Page 2 of Never Gonna Happen

And actually, when it became apparent that the Dubai trip was never going to be a one-off, it had worked out OK. Mark wasn’t needy or demanding; there were no cheeky office winks or sleazy texts. They simply devised a series of subtle signals that indicated he was free if Emily wanted to stay at his flat. Sometimes she went, sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes she went but they didn’t even have sex; they just sat and drank wine and watched a film or chatted like two people who enjoyed one another’s company. It had been two years of no-strings fun between two consenting adults who knew the score.

Which was why Emily had been surprised at how shaken and upset she’d been when Mark had delivered his soap-opera speech about giving his marriage another chance. Not that she’d let him see her distress at the time; a deadpan face is an essential weapon in the personal assistant’s armoury. But before she’d had time to think through her response, she’d had a call from one of her flatmates saying her room was on fire, which had taken the evening in an unexpectedly stressful direction. Other than a bunch of company flowers delivered to her parents’ house, Emily hadn’t heard from Mark since. Sometimes the silence speaks volumes, she thought, yanking off the rubber gloves and taking Rudy the ancient family hound upstairs to help her look for a new job.

Chapter Three

‘It’s good to see you, Emily,’ said Mark with an attempt at a warm smile. His right foot was crossed over his left knee, jiggling frantically. Emily could tell he was nervous, which was no big surprise. She’d asked for a meeting with him and the head of HR at Thompson & Delaney, so he was probably wondering what kind of hell-hath-no-fury truth bomb she was about to drop.

‘How ARE you?’ asked Laura from HR, making zero effort to conceal how little she gave a shit. Laura had never liked Emily, who prevented her from gaining unfettered access to Mark to offload her daily list of petty grievances.

‘I’m fine.’

‘I’m so sorry about the fire,’ said Laura, in a tone that suggested she’d be more sorry if she broke a nail or lost a fake eyelash. ‘That must have been such a shock.’

‘It was,’ replied Emily. ‘But nobody was hurt, which is the main thing.’ The corners of Mark’s mouth twitched in response to Emily’s dead-eyed platitude, but it washed over Laura.

‘Well, quite. Awful to lose all your belongings though. I hope there was nothing precious.’

Emily briefly considered making some random things up. Her childhood rocking horse, a collection of PVC gimp masks, a signed picture of Justin Bieber. Mark would know she was taking the piss, but perhaps now wasn’t the time. ‘Not really, mostly just clothes and stuff. A couple of gifts with sentimental value.’

She saw Mark’s eyes flicker in her direction as he registered what she was referring to. For her twenty-ninth birthday in March he’d bought her a beautiful notebook from Smythson of Bond Street. It was covered with the softest sea-green leather, monogrammed on the cover with ‘EW’ in gold lettering. Later she’d sneaked a look online and seen that it would have cost Mark nearly £200 – an insane amount for a notebook, but still the loveliest gift she’d ever received. Emily had kept it in the box for seven months, unable to bring herself to use it. Now it was a pile of ashes.

‘So are you ready to return to work?’ asked Laura, clearly keen to move things along so she could get back to her day job of making staff feel like they were only one social media infraction away from her office guillotine. ‘I assume that’s why you’ve asked for this meeting?’

‘Yes,’ said Emily, sitting up straight and putting her clammy hands on her knees, ‘but only to work my notice. I have a new job.’

Laura froze and Mark held Emily’s gaze for a long moment, the jiggling foot slowing to a stop. ‘Oh,’ said Laura, glancing at Mark and clearing her throat, clearly waiting for him to say something.

‘I’m really sorry to hear that,’ said Mark quietly, looking like he genuinely meant it.

‘I think the fire and everything just gave me a chance to re-evaluate,’ said Emily, keeping her voice strong and her head high. ‘You know, think about what’s next for me.’

‘Mmm,’ said Laura tightly. ‘But sorry, why did that require a meeting? Usually you would just write a resignation letter.’

Emily took a deep breath, letting the lie take shape in the back of her throat. ‘Because I’m going to work for one of your competitors. I can’t say which one at this stage, but I thought I should let you know.’

