Deranged Marriage (26 page)

Holly xx

I didn’t have to tear up any pages, it flowed the way I wanted it to right from the start. I had a warm feeling inside me. I was taking some control back. I was going to do anything in my power to fix things, I would never stop fighting for what was important. Not in the way George was doing, but in the right way.

*

Do you lose the ability to sleep when you get older? Or is having kids the end of your late mornings? My parents were at the kitchen counter drinking tea when I got up at seven the next morning. They were fully dressed, and my father had taken over my job of buying all the papers.

‘No mention, love,’ he said.

I smiled. I needed to check my e-mails and make a phone call. ‘Why don’t you guys go out and explore a bit?’

‘But we can’t leave you.’ My mum looked horrified.

‘I’ll be fine for a couple of hours, Mum, I just want to check in with work. I do still do some occasionally,’ I pushed. Eventually I managed to get them out of the house armed with an
A
-
Z
and an umbrella. I had no idea where they were going, but guessed that a walk around the common would be it, before they’d start fretting and return to check I hadn’t run away.

I didn’t need to check e-mails, after all it was only Monday morning, but I needed to send some. I sent one to Freddie copying Francesca requesting I be given more work. It felt weird and I knew they were protecting me but I also felt as if my role in the company was diminishing. Yes, I’d been writing proposals, talking to clients, bossing people around, but I had been out of the office for so long that I felt out of touch. I also felt as if they were protecting me too much. I was pregnant, not ill, and I needed to keep busy more than ever. Although I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure I was doing the right thing, it had seemed like a good idea last night. I was trying to sort my life out, so I made a phone call.

I dialled the number and took a deep breath.

A sing-song voice answered straight away. ‘Cordelia Dickens PR.’

‘Cordelia Dickens please,’ I snapped, in my most scary, curt voice.

‘Who shall I say is calling?’

‘Holly Miller.’ Within seconds, Cordelia’s voice came on the line. It sent a shiver down my spine.

‘I didn’t expect to hear from you,’ she said, with a sinister tone.

‘I’m sure you didn’t. Cordelia you did your best, it didn’t work. One story in the
Daily
News
, one tiny mention in a column, it’s not your best ever is it?’ I tried to sound threatening, but my resolve was leaving me fast.

‘Oh Holly, I know that you work for Francesca Williams and her firm is only a tiny little tadpole in the pond of PR, but I thought you would know better.’

‘I do know better, and if my company is a tadpole, then yours is pond scum.’ I was feeling quite pumped up by the argument. It was definitely therapeutic.

‘Is there any point to this conversation?’ Cordelia was as cunning as a hungry fox.

‘I just want to be left alone.’

‘Then marry George. He’s a good-looking man with a great career. If he wasn’t a client then I’d be jumping him.’

‘That would solve all my problems.’

‘I know, which is why I’m not going to. Apart from the fact he is totally in love with you anyway, so there is no way he’d even look at another woman.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘I’m really busy, Holly, but I can tell you one thing. This isn’t over, not by a long shot.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just what I say. You haven’t heard the last of this and your silly little attempt to threaten me has just made me more determined.’

‘Why? Why this?’

‘I heard about George and saw an opportunity. For both of us.’ She sounded so mercenary.

‘You can’t be making too much money from him.’ It was a last attempt. My bravado had completely dissolved.

‘Oh, I get a percentage of the money he gets for his story, so at the moment he’s not making me rich.’

‘So it wouldn’t hurt you to drop it.’

‘I can’t do that, you haven’t heard the last of this. You better get comfortable Holly, because it’s going to be a long ride.’ She laughed then, a Cruella de Ville laugh.

‘Why do I get the feeling this is personal?’

‘Because it is. Actually I didn’t know anything about you before I started working for George, but now I do there’s a little bonus there for me.’

‘What?’ I felt hot, then cold. I certainly felt confused.

‘Ask Francesca,’ she replied, before slamming down the phone. What did she mean by that?

