Page 74 of Tainted Love

He holds open his office door and I step into the hallway. Adjusting his tie, which was already perfectly central, he leads me down the corridor. We walk side by side, my knuckles grazing but not holding hands in a way that feels unnatural these days.

‘We’re here,’ he says, sounding almost triumphant. I look around the end of the corridor and see nothing, other than a corner desk in the open-plan area opposite the frosted glass office spaces. A short metal nameplate withMelaniein black letters rests on one side of the L-shape desk. A similar tag withLayllarests on top of a computer screen on the other.

Smiling at Melanie and Laylla, I whisper, ‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’

He turns me away from Melanie and Laylla to face the door of a frosted glass corner office. I run my eyes over the door and the glass. It takes seconds for my focus to fall on the black letters.

SCARLETT HEATH GENERAL COUNSEL

‘I’m getting a corner office? When did you do this?’

He holds open the door to let me into the ridiculously large office, not as big as his own but certainly not small. He lets the door close behind us as I take in my large chrome and glass desk in the window, two flat-screen televisions on the walls, a round table with four leather chairs in one corner and a black two-seater sofa with a matching footstool in the other.

‘Like it?’ he asks.

‘Like it? Are you kidding?’

He gestures to the black leather desk chair. ‘Take a seat.’

I do as instructed and spin in my chair to face a bunch of white roses in the window. ‘Are these for me?’

‘Who else would they be for? Look in the drawer.’

I open the top drawer of a three-drawer chest to one side of the desk and find a rectangular black box.

‘Oh my gosh, a Mont Blanc?’

‘I’m not having my wife use biros.’

‘I don’t use biros; I have a nice pen.’

‘Well, if you don’t want it…’

‘Shh, of course I want it, I love it. This is insane though, Gregory; these pens cost a fortune.’

‘A perk of being a billionaire,’ he says, so incredibly arrogantly that I laugh.

‘You had this done when we were away?’

He nods and walks to the window. ‘You can always see home, too.’

Standing beside him, I look across the city to the Shard, then I lean up and kiss his cheek. ‘I love it.’

* * *

Stuart has a desk in an open-plan techy space on the twenty-third floor. I’ve had no reason to visit this floor before. Everything feels grey, full of wires and metal, sort of futuristic. There are tens, if not hundreds of computers and machines. The floor is mostly filled with men, heads down, most wearing headphones as they play with source code on various programs or work with small tools on what look like computer and mobile accessories.

I make my way through the computer stations, some machines stacked two or three high, all displaying different screens, and head to the bottom left corner of the floor where Gregory told me to look. Stuart’s ears are covered in large, padded black headphones. His eyes are focused intently on a black screen covered in some kind of green code. With his black hair, square jaw and black shirt, I think of Neo andThe Matrix. The One.

He catches me in his peripheral vision, taking a second to blink and actually look up.Those eyes.The same unsettling feeling washes over me as the first time I met him. His eyes are beautiful. Deep brown and too familiar for a boy I’ve met only twice. They’re alluring, magnetic even, yet I don’t want to look at them. I rub my arm as goosebumps form on my skin.

‘Scarlett, hi,’ Stuart says with that strong Zimbabwean accent.

‘Stuart, do you have a moment to chat aboutBlack Diamonds?’

‘Sure,’ he says, freeing himself of his headphones and standing from his desk, tapping keys on his keyboard and sending his screen to black. ‘There’s a coffee area over there.’ He points back towards the lift.

I take a seat on a stool set at a high white bench in the small kitchenette area. ‘How are you settling in?’