”

“We don’t
have
cake at work.”

“No, but we used to,” he countered. “Remember those doughnuts we used to get? Till you had them replaced with hummus and veggies. You said the sugar crashes were affecting productivity.”

I did remember—and it made me want to curl up in a ball of shame. I cleared my throat. “Maybe that was a bit unfair of me,” I offered. “I generally don’t have a particularly sweet tooth myself…”

That reminded me of this morning’s mince pie debacle and I felt an unexpected pang of guilt at the memory of chucking the confection in the bin. I hadn’t been very nice…

I swallowed hard and blurted, “Everyone thinks I’m a wanker, don’t they?”

Rob’s eyes widened.

I didn’t wait for his answer. “I think—I think I
am
a wanker,” I said. The quiet horror of that realisation infused me as the words hung in the space between us.

“Well, sometimes,” Rob began carefully, his gaze on me, “you do
behave
like a wanker. It doesn’t mean you’re one through and through. And it doesn’t mean you have to turn into one permanently. You can decide to change, Quin.”

I stared at him, horrified. He’d actually
agreed
with me. Somehow, I hadn’t expected that.

Whatever Rob saw on my face right then made his eyebrows furrow into a frown over the bridge of his perfectly straight nose, and his warm brown eyes shone with concern. He reached across the kitchen table and laid one big hand over mine.

I stared at our two hands resting on the wooden surface of the table. I was lean and angular, while Rob was big and sturdy and I could see the physical differences between us even in our hands, his square and capable, mine long-fingered and narrow.

His hand was warm on mine, a comforting, soothing weight.

“When I first met you,” he said softly. “I didn’t know what to make of you at all.”

I looked up. He had a funny expression on his face, watching me carefully.

“You were kind of an arrogant little shit,” he said, that quirky half-smile of his taking the sting out of his words—some of it, anyway. “But you were also bright and quick and dynamic. You walked into my old office knowing almost nothing about the place, and within a week you had it all pegged: the structure, the systems, the people.” He met my gaze. “And you were funny. So sharp you could cut yourself, as Mum would say. But funny with it.”

I watched him warily. “So, you’re saying you didn’t…hate me?”

“No. In fact—” He cleared his throat. “In fact, I’d planned to ask you out.”

My jaw dropped—literally. I stared at Rob—at that stupidly oh-so-handsome face—and for several long moments I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“Like, on a
date
?” I asked at last, still not quite believing what he was telling me.

He blushed.

I stared, fascinated by this rare evidence of discomfort from the poised Rob Paget.

“Yes,” he said, after a moment. “On a date. But then you offered me a job and—well, there was no way I could start anything up with you after that.” He paused, then added with a shrug, “Even if you’d wanted to.”

If I’d
wanted
to?

Fuck, if I’d ever dreamed someone like Rob could ever be interested in me, I’d never have offered him a job, except as my 24/7 sex slave maybe.

But wait.

I can’t believe I used to defend you.

“And then you started working for me,” I said faintly. “And discovered what I’m really like.”

For one long moment, we just stared at one another, and I don’t know how I looked, but Rob looked appalled.

“Quin—”

Dragging my gaze from his, I stood up, the legs of my chair screeching against the floor. I hated that Rob was seeing me like this. Stupidly handsome Rob who had apparently, against all odds, liked me for a little bit, despite seeing all the worst parts of me.

I hated that a chance I hadn’t even known about was gone now.

“I should go,” I mumbled, then scrubbed my hands over my face, hard.

“I don’t think you should be alone right now,” Rob said. And there was that worry again, edging his voice.

I ignored that and reached for my bomber jacket, yanking it on and zipping it up. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I have go.” My voice was husky and I couldn’t look at Rob as I spoke. It was ridiculous.
I
was ridiculous.

Rob stood up then too. “At least let me drive you home,” he said, his voice gentle, coaxing.

“I can walk.”

“Quin,
please
.”

“Fine, I’ll get a taxi then.”

“I’ll drive you,” Rob insisted. “No more arguments.”

It was weird to be bossed around by him. I was used to being the boss with Rob. With everyone really. It had been a long time since anyone—other than Marley, anyway—had told me what to do.

“All right,” I said, my tone ungracious. “If you insist.”

“I do,” he said, reaching for the jacket he’d draped over the back of his chair. “Come on.”

I followed him out into the narrow hallway, waiting as he opened the living room door and looked round to announce, “I’m just giving Quin a lift home.”

“So soon?” That was Karen’s voice. I heard her getting up. Rob stepped back, sending me an apologetic look, and then the door opened fully.

“Are you off home, love?” Karen asked me. Tim stood beside her, a curious expression on his face.

“Yeah,” I said, pasting a smile on. “I’m beat. Need my beauty sleep.”

“Oh, please,” Rob said, and when Karen and I both looked at him, he flushed. I tore my gaze away, swallowing hard.

“Well,” Karen said brightly. “It was good to meet you at last, Quin. Hope we see you again soon.”

“Yes,” Tim said happily. “Robbie talks about you all the time.”

I glanced at Rob again, just in time to see him close his eyes in apparent mortification. I might even have laughed if I hadn’t been so astonished.

I’d planned to ask you out.

“Tim,” Karen said, her tone mildly admonishing.

Tim blinked. “But he does, Mum,” he said unhappily, his gaze moving between all of our faces. He knew he’d slipped up but not how, and now he was only making it worse. Karen bit her lip against a smile.

“Come on,” Rob muttered, grabbing my sleeve and pulling me towards the door. “Let’s go.”

