Charlotte came into view again, standing beside our mother and lecturing the crowd of assembled authors on some topic or another. The whole group looked impressed but no one more so than our mother.
‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘There’s no need to panic, Joe isn’t going to tell anyone.’
‘But Charlotte is,’ William pointed out, getting a sharpelbow in the ribs for his trouble as Mal finished off my drink.
‘That’s right, your brother tells me the young entrepreneur of the year is planning a TikTok reveal for us?’ He glowered at me as though he hadn’t thought things could get worse. ‘Very thoughtful of her. The marketing team usually spends a fortune getting these things done.’
William reached into his pocket for his phone before remembering he had already been relieved of it, his hand coming up empty. ‘True enough, she’s got great numbers. It doesn’t really matter where we announce, it’s going to get picked up everywhere. Might be nice to keep it in the family.’
‘I don’t care if we do the reveal on social media or she goes door-to-bloody-door up and down the country, I want it done and I want us looped in so we don’t look like idiots who aren’t in control of our PR, and I want Joe Walsh out of the equation asap,’ Mal barked. ‘I don’t like him anywhere near this. IknewI should’ve made you leave that bloody curry house.’
‘Make me leave?’ I choked out a gasp. ‘I’m not a child, Mal, and seriously, what is your problem with Joe?’
He wound his neck in, leaving him with a not particularly flattering double chin. ‘Aside from his father?’
‘Aside from his father,’ I confirmed.
‘Well …’ He waved a hand around as though he might pluck a better reason out of thin air. ‘All right, it’s mostly Gregory.’
‘I’ve heard he’s a bit of a slag if that helps?’ William offered.
‘Not really.’ I gave Aunt Carole my best impression of a smile as she walked by dressed as an old fashioned fortune teller – or herself, I couldn’t be sure. ‘Do eitherof you know for certain that he’s done anything unfair to anyone, I’m talking names, numbers, dates? Or is this standard office gossip?’
The pair of them pouted like toddlers caught with their hands in the biscuit tin. Whoever pushed the lie that women were the worst gossips had clearly never worked in the publishing industry. Or any other office. Or actually met a man.
‘I know he went out for a drink with Zara from production and she texted him when she got home and he replied with a thumbs up,’ Mal said. ‘Then she suggested they go and see a film they’d talked about and he said no.’
‘That’s it?’ I replied gobsmacked. ‘That’s all you’ve got?’
‘Most of the stories I’ve heard were about New York,’ William admitted, scratching his ear as he spoke. ‘But my friend Saul is friends with an editor at MullinsParker in London and he knows Joe’s deputy creative director andhesays he’s very cagey about his personal life.’
‘Wouldn’t you keep your personal life to yourself if your dad was Gregory Brent and five minutes after you moved to a new city, everyone you worked with had written you off as a wanker?’ I asked, appalled with the pair of them. ‘You’re worse than kids. You don’t know any more about him than I do so will you please both trust me to sort this out myself?’
‘I’ll trust you when I’ve got the sequel in my hands and a photo of your face on the dust jacket,’ Mal said, the look on his face mirroring the storm clouds amassing above. ‘Sort it out tonight.’
‘Or?’ I challenged.
‘Or I’ll sort it out for you tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Nowpretend we were talking about something else because that imbecile Anthony Khan is on his way over and he might be the only person in this entire industry I like less than Gregory Brent.’
‘I’ll remind you that imbecile Anthony Khan is my co-worker, thank you very much,’ William said through gritted teeth. ‘And since he represents some very big authors I’d appreciate it if you could pretend to be nice to him the same way the rest of us have to.’
‘This fucking business,’ Mal grunted into his empty glass. ‘I need another drink.’
‘William, there you are, I’ve been looking for you all night,’ Anthony cried, hurling himself, chest first, at my brother as Mal slipped away. ‘Hi, great to meet you, Anthony Khan. And you are?’
‘Leaving,’ I replied, moaning with exasperation when William caught my elbow in his hand. ‘I mean, nice to meet you. I’m Sophie, William’s sister.’
‘Ahh, the lesser spotted Taylor sibling.’ He spoke in a grating transatlantic accent that made me want to plug up my ears with a pair of the cocktail sausages that were piled up in one of Mum’s giant John Lewis dishes. ‘Great to finally meet you. I’ve heard all about you from William and CJ.’
‘You’re friends with CJ.’ I wrinkled my nose and nodded. ‘That makes sense.’
‘Anthony was in the New York office for a few months,’ William said while his fellow agent openly ogled my chest. ‘Actually, didn’t you pal around with Joe Walsh while you were over there?’
‘Joseph? I certainly did,’ he replied through a yawn he didn’t bother to cover. Maybe the dress wasn’t as revealing as I’d thought. ‘We ran with the same ex-patpublishing crew. OK guy. Although I was relieved when he left for London, gave the rest of us a chance to have a go at the top tier totty. Haven’t seen him in a while, is the old pussyhound here?’
Well, that wasn’t a very endearing nickname.
‘Nice to meet you, Anthony’ I said with the fakest fake smile I had ever faked. ‘William. You’ll have to excuse me.’