I came off the phone fuming. But then I calmed down and panicked. I checked my e-mail and saw that there was one from Freddie and one from Francesca. Shit, they would kill me when they knew what I’d done.

Freddie sent me a ton of work to do with the message: ‘
You’re
bloody
welcome
to
it
.’ Francesca said that I should come into the office if I felt like it. I mailed back saying I would go in the following morning. I decided not to tell them about my phone call until then. Although they couldn’t kill me over the phone, if I cried in person they might forgive me for ruining everything.

Because I thought I had. By having a bitchy conversation with Cordelia I had just managed to make her more determined than ever. There was only one possible option left to me. Perhaps I could call George and persuade him that Cordelia was only acting in her own best interest. Could I do that? Should I? I decided to wait until I was in the office and take advice. I couldn’t rely on my own bright ideas.

I went to my bedroom and picked up the letter I had written to Joe. It was from the heart so there was no way
that
could be wrong. I went to the post office and mailed it to him. I kissed the back of the envelope and hoped that it would bring me some luck.

My parents arrived back shortly after me. I explained about going to work, and they looked concerned, but I managed to put their minds at rest.

‘It’s lovely having you to stay, but I don’t need anyone here,’ I said. ‘After all nothing has really happened.’

‘We’ll be here just in case. It’s a scary time for you with the pregnancy and everything. I’d rather you weren’t alone.’

‘OK.’ There seemed little point in arguing. Actually I didn’t want to be alone; I never minded being alone but since Joe and I had split, I hated it.

I spent the rest of the day, making a dent in some of the work I’d been sent. I felt like I was fifteen again and doing my homework. Especially as my parents hovered around me offering to help. As if they could help.

*

As I took the tube into the office I was excited—for five seconds. Until I remembered what a nightmare journey it was. As I snuggled up to a man with a very scratchy suit, and tried not to scream as someone stood on my toe, I considered telling someone I was pregnant to see if that would get me a seat, but then it was a secret and tubes had ears. Actually they didn’t, but I was paranoid. If Cordelia got hold of it, then she would make my life hell. I was wearing a shift dress which was quite loose on me in the old days, but had become tighter. I wasn’t exactly showing but my stomach was definitely rounder. My mother said you couldn’t tell that I was pregnant just to look at me, which made me feel better, because I felt huge.

I marched into the office feeling almost normal again, until I saw the look on Freddie’s face.

‘Did you get the papers today?’ he asked. I shook my head. It was only nine thirty and the office was still quite empty. ‘Boardroom,’ he said as he took my hand and led me there. Every tabloid was spread out on the table. They were all open at a certain page. The headlines screamed at me. The photos sneered at me. Cordelia had managed to carry out her threat. I was the subject of four national newspapers that day:

BETRAYAL
:
THE
MARRIAGE
THAT
NEVER
WAS

FROM
BROKEN
PROMISES
TO
BROKEN
HEARTS

THE
MARRIAGE
-
PACT
MAN
AND
THE
SCARLET
WOMAN

THE
HEARTLESS
WOMAN
AND
THE
HEARTBROKEN
MAN

I was in shock. There was no way I could comprehend what I’d read. I looked at Freddie with tears in my eyes.

‘I’ll get you a coffee, sit down and read them.’

‘I don’t drink coffee any more, only fucking herbal tea,’ I spat through clenched teeth.

The thing about the stories, I gleaned, once I’d been able to regain control and read them without my tears blinding me, was that they were consistently inaccurate. Actually they weren’t all lies, but mostly. Because, surprise, surprise, the thing that they’d done was to spice up the story. Cordelia, spurred on by my stupid phone call, had reshaped the facts to sound more tabloid. The ‘sex sells’ principle had been employed. And it had worked.

I was a nymphomaniac who had had a very long sexual relationship with George in my youth. As well as having sex with everyone else. I manipulated him totally from the beginning, and told him that although I loved him, I needed to try other models out. Then, when he felt vulnerable about our relationship I signed the marriage pact, promising that it would come true because I loved him. Of course that pact was all that kept him going. Then he moved to New York and I told him that I would join him just as soon as I’d sorted my career out, and he’d believed me. I kept him going with phone-sex for years until he could bear it no more and came back to claim me. (Note: I have never had phone-sex with anyone. I find the idea a bit embarrassing to be honest.)

