Page 78 of The Refusal

“You can always say ‘no comment,’” Julie chips in.

“I could do the interviews with you, if you like? A buffer is often helpful when things are hot like this,” Carly adds, nodding and smiling.

“Oh, that sounds ideal,” I say, rubbing sweaty palms down my thighs and blowing out a long breath. Either something good will come of this or it’ll be suicide. They must think I’m an idiot.

Julie peers down at her pad. “Janus did say he’d pay whatever costs were necessary …”

Carly starts putting away her papers in her bag, and suddenly everything’s agreed. I should be feeling a lot calmer, but somehow I’m not.

42

Jo

Kate stirs her coffee, lifts it up to her lips, and takes a sip, blue eyes locked on me over the rim.

“So, when did you last hear from him?” she says.

Slumped in my chair, I stare at her glossy blonde hair and her turned-down eyebrows. I want to swing by Janus’s office and kick him in the ass, but my chest has a huge hole in it that even coding can’t fill. The press release has been out for six days and no more pictures or speculative articles have appeared; everything has died down. Janus was probably right. I probably panicked. Ugh.

Two requests have come in for interviews, both of which legitimately appear to be about the business. One is from a tech magazine which I should be excited about because they don’t interview just anybody, but part of me is slightly resentful all this came about because of gossip, not because of my own expertise. But this is not the time to be sitting on some highfalutin principles; this is a business opportunity and I need to take it. I stare out at the rain pouring down outside; a woman dodges a puddle, umbrella held out stiff and taut. Where is the spring sunshine?

“Almost a week now,” I say.

She grins at me. “If you could see your face right now, you look like you’ve lost your puppy.”

I scowl at her and she breaks into a laugh.

“I am fed up with watching old TV series and eating takeout. All this stupid nonsense. I liked my life before.” The whine in my voice makes me wince.

“Admit it: You miss him.”

“Of courseI miss him,” I say, burying my mouth in my coffee cup. Why is that so hard to acknowledge?

“Are you still doing security for him?”

Oh, God. Sometimes Kate’s ability to go straight at your deepest fears is a pain in the ass, but it probably makes her an outstanding doctor.

“Ugh. Kate. I’ve got no idea how long that’ll continue. I’m fully expecting him to fire me.”

She shakes her head at me. “That must be unlikely, surely?”

I shrug.

She raises an eyebrow at me. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know, the radio silence is difficult to explain.” I squint at her, biting my lip and staring out the window again, hoping for the distraction of a wet chihuahua or someone getting covered in spray. “I guess he was serious when he said this can’t go on.”

Kate tucks a blonde strand behind her ear, eyes following mine to the sidewalk. “Why don’t you call him?”

My eyes dart back to her face. “And saywhat, exactly? You think I should apologize?”

“Would that be so bad?” she says, voice soft like I’m a recalcitrant patient who doesn’t like injections.

“I don’t know what to think,” I growl. “He didn’t think my point of view was valid and basically blew his top.”

“Maybe he was as panicked as you were?”

My breath exits so fast it comes out as a snort. “I highly doubt it. He deals with this sort of stuff all the time. Manages his dates in the most convenient way possible for him. Does he evencare? I mean he’s got a full-time professional PR person to deal with the women he goes out with for fuck’s sake. Who does that?”

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