Barnaby nodded. He stepped out of his brother’s grip, turned, and walked out of the sitting room. His footsteps were even on the stairs. His hand found the banister and held it. Florence’s claws clicked on the wood behind him, keeping pace, her nose bumping the back of his calf on every other step.
His bedroom was cool and dim. He didn’t turn on the overhead light. The bedside lamp was still on from that morning, casting its low amber circle across the pillow and the pale blue wallpaper. He took his mobile from his pocket and held down the power button.
He set it on the bedside table, face down, and got into bed with his clothes on. Then he pulled the duvet up to his chin and curled onto his side, his knees drawn towards his chest, his hands pressed flat between his thighs. Florence jumped onto thebed. She turned three circles in the space behind his knees, her body warm and heavy against his calves, and settled with a long exhale.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lex’sflat had one of those polished concrete ceilings that the developer had called “industrial chic” and that Lex had chosen because it was the opposite of Artex, which was what he’d grown up under. He stared at it now as he listened to his agent unpick his failures.
“—the Adidas deal is paused, not pulled.Paused. That’s the language Jenna used, and Jenna doesn’t use language loosely, so I’m choosing to believe her.” Sharon’s voice came from the kitchen island, where she’d set up what amounted to a field hospital for his career. The legal pad she was scrawling on was covered in handwriting so aggressive that the pen had torn through in places. “The Lucozade partnership is dead. They rang at seven this morning. They were very polite, but they made it clear the decision is final. You’ll get the kill fee but they’re scrubbing the autumn campaign.”
“The BOA,” Sharon continued, and Lex heard her voice shift into the register she used when delivering news she’d already decided how to spin, “are considering sanctions. Your medal’sfine.” She said this quickly. “They’re not touching the medal. But future involvement is probably off the table for you. Selection panels, mentoring programmes, ambassadorial work. They want to be seen to act, and you’re the most visible name on the spreadsheet.”
Lex kept his eyes on the ceiling. A hairline crack ran from the light fitting towards the far wall. He’d never noticed it before. He’d lived here three years and never once looked up long enough to find it.
“I’ve got David Fulmer on standby. He’s the best crisis PR in London and he owes me a favour from the Tyson Fury thing, so he’ll take the call, but I need you to tell me what you want to say before I let him anywhere near a statement.” Sharon paused. Her heels clicked on the kitchen tile as she shifted her weight. “Lex. Are you listening?”
“Yeah.”
“Then sit up and look at me, because I’m not having this conversation with the top of your head.”
He didn’t sit up. Sharon had been his agent for six years. She’d negotiated his Nike deal, his GQ cover, his Las Vegas billing for the Morozov fight. She’d pulled him out of a tabloid sting involving a Page Three model and a Nobu receipt, and she’d done it by being louder, meaner and faster than anyone else in the room. He loved her the way you loved someone who’d saved your career four times a year and charged you fifteen per cent for the privilege.
“What about the King’s Trust?” he asked.
Sharon’s pen stopped on her writing pad. “Nobody’s answering. I’ve called the office three times. Benton’s mobile goes to voicemail. The private secretary’s line is engaged. The Palace press office issued a holding statement at nine o’clock that said the Trust was ‘aware of reports’ and ‘reviewing thecircumstances,’ which in Palace-speak means they’re working out how far to throw you before lunch.”
Lex watched the crack in the ceiling and breathed through the tightness in his chest, which had been there since six a.m. when Sharon had rung him and read out the Mail Online headline:
MARQUESS IN ‘GOD TIER’: Leaked Spreadsheet Reveals Olympic Sex Game Aristocrat Ranked as Top Conquest by Boxer Boyfriend
His mum had sent a text at eight:ring me when you can love. dont read the comments. had three journalists at the door already and Mrs Chowdhury next door told them where to go so dont worry about me. love you always xxxxx
That was the worst bit; journalists were at his mum’s door because of the stupid shit he’d done. It had got to the point where he’d called in a favour, and had Coach Malik put her up in a room at Claridge’s.
Lex brought his mobile up to his line of sight.
The screen was a wall of notifications, stacked so densely that the most recent ones had pushed the older ones off the visible field. Twitter mentions he’d stopped counting. Instagram DMs from people he hadn’t spoken to since school. Two missed calls from his accountant, which meant the money people were already doing the maths on what this would cost him.
He scrolled past all of it.
He was looking for one name only. His thumb moved through the notifications, then scrolled back up to check the list one more time. But there was still nothing from Barnaby.
No missed call. No text. No glacially polite paragraph ending their relationship, composed in complete sentences with impeccable punctuation that would gut him more efficiently than anything Sharon or the BOA could produce.
All that he was getting out of Barnaby was silence, and it was the worst sign for how they stood right then, because Barnaby didn’t go quiet when he was angry. He went quiet when he wasdone.
Lex locked the screen. He set the mobile face-down on his chest.
“Lex.” Sharon’s voice had dropped the spin. “This is fucking serious. We are in full crisis mode, and I need you to act like you care.”
“I don’t.”
The legal pad hit him in the face.
It wasn’t a particularly hard throw. Sharon was five foot four in her heels and had the upper body strength of a woman whose primary form of exercise was aggressive gesticulation, but the binding caught the bridge of his nose and the pages fanned out across his chest like a bird dying mid-flight. He didn’t brush it off.
Sharon stood over him. She’d come around the kitchen island and was at the foot of the sofa, her arms crossed, her jaw set in the way that meant he had about thirty seconds before she started making decisions without him. She was the most competent person he’d ever met, and she was frightened, and the fact that she was frightened frightenedhim.
