Chapter Six: Imogen, Present Day
"Will you please stop pacing? You're stressing me out."
"You're stressed?" I said to Leo, who lay on our sofa with his eyes shut, looking anything but stressed. "I'm sorry that my sex life, love life and work life hanging in the balance is an inconvenience to you."
Leo scoffed. "Yeah, because having a hot guy beg to take you on a date is a real nuisance."
I didn't rise to his sarcastic comment, knowing the bickering would go back and forth relentlessly if I pursued it. Leo had been a close friend for years—a partner in all senses of the word at various points during our lives. I'd kept him in the loop during my time in Greece, I'd cried on his shoulder when I got back from Greece, and now I moaned his ear off about the potential consequences of revisiting Greece.
Other friends might remind me of the hurt I'd suffered over the past few weeks, warning me away from entertaining Jason's offer of a date.
Not Leo.
"If it really was as good as you say, then surely you owe it to yourself to have this date?" he'd said as we discussed it over dinner.
"It's not a date. It's dinner to clear the air. And besides, he's my boss."
"He was your fuck buddy long before he was your boss, Midge. You need to get this out of your system. Even if nothing comes of it, then at least you've got closure."
Leo was right, but then he'd always had an infuriating knack for being logical in times of crisis. Nothing fazed him.
When I'd walked in on him with another guy, he'd just told me to either get in the bed or get out of the room.
When we'd failed a dance exam that we'd spent months training for, I'd holed myself up in my room. Leo had simply said we hadn't worked hard enough and that the better couple had won.
When he'd caught the girl he'd been seeing cosied up with one of our mutual friends on Instagram, he'd shrugged it off and said there was no point wasting his emotions on a person who had so little regard for them.
His even-headed approach to life's little dramas had inspired me over the years. It would be easy to take the stubborn path and refuse his advice. It would also be foolish.
And that's how I found myself pacing up and down our living room, having decided to meet Jason after all.
*
Jason had chosen an independent, family-run restaurant, hidden down a street I'd never heard of, in a part of London I'd never visited. It had no website, not even a Facebook page. The TripAdvisor reviews raved about the Greek food, though.
I wanted to avoid being the first to arrive, having to sit there and wait for him to grace me with his presence, as if to remind me that he was a busy man in real life who didn't have time for girls like me.
As it happened, Google Maps had my back. That little unknown street sent me on a wonderful tour of that unfamiliar part of London. I didn't even realise I'd been going in circles until a man stuck his head outside his shop and asked if I was okay. I'd walked past his door three times, apparently.
When I did manage to locate the restaurant, I was half an hour late. I expected Jason to have left. After all, he was busy. He had a company to run.
Yet my eyes landed on him the second I stepped through the door, his presence leaping out and capturing my attention before I'd even been shown to the table.
He sat in the corner, dressed in a pale blue shirt with chinos, and immediately rose from his chair as soon as he saw me.
For a brief moment, he wasn't my boss. He looked like Jason Walters. No tie. No jacket. No waistcoat. Just normal Jason Walters, and I could have cried with relief.
"I'm glad you came." His deep voice, all soft and smooth, triggered a flicker of heat between my thighs.
One large hand reached towards me, before quickly dropping back to his side, like he'd thought better of it. Mouth dry with nerves, I wet my lips and watched his eyes flick down to track the movement of my tongue.
I pulled out my chair and hooked my bag over the back of it. It gave me a tiny break from the weight of his intense stare, but then my gaze found its way back to him, like a metal snapping onto a magnet.
We sat down in sync with each other. Time to get this back on track before I got sucked under his spell again.
"I agree there are things we should discuss," I said. "And that's the only reason I'm here."
Jason blinked, his eyes widening with what looked suspiciously like hurt. But he'd already mugged me off once and I refused to fall for it again.
"Midge, please..."
"Don't call me that." My words rushed out with a ferocity that chilled even me, despite them coming from my own mouth.
