Chapter 15
“Miss Wolfe, your eleven o’clock interview is here,” the receptionist said, popping her head into the office.
With her eyes focused on a magazine layout, Ava responded sharply, “Remind me, Sally. Who is it again?”
“Fran Valerie. She applied for Mr. Dorne’s position.” The receptionist entered the office and placed a résumé beside Ava. “She has ten years’ experience working beside Lance Henn at Hope Publications and has an extensive copywriting background.”
“How old is she?”
“Did you have a chance to read her résumé? Normally, Elias would’ve looked after this . . .” She trailed off when Ava locked a hardened gaze on her.
“No, Sally, I haven’t had time to read résumés,” Ava snapped. “It’s your job to manage the hiring process. I thought you were capable to doing it. But if you cannot complete a simple task, I will choose someone else.”
Elias’s absence in the office had not only left a gaping hole in workload but also in Ava’s frame of mind. Over the last three weeks, she found herself surrendering to the job completely, dedicating long hours at the office, submitting magazines to print, writing emails, or taking conference calls, often staying until midnight.
The nagging headaches and sickness in her stomach were signs to slow down. But she couldn’t. In truth, she feared coming home to an empty house, because worst of all, she was alone. Work was all she had left.
The receptionist cleared her throat and retreated to the door. “I’ll bring Fran in right away, ma’am.”
A middle-aged woman carrying a briefcase entered the office and stretched an arm across Ava’s desk. “Hi, I’m Fran. Thank you for seeing me this morning.”
“Please take a seat.”
Fran obeyed, sitting opposite her. There was a day where Elias had sat in that very spot, his wide, cobalt-blue eyes piercing her cold exterior. Ava tried hard to push those memories deeper into her subconscious. She picked up Fran’s résumé and skimmed over it. “Has Sally explained the role to you?” she asked.
“Yes, I practically memorised the job description,” Fran replied proudly, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “I understand it’s a communications management position involving copywriting and sales and marketing.”
“That’s correct. This is a newly created position, broken down from a much larger one. The role involves working long hours and you must be on call twenty-four/seven. You’ll be provided with a new mobile phone upon employment.”
Fran’s eyebrows quivered for a fraction of a second. “Oh, that wasn’t mentioned in the advertisement.”
“Will working long hours be a problem for you?” Ava questioned. “The cogs of this company don’t stop turning after five p.m., Miss Valerie. There are events to plan and meetings to organise with salesmen in other states. I need someone who is committed and dedicated to working hard.” She glanced over the woman’s résumé again. “Do you have school-aged children?”
“No, I have two adult boys.”
“The reason I ask is because the hours required for this position may not suit candidates with young families.”
Fran shifted in her chair and Ava could tell by her constant blinking and thinned lips that the woman had already made her decision. To make the interview—and her time—worth it, she asked Fran a few more questions before ending the interview. “Thank you for coming in, Miss Valerie. I’ll be in touch.”
The women shook hands and Fran exited the office, softly closing the door behind her. Waiting a beat, Ava reached into the drawer for her silver flask, unscrewing it hastily. The warming taste of bourbon scalded her throat as it slipped down. There was always alcohol stored in her office for entertaining guests, but Ava found herself reaching for the bottle ever since Elias left. After interviewing other candidates, Ava realised that Elias could never be replaced, and it scared her to think how reliant she’d become on him. His face haunted her thoughts day and night. She could end her suffering by a simple phone call, yet the memory of the diamond ring on Daisy’s finger made her reconsider. She wasn’t ready to confront her feelings.
Ava swallowed the entire flask and stood up, swaying side to side. She made it to her door, planting two palms against the timber to stabilize herself. She was tipsy, teetering on the edge of drunk. She needed something in her belly before her next meeting. When Ava opened the door, the entire office stilled. She felt the heat of one hundred eyes track her down the hallway towards the kitchen. When Ava turned the corner, she wasn’t yet freed from judgement, hearing the hushed chatter of women.
“Something must’ve gone down between them,” a voice said. “They spent a lot of time together at seminars and business trips. I don’t think it’s normal for colleagues to work so closely together like that. A man and a woman cannot spend all that time together without something happening.”
“I wonder if that’s why he left.” Another voice joined the conversation. “She probably made a move on him. Ava does have a certain reputation. Even I knew that before I started working here.”
“I heard a rumour she slept with Elias after the fundraiser. They were both plastered.”
“Where did you hear that?”
Ava stepped into the kitchen and casually opened the fridge for a bottle of water. “Oh, don’t stop on account of me, ladies,” she said, turning around to face them. The three women froze at the sight of her, glancing at each other anxiously. She recognised them as Ellen, Stacey, and Emma, the gossiping copywriters in the office.
“We were just talking about—” Ellen began.
Ava shot her hand up, silencing her. “I don’t want to hear it. This office has a zero policy on workplace bullying and gossip. I want to see all three of you in my office right now.”
Ava marched down the hall with a mixture of satisfaction and pride. She didn’t need a man to feel complete. She had built her career from the ground up, stepping over women like Ellen, Stacey, and Emma to get where she was today. Men were distractions and warm bodies to sleep next to. What she had with Elias was just a fling and Ava would move on like she did with all of her lovers. The old Ava was back.
