Dumped, Actually(87)

‘Then what is it about?’

Erica ignores me, and slams on the brakes as the BMW comes to a large gate. This immediately starts to swing open, having detected Erica’s number plate.

‘Erica!’ I say in a sharp tone as we drive into a vast underground car park.

‘It doesn’t matter, Ollie. I’ve told you before, Benedict is my problem, not yours.’

In times past, I would have just meekly accepted this. I would have let Erica keep her secrets, and followed her into battle, hoping that she could see us through without my help.

Not now, though.

Not after everything I’ve been through.

If I’m going to go up to this meeting and fight for my livelihood, I want to know exactly what I’m up against. I want to know why I’m in this stupid situation in the first place, otherwise I won’t know how to get out.

In trying to understand why Sam dumped me, I learned that to find the right answers, you really need to know how to ask the right questions first. You have to know why, to know how, just like Troy the Elephant said.

And I’m not going to go a step further until I know why Benedict is doing this to us.

Erica slams the BMW into a parking space with her name written on a plaque on the wall in front of it. She turns the ignition off and goes to release her seatbelt. She can’t do this, however, because my hand is over the release button.

‘What are you doing?’ she shouts at me. ‘We have to get up there!’

‘Why, Erica?’ I say, staring at her. ‘Why is Benedict doing this?’

‘Oh fuck, Ollie! It doesn’t matter! Let me go!’

‘It matters to me!’ I exclaim, my voice strong and powerful. This scares me a little again, but I know I need to stick with it. It’s important I get the answers I need.

Erica is quite taken aback by this – not for the first time today. If I keep acting like this, I’m likely to give her neck ache. But she can see the determination in my eyes, and slumps in her seat. I’ve never seen Erica slump before. It’s a very odd thing to witness.

‘When Benedict bought me out, I thought it was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me,’ she explains. ‘I was suddenly rich, successful and on the board of a powerful company.’ She smiles ruefully. ‘I let it go to my head a bit. Benedict was all smiles and compliments back then, of course. I thought it was because he valued me as a business partner.’ Erica shakes her head. ‘I was very stupid for thinking that. What Benedict Montifore wanted was to get in my knickers.’

‘Oh, for the love of God,’ I say, everything falling into place.

‘He wined and dined me. He made me think he was genuinely interested in my ideas for the company going forward. He made me think he saw me as an equal, you know? Someone whose opinion he valued.’ Erica’s eyes turn flinty. ‘And then he tried to seduce me right up there’ – she points upwards – ‘on the boardroom table.’

‘Fucking hell.’

‘I wanted none of it, of course. Benedict was a man I wanted to do business with, not get into bed with. I tried to push him away . . . and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.’

‘God.’

‘I had to knee him in the groin to get away from him that night. If I hadn’t, or if he’d been a little less drunk . . .’

Erica tails off. She doesn’t need to go any further.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so instantly filled with rage in my life. ‘So, let me get this fucking right,’ I say to Erica in a flat voice. ‘This bastard is willing to destroy the lives of everyone at Actual Life, including mine, because you didn’t want to have sex with him.’

Erica nods. ‘That’s about the size of it.’ She then says something that absolutely makes my heart want to explode. ‘I’m so sorry, Ollie.’

This dumbfounds me. That Erica feels the need to apologise to me for something that the gold-plated arsehole has done is just so, so awful.

I take hold of Erica’s hand and shift in the seat to look her squarely in the eyes. ‘You have nothing to apologise for. Nothing at all.’

‘Thank you,’ she replies, squeezing my hand.

I squeeze it back. ‘Let’s go up there and ruin his fucking day, shall we?’ I suggest.

Erica smiles fiercely. That awful apologetic look on her face is thankfully gone. The real Erica is back, and I couldn’t be happier about that.


I’m not happy when we arrive on the twelfth floor of the building and are told by the ForeTech receptionist that I can’t go into the meeting.

‘Why not?’ I snap, giving him the stink eye.

‘The EGM is strictly for board members only,’ he tells me. ‘Mr Montifore was very specific about that.’

‘Yes, he bloody would be,’ Erica says, looking at the smoked-glass double doors in front of us with a grim expression on her face. We can just about see the outlines of several bodies in the boardroom beyond. Most are sitting down, but one is on his feet, gesticulating wildly.

‘But I have to be allowed in,’ I insist, leaning over the desk.

The receptionist – who certainly doesn’t need this kind of grief in his life – sits back in his chair. ‘I will call security if you don’t settle down, sir,’ he tells me, hand straying to the telephone on his desk.