Mistletoe’s Kiss

22. Chapter 22

22

Chapter 22

“Very few of us are what we seem.”

The Man in the Mist by Agatha Christie

A few minutes ticked by as they sat in silence, waiting for Sara to arrive. Maddy could feel the build of tension in the tiny room. Nolan’s thigh was once again glued to hers, his body angled towards her as if magnetised. She kept her eyes on the door ignoring the lingering gaze on her mouth and the knee that had started to bounce as if nervous. Without any conscious thought her hand strayed and gently pressed down on Nolan’s leg and then refused to move, lured by the heat she could feel radiating through the soft fabric. His fingers brushed against her hand causing a delicious shiver to run along her spine and she turned to him, trembling. Just as he leant towards her Maddy became aware of sharp footsteps heading towards the nook and startled, pulling away from Nolan who looked slightly dazed. She watched as he readjusted the crotch of his trousers before sitting forward, elbows on his knees, as if to focus fully on Sara who was now entering the room.

Maddy tried to think bland thoughts, anything to reduce the throbbing ache at her core. She shot Nolan a sneaky look and was relieved to see that his leg was no longer jiggling and his detective persona had rebooted, although his razor-sharp cheeks were still looking a little flushed.

Maddy cleared her throat awkwardly and turned to Sara, “Was Jude okay? She was pretty upset when she left. I feel so bad for asking her those questions, she’s been through a lot.”

Sara smiled, “She was a bit teary but she’s settled on the sofa again with Moira, Priesh and a packet of hobnobs, she’ll be fine. She told me what was going on with Dan this morning on the phone and to be honest I didn’t think she’d show up to the party. I bet she wishes she hadn’t now.”

“Yeah, the whole thing leaves a very sour taste in the mouth. I can’t believe Dan tricked Jude into boosting my sales on release. It’s so awful and I feel responsible somehow.”

Sara nodded, “I know, I wish she’d contacted me earlier but it’s in no way your fault Maddy.”

“Did you know what Dan was doing, Sara?” Nolan asked, his deep voice laced with suspicion.

Maddy could see Sara’s body visibly stiffen with shock.

“No, I had nothing to do with conning Jude. The New Moon is one of my favourite vendors, I always go out of my way to schedule events there and I’m a customer. Maddy and I regularly meet up at the cafe for coffee and to scope out the book competition.” She looked beseechingly at Maddy. “You believe me, don’t you? I would never do anything like that!”

“What about murder? Would you do anything like that?” Nolan replied harshly.

Maddy wasn’t sure if he truly believed Sara was capable of murdering Dan or if he was testing the waters to see if she’d reveal something they didn’t already know. She’d used the technique many times in her novels and was once again reminded of the similarities between Nolan and her ruthless amateur sleuth Felix. It was a good tactic but Maddy really wasn’t sure how she felt about him using it on her friend.

“No, of course, I wouldn’t murder Dan! It wasn’t like that!” Sara shouted at Nolan.

“Explain…” he said coldly.

“I was mad tonight, about Jude. She’s just the latest in a very long string of women that Dan lied to, manipulated and discarded,” she sniffed. “He almost attacked Maddy too, I’ve tried my best to keep him away from her but he was so much worse this evening, nasty and brimming with violence.”

“You said he was bad at the office, I’ve obviously had my own experiences with him but I didn’t know about what went on at Cupid,” Maddy said swallowing hard.

Sara brushed a tear from her cheek, “I thought I was the only one, the only one that he wanted at first. When I joined as an intern I was so excited, it was such a cool place to work. Author meetings every day, expensive lunches, and parties, I was so happy! I met Dan in my second week and I was instantly attracted to him. You know I’ve always liked older men…gotta love that Daddy energy,” she laughed bitterly.

“Yep, I know you’re partial to silver foxes Sara,” Maddy smirked.

