Why would she have…
“She told me you were leaving me for her.” My voice is really jumping around now. “She said you’d still want to visit the baby.” I give a sudden sob.
“Leaving you? Becky, come here.” Luke wraps his arms tightly around me, and all of a sudden I’m burying my head in his chest, tears streaming into his shirt. “I love you,” he says firmly. “I’m never leaving you. Or little Birkin.”
How did he…
Oh. He must have found my list of names.
“It’s Armageddon now,” I correct him, through my snuffles. “Or Pomegranate. That’s what I told your mother.”
“Excellent. I hope she passed out.”
“Nearly.” I try to smile, but I can’t. It’s all still too raw. I’ve had weeks and weeks of worrying and imagining and fearing the worst. I can’t just snap my fingers and act normal again.
“I thought I was going to be a single mother.” I gulp. “I thought you loved her. I didn’t know why you were being so weird. It’s been awful. If you had problems at work you should have told me.”
“I know I should.” He’s silent for a bit, resting his chin on my head. “To be honest, Becky…it’s been nice to have somewhere to escape from it all.”
I lift my head up and study Luke. He looks grim. And tired. It suddenly hits me. He looks really, really tired.
“What’s been going on?” I wipe my face. “What’s the trouble? You have to tell me now.”
“Arcodas,” he says shortly.
“But I thought it was all going so well,” I say, confused. “I thought that’s why you were opening the new offices.”
“I wish I’d never fucking pitched for them.” He sounds so bleak, I feel a thud of dread.
“Luke…what’s happened?” I say nervously. “Let’s sit down.” I make my way into Fabia’s sitting room and sink into a squashy suede sofa.
“A load of things,” says Luke, following me. He raises his eyebrows briefly at the B and L cushions, then sits down, resting his head in his hands. “You don’t want to know.”
“I do. I want to know everything. From the start.”
“It’s been a nightmare.” He turns his face toward me. “The main nightmare being a harassment claim.”
“Harassment?” I gape at him.
“Sally-Ann Davies. Remember her?”
“Of course.” I nod. “What happened?”
Sally-Ann has worked for the company ever since I’ve known Luke. She’s quite reserved, but really sweet and reliable.
“There were…incidents between her and Iain. She says he came on to her in an aggressive, unpleasant manner. She made a complaint. Which he laughed off.”
“God, how awful,” I breathe. “So…what did you…”
“I believe Sally-Ann one hundred percent.” Luke sounds totally resolute.
I’m silent. My mind has flashed back to the manila file from Dave Sharpness’s office. The dossier he collected on Iain. All those hushed-up cases.
Should I tell Luke?
No. Not unless I have to. It would raise so many awkward questions, and he might get angry when he hears what I did. Anyway, I shredded everything in the file, so I haven’t even got the evidence anymore.
“Yes,” I say slowly. “I’d believe her too. So…what did Iain say?”
“Nothing that I’d care to repeat.” Luke’s face is tight. “He accused her of inventing the story to get a promotion. His opinion of women is pretty unspeakable.”
I frown, trying to think back over the past weeks. “Was that when you couldn’t come to my prenatal class?”
“That was the start of it, yes.” He massages his brow. “Becky, I couldn’t tell you. Believe me, I wanted to, but I knew how upset you’d get. And Venetia had just told me you needed to stay calm.”
Stay calm. Yup, that plan really worked.
“So what happened?”
“Sally-Ann was incredibly generous-spirited about it. She said she wouldn’t take it any further if she could be moved to another account. Which obviously we did. But the whole company was upset by it.” He sighs. “To be honest, Arcodas have been difficult to work with, right from the start.”
“Iain’s awful, isn’t he?” I say bluntly.
“It’s not just him.” Luke shakes his head. “The whole ethos. They’re bullies, all of them.” A shadow passes over his face. “And now…it’s happened again.”
“With Sally-Ann?”
Luke shakes his head. “Amy Hill, one of our assistants, was reduced to tears by another of the Arcodas team. He got violently angry and she said she felt physically threatened.”
“You’re kidding.”
“They walk round my company like they bloody own it.” He exhales sharply, as though trying to keep a grip on himself. “I called a meeting and requested that the member of Arcodas staff in question apologize to Amy.”
“And did he?”
“No.” Luke’s face twists. “He wants her fired.”
“Fired?” I’m aghast.
“His story is, she’s incompetent, and if she could get the job done he wouldn’t need to get tough. Meanwhile, all my staff are up in arms. They’re writing me e-mails of protest, refusing to touch the Arcodas account, threatening to resign….” Luke thrusts his hands through his hair, looking totally beleaguered. “Like I said, it’s a nightmare.”