Better Together Page 13

  She logged off and decided to go down to the basement and look for Kyle. Only two of the older staff were present in the post room.

  “Everyone’s gone for lunch,” one of the men told her, wiping the sweat from his face. “Your Kyle went with them.”

  Tallulah heaved a sigh. At least he was coming to work. He wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere. She knew how ridiculous the thought was, but she still couldn’t help worrying. Hopefully he’ll come home tonight. I really need to talk to him.

  She headed out to a café and ate her soup and bread alone, sitting at a sidewalk table. It was still oppressively hot, and she picked up an ice cream cone to eat on the way back to the office. Licking the last of the cream from the cone, she sat down at her desk. The connecting door was open, and Aiden was back at work.

  He glanced up. “You should have brought me one.”

  “Sorry.”

  There was no sign of Sasha, and Tallulah put her out of her mind as she concentrated on her work.

  At four-thirty Aiden left. He stopped in her office on the way. “I’ve got a few things I need to do. And something’s come up tonight, so I won’t be able to stay. You could go early if you like.”

  Tallulah couldn’t look at him. “I’ll get through some of the files. Get it out of the way. I’m interested anyway.”

  Aiden hovered over her desk, and she finally looked up. He stared down at her. “I’m sorry to mess you about like this, but it’s only tonight.”

  He left Tallulah staring after him. What’s he mean by that? Mess me about at work? Or just mess with me? She wasn’t going to agonise over it. She’d seen too many women, including her mother, waste their lives trying to comprehend the incomprehensible working of a man’s mind. She sealed her disappointment away in a corner of her brain. There would be time to examine it later, when the sharp immediacy had worn off, and in the meantime, she’d go through the files she’d extracted earlier. She wanted to know if the first one had been an outlier.

  At six thirty, she went out and bought a sandwich before returning to her desk. What she was working on was much more interesting than most of the work she did, and it was certainly focussing her mind. She had an amusing thought that maybe she should become a PI rather than a graphic artist. She smiled as she opened the file again.

  ~ ~ ~

  Aiden sat across the table from Sasha, listening to her explain how she’d made a mistake. A month earlier, it would have mattered to him. Now he didn’t care. He’d rather be analysing accounts sheets with Tallulah.

  Sasha wore a beautifully cut, navy silk dress that clung to her breasts and swirled around her knees. The jewellery she wore was tasteful, and individual; she wore a leather thong around her neck with a small heart pendant on it. She was beautiful, and he thought how lucky he’d been that she was interested in him. Sasha was exactly his type. Ambitious, glossy, charming; just what he had thought he wanted. He knew he should be thrilled. He wasn’t. He was uncomfortable and wondered how he could stop her embarrassing them both.

  “You must see, Aiden,” she said. “I’m thirty-one now. If I want children, it has to be soon.

  He nodded, not really paying attention to what she was saying. “I never realised you wanted children.”

  “I can’t leave the decision any longer. And you’re thirty-two,” she added. “It’s the right age to think about settling down.” She propped her elbows on the table and leaned towards him, her subtle perfume drifting across. The neckline of her dress revealed a hint of cleavage. He didn’t feel even slightly tempted to look.

  “You want children, don’t you?”

  Aiden shrugged. “Maybe. But not yet.”

  “Don’t you see how selfish you’re being?” She picked up her wine glass and swirled the contents. “It’s different for men. If you decide in ten years that the time is right, then it’ll be too late for me.”

  “Sasha . . .” Guilt made his stomach churn. He wished the waiter would hurry up and bring their food. Sasha had dumped him, so why, he asked himself, should he be the one to feel bad. For a very short while, he’d been devastated, but he’d recovered much more quickly than he’d thought possible.

  “What?” Her voice broke into his musings, and he realised he’d let his voice trail off.

  “You should find someone else,” he said. “Someone who’s ready to settle down. Someone who deserves you. I don’t. You told me that. It’s true.”

  The waiter arrived with their main courses. Some sort of salad for her and a large steak for him. He wondered what Tallulah was eating. Had she stayed late to work? Was she still there? He glanced at his watch. It was eight thirty, so probably not.

  He pulled his thoughts back to the present.

  “What are you doing in London, anyway?” he asked her. “You said something about work?”

  “I’ve been seconded to a firm here for six months,” she said. “Longer if I want. It’s a sister firm of the one I work for.”

  “A promotion?”

  “Yes. Sideways and a step up. So, I can stay here as long as you’re here.”

  Aiden pushed his steak around his plate. The conversation was more difficult than he thought it would be. He realised how shallow it made him appear, the fact that he’d got over her in such a short time.

  “Sasha, I don’t know what I want at the moment. I don’t know whether I’ll ever want children. You were right to break up with me, and you should do what you need to do.”

  She smiled at him in a slow sultry way, and he closed his eyes.

  “If you insist,” she said. “But I know what I want. I want you back.”

  At the end of the meal, Aiden called a taxi to take her to her hotel.