~ ~ ~
Elias couldn’t work with clouded focus. He stared at the paragraph typed on the screen in front of him and hit the backspace bar until it was gone. His writing was shit, his eyes hurt, and his heart ached. He missed her. There was no denying it. Ava was the first thing he thought about when he woke up and the last thing before he went to sleep. He felt guilty because his beautiful blonde fiancée should be the one in his thoughts, not his ex-boss.
Their wedding was real and happening. The date was set for six months’ time, the venue booked, and Daisy had spent the weekend with her parents searching for a dress. By all accounts, Elias should be excited about his upcoming nuptials, but all he could think about was her. There was no way in Hell Daisy would’ve agreed to send an invitation to Ava, so Elias pushed himself to make contact with her. Would she want to talk to him? Had she moved on with someone else? The notion of Ava being with another man forged a beast inside him. She was never his to begin with, but they had fun together, and she made him feel alive for the first time in years.
His relationship with Daisy was safe so when he left Blue Tail Media, he searched for a job that was also safe. He was headhunted by agencies and publishers until he accepted a position as a senior copywriter at First Words Creative Agency. The money wasn’t as good as Blue Tail, but the job was walking distance from his apartment and he managed his own team of writers. He was moving up in the world without the woman he wanted by his side.
He rewrote his paragraph and finished the website copy before lunch. His team of three writers had already departed for the Thai restaurant down the road. Even with an invitation, Elias didn’t feel like socialising, spending half the day constructing and deconstructing texts to Ava. What would he say to her? Three weeks had passed without a flicker of communication from both parties. She didn’t have any social media, so he couldn’t stalk her. The only way to contact Ava was the old-fashioned way—by phone or email.
He opened the drawer for his mobile and called her. His heart beat in time with the dial tone, begging for her to answer. When it rang out, Elias tossed his phone into the drawer and cursed under his breath. He was overreacting. Ava was probably in meetings or at lunch. He knew from experience that she rarely left her phone unattended.
Elias was prepared to ring again when an email pinged at the bottom of his computer screen. It was from Mike Cordon at The Coastal Times. Intrigued and a little perturbed that the journo knew his direct email, Elias opened the link in the email body. It took him to the digital version of the newspaper, opened to the societal section.
Featured on a two-page spread was a collection of grainy images of Elias and a faceless woman emerging from the garden shed in Long River Valley. He bit down the urge to vomit as he studied the photographs, wondering how he didn’t see the photographer. Luckily, the rain was too heavy and thick for a clear photo of Ava’s face.
A surge of anger replaced the feeling of sickness inside him. Elias pounced off his chair to search for Mike’s business card in his briefcase. When he found it, his fingers couldn’t keep up as he dialled the journalist’s number. He picked up after two rings.
“Hello.”
“Where the fuck did you get those photographs?”
“Ah, Mr. Dorne. I wondered when I’ll hear from you again.”
“Where did you get those photographs?” Elias repeated, his hand curling into a fist.
“I can’t tell you that, Mr. Dorne. They were sent to me from an anonymous source. They were left on my desk in an envelope yesterday.”
“You printed them without permission!”
“I don’t respond well to shouting,” Mike said coolly. “I’m a journalist, not a priest. I don’t need your permission before I print images. Who’s the woman, anyway? She’s definitely not Daisy. She’s blonde.”
“No comment.”
“Come on, don’t play the innocent now. Someone caught you in the middle of forbidden tryst. What exactly were you doing in that shed?”
“You must contact me if you receive any more photographs.” Elias’s heart was beating so fast that he thought it would burst from of his chest. He couldn’t remember any press or paparazzi being at the hotel. The images were taken on a mobile phone, so someone had betrayed him.
“Who’s the woman, Mr. Dorne?” Mike questioned. “If you tell me who she is, I won’t publish any more photos as they come to me.”
“There’s more?”
“My source told me so. Look, there’s only a small pool of possible suspects and I’m very good at my job. I know you were there for business with Ava Wolfe. Is she the mysterious woman?” His laugh echoed down the line. “But I gotta tell you I was shocked to hear you two went your separate ways after such a public coupling. Why is that?”
“None of your business. Look, I’m at work—”
“Mr. Dorne, you can cooperate, or you can let me do my job. I will find out either way who your mistress is. I deserve a thank you, in fact. I heard you’re getting married. Wouldn’t it be such a shame if these images got into Daisy’s inbox?”
“If they do, I will fucking sue you.”
“Calm down. Our readership is too small for the paper to get into Daisy’s hands, unless she has friends up here. What’s that infamous saying? Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”
Elias saw his writers come off the lift. He had to end this conversation before too much was overheard. “You told me you had photographic evidence of Ava and me at the fundraiser. Did you really?”
“Are you confirming my suspicions?”
“Tell me, Cordon.”
“I never reveal my sources. What I have now is much more damaging than a photo of you and Ava looking cosy.”
“What do you want from me?” Elias asked. “Money? Recognition? Or are you just another blood-sucking journalist?”
Silence hung heavy on Mike’s end before he finally spoke. “Have a good day, Elias. I will be in touch.”