Chapter 17: Blindsided

"Sophia's not part of this meeting." Helen's hand landed on the small of my back to encourage me towards the door. "She's just dropped off the drinks."

I took a step forward, but my legs had lost their strength, all power diverting to my brain as it dawned on me that this would be much harder to talk my way out of.

"Actually..." Mac relaxed his shoulders and adjusted his tie. "I truly am so sorry for the inconvenience, but that phone call was from my secretary, asking me to return to the office. It's an emergency. I can send a colleague—"

"No." All eyes landed on me as I interrupted him. "Mac, I've not been involved in any of the meetings—"

"Doesn't matter." His clipped words replaced his overly formal professionalism, and then he looked past me, towards Helen. "I'm sorry. I have a relationship with your colleague. It's a conflict of interest. I'll send someone else."

Regret and frustration creased his forehead as Mac swept past me to gather his paperwork from the table. A waft of his woody cologne drifted over me. A familiar scent coming from an unfamiliar version of him.

My stomach churned with the potential implications of this. Not just for me, but for him. All the rules. The anonymity. The secrecy. It was all to avoid this exact scenario. A scenario that neither of us truly believed would play out, but that we agreed to plan for just in case.

And now it had played out, and all our efforts had been for nothing. Because I was never supposed to be in that meeting. In that room. If I hadn't helped with the drinks, I never would've known that Mac was representing the other side, and he never would've known that I was involved with the team trying to silence his client.

After a final apology, he strode out of the room. My eyes remained glued to the back of his navy suit as his tall figure rushed down the hallway. Power returned to my limbs and propelled me forwards. I caught him at the lifts, sliding my body between his hand and the buttons.

"Mac, wait."

A huff of irritation tore from his throat. He clasped his hands to my hips and effortlessly lifted me out of the way, dropping me back to the floor a foot to the side. His index finger stabbed at the downward arrow.

"Mac—"

"Leave it, Sophia." He stared straight ahead at the metal double doors.

Tension rolled off him in waves, and when I wrapped my hand around his forearm, he instantly shrugged me off.

"I had no idea you were on this case," I said.

"Well, I'm not anymore. One of the biggest cases of my career and—" He snapped his mouth shut, his jaw clenching.

I narrowed my eyes. "It couldn't be avoided, could it? Not with all the secrecy you swore me to."

The lift doors opened, and Mac stepped inside, turning and looking at me for the first time since leaving the conference room.

"Not talking about it here. Or anywhere. For my sake and yours."

And then the doors slid shut and I was left facing my own flushed reflection in the metal panels. Before I had chance to consider what this meant for both of us, Helen called out my name.

"Sophia. My schedule has miraculously cleared up. Shall we have that talk now?"

*

Ed didn't look at me when I sunk into the seat beside him. His elbow rested on the tabletop, face buried into his hand. With Helen and Mark sat opposite us, déjà vu hit me—only this time, I didn't think I'd escape so lightly.

Releasing a dramatic sigh, Helen threw her hands in the air. "Where do we start?"

Whether intended as a rhetorical question or not, I wasn't sure, but I took the opportunity to speak anyway.

"Logan McIntosh is an old friend," I said. "I had no idea he was involved in this. I swear to God that's the truth."

Next to me, Ed lifted his face from his hand and scoffed. I inclined my head towards him, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. After the horrifying realisation that Mac was representing the other side, I'd been more concerned with Helen's reaction than Ed's. Looking at him now with tension stiffening his shoulders and anger shining in his eyes, I realised I'd got two battles to fight.

"Sorry, do you have something to add?" I asked.

"I don't think 'an old friend' is entirely accurate." He folded his arms and leaned back in his seat, eyes trained on Helen.

"I didn't realise you were so clued-up on my friendships from university," I replied.

Although I kept my tone light, Ed wouldn't have missed the underlying warning I sent him. So, when he powered on, I knew it was a conscious decision.

"Not all of them. Just the ones you're sleeping with."

I spat out a shocked breath of laugher. "Seriously? You're going to bring your petty jealousy into this?"

At that, Ed twisted in his seat to face me, irritation slicing through the sharp angles of his face. "It's not petty and it's not jealousy. If you're sleeping with the other side's lawyer, then that compromises the—"

"What the fuck is your problem? Do you not trust me all of a sudden? Because it's one or the other: you're either irrationally jealous or irrationally suspicious."

Narrowing his eyes, Ed leaned closer to me. "There is nothing irrational about being suspicious of you. You've tried to screw us over once before. Why not do it again?"

The accusation knocked me back, a brutal kick to the stomach. My mouth dried up, a lump in my throat forming.

