Fired by Her Fling Read online

  ‘What?’ Her utter disgust that Jez would lie like that couldn’t have been more clear, but Tristan seemed unmoved.

  ‘I’m never late and I’m practically teetotal!’ She flushed as she remembered the enormous glasses of wine he’d seen her drink the night before.

  Of course he didn’t believe her side of it; he’d met Louise last night.

  Damn it. If she hadn’t played that stupid pretend-to-be-someone-else game she wouldn’t be in this mess right now.

  ‘I know it looks bad right now, Tristan, but Jez is the liar here, not me.’

  ‘Really, Louise.’

  Her face flushed hot as he stared at her, his eyebrows raised in rebuke.

  She looked away, trying to get her thoughts straight.

  ‘You know what I think?’ he said, leaning in and reasserting eye contact with her. ‘I think you knew who I was all along last night and decided you’d play me then leave me hanging in the hope I’d be so pleased to see you the next day I’d take your side over Jez’s and you’d get the Breakfast Show you’ve always wanted.’

  She gripped the table in anger. ‘My God, who made you so paranoid?’

  Clearly this was entirely the wrong thing to say because the expression on his face became fierce enough to melt steel.

  ‘I’ve more reason to believe Jeremy’s version of events right now.’

  Her heart leapt in her chest and blood pounded in her head as she tried to get her next comeback straight through a fog of tiredness and tension. ‘So, by your logic, just because I wanted to sleep with you, I must have made up the accusation about Jez pestering me to have sex with him again?’

  There was a stunned silence as he looked at her, the corner of his mouth kicking up into a sardonic smile. ‘So you were already sleeping with him.’

  She frowned hard and shook her head in frustration, realising her slip-up. ‘Yes. Once. But it was a mistake. Clearly a huge one. He caught me at a weak moment and I regret it.’ She fisted her hands so hard her nails bit into her palms.

  ‘Because he still wouldn’t give you the Breakfast Show?’

  ‘No!’

  He held up a hand. ‘To be honest, Tallulah, the whole thing sounds like sour grapes to me.’ He tightened his arms across his broad chest. ‘You wanted the Breakfast Show and Jez wouldn’t give it to you, even after you slept with him, so you decided to try every trick in the book to get rid of him so you’d get a clear shot at it.’

  She could barely believe those words had just come out of his mouth. She’d thought he was a decent guy, but apparently she’d been very, very wrong about that.

  ‘You know what I think, Tristan?’ She could barely see straight, she was so offended. ‘I think your father sent his errand boy to do his dirty work and clear up the mess his buddy’s son made by brushing my concerns under the carpet. I never even had a chance to keep my job here because, unlike Jez, I’m not a friend of the family!’

  Tristan’s face was like stone, but she could see the anger flickering behind his eyes.

  ‘You’d better pack up your desk, Tallulah, because I’m taking Jez’s side on this one.’ His voice was calm and flat, but very determined.

  ‘What?’ The word came out in a rush of air.

  ‘You need me to spell it out for you?’ He leaned in, bracing both hands against the table, his brow furrowed and his eyes cold. ‘You’re fired.’

  FOUR

  Tristan stared out of the window after Tallulah walked out, feeling the anger slowly drain out of him. The look of disgust on her face when he’d lost his cool stayed with him like a burn mark on his vision and his stomach clenched with tension as he fought against a deep unease.

  He’d never lost his temper with an employee before, but she’d overstepped the mark when she called him paranoid then accused him of being an errand boy.

  As if.

  He singlehandedly kept the family business afloat these days. If it had been left to his missing in action father or useless brother the whole portfolio would have collapsed around their ears by now. Increasingly, as the years went by, the old man had stopped thinking with his business head and put all his energy into partying and keeping his kaleidoscope of a love life rotating. In fact, Tristan would go so far as to say he’d turned into a world expert on the pursuit of women.

  He remembered with a jolt of discomfort how his father had warned him about his relationship with Marcy at one point, suggesting he should ask her to marry him if he didn’t want to lose her. He’d been so outraged with the patronising meddling he hadn’t spoken to him for weeks. The old bugger had been right about her shaky commitment to him, though—just being with him hadn’t been enough for her; she’d wanted his soul too.

  And then Tallulah had swanned in today and chipped away at his already damaged dignity, making him react in an uncharacteristically rash manner.

  Why were women hell-bent on reducing him to a heap of rubble?

  There was a loud rap on the door and the Station Manager strolled in with a wide, confident smile on his pretty-boy face.

  ‘Tristan. I’m Jeremy Whatley-Hume—but call me Jez.’ He held out a hand, which Tristan took and shook, albeit diffidently. He didn’t like the guy on sight.

  ‘Thanks so much for coming in to sort out our little problem.’ Jez gave the last word a flippant slant, as if it hadn’t involved something as important as the altered trajectory of another person’s career.