  “I can stay with you,” she said. “Just because I’m looking around doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.” She peered up at him through her long silky eyelashes. “With benefits.”

  “I’ve got to go back to work,” he said. “You’ve no idea the state the company’s in.”

  Sasha was a professional, and she looked disappointed, but nodded.

  He waited until the taxi had disappeared before turning towards Liverpool Street. He’d just pick up a couple of files. He could read them before he went to bed. At least then, he wouldn’t feel that he’d told a lie to Sasha. Guilt had him striding up the stairs with a brief nod at the security guard in the foyer.

  Light spilled from his office when he opened the door. Surely Tallulah isn’t still working. It was almost ten o’clock.

  Chapter 15

  Tallulah hadn’t wanted to go home. Once Aiden had left, she knew the evening would pass very slowly, and she didn’t want to spend it thinking about him and Sasha. That would just be pathetic. She considered calling Zoe, or maybe finding out if one of her housemates wanted to do something that evening, but in the end, she couldn’t be bothered. The files were stacked on her desk, and she was curious to see if the numbers in the next one had been manipulated in the same way as the numbers in the one she’d looked at the night before.

  She started to methodically go through the papers.

  Again, there was a difference between the equipment on the order form and the equipment that had been delivered to the construction site. She made copious notes on her laptop. At nine thirty, she’d written a breakdown of the anomalous finances. This has to be deliberate, she thought. No one makes this sort of mistake. Not consistently.

  Sitting back in her chair, she stretched her arms above her head and yawned. She hadn’t meant to stay so long, and now she couldn’t be bothered to move. It was time she went home, but the effort involved kept her in her seat. Her head started to throb as she thought about who might have been taking the company’s money and why.

  The sound of footsteps approaching pulled her out of her musings, and she pushed herself to her f
eet, feeling a little nervous. Who’s still in the building at this time of the night? The place was locked up, and there were two security guards on duty, so it wasn’t as if she was in danger. Still, she waited until the steps slowed outside her office door. Maybe it’s one of the guards doing a check on the building.

  Aiden pushed the door open and walked in. “Why are you still here?”

  “I forgot the time.” She let out a huge breath of relief. “I got absorbed, and then I couldn’t be bothered to move. I was just thinking it was time to leave.”

  “It’s nearly ten o’clock. Have you eaten?”

  “I had a sandwich. What about you?”

  “I’ve been out to dinner.”

  “So why are you back here?” she asked.

  “I came to pick up a couple of files.” He avoided her eyes. “Actually, I needed to get rid of my dinner guest, so I put her in a taxi, and I’m hiding out here.”

  Tallulah stared at him.

  “I don’t think I’ll bother with the files. I’ll take you home.”

  “I was going to walk,” she said.

  “I’ll walk with you for the exercise.”

  Tallulah shook her head. “It’s an hour’s walk, and I—”

  “All the more reason I should go with you. I don’t want you by yourself in this part of the city at this time of the night.”

  Tallulah rolled her eyes at him. “I’ve been doing it for years.”

  “That’s different,” he said. “I didn’t know. Now I do. I’d worry.”

  Tallulah wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “Aiden, I need to tell you that I’m not going to have an affair with you while you’re engaged. It’s not the sort of thing—”

  “I never asked you to.” He pushed a strand of hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “You don’t need to worry about Sasha. She’s the past, and anyway, we weren’t ever engaged.”

  “She’s so beautiful.”

  “Yeah, but we didn’t want the same things. Come on.” He took her hand. “Let me walk with you.”

  “Okay.” She puzzled over whether it was nice to have someone worried about her, or whether she just felt crowded. At the moment, his concern gave her a warm feeling. She’d have to see how long it lasted. And a walk would give her time to think about what he was doing with her and Sasha. She could ask what had happened between them.

  Aiden held her hand as they walked through the city. The streets of the business district were deserted at night, and they passed few other people.

  “Where did you go to dinner?” she asked.

  “A small bistro about fifteen minutes from the office,” he said. “The food was good. We’ll have to try it together.”

  We? When did we become we? Tallulah shook her head.

  “I went with Sasha,” he said. As if she’d asked.

  Tallulah supposed that if there had still been anything between them still, he wouldn’t have sent her home while he headed back to the office.

  “She wanted to try again.”

  “And will you?”

  “I don’t think so.” His hand tightened on hers. “There was nothing there. No attraction, no interest. It was awful. All I wanted was to get away.”

  “Mmm.”

  “I felt guilty.” He looked down and met her eyes. “She left me, and I was broken up about it. For less than two weeks. That makes me shallow.”

  “How long were you together?”

  “Almost three years.”

  It sounded like a long time to Tallulah. “Shallow?”

  “It makes me look bad, doesn’t it? I do wonder if we just drifted along through habit. We met the same people, worked the same hours. I don’t think we ever really talked properly. I didn’t know what she meant when she said that. She was right though.”

