Don't Move Your Desk: Chapter Thirty-One

In which we reach an ending

Nov 02, 2024

A summary for you on what to expect in this edition in case you want to scroll down to the interesting bits: preorder links; plans for next week; Chapter Thirty-One of Don’t Move Your Desk; and the progress report with an update on my week-on-week sales and writing progress.

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Don’t panic about that teaser line; this is not actually the final installment. We have an epilogue chapter to go!

I’ve got some preorder links for you!

Here’s where you can preorder every book in the Crowhill Kitchen series:

Three things to remember: a) it is SO HELPFUL to have preorders because they create a boost in sales as soon as the book is released, which increases my chances of getting a bestseller, which increases my chances of keeping doing this for years to come; b) paperbacks will be released also but not at the same time and the links are not yet available; c) if you are in the founding member tier you DO NOT need to order your own copies, as I will be sending them to you for free.

Next week, I’d like to have a big debrief of the way this serialisation has gone - some in-depth analysis of data as well as the way it has felt. I’d also like to organise a live wrap party to take place next week, too. I will be going live here on Substack at 4pm London time on Saturday 9th November - that’s 11am EDT and 8am PDT, I believe TK. I would do it a little later, but unfortunately after 6pm I must remove my crystal slippers and return to full-on Mum mode, so it’s the morning for my American friends or nothing, I’m afraid.

On a final note - you may have seen on my Notes or in Wednesday’s post that I’m having a bit of a rough week. The upside is that I’ve been spending a lot of time with my toddler; the downside is that I usually don’t spend time with my toddler because I’m working, i.e., not a lot of work is happening. I’m supposed to be significantly far into writing the next book already, but I’m not.

As a quick reminder: this chapter will go behind the paywall 60 days after publication. Don’t miss the chance to read the next chapter for free by subscribing for email updates!

Okay, that’s it! On with the chapter!

Keaton

“Helen?” I gaped, looking past Olly’s formidable shoulders to the silver-haired woman now facing us. She was immaculately dressed as she had been the last time I had seen her, in sharply tailored clothing that maintained a sense of the professional secretary.

And from the way she was talking to Olly, I realized, that was exactly what she thought she was.

“Why would you call me a car?” Olly asked. There was a strange note in his voice, a kind of strain, that made me think he suspected just what I did.

“Well, sir, I couldn’t leave you alone in your hour of need,” Helen said. Every vowel was enunciated just so, and her deferential nod of the head did nothing to diminish the fiery spirit in her eyes. “Now that you need a new secretary, I’m right here for you. I’ll forgive you for firing me so unjustly before; we need never speak of it again. Let’s just move forward and deal with this crisis.”

“Crisis?” Olly repeated. He squared his shoulders even more. “You mean the press scandal that you just created.”

Helen tilted her head to the side slightly. “You can’t be seen to continue working with him, sir,” she said, which was not exactly a confession but not a denial either. “You need a new secretary.”

“What the hell?” Brody said. Helen’s gaze snapped to him like a whip. “What is this? You didn’t tell me about any crisis. What’s going on?”

“Oh, shut up, Driver,” Helen said calmly. “This no longer has anything to do with you. You’re no longer employed in this industry. You should leave before I call security to have you removed.”

From the way Brody stared at her with his mouth open, it was clear that something much deeper was going on here.

Brody had been the one to drop off the fake contract. But Helen…

Helen had been the one to actually drug Ridley. Like Brody didn’t want to get his hands dirty, but she had no problem with it. And Helen had worked for Mr. Harvey. Right there in his office. She was his secretary, so just like me, he probably left her alone at her desk when he was out at meetings. Granted, her desk had been in the hall, but…

“It was you,” I said, speaking my hunch out loud. “You put a secret camera in the office.”

She turned her nose up towards me. Her stare sliced through the distance between us like an actual knife. She was not the kind of woman to be easily messed with – I could see that now. And she felt that Olly had shunned her. But it seemed more than that: like she really believed her place was at his side. Not as a lover, surely. Maybe more like a motherly figure.