He sighed and leaned back in his chair, casting his gaze across the restaurant. Released from his intense eyes, the ones that held a summer of memories for me, I allowed myself the opportunity to scan his body again, noticing how his biceps strained against the fabric of his shirt. The top few buttons were undone and revealed a tiny strip of his bronzed chest. I wanted to touch it, to press my own against it, like I'd done so many times before.
"I understand why you're upset with me, Imogen."
"Do you?"
"Of course. You put your trust in me and I let you down."
I pressed my lips together to prevent myself from lashing out, counting to five in my head before speaking.
"Let me down? You think I'm upset because you let me down? Don't flatter yourself. I've been let down plenty of times before you, Jason. Or whatever the fuck your real name is. How do I know what else you've lied about?"
His lips parted, then flattened into a thin line. The penny had dropped. Of course I was upset that he'd let me down, but I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that. I had trusted him. I'd given him so many opportunities to keep our fling as a summer romance, and he'd insisted we continue it in London. So naturally I'd got my hopes up. Why wouldn't I when I'd given him an easy way out and he hadn't taken it?
Without a word, Jason reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Leaving already? I hadn't expected the date to be smooth sailing, but I didn't think he'd walk out so early on.
After plucking out a pale pink card, he tossed it across the table towards me. I caught it before it skidded off the edge, turning it over to see a photo of his face on the left-hand side and his name on the right.
WALTERS
MR JASON STAFFORD
I stole a peek at his date of birth, too, just in case he'd lied about that.
He hadn't.
Sliding it back towards him, I folded my arms and narrowed my eyes, ready to launch into a defence should he challenge me.
He didn't.
"Stafford is your middle name?"
He shook his head. "Not exactly. My parents married after I was born. Stafford is my mother's maiden name. It should be double-barrelled, but for most of my life I've just gone by Walters. Then I found myself caught up in a bit of a...scandal...in my previous job, and I stopped being Jason Walters and started being Stafford. Nobody knows me as Jason Walters nowadays. Nobody apart from you."
Up until that, I'd been poised to ask about the scandal, but his confession that only I knew his real name distracted me, sending my thoughts soaring in a different direction.
And then a comment Maya had made sprung to the forefront of my mind.
"Nobody calls you Jason, either."
"Apart from Ian."
I cocked an eyebrow. "And why is that?"
"Because I consider him a friend rather than just a colleague."
"That's not what I meant, and you know it."
Jason averted his eyes downwards, showing weakness for the first time since we'd reconnected. Instead of answering, he suggested we order. Too many questions still needed addressing, so I agreed.
"I had a bad experience in my previous job," Jason said after the waiter left, volunteering the information without me asking. "I was young—seventeen or eighteen—and I got involved with the boss."
"The boss?"
"Yes, and not just my boss. The boss of the whole company. It was only sex. There was nothing romantic about it, but I think that made it worse."
"Made what worse?"
"Well, firstly I was much younger than her. And secondly, she was married. Being a horny teenager, I continued to pursue her and then couldn't help bragging about it. She ended up being fired. And divorced."
Jason delivered the story without emotion, as if he were talking about someone else and not a deeply personal matter from his own past.
"She was fired?"
Divorced I could understand; she'd cheated on her husband. But fired?
He scrubbed a palm over the light stubble lining his jaw. "Technically she resigned, but it was clear she didn't have a choice. It brought the company into disrepute. The affair was bad, but having an affair with a teenager when she held a position of authority just sealed the deal."
"And what happened to you?"
"Nothing."
Again, he delivered the answer in a matter-of-fact fashion, as though detached from the situation. Perhaps he was. After all, it happened several years ago, and he appeared to have made changes to his life since then.
"So why did you swap your name?"
"Because although I didn't receive any disciplinary action for it, the damage to my reputation had a huge impact. I left that job and struggled to find another in the same industry. She had a lot of connections and was powerful. That's what had attracted me to her. She blamed me because I was the one who'd pursued it—"
I snorted at that. "Right. So, she was incapable of making the decision to cheat on her husband herself?"