  “She’s very attractive,” Tallulah said. If she spent a hundred years grooming herself, and squandered a fortune on designer clothes, she’d never look that polished.

  “She suddenly wanted to get married. She said she wanted children, but she’d never been interested before. One night, with no discussion, she gave me an ultimatum. I just don’t understand what was going through her head.”

  “Why is she in London?” Tallulah couldn’t help asking.

  “She made it plain she’s here for me,” Aiden said. “She’s got a promotion with a secondment to London, but she told me she wanted me back.”

  “Oh.” If Sasha’s his normal type, then what on earth is he doing with me? She frowned up at him.

  “I feel like a bastard. Love can be a bitch.”

  “She did dump you,” Tallulah said.

  “She did.” Aiden draped his arm over her shoulder. “But three years? And now I feel like she’s a stranger.”

  They turned along Pentonville Road towards Tallulah’s street.

  Maybe Sasha isn’t Aiden’s type at all. Tallulah changed the subject. “I’ve got an idea.” She needed to think before any more personal talk. “About the accounts.”

  “What?”

  “There must have been some communication about the orders. Could you ask the IT department to extract all the emails sent from the accounts department? There might be a clue in there as to who was involved.”

  “It’ll be a lot of work, trolling through that many emails,” he said. “I’m inclined to call in an external auditing company. I think we’ve enough evidence to justify it.”

  “Yeah, but will they find the culprits?” Tallulah had the sense that she was solving a puzzle; the same determination that made her finish a crossword and feel like a failure if it wasn’t completed drove her on.

  Aiden shrugged. “It’ll put a stop to anyone stealing anything else.”

  He halted, and Tallulah realised they’d reached her building. “I really want to get to the bottom of this,” she said. “I know just how a bloodhound feels when it catches a scent. Come on, Aiden? Just a couple more days?”

  He dropped her hand and rubbed his head. “I suppose it can’t hurt.”

  “Great. We’ll solve this.” She smiled at him. “Are you going to walk back?”

  “I’ll get a taxi,” he said. “Are you going to offer me a coffee first?”

  Tallulah chewed on her lip. There was Sasha to consider, and she wasn’t sure if Kyle would be in, and whether she hoped he would or wouldn’t be.

  “Okay, but if my brother’s at home, he might be asleep. We’ll have to be quiet.”

  She led him up to her third-floor room and opened the door. He paused behind her, his head turning as he studied the room. Compared to his rented luxury apartment, she supposed it was a bit basic, but that was his problem. Hers was Kyle. The sofa was empty, and there was no sign that he’d ever been there. His sleeping bag was neatly folded at one end of the sofa, but Tallulah had done that herself. His rucksack sat next to the table. Where the hell is he now?

  She sighed heavily. “What would you like? I’ve got tea, herbal tea, or I could make coffee.”

  “Coffee?” He followed her over to the small cupboard which held the basics of coffee and tea. Food and so on, she kept in the shared kitchen, but that was one floor down, so she had the small fridge with tea and coffee in her room. She filled the kettle from the water fountain in the corner and spooned the ground coffee into the cafetière. “Sit down.”

  He dropped his jacket on the cushions and hovered behind her as she waited for the kettle to boil. Her shoulders twitched with awareness as she made the coffee, and she carried the cups over to the sofa with a feeling of relief. She sat down at one end, putting her cup on the floor and handing the other to him.

  He looked round, eyes bright with curiosity. “Interesting place. You share it with your brother?”

  “Not normally.
He’s having a bit of a teenage crisis,” she said. “He’s staying while he sorts himself out. I hope he’ll go back to his foster parents eventually. He should get as much education as he can.”

  “Is that what you did?” Aiden prowled over to the window to look down on the street. He glanced at the table top.

  “It’s what I’m still doing,” Tallulah said. “I’ve one more year at college. I’m trying to decide if I should take a year out and do one of the intern programmes, or just do my finals and then look for work experience.”

  Aiden leafed through the piles of paper on the table. “Did you do these?” He held up a pen-and-ink drawing of a monster-sized cat and an armour-clad superhero.

  “Yes. I’m working on a graphic novel with a friend. She came up with the story, and I’m doing the art.”

  “I like it.”

  “I’m going to exhibit some of that at a comic art festival this summer. That’s why I’ve got them out.” She sat back in the corner of the sofa, trying to hide her discomfort. She didn’t really like people looking at her drawings until they were finished.

  He put the drawing down and strolled over to the screen that held her sleeping area. A futon bed and a wardrobe were hidden behind the screen, and he peered round it before coming back to the sofa.

  Thank goodness I made the bed this morning. She glanced sideways at him as he sat next to her.

  “I like your room,” he said. “It has character. Like you.”

  “Where do you live when you’re in New York?” she asked.

  “I’ve a loft apartment. Two bedrooms, big open-plan living space. It overlooks the East River, and although it’s on the 22nd floor, I can still hear traffic. Police sirens, taxi horns, music from car stereos. All night sometimes.” He grinned at her. “I love it.”