Mark’s eyes bored into Emily’s, but she didn’t look away. She knew exactly what he was thinking – is she lying to secure a quick exit, or actually that petty and vengeful? She watched the cogs chunter in his brain as he arrived at the inevitable truth, his face softening into an expression that looked almost like admiration.

Laura shuffled some papers. ‘Well, I’m not really sure your contract . . .’

‘I’ve checked,’ said Emily, with the calm certainty of someone who did attention to detail for a living. ‘There are no restrictive covenants or non-compete clauses.’

A glimmer of a smile played across Mark’s lips. ‘Emily, could you step outside for a few minutes? This is obviously something Laura and I need to discuss. We won’t keep you waiting long.’

Emily nodded and stood up, willing her knees not to knock together. She closed his door quietly and sat in the familiar chair behind her desk, taking a bottle of water from her handbag and downing half of it in one go. A few of her colleagues spotted her through the glass wall and waved, so she lifted the handset on the phone and swiftly dialled 123 for the speaking clock. As a softly spoken Scottish man informed her that the time was four-fourteen and twenty seconds, her friend Kirsten from the Finance team swerved in her direction on the way to the kitchen. Emily pointed at the phone and rolled her eyes, holding up her hand to indicate she’d come and talk to her in five minutes.

Emily knew this approach was risky; it wouldn’t take much for Mark to find out that her competitor job offer was a lie, and she needed a good reference. But she was also sure of two things – firstly that she definitely couldn’t go back to working for him now her compassionate leave was up, and secondly that he would almost certainly let her go without any fuss. Mark liked things clean and simple.

By the time Laura opened Mark’s office door and nodded at her to come back in, the time was four twenty-seven exactly. Emily took a deep breath, smoothed down her skirt, and went back into the fray.

‘Wait, are you saying you’re on full pay for a month, but you don’t have to go to work?’ Shona’s eyes boggled as she took another sip of wine. They were in a pub a few hundred metres from their shared flat in Stratford, all oxblood leather booths and oversized Edison light bulbs. Emily liked it because it was quiet and classy and not in Westfield Shopping Centre. There was something deeply unsettling about having a relaxed drink with friends while people nearby had their eyebrows threaded.

Emily nodded. There had been very little resistance in the end, although Laura’s mouth had puckered itself into the tightest of cat’s bums as she supervised Emily’s desk clearance. There wasn’t much; just the usual things every good PA keeps to hand – tissues, deodorant, hairbrush, sewing kit, tampons, spare pair of tights, plasters, various hangover cures and painkillers, a compact umbrella. She extracted the nude heels that lived under her desk, kept permanently at work so she didn’t have to commute in them, then shovelled everything into a Tesco bag for life.

Within five minutes she was following Laura down the back stairs, avoiding the open-plan office so there wouldn’t be any drama. That had been the deal – just leave quietly, no drama. Laura had given her a look of purest loathing in reception, then said, ‘I’ll email you details of what Mark agreed,’ before stalking off, her heels clacking on the tiled floor. What Mark agreed, not Laura. Like Emily gave a shit either way.

She was sure that some people would have done a full Bridget Jones, bad-mouthing Mark then sashaying out of the office to Aretha Franklin like an absolute sass queen. But Emily wasn’t the type, and Mark really didn’t deserve it. She’d got what she came for, and the look on Mark’s face had told her that he understood why she needed to go. Maybe he’d get in touch later, maybe he wouldn’t. For now, Emily needed to leave him behind and get on with the rest of her life.

‘They’ve already got somebody there who can take my job, so they didn’t see the point in keeping me around,’ she told Shona. This was the second big fat lie she’d told today, but it kept things simple. Shona and Eddie shared her flat, along with Lucy of the burning hair straighteners, but they’d never known much about Mark. They all got on fine as flatmates and often went out or watched a movie together, but it wasn’t like they were best mates who disclosed all their secrets over late-night cocktails. They knew Emily had been seeing someone, but didn’t press for details.