"Okay, that's enough."

Helen's voice, unusually soft, reminded me that we had an audience, and that only amplified my anguish. Incriminating me like that in front of our superiors would only sow more doubt around my intentions.

He'd always had a bit of a problem with Mac, and while it might not boil down exactly to jealousy, I could understand it. Thinking of him with other women wouldn't be easy for me, either. But did it really hurt him so much that he'd throw everything we'd been through back in my face like that? Surely he didn't genuinely believe I'd screwed him over? We were better than that. We'd worked hard to be better than that.

"Ed, why don't you step outside to cool off?" Helen said.

"I'd rather not."

"It wasn't a suggestion." Her voice dropped an octave, and she jerked her head towards the door. "Mark, if you don't mind."

Mark rose from his seat and reached for Ed's arm. With a huff, Ed shrugged him off, long strides carrying him out the room. Mark managed to catch the door before it swung shut in his face and slipped out after him.

"Helen," I said, leaning across the table to catch her eye, "I swear—"

She held up a hand and I fell silent. "He's upset and caught off-guard, so he's going to lash out and fear the worst."

I shifted my gaze back towards the closed door. Over the past few months Ed and I had clashed countless times. But that was different. We'd had an understanding: it was harmless sparring. Point-scoring. If this was about scoring points, he'd snatched victory from me before I'd even got onto the field.

"I've been in this business long enough to know when someone is playing both sides," Helen said. "I saw it in you instantly last time. Not only do I think you wouldn't be stupid enough to do it twice, I also don't think you're a good enough actor to fake the shock on your face right now."

As her words settled between us, I tried to work out if that was an insult or a compliment.

"That's not to say, however, that you haven't done something unintentional."

I swallowed. "In what way?"

"Lawyers are very smart people, Sophia. How much did he know about your job here?"

I released a sigh, silently thanking Mac for his strict rules over the past few months. Maybe they would end up helping after all.

"Hardly anything. He didn't want to know Ed's identity because he has a few high-profile clients and didn't want either of us to worry about a conflict of interest. And he didn't know we were based in here. I never told him where I was staying."

Nodding, Helen jotted something down in her notebook. At what point had she started trusting me more than Ed did?

Anger and hurt simmered through my blood, battling for dominance. I thought we'd moved past this or, at the very least, made concerted efforts to prove our loyalty to one another. If I'd managed to convince Helen, Ed's sudden accusation couldn't be entirely down to distrust.

"And there's no chance he could have found out another way?" she asked.

"No, not as far as I'm aware. We hadn't spoken much over the past few years, then we reconnected when you offered me the job here. He put me in touch with a lawyer who could review the contract, but Mac didn't want to know anything about the celebrity involved in case they were a client of his."

Helen didn't look up as she continued scribbling notes. No sound came from the corridor outside the room, so either Mark had taken Ed elsewhere to calm down or they were standing in silence.

"He's very ambitious," I said when Helen didn't reply. "He'd never want to do anything that would put his reputation and job at risk. That's probably why he's handing over to a colleague instead."

Clearing her throat, Helen set down her pen and sat back in her chair, steepling her fingers on the tabletop in front of her.

"He certainly reacted like a deer caught in the headlights," she said.

Hopefully that meant she believed me, but I decided to lay it on thick anyway.

"I'm so sorry, Helen. The last thing I want to be is a liability. I'm honestly so grateful for this opportunity—I'd never do anything to put my job at risk, either. And I know I've screwed you over before, but I thought Ed and I had an understanding now. I thought we trusted each other."

Although there was nothing dishonest in what I said, I hoped she'd take pity on my hurt. While her eyes didn't lose their frostiness, she did offer some consolation.

"He was blindsided," she said. "What you have to understand, Sophia, is that regardless of whatever arrangement you and Ed have in place, he's never going to forget what you did to him. Just like I'm sure you're never going to forget what he did to you."

Of course I wouldn't forget it, but I'd trusted the arrangement we had in place. I'd moved on. I'd forgiven him. Up until today, I thought he'd done the same.

"If the two of you have personal shit to sort out, that's your business and needs to be done in your own time. I have other crises to manage, thanks to your very public stunt on Saturday night."

That piqued my interest. I disagreed with the 'very public' part of her statement, but I didn't challenge her.

"Yes, that's what I wanted to talk to you about," I said, sitting up straighter in my chair and hoping that would instil some confidence into me. "We didn't intend for anyone to see us."