“’Bye, Karen,” I called over my shoulder. “It was lovely to meet you. ’Bye Tim,”

“’Bye!” they chorused behind us, and as the door closed, I was sure I heard Karen laughing.

R
ob was quiet on the journey back to my flat, and so was I. I stared out the windscreen as we drove through the terraced suburban streets. It was a cold, dark night tonight, cloudy and starless. Deepest winter, cheered only by the sporadic clusters of Christmas lights that edged the roofs and window-frames of the houses we sped past.

I shivered inside my thin bomber jacket.

I’d had a mirror held up to me today—repeatedly—and I hadn’t liked what I’d seen. Hadn’t liked the man I’d become.

How had my life come to this? I hadn’t used to be like this, had I?

I stared out into the night and forced myself to face an uncomfortable truth: that my job—my single-minded determination to reach the top at Quicks—had turned me into someone I didn’t like. Someone no one really seemed to like.

I pondered that idea for a while—that it was my job to blame—but the truth was, it didn’t feel honest.

I considered another, more awful truth. That it wasn’t just the job. That it was
me
. That the job might bring out the worst in me, but the worst was already there. That the potential to be mean and ungenerous and unpleasant was part of me, written into my DNA.

That was a much harder idea to bear, but it felt honest. It felt true.

Hell, it
was
true.

I leaned my head against the passenger window, sunk in misery, watching the Christmas lights flash by, and considered my future. Two years ago, near enough to the day, I’d written a five-year career plan, with promotion to partner planned for year five. I’d more than met my goals for the first twenty-four months and the next stage in my plan was a sideways move to the London office. I was going to ask for a secondment to the business unit I’d targeted as the best place to be in terms of career progression, and my objective there was to outshine the existing senior associates in that unit by working harder than anyone else and getting the team below me working harder too, doing whatever necessary to make that happen. It was eminently doable. Especially if you were prepared to sacrifice everything on the altar of your ambition, including decency and friendship and common humanity.

I thought of Rob asking for time off for Tim and my shitty reaction. I thought of the nameless security guard with his stupid, crumbling mince pies, just trying to spread a little Christmas cheer. I thought of Ben and how unhappy I’d made him those last couple of years we’d been together. And I thought of Freddy, ever-optimistic Freddy, still doggedly asking me to come out every weekend, even after all the times I’d let her down. Still determined to think the best of me, still defending me to everyone else. For now anyway.

Where was I going to end up if I kept walking down the same path?

I remembered Marley’s haunted expression as she spoke of her regrets.

That’s all we have to give each other. Our time, here on earth. And now that I’m looking back, over the last twenty-five years, I realise how much of it I’ve wasted.

Another absurdly obvious truth hit me then.

I had a choice.

For some reason, the universe had decided to tell me something today. Or maybe it was just that I had woken up, and was finally seeing what was obvious to everyone else. Whichever it was,
I had a choice
. I could listen to what I was being told and try to change the direction of my life, or I could ignore it and keep going with that five-year plan.

I thought about how it would feel to sit in the front of the board for a partner interview, how it would feel to get the call from one of them to be told I’d been successful. I thought of the years of even harder work that would follow my promotion as I sought to entrench my position as a junior partner on the up-and-up. There would be pressure to bring in work, make fees, schmooze new clients, and it would endless. It would leave no room for friendships or family. It would leave no room for a romantic relationship, not with someone who actually wanted to spend time with me, anyway.

I glanced at Rob.

He’d been planning to ask me out. He’d liked me. It seemed unbelievable, even now after I’d had a bit of time to get used to the idea. I was okay looking, but he really was
stupidly
handsome. He was a catch; anyone would say so, and in a quite different league from me, even if he couldn’t see it for himself.

As though he sensed my gaze on him, he flicked me a quick look.

“You’re being very quiet,” he observed before glancing back at the road.

“So are you.”

He made an amused noise of agreement. “I’m still mortified,” he admitted. “About what Tim said back at the house.”

“Well, you don’t need to panic,” I reassured him. I sighed. “I’m not sitting here thinking you’re interested in me.”

Another quick glance, but this time he was frowning. “What do you mean by that?”

I averted my own gaze out the window. I could force the words out but I couldn’t look at him while I did it. “I’m flattered that you were interested in me when we first met,” I began. “I mean—look at you.” I waved my hand in his direction. “But now you know what I’m like and…”

“And?” Rob prompted.

I sighed. “And you think I’m a dick. And you’re right, okay? I get it.” I stared miserably out into the blackness. “I get it now.”

For several long moments there was a tense silence, then I heard the clicking of the indicator. The car slowed, swooping into a parking space at the side of the road, and stopped. The engine cut off.

“Quin.”

I didn’t move. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Rob. I needed the cold hard glass of the passenger window against my temple, grounding me.

I wasn’t planning on saying anything more, so it was as much of a surprise to me as to Rob when I blurted, “I can’t expect anyone else to like me when I don’t even like myself, can I?”

“Oh, Quin,” Rob said, and this time he sounded sad. I felt the sudden warmth of his hand stroking my shoulder, just a brief touch before he withdrew, but comforting for all that.

And right then, in that moment—I decided.

“I’m going to leave,” I said. I blinked. My own words had surprised me, even though it was where my thoughts had been leading just before Rob stopped the car.

“Leave where?” Rob asked. He sounded—careful. “Manchester?”

I shook my head. “Quicks,” I clarified. Then, after a brief, terrifying pause, “Probably the whole consulting game. I’m not sure it’s good for me.”

“In what way?”

I admitted the truth, though I could only manage to do so in a whisper. “I think it brings out the worst in me.”