"Your penis in shining armor, of course."
***
It was just after nine when I plucked up the courage to phone Jackson, my pulse rate akin to someone who had just won gold in an Olympic sprint and similar to when I'd first noticed what Richard had done. My FitBit thought I'd been exercising hard for about forty minutes even though 'anxious and stressed' wasn't a workout option. I pushed aside the butterflies in my stomach that made me feel as if I was fourteen again and about to have my first kiss in some woods with a boy called Mark and instead focused on the fact that I was calling my lawyer. At 9 pm on a Thursday night. Not exactly business hours.
I was about to hang up when the ringing stopped.
"Hello?" he sounded sleepy. Shit. He was jetlagged and I was waking him up. Really good way to get him to give recommendations for my firm.
"I'm so sorry, Jackson. I forgot what time it was, and you've just traveled back. I'll see you tomorrow..."
"Hey, it's fine. I fell asleep on the couch so it's a good thing you've woken me else I'll be stiff as a board in the morning. What's the matter?" He sounded soft and reassuring. Nothing like the man I heard speaking to Seph this afternoon.
"It's... shit. It's not the job I'm doing for you. I was panicking and I'm still panicking, I guess and now I'm waffling..." I mentally kicked myself in the shins for sounding so moronic.
"You want me to come over?" He sounded more awake, as if he had just sat up. I looked around the lounge of Sophie's apartment. It was beautiful; Sophie had taste and money but it wasn't mine and I didn't want to have what was technically a business conversation here.
"No, it's too much trouble. Look, the short of it is, Richard transferred four thousand pounds from one of our accounts to his personal one a few days ago. This was without asking me. I've just checked the statement this evening. I've gone in and moved the same amount to my personal account – not to spite him, just to stop him moving more..." I felt like I was blathering on even more.
"What's your address? I'm coming to you."
"You don't need to. I'm fine, honestly. This can wait until tomorrow. My friend Sophie's here and..."
"Your address, Vanessa."
His tone of voice knocked me to the ground with its quiet, strong insistence and I passed on the information. I suddenly felt tired and I realized that I was in need of someone to help fight the battle with Richard the dick.
"You're about ten minutes from me."
He was there in less than that, dressed in jeans, a plain white t-shirt, and a leather jacket, carrying a motorcycle helmet. His hair was mussed and I could see the lines on his face from where he'd been asleep. He looked rumpled and delicious, a controlled mess of unshaven man and determined lion.
Sophie eyeballed me, said hello and made a discreet exit, claiming she was meeting a friend for drinks. I was unsure whether to believe her, or whether she was meeting the trainer again for another round of cardio. Or, knowing Sophie, reacquainting herself with her ex-husband.
Jackson sat on the sofa, a white leather affair that would never have been my choice but I had still managed to doze off on it a fair few times. He put a rough hand through his hair and grinned, looking ten years younger than I knew he actually was.
"How long have you lived here?" he said, looking around. "It's in a great location."
He was right, it was. Set in the heart of Southwark, a stone's throw from all the places you'd like to be and a few minutes' walk from her flagship salon, Sophie had done very well for herself. "I moved in with Sophie a couple of months after Richard and I split up. At some point, we have to sell the apartment we have together, but we've not properly had that discussion yet."
Jackson nodded. "He's not exactly short of money, Vanessa. I did a few checks on him and your company this afternoon. Why would he want to take money out of your business?"
"I'm not sure. It could be because he's trying to push my buttons. It could be his father has stopped his allowance or his current girlfriend could've moved it over. All she'd need is to have her fingerprint recognized on his phone." I shrugged, sitting down on the loveseat opposite Jackson, not trusting myself to be next to him.
"Do you have enough money in your own personal account to cover you for a few weeks if needs be?" he said after a moment's pause.
"Yes, why?" I did. I was good with money. I didn't deprive myself of things I wanted, but neither was I a spendthrift. We'd not been rich when I was growing up, living in a small village, my dad an odd job man and my gran running the local post office. No one in my family had ever stayed in school past sixteen, so I'd been an anomaly going to university. My family hadn't known how to support me; higher education wasn't something they were familiar with, so I'd learned to figure things out for myself, including finances.
"Transfer back what you've moved. I'll have the accounts frozen first thing tomorrow so he can't touch anything else without the court getting involved. We'll start moving things on and you don't need to worry. We'll bring a petition for unfair prejudice and have the business valued – I don't need to bore you with the details, all you have to do is trust me." He relaxed back against the sofa, ruffling his hair once more. I was aware of him watching me, especially my lips and I couldn't resist licking them. I was also suddenly aware that I was wearing yoga pants and a very old t-shirt, having changed as soon as I got in from the office and forgetting how I looked due to Richard the dick being, yet again, a dick.
I stood up, needing to fill the room with some noise, action even. "Would you like a drink? I'm sorry you've come all this way – you could've just helped over the phone."
"Just water would be good," he said. "I could've told you over the phone, you're right, but I'm literally half a dozen streets away and I wanted to check to make sure you were okay."
I filled up a glass from the filtered water tap. Sophie's specialty was skin; there's no way she wouldn't have filtered water instantly. It gave me a chance to make sure I was pulling myself together; no one had checked I was okay in a long time and I was holding on to that thought to deal with when I was on my own later. "I know I probably sounded fragile. I've been burying my head in the sand with Richard," I said, confession coming far too easily. "It's been a big change."
He nodded, accepting the drink. "Change isn't a bad thing. I feel apprehensive about my dad officially retiring and leaving me running the firm. Part of me's excited and looking forward to it and then another part is thinking 'god, how many ways are there to fuck this up?'"
I laughed quietly, sitting down with a glass of water for myself. The margarita was room temperature and I wasn't in the mood for alcohol now. "You'll do fine. You've been pretty much running the place for over a year and the company's growing. And you have support from your family. That counts for a lot."