Sara continued, “Dan was in great shape, he dressed well and took care of his appearance. He flirted with me relentlessly at the office and when he asked me for my number I didn’t see anything wrong with it. We met up for dinner regularly over the course of a month and I totally fell under his spell. He showered me with gifts, bought me flowers and even promised me the next publicity position to come up at Cupid. He said he wanted to spend every minute of the day with me.”

“I thought I was falling in love, that was until I met his wife at one of our launch parties. I didn’t know he was married and stupidly hadn’t asked, I just assumed he was single as he pursued me so persistently. I confronted him and he admitted that he’d been married to her for fifteen years but said that the love had fizzled out, leaving him lonely and depressed.”

“Did you believe him?” Nolan asked, looking sceptical.

Sara nodded her head, “I was such an idiot. His wife is just so horribly bland. I thought, yeah, I can see it, she let herself go and he’s not interested anymore. Do you know what he was interested in? Besides getting into my pants, her money, that’s why they were still married after fifteen years.”

Maddy was stunned, she’d had no inkling that anything had gone on between Sara and Dan. He’d always seemed to ignore her in meetings and didn’t seem to notice just how attractive she was. Maybe that should have been a red flag, Sara was just his type, young, ambitious and beautiful, he shouldn’t have been able to keep his hands off her.

“What did you do Sara? You didn’t carry on the affair did you?” Maddy said with a look of pure disgust on her face. “Please tell me you didn’t sleep with him!”

“Fuck! That would be a lie. We carried on seeing each other for a few months. I did indeed get the next permanent position that came up and Dan unsurprisingly dropped me as soon as the replacement intern arrived. I watched as he did exactly the same spiel with her, attention, gifts, wining and dining. At about the third intern in I realised that I most definitely hadn’t been the first to fall for his lies and he had quite the rolling system going for getting his wrinkly dick wet.”

Maggie felt the need to gag, first at the thought of a pretty young woman like Sara having sex with a pervert like Dan and then at the thought of his wrinkly dick. She shuddered, “I thought you were disgusted by Dan, that’s what you said to me earlier, after dinner.”

“I was disgusted, he was a vile man,” Sara continued, her voice heavy with regret. “But I only discovered that after I slept with him. I’ve spent the last three years warning girls, stepping in when he cornered someone in the office. I make sure the interns know he’s married.”

Maddy nodded. “I saw enough earlier. He didn’t seem to care about anything but himself.”

“Exactly,” Sara said, anger flashing in her eyes. “He wasn’t above blackmail to get what he wanted. I lost count of the number of times he held young women’s jobs over their heads, threatening to fire them if they didn’t sleep with him. It was revolting.”

Maddy shook her head in disbelief. “That’s terrible! No one should have to endure that.”

“It’s awful. We have a very high turnover with our interns and office juniors,” Sara admitted. “They came in bright-eyed and eager, and he just… ruined them.”

“Wow, he really was a millionaire playboy, in the most despicable sense, his character tonight suited him to a tee!” Nolan muttered from Maddy’s side.

Sara made a noise of agreement, “fuck yes! He was, a playboy with a side order of evil git but how did you know? About him being the millionaire playboy I mean…”

Nolan frowned, “his card….Maddy said you all have them, don’t you? I spotted Dan’s in the study when I was securing the scene. I bet he chose that character himself, doesn’t seem like he cared if anyone knew he was sleeping around on his wife, in fact, he seemed to enjoy flaunting his affairs.”

“You’re right, I was just too new to the office to have heard the rumours,” Sara replied.

Maddy shot Sara what she hoped was a sympathetic smile, still grappling with the fact that her closest friend had been involved with such a repulsive man. “How did no one realize this was going on? Surely the higher-ups must have noticed something. Were they just looking the other way?”

“That’s the thing,” Sara replied, frustration tightening her voice. “Anyone who got harassed by Dan kept it to themselves, from embarrassment or misplaced shame, you know? But he’d gotten so bad recently that I think people were starting to take note. I heard from his PA that he was called into a meeting with the board next week. The gossip finally got out of hand; they couldn’t just ignore it anymore.”

Maddy’s eyes widened. “So they were finally going to take action?”

