Page 11 of Endgame

I am under no illusions. Ariella may not have said it, but the reason he decided to invest, trapping us all here in ourSingaporean purgatory, is because he has hopes with her. I would have laughed it off and labelled him deluded if I hadn’t seen the way she responded when he kissed her.

The forty-eight hours after Ariella found out that everything in Singapore wasn’t as it seemed, was hell. It shattered everything we’d worked and hoped for. I knew that rebuilding the love and trust we lost was going to be a battle, but what I didn’t expect was for Dominic to make his perfectly timed move in an attempt to blow up the tiny chance we had left. All I can remember is her not pushing him away. If Lara hadn’t held on tightly to my hand while she took the piss out of both of them, I don’t know what I would have done. Ariella may have sent him home immediately afterwards, but the damage had already been done. After witnessing their kiss, I spent the rest of the night with a bottle of rum until a comforting, hazy blur settled in. I vaguely remember Jasper helping me to bed after that.

Things moved quickly from that point on. The day after, Ariella in her capacity as COO told us that Dominic was going to buy Ivory Bow, the company that we both work for. She then filled us in on what our options were as employees. I was ready to quit there and then, until Ariella then told us of her self-imposed demotion. She’d basically shackled herself to Ivory Bow and Singapore for the next two years in order to save our jobs. With that, the dream of returning home to London disappeared. I wasn’t leaving without her, so I found a way to get comfortable, doing her time with her. She also announced that Melissa, our previous owner, had agreed to be removed from her role. The week after that, we found out we were getting a new CEO. They’d be responsible for taking on a lot of the processes that Ariella was working on, putting new systems in place and ultimately finding a COO to replace Ariella. Within two weeks, the landscape of Ivory Bow had completely changed.

Melissa cut all ties to the business, although the team’s presence was still required at her wedding to ‘save face’. It also turned out that Ariella’s flat was owned by Melissa, which effectively forced her out of my building and into one of those impossible to secure, colonial black-and-white houses in the same residential community as, you guessed it, Dominic Miller. She didn’t even tell me she was moving. That same week, she cleared out her office to make way for the new CEO. My little Mason, creature of habit that she is, picked the furthest desk from everyone, wedged tightly in a corner. Lydia promptly followed, and set up her desk protectively in front of Ariella’s.

Interviews are still ongoing for the right CEO candidate, so Ariella, Bryce and I are now steering the company. Since the launch, we’ve received an overwhelming amount of interest, and the three of us agreed that it was too much for one person to handle. With Dominic’s approval, I now have the arduous task of hiring two sales managers. One will be for Ariella’s more traditional industries and the other will focus on interest from new sectors – which is why I am sitting here on a Saturday afternoon looking at completed job applications to distract myself from the video that Dominic posted.

‘Pubic lice! Get me ice! Wait. Oooooh…I should be a poet!’

Ugh. Lara.

‘Why are you still here?’ I complain.

‘I’m homeless, you unsympathetic ogre,’ she moans from the sunlounger by my pool.

‘You’re not homeless. You have a perfectly good home in London and a business class ticket ready to deliver you to it.’

‘What? Go back to that prison? No thank you. I like it here.’

‘Prison?’

‘Ivory Bow UK was too restrictive and they underappreciated my efforts, so I have decided that my future lies elsewhere.’

‘Lara. The whole company knows you got sacked. It was the last thing Harrison did, quite ceremoniously, I might add, before Christopher bought him out.’

‘Exactly. Harrison fired me. Now that Christopher has taken over Ivory Bow, we don’t know what his position is, do we?’

‘I’m pretty sure you’re still unemployed.’

‘Well, if that’s your conclusion, that would make me homeless.’

‘You are not home—You know what, it doesn’t matter. Can’t you find a coven to take you in? Or maybe stay at Aari’s? I’m sure MsPat will let you in.’

‘No she won’t. I’ve tried. Besides, Ariella doesn’t have a pool any more. It’s much more fun here and someone has to keep an eye out for when you revert to type and drag some poor unsuspecting thing home. I want to be the first to tell Ariella.’ She pulls down her sunglasses and looks at me suspiciously. Lara Scott knows exactly how to push my buttons.

‘So what’s the plan? Lounge around until you’re booted out of the country? You’re going to have to return eventually.’

‘I am returning. Temporarily. I’m not missing Zachary’s wedding for anything. Speaking of which, are you still Aari’s plus one or did she get rid of you?’ Lara sniggers loudly.

I’d completely forgotten about Zachary’s wedding. We RSVPd a long time ago, when life was perfect.

‘I’m not sure I’m still invited.’

‘Doesn’t matter anyway. Dominic will just go with her if you’re not around.’

‘There is no way Ariella’s taking Dominic to the wedding,’ I state forcefully.

‘Bloody hell. Calm down. She’s in town for the wedding, he’ll be in town to meet Christopher, you’ll be six thousand miles away…’ Lara takes a long sip from her drink as she watches me from over the top of her sunglasses.

‘How on earth do you know all this?’ It can’t be true.

‘I still have access to my emails and Christopher’s diary – I guess no one told IT about my change in circumstances.’ She chortles. ‘There is a lot of Dominic activity that week. There are dinners, strategy meetings, golf…all pretty boring. There isn’t a strip club down in the diary as “community outreach” in sight. Harrison’s diary was much juicier.’

‘Dominic is not going to that wedding,’ I say to myself as I open a browser tab and start pulling up return flights to London.

‘He might. I’d take him. He’s hot in that classic alpha way. He’s steady, mature, loaded and he’s always there, ready to solve her problems. All you seem to do is create them.’

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