"Well, they did. And maybe it wouldn't be so bad if we weren't currently trying to silence someone else he's been involved with, if he hadn't pissed off his last girlfriend, and if he hadn't flirted with a high-profile singer before kissing someone else in front of her management team. Not to mention he's supposed to be attending an awards show next week, so the last thing we need is for him to be called out in front of millions of people."

When put like that, it did look bad. Only I knew that Hattie had been pleased to see him with someone else, so at least that was one less person to stress about.

"Did the video come from Hattie?" I asked.

"Her manager. He's not impressed that our golden boy has been leading on his golden girl."

"Well, actually... She spoke to me on Saturday and asked if Ed and I were together. Turns out she's not into him and was hoping she'd misinterpreted his flirty messages."

For the first time that afternoon, the coolness left Helen's eyes, replaced by a glint of surprise.

"And?" she prompted.

"I didn't commit either way, but I did say he's a very friendly guy so nobody would blame her for misreading that. And equally, if he had intended to be flirty, he wouldn't be offended to hear she's not into him. You'd probably need to see the messages to determine how ambiguous they are."

"I have seen them. They're very ambiguous. The boy is sending me to an early grave, but at least he doesn't ignore everything I've taught him."

My lips curved into a small smile. "So, that's good, right? We can just say the messages were platonic—"

"We still need a story otherwise Ed looks like he's dipping his fingers into multiple pies. You say she was hoping you and Ed were together?"

Once I'd got over the vivid image that Helen had conjured with her pie analogy, I nodded.

"Yeah. Sounded like she was hoping for a leg-up in the industry and spotted a potential shortcut via Ed, hence why she didn't want to upset him by rejecting him."

Helen's eyes drifted towards the door, glazing over. "So maybe this isn't about her being upset, then. They're worried she can't piggyback off Ed's success if he's already involved with someone."

"That wasn't the vibe I got from Hattie."

Her gaze snapped onto me. "She's not the one in charge. Her manager is pulling the strings—she'll just be doing as she's told. This makes sense, though. If she isn't into him, no wonder she was relieved to see him with someone else. It takes the pressure off her."

Previous drama forgotten, my PR cogs were spinning, a hundred ideas rushing through my head all at once.

"If their ultimate goal is to give her a leg-up, can't you just invite her to support him on his next tour? Or they could release a single together? I know their genres are different, but that would make it fresh and exciting, right?"

"Maybe, and in the meantime you and Ed can make a few public appearances to keep the story airtight."

I'd been rising to a high at the prospect of my suggestion solving the problem, but Helen's last sentence brought me crashing back down.

"Sorry, what?"

"If we're going with the story of you two being involved and that's why Ed can't be with Hattie, then we need to make that convincing."

"But Hattie doesn't want to be with him."

Helen sighed and pushed her hair back from her eyes in exasperation. Why was she annoyed again? I was offering solutions.

"Are you not listening?" she asked. "It's not about Hattie. It's about her team. She's clearly been given a task to flirt her way into his good graces so he'll boost her career. Ed has fucked that up, and if we try to hide what happened on Saturday, they might use the video to pull our strings. We need to get ahead of it while offering a sweetener to keep them happy: a feature, a tour, whatever. Claiming that his messages were misinterpreted will be far more convincing if he's in a committed relationship."

"Or he looks like a cheat."

Helen quirked an eyebrow. "Please. I haven't spent years perfecting his image for nothing. The boy doesn't even swear. Nobody would believe he's a cheat. But playing around with multiple girls is a grey area: not definitively wrong, but not painting him in the best light, either. Just like his stunt in the bathroom."

Shrinking back into my seat, I lowered my eyes to my lap and began to rotate my ring around my finger. The last thing I needed when already battling with confusing feelings was to spend even more time around Ed. Especially if we had to pretend to be in love.

Thanks to my various fuck ups thus far, I was hardly in a position to argue with Helen. If I wanted to keep my job, I had to suck it up and get on with it. Maybe Ed and I needed to put some distance between us in private again. We'd be making up for it in public and I needed to find a way to separate fiction from reality.

"You okay?" Helen asked.

She was back to making notes, but her eyes flitted up to meet mine briefly.

"Yeah." I sighed. "Just can't decide if I'm hurt or pissed off. Either way, I'm fully on board with whatever approach we need to take."

Her lips pressed together. "I suggest the two of you hash it out quickly. The awards show next week would be the perfect opportunity to go public, and a relationship won't be convincing if it looks like you hate each other."

I forced a smile. "Well, you know what they say... There's a fine line between love and hate."

***

Thank you for reading :) xx

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Can you understand Ed's reaction? Is Soph going to forgive him that easily? 

Got some very fun chapters coming up. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them... :)