Who's Afraid of Mr Wolfe? (23 page)

Ellie could pinpoint exactly when she knew the Sure & Soft ad was going to be a success. It was at 8.35 a.m. on 5 June, when the woman next to her on the bus started to hum ‘The Thong Song’. It meant more to Ellie than all the slaps on the back at work and gave her a similar thrill to the one she’d felt when she and Edith had watched the ad on TV for the first time.

She still had a spring in her step when she walked into the agency, although as always she scanned reception nervously to make sure Jack wasn’t around. She’d become pretty expert at avoiding him over the past weeks and now there was only one day to go before her holidays. Two glorious Jack-free weeks. Two weeks of not having to worry about whether to move agency or not. Although, seeing as she hadn’t mentioned anything about that to Lesley, the whole plan had proved to be a bit of a non-starter so far.

‘Hi, Ellie,’ Rachel said, as she passed by. ‘Looking forward to your break?’

‘Can’t wait. I’m going to kick back at home and take it easy.’

She would have liked to have stayed and chatted longer, but Rachel’s eyes took on an extra-warm sheen and Ellie guessed she’d spotted Jack arriving. Rachel was back on Jack’s trail since
Ad Infinitum
had broken the news that Sophie had ‘counted her wolves before they were hatched and had now returned to the singles’ market’.

‘See you, Rachel,’ Ellie said, and scooted towards the stairs. This was a doddle. Now, if she could get the great hulking Yorkshire guy out of her dreams, she could return to normal life.

Upstairs in her office, Lesley and Ian were waiting for her.

‘Here she is,’ Lesley said, jumping up from her seat. ‘Ellie, this photo shoot looks like it’s going to go on all day. I’m probably not going to see you again before you go off.’ She wrapped Ellie in a hug. ‘Have a great time and don’t get up to anything too wild with Edith.’

‘I’ll try not to, although she has promised to introduce me to the delights of bingo and that can get pretty cutthroat.’

‘Hey, you’re not wrong. Megan has a cousin who ended up in A&E after the woman next to her elbowed her in the eye while she was shouting—’

‘Hey, when you two have finished fannying on,’ Ian said, rummaging about in his shoulder bag, ‘perhaps we
can go?’ He pulled out his diary and started to flick through it. ‘So, nothing I need to know about before you go off tonight, Ellie? No nasty surprises you’ve left for me?’

‘No. I’ve shredded everything I didn’t get round to doing.’

‘Good lass,’ Ian said, scanning a page in his diary. ‘That’s the spirit … Oh sod it.’ He slammed the diary on the desk before looking a bit shamefaced and picking it up again. ‘You know what it is?’ he said with some force. ‘I need my own Mrs MacEndry to keep me straight. Then I wouldn’t keep doing this double-booking thing.’ He held the diary up for them to see. ‘Look, I wrote the details of the shoot down in ink right over the top of the pencil scrawl about this meeting that starts after lunch. I’m knacked … unless…’ Ellie saw his gaze shift to her. ‘That’s a really nice dress you’re wearing, Ellie. Did I mention that earlier?’

‘Very subtle, Ian,’ Ellie said, shaking her head. ‘Completely unpremeditated flattery. But go on, I’ll do your meeting for you. Who’s it with?’

‘Those medical suppliers, Cratchbull & Weston. Nice bloke, Bill Weston, very enthusiastic, very friendly. Jack needs another brain in the room with him and yours is the best brain there is. After mine, of course,’ he added.

Ellie stared at him. ‘Jack’s going to be in the meeting?’ She knew her voice had gone up a couple of octaves.

‘Yeah.’ Ian put his diary back in his bag. ‘So there shouldn’t be any problems. He’s got all the background info on the company. He’ll soon bring you up to speed.’

‘No, look, Ian, I’m really busy this afternoon.’

‘You said you’d do it, Ellie. What’s wrong with you, woman? You look like you’ve heard you’re going to have some teeth out. It’s only a meeting.’ He tapped his watch. ‘Are we going to this shoot? God, I don’t know, you two haven’t been the same since you got famous. One great campaign and you think you can arse around all day.’ He shepherded Lesley out through the door and Ellie stood there and watched them go.

She could do this meeting with Jack. She could. It wasn’t what she wanted, but she could do this. She could cope with the jolting-stomach thing. And the breathlessness. She was getting good at it now. All she had to do was steer clear of those grey eyes. If she didn’t, he’d take one look at her and know. He’d just know.

