Page 94 of Pride and Privilege

He managed a smile, sorrow at its edges. “Far prettier.”

She laughed. “I’d hope so.”

His smile faded as his gaze ran over her face. “I’m so sorry. I promise I won’t always be like this. I’m going to get a handle on it. Get it sorted.”

“It’s you, Ross. I don’t want yousorted. I just want you…happy? Whatever it takes.”

“Shit,” he muttered, because there were tears in his eyes. So she held him, his head on her chest, the weight of it strange but also right. She stroked his hair and told him that it would all be OK.

She told him that she loved him. Said the words out loud. And that felt right, too. As though she had been saying it for longer than she knew.

Ask me for the Dodge file…

That’s what Poppy said to him after she held him together enough to get out of bed, get in the shower, drag his suit on as though he was dressing for his own funeral, the fabric clammy and cold. She passed him a cup of coffee—decaffeinated, alas, because she had read caffeine wasn’t good for anxiety.“If it gets too much, ask me for the Dodge file, and I’ll find a way to get you out of the office. I’ll clear your calendar, invent an appointment…”

He had managed a smile. So had she. But he could see the worry in her eyes—the way it was warring with letting him insist on going into work. She didn’t want him to, thought he ought to call in sick, but that wasn’t an option. It wouldn’t help anyway. None of it would go away if he hid at home. The work would just pile up. People would get annoyed he wasn’t there. Already tight timelines would get tighter.

Ask me for the Dodge file…

It was hellishly tempting as he passed her desk. She looked up, gave him an encouraging smile that cracked something in his heart. He nodded back—all he could do to acknowledge her, this woman, who meant everything—and he rushed away, out of theoffice, Aubrey stepping into the lift when it stopped at the sixth floor. Across town, a thirty-minute drive away, Hendrich Lissi was waiting for them. The man had called five minutes ago to say he happened to be in London, happened to be meeting Domnall White, the billionaire owner of Actuaris, and might they like an introduction at their lunch meeting, which was starting right aboutnow?

“Think this is some kind of power play?” Aubrey asked as he stood next to Roscoe and the lift continued down.

“Partly that. And partly testing our mettle.”

“He’s surely had this meeting with White in his diary for weeks.”

“Exactly. And he gives us just enough notice to ensure we’ll be over half an hour late. And couches it as afavour.”

Aubrey shrugged as the lift doors opened and they stepped out into the office foyer. A black car was waiting for them outside, the driver holding the door open. “Itisa favour, given this is the closest we’ve come to White in years.”

“So long as we don’t fuck it up.”

“With your beauty and my brains? Not a chance.”

Roscoe pulled a face and nodded for Aubrey to get in the car first. He followed him in, pulled out his tablet as the car moved off. “More to the point: Poppy’s briefing notes. She’s been building a profile on White for months. Did she copy you in on the summary?”

Aubrey nodded, skimming through the pages on his own screen. “Yes. And we’ve got thirty minutes to read it and come up with a strategy. Plenty of time. No need to look quite so…ashen.” He frowned at Roscoe, who knew he looked exactly how he felt. Sick, sweaty, hunted. “Are you hungover? Ill? Open a window.”

So Roscoe did, but the warm London air, redolent of car fumes and hot tarmac, did nothing to ease his nausea.

Maybe Roscoe was dissociating, as sometimes happened when his anxiety was bad, but as he sat in the elegant little restaurant sipping the bitter-sweet aperitif Hendrich Lissi had insisted on, his mind was in a one-bedroom flat in Lewisham.

He was thinking about Poppy’s brother Liam, who had lost his job at the department store owned by Domnall White because of a generous impulse to help a friend. And he was thinking about Poppy’s mother, whose hours were about to be reduced at the supermarket Domnall White owned because suchefficiency measureswere the easiest bone to throw shareholders grumbling about lower than predicted dividends. And he thought about Poppy, fainting in his office from hunger. And the fingers of his hand curled tight around the cold stem of his glass.

Domnall was looking at him, expectant. And the kick Aubrey gave his ankle under the table suggested the man was waiting for a reply to a question. Roscoe’s smile felt like cut glass. “My apologies, my thoughts wandered.”

Domnall wasn’t pleased, but he repeated the question and the conversation went on, four very rich men sitting around a table manoeuvring themselves into positions where they could help each other make even more money. And help Domnall avoid paying tax on any of it. Because who needed hospitals, really? Or schools. Or social services. Or anything at all.

On the drive back, Aubrey asked him if he was OK. Well, what he actually said was: “That was a fucking shambles. Care to explain why you spent the entire time alternating between looking like you were going to be sick or start throttling Domnall White?”

He was annoyed. Quite rightly so. Because Roscoe had let him down. The pulsing, buzzing feeling in his skull turned a shadedarker, and he closed his eyes, head back against the seat, black lines dancing through his mind.

“Both were true,” he said.

He heard Aubrey let out a breath. “What’s going on, Roscoe? You’re not yourself.”

“No. Exactly.”

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