Page 86 of Total Creative Control
To his surprise, she frowned at that. “I really don’t want to lose him, Lewis. Yeah, theBow Streetrole is temporary, but there’ll be something else soon enough. We can keep him bouncing between projects till something longer-term comes up. Jenny’s on maternity leave from the start of December, and there are a couple of new projects in the pipeline for next year.” She met Lewis’s gaze. “If he goes to work on the US show, he’ll end up moving over there.”
Lewis felt suddenly very odd. Almost shaky, like his blood sugar had abruptly dropped. He set his hand on the back of his chair to steady himself. “Yeah,” he said, trying to sound calm. “You’re probably right.”
Thankfully, Toni didn’t seem to notice his odd little turn. She gave an airy wave of her hand. “Let’s just see how things go for the next couple of weeks,” she said as Lewis settled back in his chair. “Then I’ll sit Aaron down and have a proper chat with him about his future. Oh, and by the way”—she leaned forward and tapped her nails on his desk, her eyes gleaming with sudden amusement—“guess what gossip I heard last night that is completely and utterly unsurprising?”
“Astound me.”
“I seriously doubt you’ll be astounded. The lovely Milly has officially left Poor Geoff and is now shacked up with Charlie.”
“Quelle surprise.”
“It’s not exactly scoop of the year,” Toni admitted. “God knows why she and Charlie dragged it out so long. Poor Geoff. It was painfully obvious what was going on when we were at Safehaven.”
“I bet he didn’t give Geoff a second thought. Charlie’s a careless bastard. He screws people over—screws projects over—then buggers off back to his mansion and leaves everyone else to clear up his fucking mess.”
“Yup,” Toni said. “So let’s try to keep him sweet till we nail the deal.”
Lewis grunted.
Toni got to her feet. “I’d better be off. I’ve got a nine-thirty call. Do I take it you’ll be giving this evening’s festivities a miss?”
Lewis glanced at his screen again, where Aaron’s calendar was displayed.
“Actually, I thought I might come along for once.”
Toni gaped at him. “You?Coming to a fancy dress party? Youhatefancy dress.”
Lewis shrugged. “It’s been a while since we had an office party, and you always say I should make the effort.”
“I do,” Toni agreed. “So, what are you going as?”
“I haven’t decided,” he said. “I’ll have a look online. I’m sure I can get something sorted out.”
“For tonight? At this notice?” Toni replied. “Er—think again. You might want to come up with a plan B.”
* * *
Aggravatingly, Toni was right. Lewis spent half the morning trawling the internet for a fancy dress outfit he could bear to put on, but everything half-decent was either unavailable or couldn’t be delivered in time. He was considering getting on the phone to RPP’s off-site wardrobe department and begging them to lend him something when he had a flash of inspiration. At the wrap party for the first season ofLeeches,he’d been given one of Skye Jäger’s signature leather trenchcoats. Since Lewis, like Jay Warren who played Skye, was dark-haired, all he needed was black trousers, shirt and boots, a pair of sunglasses, and maybe some fake vampire teeth. It would be a decent workplace joke for him to go to the party as Skye. Plus, once he’d got rid of the teeth, he’d feel like he was dressed pretty normally.
Content with his new strategy, he spent the rest of the morning powering through his emails. At quarter to one, his phone alarm went off, and he stared at it for a moment.
He’d set the alarm up earlier when he’d been looking at Aaron’s diary.
“Lunch Tag”
Grinder at one p.m.
It would be ridiculous to go just because he knew Aaron would be there. But a small masochistic part of him wanted to see Aaron with Tag. Wanted to see for himself whether there was something going on between them. It was obvious Tag wanted there to be something going on, but when he’d seen them the other day in the office, Aaron had seemed… almost embarrassed by the attention Tag was giving him. Though perhaps that was just because Lewis had been watching. Aaron wasn’t the sort of guy who showed off like that. It was funny, really. Lewis had had a lot of boyfriends who’d set out to make him jealous by flirting with other guys, and he’d never given a damn. Had always found that sort of behaviour kind of absurd and off-putting.
But when he’d seen Aaron with Tag…
Fuck.
Yeah, he had been jealous, even though Aaron hadn’t even been playing along with the flirtation. And even though Lewis had no claim on him.
Lewis closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. This was getting ridiculous. He thought about Aaron all the fucking time. Couldn’t stop remembering what it had been like in bed with him. His kisses, his hands on Lewis’s body. Lewis’s hands on him. The feeling that they were sharing themselves in a way Lewis had never experienced before.
It turned out that Lewis’s great fear of losing Aaron as his assistant at work had been… well, missing the fucking point really. He didn’t actuallymiss the fact that Aaron was no longer organising his diary or sorting out his laptop cables or making sure he had everything he needed for his calls, even though he was obviously way better at all those things than anyone else. But right now, Lewis didn’t even care about any of those things.