She leaped to the door. ‘What’s the product?’ she shouted down the corridor after Ian. ‘I forgot to ask.’

His voice drifted back. ‘Fantastic new scalpel, the Whispedge.’

‘Pigging perfect,’ she said, wandering back into the empty room. ‘Absolutely pigging perfect.’

Jack knew that the feeling in his stomach was guilt. He’d been unfair to Ellie, no doubt about that. Even from where he was sitting, he could see she was definitely going a funny colour and that smile on her face looked more and more strained.

Perhaps he should have listened to her when she’d told him she was squeamish about blood and needles. If it had been any other member of staff, he’d have been sympathetic, but he’d thought it was another of Ellie’s ruses to avoid being in the same room as him.

He was sick to the back teeth of seeing her disappearing round corners every time he got anywhere near her. Much as he loved the sight of her sweet backside, that was the only part of her he’d seen for days, swaying temptingly as she moved out of reach.

And if she did catch sight of him, she glared at him as if he were carrying something contagious. The one or two times he’d got close enough to talk to her, she’d hardly answered. That staring-at-the-carpet thing was getting worse too, really hacking him off. And that damned incident in the pub last week had been the last straw. He’d gone over to sit by her and congratulate her on how well the knickers ad was going down with the public. Well, to be honest, he’d used that as an excuse to get close to her. He was going to go on and ask if she wanted something to drink, even though he was finding it hard to think in a straight line what with the way she smelled so good and how she’d piled her hair up beautifully so there was a little tendril curling down her neck.

And what had been her reaction? She’d shifted along the seat as if she were afraid he was going to bite her and
then got up and disappeared off home without a word. Unbelievable.

So when she’d come up with all that ‘I’m afraid I’m going to make a fool of myself and faint’ stuff, he’d talked right over her.

Bit tricky, though, when she’d tried to win his sympathy by asking him straight out whether there wasn’t something that he was scared of. Cue great crashing waves of panic.

Luckily she hadn’t noticed. He smiled bitterly. His reputation as ‘fearless Jack’ was still intact.

Anyway, if he’d had to pick her up and carry her into the meeting, he’d have done it.

Damn. That wasn’t a good image to have in his head, not when he was meant to be concentrating on Bill Weston and his amazing Whispedge scalpel. He took another look at Ellie and saw her reach up and tuck her hair behind her ear with a hand that was definitely trembling.

The feeling of guilt in Jack’s stomach intensified. He’d let his determination to get close to her take priority, he could see that now. And his behaviour in their little pre-meeting briefing session hadn’t been much better. As he’d outlined Cratchbull & Weston’s credentials, he’d been thinking about kissing Ellie all the way down her neck until he ran up against that silky button at the top of her dress.

When he’d got to the company’s management buy-out,
he’d mentally undone all of her buttons. Explaining how the client was poised to break into the Far East market saw him slipping her dress from her shoulders. He’d even imagined the little scattering of freckles she would have there, the perfect match for the ones across her nose.

By the time that Bill Weston had actually arrived, Jack had to welcome the poor guy with a weird hunched-over half-rise from his desk to conceal how turned on he was.

It was a damned good job Ellie was off for the next two weeks. It would give him the chance to calm down a bit, maybe find a hot replacement for Leonora and Sophie. Or probably two replacements.

Jack checked on Ellie again.

Her knuckles were clenched white round her pencil. If she didn’t relax her hand, she was going to snap the thing.

Jack turned back to Bill Weston. Unfortunately for Ellie, Bill was a man completely in love with his products. Jack had expected him simply to bring along some samples of the Whispedge and talk them through its revolutionary design. But not good old Bill.

Instead he had hauled out his laptop. ‘I can’t actually perform an operation to show you just what this little baby can do,’ he’d said, chuckling, ‘but I’ve got the next best thing.’ And with that he’d started to play a lovely film of a particularly tricky bowel operation.

Once or twice already Jack had seen Ellie close her eyes,
but that hadn’t really helped her because Bill was also providing an enthusiastic and very colourful commentary: ‘See, Ellie, the way the scalpel goes through that layer of muscle like butter? See, see? Marvellous, eh? And because we’ve got the balance of the blade exactly right, it means there’s much less exertion involved. That can make a real difference to the surgeon’s dexterity, of course, especially when you’re talking about a three- or four-hour operation.’