“I had to keep an eye on Mr. Harvey,” she said. “I have noticed that his judgment is somewhat impaired when I am not around. No matter. I’m here now. All of this will be sorted out in no time at all.”

I felt sick to my stomach thinking about how long that camera had been there. Since my very first day. She had seen everything.

The two of us getting to know one another. All of the war cabinets Olly and Ace had held, trying to get to the bottom of things. She must have known, even, that we’d caught her and Brody out.

And the kiss. The first kiss and the second. All our private moments in that office. Not just the sex: every single moment of our relationship that had begun to blossom in that room.

She had watched it all.

That wasn’t supposed to be for an audience to see. It was supposed to be for just me and him.

The muscles in Olly’s neck clenched in my peripheral vision. “Sorted out?” he repeated. “You just outed me to the world.”

She waved a hand. “Such a thing is easily explained. That kind of deviant behavior isn’t you, Mr. Harvey. You’re all about the work. I’m sure once we have everything straightened out, you’ll be back to your old self, and we can pass this off as some kind of deepfake. Yes, don’t be fooled – even this old lady knows all about that sort of thing. It will be the work of a moment to restore your reputation.”

Olly made an incoherent choking noise in the back of his throat. I stepped forward and laid a hand gently on the side of his shoulder to remind him that I was there, that he wasn’t alone. “You outed me so you could get your job back? Is that really what we’re saying here?” he demanded.

“And that’s not all,” Brody spoke up. He had his arms crossed over his chest and a foul look on his face. Clearly, he was ready to turn on his co-conspirator. “She was the one who set all of this up. She told me about the sponsorship deals you had lined up right before you fired her, so it was easy for me to fake the paperwork for another brand you could consider.”

“And what were you getting out of this?” Olly scoffed. “I can’t have two secretaries.”

“No, you cannot,” Helen said primly. “That’s why I had to make sure you had an incompetent one, so that you could easily replace him. Would you like me to prepare Mr. Dunbar’s exit papers when we return to the office?”

Everyone ignored her last question. “I got a good offer,” Brody said. He was glowering sideways at Helen. “Quijada said he’d give me the top job at his new firm. If she really just outed you, I want you to know I had nothing to do with that. I would never do that to someone. That’s fucking low. I mean, I’m an asshole, but lady – you’re a fucking asshole.”

“Quijada?” I said faintly. I hadn’t wanted to hear his name. I had wanted to believe he had nothing to do with all of this. He had to be telling the truth about just going to the bar for a drink. He was dating my sister. He couldn’t be involved in this.

He couldn’t.

“Yeah,” Brody said carelessly, tipping up his chin. “He’s the one that started this whole thing. It was his idea to ruin Ridley’s reputation. I wasn’t fully on board with the doping thing, but Quijada said he would be watching the whole time to make sure Ridley didn’t get into any actual danger. He had to get the footage, after all.”

I felt Olly’s muscles cord under my hand and looked down; his hand had made a fist. I slid my own hand down to it and squeezed it, trying to get him to cool off. I knew how angry he was – I was angry, too – but fists weren’t going to make this situation any better.

“Let me get this all straight in my head,” Olly said. “Quijada made sure Keaton applied for the role because he thought he would be bad at the job.”

“And because he makes those little films or whatever,” Brody supplied helpfully. “We thought he might take you down from the inside before we even had to.”

I took a deep and unsteady breath. Fernando had deliberately used me.

As soon as we were out of here, I had to warn Clara. He wasn’t the man she thought he was.

“You should make sure that Chinese fellow vets people properly,” Helen tutted sanctimoniously. “You could have ended up with anyone working for you.”

No one bothered to remind her that Ace was Korean, not Chinese. It was like we’d all written her off. She was a nasty, racist, homophobic old lady. There was nothing she could say that would be relevant.

