Page 122 of If I Never Met You

The text, in Lincoln, that Laurie wasn’t allowed to see.

‘What was the lunch time visit about?’

‘To unsettle me, and it worked. More pertinently, to give Michael my phone passcode. She asked me to find something on my phone, moments after you’d gone upstairs, and she leaned right in as I did it. I think Michael reached out to her to see if we’d slept together, they discovered a common cause. She had the idea of unmasking me to “save” you and Michael probably laid it on thick about how vulnerable you were. But Michael probably spotted that to be absolutely sure I got the heave overboard, she needed to tell her uncle I had form.’

They stood in silence for a moment. Laurie felt numb.

‘How did Michael get your phone?’

‘I leave it on my desk plenty. It’s locked, so I don’t think anything of it. I guess he’d have gone in, searched for your name for incriminating material, and bingo. There’s no other emails between us.’

Laurie absorbed this. ‘He sent it global, for maximum damage.’

‘Oh yes. No one’s asked how he got hold of it, from what I can tell. Fuck this place, it’s a clique and it’s rotten. I’m glad to go.’

‘But I should stay?’

Jamie looked discomfited. ‘Unless you have any other irons in the fire. The bosses love you.’

‘Correction. They used to.’

She’d been in denial, but this was it. Jamie was off, into the horizon, and Laurie’s standing at her workplace was irreparably soiled. Much as she hated Dan and Michael’s intervention, their premonitions had come to pass.

‘Did you split up with me in there, when Salter asked us point blank?’

‘No. I knew I was fucked and I thought any more idea from Salter that we were a couple, and you would be too.’

‘What if he’d not sacked you? How would we have managed that? We start keeping a real romance secret?’

Jamie shrugged. ‘I suppose so?’

‘Or, or. You would’ve split up with me to keep them happy?’

This felt eminently possible, despite everything. She believed in Jamie’s feelings for her but she’d never seen a second’s self-sacrifice regards his career, for anyone. All this time worrying about another woman coming between him, but was his job the thing she could never compete with?

‘No,’ Jamie said, frowning. ‘I never wanted the promotion that much. Wow.’

‘You sure? It seems to be all that’s driven you since I’ve known you.’

‘I’ve changed since I’ve known you.’

People don’t change. Do they?

Laurie couldn’t let this go.

‘It was pretty mortifying, me saying yes when you said no.’

‘Well, sorry. It didn’t mean anything.’

‘If you’ve changed, why still lie? Why not say, hey Mr Salter, yeah I shouldn’t have done it but now here is the situation and yes I am with Laurie.’

‘The truth wasn’t what was needed, here, or what was going to help.’ He clenched his jaw and jutted his chin slightly and they were clearly skirting the territory of their first big fight. Or, the last one?

‘Jamie, the truth is sometimes of value in itself. Not working out what it’ll get you.’

‘Oh Laurie, of all the times to go all “inspirational meme over a sunset” on me.’ Jamie smiled, weakly, and it felt so much like Dan’s brush-offs that her hair stood on end.

‘Of all the times for you to go lying triangulating lawyer bastard on me!’ she snapped.

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