Jack saw Ellie nod mutely and could hear her breathing coming in short gasps above the squelching and slopping sounds on the little film.

‘Now, you don’t want to miss this bit, Ellie,’ Bill said, pointing out a deep incision that the scalpel was making.

Jack heard a crack as Ellie snapped her pencil in two.

‘Bill, I think we’ve probably seen enough now to give us a good idea of the product,’ Jack said hurriedly.

Bill’s forehead creased in a little frown. ‘Oh, it’s no bother, Jack. I don’t mind seeing the whole of this through, and if we turn it off now, you won’t see how the sleeker design enables the surgeon to get a sharp, clean cut even when the angle is tricky.’ Bill turned back round to face the screen and jabbed at it with his finger. ‘This is it coming up. Bit hard to make it out clearly until the blood gets swabbed out of the way, but there, you see?’

Jack fully expected Ellie to crumple forward on to the table, but she was still sitting upright, a sheen of
perspiration now covering her face. He had the sudden urge to go to her and put his arm round her and take her out of the room.

If the film didn’t finish soon, he was going to have to ask Bill to turn it off. He’d think of some excuse or other. He leaned forward and poured a glass of water and pushed it towards Ellie, but she didn’t seem to notice.

Finally, twenty-five blood-soaked minutes after it had started, the film was over and Jack managed to engage Bill in a discussion about market share and positioning and the opportunities in the Far East. At some point Jack saw Ellie reach out and take the glass of water and slowly raise it to her mouth.

He relaxed a little; she appeared to be coming back from wherever the gore fest had sent her. Jack started to wrap up the meeting, arranging a date when the agency could take a tour of the manufacturing facility. Bill got to his feet and so, Jack noticed with amazement, did Ellie. She had determination, he had to give her that. True, she’d got up fairly unsteadily, and she still looked a strange shade of green, but she was doing her best to smile and nod at Bill. That feeling of wanting to wrap her in his arms came back. He wasn’t sure if it was lust or an urge to protect, but it made him want to tell her everything was going to be all right, even though that was a sentiment he’d ceased to believe in years ago.

Suddenly Bill struck his forehead with the palm of his
hand. ‘What am I thinking of?’ he said. ‘I never gave you this.’ He rummaged about in his briefcase and came out with a slim wooden box.

‘Here you are, Ellie,’ he said. ‘It’s no good simply talking about it and looking at it – to really appreciate the Whispedge, you have to feel it in your hands.’

Bill took the scalpel from its box and put it into Ellie’s hand. Jack saw Ellie’s jaw tighten. Quickly he manoeuvred Bill out of the room, talking rapidly to cover Ellie’s silence. He still wasn’t quick enough to stop Bill telling him a final anecdote about the early days of surgery. When Jack chanced a look back over his shoulder, Ellie was staring down at the scalpel lying in her hand as though it were a loaded gun.

Eventually Jack managed to hand Bill over to Lydia and walked back into his office.

It was empty.

‘Ellie?’

No reply.

And then Jack noticed a foot sticking out past the end of the desk.

‘Shit, Ellie,’ he said out loud, and got himself round to where she was lying.

She was entangled in the legs of her chair, her dress hitched up around the tops of her thighs. Jack lifted the chair off her and then knelt down at her side. He tried not to look at her thighs as he pulled her dress back down;
it somehow seemed unfair. Placing his hand on her face, he felt how clammy her skin was.

‘Lydia, give me a hand here,’ he shouted towards the door.

He tapped Ellie lightly on the cheek. No response. She looked dreadful. What a bullying jerk he was. She told him she couldn’t do this and he’d made her go ahead and do it. Gavin was right: too much testosterone.

‘Lydia, are you there?’ he shouted again, this time more urgently.

Ellie stirred and moaned and opened her eyes and Jack saw them flare in shock. She sat up abruptly.

‘Hey,’ he said, holding her by the arms, ‘take it easy. You fainted. Don’t try to get up.’

Ellie pushed his hands away and, using the seat of the chair to help her, got unsteadily to her feet.

‘No, you shouldn’t be getting up yet. You look dreadful. Stay here.’ Jack tried to get hold of her again.

Ellie batted his hands away and started to move round the desk, clutching at it for support. Jack followed a couple of steps behind her.

‘Ellie, you still look really pale. Come and sit down.’ Jack put his hand on her arm and tried to steer her to a chair. ‘Lydia, where the hell are you? I need help here,’ he bellowed.