“Maybe. But it’s a little too late for a lot of us,” Sara said, shaking her head. “Remember I said we had a big drop in the number of women applying for internships and admin roles? Word was spreading to steer clear of Cupid. I was just waiting for everything to implode after Christmas. Honestly, I thought what he did to Jude would be the beginning of the end for Dan.”

Sara swallowed nervously, looking from Maddy to Nolan. “I have a confession to make…” At Maddy’s stricken look, she quickly uttered, “Not that kind of confession, I didn’t kill Dan but I wasn’t completely honest about tonight.”

Letting out a relieved sigh Maddy said, “Ah…the reading nook, right?” You pretended that you needed the loo when we went to the kitchen after the reading. You disappeared for over ten minutes. The toilet is just across from the kitchen and you were gone for a while. I’m guessing you went to find Dan for some reason and came across him here in the nook? That’s how you knew it was here…” She tilted her head, trying not to notice the way that Nolan once again adjusted his trousers, was he seriously getting turned on by her questioning Sara?

Looking alarmed Sara replied, “Shit, I’m sorry for lying but we’d decided that we were going to continue with the hunt for clues and after what Dan said about the bedrooms upstairs and his erratic behaviour I was really worried he’d follow us. I’ve never heard him talk like that to anyone before, he threatened you and the way he grabbed you,” she shivered, “it really gave me the creeps.”

Maddy looked at Sara’s anxious expression and wanted to comfort her. “It’s okay. I understand and I forgive you for lying but what did you think you could do? Weren’t you afraid he’d hurt you?”

“I thought I could threaten him back, talk him into leaving you alone for the rest of the evening. I wasn’t worried about myself, he’d been there, done that and thankfully wasn’t interested in a repeat. Luckily when I found him in here he seemed a bit out of it, most likely drunk. He was lying on the sofa, clutching his stomach and moaning. He had the nerve to ask me to get him something for the pain! I told him about the imminent board meeting, and Jude going to the trade standards agency and warned him that if he didn’t leave you alone I’d also tell everyone what he’d been doing at the office, the coercion and inappropriate behaviour. I thought it would all finally be over by next week so I didn’t have anything to lose by threatening to tell.”

“Oh Sara,” Maddy leant over to squeeze her hand.

“He was so arrogant that he refused to believe me about his career and that his actions had justifiably come back to bite him on the ass. He told me not to bother coming back to the office next week and that HR would be in contact. I know, I know, it’s a pretty big motive, I have read all of your books enough to understand the basics of a good mystery but I didn’t kill him. First of all, I’m very squeamish and I hate blood, those screams I let out earlier would also be heard if I got so much as a paper cut.

Secondly, when he fired me I felt relieved. Either his career would crash and burn at the board meeting next week in which case I could just carry on at Cupid or I’d go freelance, then it wouldn’t matter if other publishers believed anything Daniel said about me. It’s been hell having to deal with a man who treated me so cruelly and powerlessly watch him do the same to others.”

“Can I give you a hug?” Maddy said, reaching for Sara. “I would have kept you as my publicist even if Dan fired you, you’re amazing at what you do and more importantly you’re my friend.” At this declaration, Sara burst into tears and Maddy spent some time consoling her before she headed back to the parlour.

Nolan sat staring at Maddy, it was a weighted stare like he was trying to figure her out.

“She’s your friend and was trying to defend you from With everything that’s been revealed tonight about his behaviour, would you still care about her if it turned out she killed him? If she poisoned and then stabbed that perverted rapist would you turn her in to the police and refuse to have anything to do with her?”

Maddy thought carefully about his question.

“I’m not sure. I feel awful that I would even contemplate letting someone get away with murder. It’s difficult to admit that I actually feel that Dan deserved it. Does that make me a bad person?” She continued, “I’ve always wanted to be a writer and my second career choice would have been a detective, but as much as I’ve enjoyed tonight’s investigation I don’t envy the fact that you’ll have to arrest the person who did this and put them behind bars for the rest of their life.”