He did that and I jumped into bed with him immediately and told him that I would marry him, but that I had to dump the bloke I was seeing at the moment, viz. Joe. He went back to New York, believing me but when nothing happened he came back again, and started the legal proceedings.

Freddie came back with my herbal tea.

‘So, what do you think?’ he asked, flinching slightly as if I was going to hit him.

‘I’m not about to shoot the messenger,’ I replied. ‘It’s all lies, bloody lies. I can’t believe it.’

Francesca walked in as I was sobbing into Freddie’s black top, and she read all the papers before she spoke.

‘Can we sue?’ she asked.

‘How can we prove it? They haven’t said anything that’s quantifiable. How can I prove that I only had sex with him once? How can I prove that I’m not the total slut that he has made me out to be?’

‘You’re right. She’s a clever bitch.’

‘Cordelia?’ Freddie asked.

It was as good a time as any to tell them. ‘It’s all my fault.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I called her yesterday and told her that it hadn’t worked and that she’d be best to leave me alone.’

Both Francesca and Freddie paled. ‘Shit.’ They voiced in unison.

‘I know, she got really mad and said that I should ask you about it.’ I pointed at Francesca, I was lacking the energy to even address her properly. She sat down beside me.

‘I would have supported you anyway. You see, Cordelia used to be a friend. We both started in PR together and we both worked for respectable firms. But somewhere along the way she discovered the celebrity, or minor celebrity arena and decided that she wanted to concentrate on that. Mainly, I think, because the people she represented were so desperate for fame that they would do what she told them. Not a brain to call their own, most of them. She wanted me to work with her and she didn’t like it when I refused and opened up my own company.’

‘Sounds like a pretty ridiculous grudge to me,’ I said, thinking it sounded like something from a Jackie Collins’ novel. But then, Cordelia sounded like someone who wanted to be in a Jackie Collins’ novel, so it almost made sense.

‘
And
I slept with her husband.’ Francesca coloured.

‘You what?’

‘Well, he was quite a dish and she was getting on my nerves, pestering me all the time to go into business with her, then threatening to ruin me if I didn’t. It was only the once, but she divorced him because of me.’

I laughed, really, really loudly. Freddie and Francesca looked scared, as if I had jumped over the edge.

‘It’s all about sex. I slept with George. You slept with Cordelia’s husband. Christ, we’re in this mess because of sex. Sex with George was all right, it was functional but it hit the right spots. I mean there were no emotions involved, like with Joe but technically it was fine.’

‘Graham—Cordelia’s husband—was the same.’

‘Fucking hell, can you two hear yourselves,’ Freddie said. ‘We’re in the middle of a crisis and you’re comparing notes on the two men who put you here. Can we have some decorum.’ Freddie was visibly upset. I looked at Francesca and we both burst out laughing once more.

Cordelia found, or was led to George, and as she said she would have worked for him anyway, but with the added bonus of getting her revenge on Francesca, she was a little more determined in her quest. It all fell into place.

The office was in full flow, and I noticed that my staff were working as if everything was normal. I went to talk to them.

‘Are you all right?’ I heard a few times. Some were embarrassed at first but I think I managed to convince everyone that I missed them and that I was still sane.

‘How’s the bun?’ Dixie asked.

‘Making me fat,’ I responded.

‘You look well.’

‘Thanks Dix, but I feel like shit.’

After I re-established my staff relations, I went back to the boardroom where my two allies were discussing the war.

‘I’m going to get Sarah to draft a press release saying it’s all lies.’

‘OK.’

‘Then we’ll send it out. But Holly, my instinct is that we should ride the storm. I think that anything else would be a bad move. All we need to do now is to make sure that you keep a low profile and that you keep your pregnancy hidden, if you know what I mean.’ Francesca was now solemn.