  ‘We were meant to be meeting straight after your show finished, Jez,’ Tristan said bluntly, allowing the remnants of his ire from the confrontation with Lu to spill into the tenor of his voice.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Jez said, wafting a hand in Tristan’s direction and flopping down into the chair Tallulah had just vacated, propping his feet up on the table and reclining back, not appearing sorry in the least. ‘I had a last-minute meeting with an advertiser. Can’t say no to the moneymen, Tristan,’ he said, flashing what he clearly thought was a look of shrewd camaraderie, but actually made him seem more like a try-hard schoolboy.

  Tristan didn’t say anything; instead, he picked up his tablet and tapped some random nonsense into it, making Jez wait until he’d finished before they began the meeting.

  Jez fidgeted beside him, obviously not used to being kept waiting for anything. ‘So, she’s gone then,’ he blurted, unable to maintain the silence. ‘Did she give you much trouble?’ His tone was belligerently offhand, as if he hadn’t doubted for a second that she’d be fired and not him.

  Tristan’s skin prickled with annoyance. There was something inherently unpleasant about the guy.

  He didn’t look up from his tablet. ‘I’ve dealt with it. She’s clearing her desk.’

  Jez put his hands behind his head and stretched further back in his chair. If he got any more relaxed he’d be horizontal soon. ‘Cheers for sorting it so quickly,’ he said, yawning so wide Tristan could see his tonsils.

  He was a handsome man, Tristan reflected; he could see why women might want to sleep with him, but surely they found his overconfident yapping a turn-off?

  The thought of him and Tallulah together made his stomach roll unpleasantly.

  ‘While I’m here, I’ll take a look over the accounts,’ he said to the side of Jez’s head.

  The guy seemed to stiffen and swivelled back to face Tristan, pinning him with an affronted expression. ‘No need; they’re all in order,’ he drawled.

  The attempted brush-off made Tristan wonder what he was hiding. ‘I’ll need to use your office while I go over them,’ he said firmly, and was gratified to see a flash of annoyance on Jez’s face.

  Maybe it was childish, but he was enjoying seeing the guy shaken up.

  ‘Okay, then,’ Jez said, dropping his feet to the floor and standing up, apparently keen to be out of there now. ‘I’ll be o
ut for most of the day—business to attend to—so it’s all yours,’ he muttered, not giving Tristan time to respond before he strode out, slamming the door closed behind him.

  Tristan leaned back in his chair, a deep sense of foreboding invading his consciousness.

  Something felt very wrong here.

  * * *

  ‘You have to sue the arse off them!’

  Lula winced as Emily’s voice bellowed down the phone at her. After stumbling home in a daze, she was now curled up on her overstuffed red velvet sofa wearing her tracksuit bottoms and a Take That T-shirt that she’d had since the early nineties. An empty packet of biscuits and a cold, half-full coffee mug sat on the table in front of her.

  ‘It’s not my style, Em; I couldn’t take the stress of it. Anyway, I don’t have money to spare to hire a lawyer and I’d probably do my professional reputation more harm than good by dragging this thing through a court.’

  Emily snorted in disgust, but didn’t push it. Her friend knew how much she hated confrontation.

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ Emily asked more gently.

  ‘I’ve already been in touch with Scott Wendell. His long-standing job offer to present a show on his radio station in Melbourne is still open.’

  ‘What? You’d really leave me and move all the way to Australia?’

  Lula sighed, a thread of guilt tugging at her insides. ‘Not everything revolves around you, Em.’ She attempted to make a joke of it but it came out sounding more snippy than witty.

  ‘I know, but I’d miss you like crazy.’ Em’s voice was quieter now and, behind the exaggerated sulk, Lula detected a real twang of hurt.

  ‘I don’t want to go. I loved my job at Flash, but I have to be realistic. Even if by some miracle they gave me my show back, there’s no way I could ever work for Jez again.’ The thought of having to pander to him made her feel physically sick.

  ‘Surely there’s another station in London you could work for?’

  Lula twisted her ponytail around her hand then let it slide through her fingers, finding comfort in the silky strands brushing against her skin. It was a move she’d done in times of stress since she was a little girl, especially when her parents had been having one of their screaming rows. ‘I put my feelers out when things started getting sticky with Jez, but there’s nothing out there at the minute. Not unless I want to take a big pay cut and work the graveyard shift, which would be a huge step backwards, career-wise.’

  ‘Ugh! I can’t believe they’d just fire you like that. The world’s gone mad!’

  Lula listened to her friend chunter on about the injustice of the situation with the pain in her chest and throat getting harsher by the second.

  She hadn’t even told Emily the whole story yet. She was afraid she’d totally lose it and burst into tears if she so much as mentioned Tristan’s name. The fact he’d been so cold towards her had almost been worse than losing her job.

  She’d really liked him last night.

  So much so that she’d even entertained the notion that if she’d met him under different circumstances they could have made something of their connection. How unlucky was she to pull the one man she really needed to stay away from that night?

  When she thought about it, it wasn’t such a coincidence that they’d met, though. That pub was the closest one to the radio station, so of course they’d both naturally gravitated towards it. Her because it was her local from work and him because it made sense to stay close to where he was working the next day.

  What bloody bad luck, though.

