‘Good luck with that. I’m glad he’s not my father-in-law,’ Abbie said, then looked sharply up, plastering a smile in place as Fenton marched out of the meeting room, leaving the female employee he’d been harassing throwing murderous glances after him.
‘Afternoon, Jason,’ he said, with a short smile. ‘Sorry about that. Sales team needed a sharp reminder of what their jobs are.’
Yeah, and you need a sharp reminder of what an obnoxious prat you are, Jason wanted to say.But he simply nodded.
‘Bring some coffee in, Abbie, would you?’ Fenton addressed her rudely. ‘And pass me Jason’s company file. It’s in the cabinet, under…’ he paused, pondering demonstratively. ‘What’s the name of your company again, Jason?’
Jason looked at him with a combination of disbelief and disdain. ‘Upwards Online,’ he supplied, as if Fenton didn’t know.
‘Ah, yes. More downwards currently, I believe.’ Fenton held his gaze for a second before looking away. ‘Bottom drawer, Abbie, please.’
His anger bubbling up like mercury inside him, Jason gritted his teeth hard, watching Abbie struggle to extract the file from a filing cabinet behind her without giving Fenton a bird’s-eye view of anything he fancied helping himself to.
‘Right. Shall we?’ Fenton said, without even a glance in Abbie’s direction as she handed him the file.
Half an hour.Jason sucked in a breath, braced himself and walked after Robert as he sailed off down the corridor. Thirty minutes – less, if possible – and he would be out of there. All he had to do was bow and scrape to a complete bastard and his business would be safe. His family’s future would be safe.
Fenton answered a call as he strode off ahead, much to Jason’s further irritation. He followed a little way behind as Fenton barged into his office and sat behind his desk – the solid mahogany executive variety. ‘Well,find outwhere the missing funds are,’ he said sharply. ‘Balancing my books is yourjob, Edward.’
His accountant, Jason gathered. Obviously not quite so on the ball as Fenton had claimed he was.
‘Right, Jason, grab a seat.’ Banging the phone down with an agitated sigh, Fenton nodded to a chair. ‘I won’t keep you long. I’m sure your schedule is as busy as mine.’
Jason was torn between telling him he’d rather stand and about-facing altogether. Cursing inwardly, he took the seat instead. Fenton knew how he felt. To react would be to do exactly what the man wanted him to.
Fenton skimmed perfunctorily through the file, closed it and then, finally, looked up at him. ‘I’ve been through the figures with my accountant, Jason, as you would expect me to,’ he said, ‘and, as mentioned, I am prepared to extend you the financial backing you need.’
That’s very gracious of you.Jason curtailed the contempt already rising inside him, offering Abbie a small smile instead as she came in with the coffee.
‘Given certain stipulations.’ Fenton gave Abbie a cursory nod, pushed the file aside to allow her to place the tray on his desk and leaned back in his chair, not bothering to thank her as she slipped back out of the room.
‘Which would be?’ Jason tried to read his expression. He’d expected to find the same challenging look he’d seen when he’d tried to buy him out of Karla’s life with an obscene amount of money twelve long years ago, but, strangely, Fenton looked away.
After an unnerving minute, Fenton got to his feet and walked across to the window, where, hands thrust into his pockets, he gazed out for another interminably long minute before turning back to him. ‘I have something to tell you, Jason,’ he said, his expression pensive. ‘There’s no easy way to say it, so I’m going to say it as it is.’
Apprehension creeping through him, Jason narrowed his eyes. If he was aiming to put him on the back foot here, it was working.
‘I’m not asking you this time, Jason. I’m telling you,’ Fenton went on, his face holding a warning as he studied him carefully. ‘You have to get out of Karla’s life.’
‘Right.’ Shaking his head, Jason laughed scathingly and got to his feet.
He was halfway to the door when Fenton froze him to the spot. ‘You’re related,’ he said.
Fourteen
KARLA
Standing outside Jason’s office, I hesitate, wondering again what I’m doing here; what it is I hope to find. I felt shocked after my father’s phone call. John commented that I looked pale as I sat dumbfounded at my desk. I couldn’t quite believe it: that my father would stoop to this. The idea that Jason has been actively searching for women online is ludicrous.
Is it though, really? I know that Mark sent him that damn profile photograph. The question burning inside me, now, is why? Why were he and Jason discussing online dating sites and near naked women, Jason indicating he liked what he saw, unless they did it regularly? Why would they exchange messages about her? Is it likely it’s just a one-off? And why in God’s name had Jason asked if she had a sister? If it was joke, just ‘laddish banter’, it wasn’t a very funny one, was it, sinceI’dseen it.
My heart almost folds up inside me as I acknowledge that he might have been asking seriously. The cold reality is that we haven’t been intimate in weeks, if not months. And last night, Jason couldn’t. Gullible me put it down to stress. Could it be that he’s actually having sex elsewhere? Regularly. Meeting another woman – otherwomen– he’s contacting online?
It’s preposterous. I know it is. Yet still, sick with nerves and uncertainty, I feel I have to go through with this. If I don’t see with my own eyes, won’t I always be wondering? Much as I’d like to think I could ignore it, I know that I can’t. This will be yet another thing that will haunt me at night.
Will Mark talk to me, I wonder? I toy with the idea of surreptitiously trying to extract information from him, or even openly asking him, and then abandon the idea. Jason and Mark go back years. Mark would never tell me anything that might betray their friendship.
Bracing myself, I check my watch. I know exactly where Jason is right now. He’s doing what I begged him to do: ‘selling his soul’ to my father. He doesn’t want to do it. He’ll be feeling utterly humiliated, thinking he’s lived up to my father’s low expectations of him, perceiving himself as having failed in his fundamental obligation as a husband and father to provide for his family. And I’m about to do this.