“Then you delivered fake contracts to the office and to our sponsors setting up a fake deal,” Olly continued, thinking it all through out loud. He was talking so much, it was almost odd to hear. This was what he was like, I realized, when he was too stunned to vet every word that came out of his mouth. “You waited for Ridley to go to his usual bar so you could let Helen in to drug him. Quijada filmed him stumbling around and leaked the story to the press to ruin his reputation. What exactly were you going to do once the client you wanted had no sponsors?”

“Redeem his image,” Brody shrugged. “We knew he’d been drugged. If he switched quick enough, we could get his blood tested. If not, we could get a fake confession or just a witness statement. Then he could go volunteer at a homeless shelter for orphans with a few cameras around and we’d be back in business.”

“And then?”

“Then once we had Ridley, all your other clients would realize we were the hot new ticket and you were an old dinosaur, and we’d poach the whole lot of them.”

“Dinosaur?” Olly repeated with incredulity.

“That’s a little out of turn, Mr. Driver,” Helen muttered. “But I knew they were wrong, Mr. Harvey. I was always going to be there to support you no matter which way this all went. You see, I’m loyal. A quality the younger generation clearly lacks.”

Brody took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one up. “Whatever,” he said. “Obviously, if Quijada was in on this last bit, I’m not joining him now. Besides, you pretty much knocked every challenge we threw at you out of the park. I gotta say, you proved yourself to be the better agent.”

“Don’t expect my gratitude,” Olly warned him. I was glad. As much as I always wanted to be even and fair to everyone where I could, I didn’t think Brody could be trusted enough for a second chance.

Brody smiled wryly around the cigarette. “I won’t,” he said. “Guess I’m out of a job.”

It was hard to feel sympathy for him – but there was one more thing that was playing on my mind.

“Where’s Fernando?” I asked. “Was he supposed to meet you here?”

Brody shook his head. “I went by his apartment before I came,” he said. He took a drag and blew out a funnel of smoke to his left. “Couldn’t get hold of him. I don’t know what he’s planning, but he’s not answering my calls anymore.”

“You!” All four of us swung our heads to the exit Olly and I had taken to get here. Ace was framed in the doorway and glaring at Brody with absolute fury. His hair had been neatly tied back earlier, but now strands were working their way loose, framing his face. He was alone; whatever he had done, he must have managed to distract or delay the press. “You fucker! This was you?!” His tone was less surprised than hurt, which struck an odd note in my head.

“It was her,” Olly said coldly. He pointed right at Helen. “Call the police and tell the security guards to lock down the office so she can’t have anyone remove the evidence. I’ve got to get out of here before the cameras catch up with us.”

Olly turned and put his hand on my back, gently urging me towards the car, and this time I didn’t resist. I got into the passenger seat as he walked around to drive. Through the window, I watched Ace stalk right up to Brody and start shouting at him.

The parking lot exit was set up in such a way that we had to drive away from them and then circle back around, coming almost past them again; I wound the window down as we made the exit onto the road, getting one last glimpse of them. Ace was talking into his phone, pointing at Helen who stood primly with one hand clutching her purse against her shoulder; Brody was walking away from him; Ace lifted the phone away from his ear to shout something I couldn’t make out after him. Brody walked back and pushed Ace right in the chest, and I opened my mouth to say something.

Then I caught Olly’s reflection in the glass beside me as we entered a brief tunnel out to the street, and I closed it again. Ace was an adult and he had security on the way. Not only that, but I’d already seen with my own eyes that he could handle Brody in a fight, even if only to hold his own until help arrived. They weren’t going to kill each other.

In fact, as I thought back to that strange note in Ace’s voice, maybe something was going on there above all of this other stuff – something none of us knew about.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Olly said. His tone was full of regret.

“I wouldn’t have believed it if you’d explained it to me later,” I said. I shook my head. “I’m glad I was there. I’m glad I was able to stand by your side through it.”