He shrugged. "Either way, finding a job was tough. I was seen as unreliable, uncommitted, either so career-hungry that I'd sleep my way to the top, or so unambitious that I'd rather sleep with colleagues than concentrate on my work."
"So, you changed your name and started your own company?"
"Yes."
"You know what the ironic thing is? If you'd have known I was your employee, I'd have understood why you didn't get in touch after Greece. You wouldn't want to make the same mistake and this time be in the other pair of shoes—"
"It's not to do with making a mistake, Imogen—"
"It doesn't matter, Jason. Until this week, you didn't know I'd be working for you. You just chose to forget about me and not get in touch."
"I didn't forget about you."
Just chose not to send a message, then. At least not until three weeks later, anyway. I didn't say that, though. I wouldn't want to risk sounding petty—or worse, sounding as if I still pined for him.
"You could have been more honest about your intentions, that's all," I said instead.
He arched an eyebrow, his forearms resting on the table as he leaned across to bring our faces closer together.
"You want to talk about honesty? You got this job based on a degree that you don't even have."
I held his gaze, still refusing to show weakness, but he'd backed me into a corner. What could I say? Sacrifice my pride to appeal to his compassionate side? I knew he had one, although you wouldn't be blamed for not believing it to look at him now—face like stone, eyes giving nothing away.
"If you're going to fire me, just do it, Jason."
He sighed and shook his head to himself, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. With his eyes fixed across the restaurant, I took a moment to compose myself. Up until that point, I'd felt like the victim, as though I'd been conned at worst, or mugged off at best.
Jason's mistakes in this did not outweigh my own, though. I could accuse him of being a fraud all I liked—tricking me into thinking we had something that would last—but he was no more of a fraud than me.
Lying on my CV. Lying in my interview. So desperate for a job after blowing my student loan that I hadn't worried about the consequences of my deceit catching up with me.
"When we were sitting by the pool and you told me about dropping out of uni, I didn't judge you. In fact, I admired you. And this puts me in a difficult position."
"I know it does. But I didn't want tonight to be about work. I wanted it to be about us."
"We can postpone the university conversation until Monday morning, but it will be a conversation, Imogen. I can't ignore it. I've turned a blind eye up to now because I was still coming to terms with having you around, but I need to be fair."
"I'd only expect you to be fair."
"And don't, for one second, think that this evening is going to have an impact on that conversation. I have to separate it and treat you like any other member of staff."
"Of course."
I reached for the wine bottle to top up my glass, needing the liquid courage. Foolishly, I'd expected to have the upper hand. The tables had well and truly turned.
"So aside from the lies that we're both guilty of, is there anything else on your mind? Anything that will help to clear the air?" he asked.
His detached tone had returned, as if he knew we needed to have the conversation but the reality of us being boss and employee still hung over us.
"I just want to know why."
Although a vague statement, it didn't require any further clarification. Jason considered his answer for a long while, which didn't settle my nerves or my anger.
"I thought I made it clear that I'd have been happy carrying on or calling it quits," I continued when he still didn't speak. "I only wanted honesty from you. If you'd had no intention of carrying on, then you should have just told me, and I'd have been fine."
"Imogen, I didn't intend to lead you on if that's how you feel. I meant every word I said to you in Greece. I wanted to carry on."
"So, why didn't you?"
The strength in my voice wavered. I felt it in my throat, a small lump threatening to expose my vulnerability. I hoped he hadn't noticed. How would I even know if he was telling the truth now? It could be another web of lies, designed to placate me so that I wouldn't ruffle any feathers at work. Or cause another scandal.
"Can I ask you a question first?"
I frowned, not impressed that he seemed to be avoiding the question. If answering his own sped this up, though, then I was happy to comply.
"Go ahead."
"Where do you see us going from here?"
Whatever I'd been expecting, it hadn't been that. Was it an attempt to swerve the conversation in a different direction? A distraction? A time-wasting tactic? A trick?
"I think there's too much between us for you and me to be anything more than boss and employee," I said, opting for the safest response. "Why does that matter?"
"Because I need to know how you feel before I tell you the truth."
***
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