  It had taken all her willpower to walk out of the station with her head held high and make it home without shedding the hot tears that burned at the back of her eyes. She knew that once she let the anger and panic get hold of her that would be it for the rest of the day—she’d be an emotional wreck. She’d wanted to get the practical stuff out of the way first so she could have a good old wallow without being disturbed.

  ‘Look, I’ve got to go,’ she told Emily, cutting her off mid-rant. She needed to get off the phone and finally let the growing hysteria free. ‘I’ve got a whole tub of ice cream to scoff and many more hours of daytime TV to glom.’ The effort to sound glib and in control almost made her choke. ‘I’ll speak to you tomorrow when I can formulate a coherent thought again, okay?’

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. ‘Okay, sweetie. You know where I am if you need me. I’ve got a couple of days off filming after tomorrow so I can come over in the blink of an eye and glom with you.’

  ‘Thanks, Em. I really appreciate you being here for me. You’re the only person I wanted to speak to, you know.’

  ‘I know.’ Emily did know. She’d been witness over the years to exactly how flaky Lula’s parents were. From experience, they both knew neither of them would have returned a phone message from Lula for days. They were always too busy with their new families to get involved in the life of the daughter they’d had together. Neither of them wanted to take responsibility for her any more.

  ‘I’ll call you soon,’ Lula said, keeping her voice as bouncy as she could manage.

  ‘You do that.’ Em’s tone was kind now, which somehow made things worse.

  Lula’s throat tightened even more. ‘Bye,’ she squeaked and ended the call, finally letting her bravado slip and the long-held-back tears slide down her face.

  * * *

  Four hours after he’d first sat down at Jez’s desk and begun to work his way through the files on his computer, Tristan knew why he’d been right to be worried about how the station was being run.

  It seemed Jez had been playing fast and loose with the expenses account. Not only that, but there appeared to be a freelancer on the books—who was collecting an unusually high regular wage—that no one in the station had ever heard of. After doing some more digging, Tristan came to the conclusion that Jez had been paying himself a double wage by syphoning off the ‘freelancer’s’ wage into his own account.

  When he eventually caught up with Jez and interrogated him about it all, it was clear from the man’s blustering anger that he realised he was busted. After playing the ‘I’ve been working my arse off here for pathetic wages’ card and bellowing the ‘This station is going to die a terrible death without me’ soliloquy, he finally gave Tristan enough air time to tell him he was fired.

  ‘Your father’s going to have something to say about this when he gets back,’ was Jez’s parting shot before he stormed out, leaving Tristan’s ears ringing with the sound of his histrionic ranting.

  It was the second time that day that Tristan had been accused of playing second fiddle to his father and his blood thumped in his veins as he waited for his annoyance to abate. He couldn’t believe his father had been so lax as to let someone like Jez have free rein with one of his businesses, even if he was the son of a friend. He’d be furious when he found out how much money Jez had been embezzling from him.

  Although maybe it served the fool right for not paying more attention to his business affairs.

  When Tristan finally felt calm enough, he called a meeting with the rest of the employees working at the station that day. They all filed into the conference room with pale faces, clearly expecting the firing spree to continue.

  ‘Jez has been relieved as Station Manager,’ he told them all once they’d taken their seats around the table.

  There was a tense silence as they waited for him to continue.

  He cleared his throat. He hadn’t made much of a plan other than to get rid of Jez as soon as possible, but it was clear he was going to have to step in as a caretaker manager until he could find someone to take over full-time.

  ‘I’m going to be here taking care of things until I can replace him so I’m going to need your cooperation,’ he said, moving his gaze over the assembly.

  The woma
n who had brought him the bacon sandwich that morning cleared her throat and raised a tentative hand.

  He nodded for her to ask her question.

  ‘Who’s going to take over the Breakfast Show?’

  ‘Er...’ Tristan searched around wildly, his whole body growing hot with discomfort. In his rush to get rid of the guy, it had slipped his mind that Jez was a presenter here as well. ‘Who would normally cover that show when he’s away?’

  The woman gave him a steady look. ‘Tallulah Lazenby. She’s the only one with enough experience to pick up such a tough show on short notice.’

  Every single person around the table nodded their agreement.

  ‘That’s going to be a bit tricky,’ Tristan said, smoothing an agitated hand over his hair. ‘Because she doesn’t work here any more.’

  There was a stony silence, during which Tristan wondered what he’d done to deserve such an abysmal day.

  The same woman spoke again, this time with a determined edge to her voice. ‘Look, I don’t know what Jez told you about Lula, but I can pretty much guarantee it was a pack of lies. She’s the hardest working, most dedicated, most professional DJ we have at Flash. She should have been presenting the Breakfast Show ages ago, but Jez and his ginormous ego couldn’t—or wouldn’t—give it up.’ Her face was flushed and she seemed to be trembling after her outburst, but she didn’t break eye contact.

  It was clear she meant every word and the fact the rest of the table was nodding along with her made him wonder whether he’d made a terrible mistake this morning firing Tallulah. Perhaps he’d let his humiliation at losing control of his actions get in the way of his usually dispassionate business thinking?

  The sinking feeling in his gut made him think it almost certainly had. How could she have got under his skin in such a short amount of time and caused him to act so out of character?