CLAUDIA
I didn’t have my usual get-up-and-go today. My fingers were struggling to achieve anything near their usual pitter-patter speed, and had been petering out into far too frequent pauses. I kept finding myself just staring into the middle of the office. It wasn’t like I hadn’t made an attempt at cheering myself up this morning either. I’d poured myself into my current fave suit – a charcoal pinstripe pencil skirt, teamed with that gorgeous peplum (I loved that word) jacket that cinched in my waist and then flared out in pleats. It was a sort of modern Edwardian number I liked to think. All the accent on the rounded buttocks. But it wasn’t working today. I still felt rubbish and I kept shuffling in my seat trying to get comfortable. I was itchy down there. Yuck.
I refused to be ill. Other people may get colds and flu and whatever else and retreat to bed, buried in sodden tissues. But not me. If a tickle dared to form in my throat, I just slugged back some Jägermeister and got on with it. I was sure that self-pity simply made things worse, and good health simply relied on having the right attitude and the appropriate liquor. But this was different. This was all wrong. Whatever this was, it was giving the old Jägermeister the fingers and burying in further. A dull ache that had been niggling inside since before Ed got back hadn’t subsided either, and I couldn’t bear to think about what was happening to my thirty-quid underwear. Whatever it was wasn’t shifting with Persil alone.
Anyway back to the office. At some point I had kind of given up on trying to concentrate and was standing at my window, gazing over Canary Wharf, when a voice at the door startled me.
‘Claudia?’ It was John Tightpants, or John Morgan, Head of Marketing, as he was known to everyone who wasn’t me (and Sam, and Mara, and Kate – oh and of course that time I was at the pub when I told almost every person I met that night about him).
‘Sorry, is this a good time?’ he asked.
‘Yes, it’s fine, John, have a seat.’ I crossed the room to join him. I wanted to say no, John, it isn’t all right at all. But I didn’t. I can’t say that to the head of marketing, can I?
He sat down and patted the vacant spot on the sofa. I pretended not to notice and sat down in a seat adjacent to him. I asked him what I could do for him.
He sat there, knees apart, his groin straining for attention in those irresistibly tight pants beneath his trousers. Behind his back, people around the office (mostly women) call him Daniel Craig. But, just quietly, I think he’s actually more handsome than Mr Bond: his face kinder, his lips more generous. He is, in fact, the best-looking man in the building with a panting following from women and men of all ages, and as he bulged in front of me this morning, I tried very hard to push away the memories of the incredible sex I’d had with him. Because we can’t be together – I will never let that happen.
‘I’ve had a look at your shortlist for the assistant-marketing-director role.’ John smiled confidently at me, his eyes twinkling. He, of course, being so confident, had been ignoring the fact that I’d been avoiding him for a month, and at every meeting he still managed to talk shop and scream sex with his eyes.
I took the offered sheaves of A4, the five excellent CVs of two men and three women who’d applied for the role, and flicked through them briefly.
‘So these are the ones you’d like to have back in for a second interview?’ I said, risking a quick glance at his face.
‘I think so, the very top five you had on your preference list. You have great judgement, Claudia.’
No, I haven’t, I’d thought then. It wasn’t good judgement to get over-excited at Hadyn’s leaving do and go home with him. It wasn’t good judgement at all. The sex was amazing, incandescent, but so stupid. Worse than the sex, I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind, which makes me feel exposed somehow. And it was against my rules to screw men on the same or higher management level as me. That was an absolute no-go. I was happy to turn on the charm to help me get up the ladder, but no one was going to say I slept my way to the top!
I wished he’d stop looking at me like that. Like he was sure there would be a repeat performance some day.
‘Well then, I’ll get Susie to get them back in,’ I’d said brightly, standing up as if I was in a huge hurry.
John stood too.
‘Right. Good,’ he said.
He paused, and honestly it felt like he was trying to twinkle his way inside me.
‘By the way, Susie’s found me a very good PA too. Very professional,’ he said.
‘Excellent.’ I opened the door for him and stood back to let him out. ‘I’m giving Susie more reign to recruit on her own without me looking over her shoulder, so your PA wasn’t under my radar. I hope she works out,’ I said.
‘I’m sure she will,’ John said, and slowly walked past me to the door. ‘See you soon then.’
He was gone. I leant against the door. I’d held my breath in an effort not to smell him as he walked past me but it was no use. His scent lingered on in my office for the rest of the day, teasing me.