“Not that,” Olly said. He shot me a sideways glance. “I mean – Ace and Brody.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“They were fighting.”

“Okay,” I said. I shrugged. “I’ve seen them fight before.”

“That must be difficult for you,” Olly said. His voice was oddly strained.

Was I missing something?

“Um, why?” I asked. I knew I was going to have to ask direct questions to get the full story out of Olly. He was back to his normal, stoic self.

“Because of Jordan.”

That took some real mental gymnastics to figure out.

In fact, try as I might, I just couldn’t get it to make sense.

“Huh?” I managed.

“Because he hit you,” Olly said. Another sideways glance. Now he seemed less sure of himself. “Right?"

I burst out a short laugh. “No!”

“Oh,” Olly said. He frowned. “But someone…”

The realization of what he had, somehow, picked up on was instantly sobering.

How had he guessed? Had I flinched at the wrong moment? Was there something in my eyes that told him I’d grown up afraid?

I cleared my throat.

“My dad,” I said. “He was… Clara and I left as soon as I was old enough to take her with me and get an apartment.”

There was silence for a moment. Olly switched lanes.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

But talking about my dad had made me remember something else.

“I have to call Clara,” I said. I grabbed my phone out of my pocket as Olly sped us along the road; looking at the direction we were going, I realized we weren’t headed for the office.

Was he taking me to his house?

I could think about that later. I had to make sure my sister was okay.

It took two rings only for the line to connect.

“Clar,” I gasped as soon as she answered. “I have something to tell you. It’s about Fernando. Are you with him right now?”

“No,” she said. Her voice came out as a sob. “Keat, do you know what’s going on? I just got this weird text from him out of the blue. He says it’s over. He doesn’t want me anymore.”

“Oh, god.” I covered my face with my hands. “It’s not you, Clara. He’s a louse. He’s been playing everyone here. He even used me. He… I can’t believe he did it, Clara, but he outed Olly and me today. In, like, the worst possible way.”

“He did that to you?” Clara’s sobbing intensified. “Did he even really like me…?”

“Oh, Clar,” I said. My heart was breaking for her, and for the fact that I couldn’t just hug her right there and then. I looked over at Olly. “Um, can we…?”

Olly nodded, glancing in the rearview mirror and indicating to the right. “Already turning around,” he said. “I’ll take you home.”

“Thanks,” I said, though there was a sinking feeling in my chest about how we wouldn’t get a chance to talk this through. “I’ll be there really soon, sis, okay?”

She was sobbing so much that all she could do was hang up. My heart was in my mouth, and I looked anxiously at the road signs we were passing to try and estimate in my head how long it would take us to get there.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know we need to talk…”

Olly shook his head without taking his eyes off the road. “Not as much as you need to be there for her. I’ll wait. It’s probably safer at your place than mine right now.” He hesitated. “If you don’t mind me sitting on your couch for the rest of the day.”

“You can sit in my bed all night if you want,” I blurted out. I immediately regretted it. “I mean, if that’s still the kind of thing you would even be interested in doing – I don’t want to assume –”

“I would very much like to share your bed with you tonight,” Olly intoned solemnly.

“Good,” I said. In spite of everything, a grin and a warm flush spread across my face. “Great.”

“And… Keaton Dunbar.”

“Yes?”

“This isn’t what I would have chosen.” He took a deep breath. “But I’m glad. I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want to make you feel like you were nothing because I was in the closet.”

I could only smile.

He’d heard me. He’d listened when I talked about Jordan, and he had heard me.

And even though all of this was awful, and Fernando shouldn’t have done any of it, and it was going to take a long time to fix all of the damage he had left behind…

Now I knew, just by the solemn look on his face when he told me he was glad, that everything was going to be okay.

We were almost there when Olly’s phone began to ring.

He ignored the first one and the second, letting them ring out. The phone was connected to the car’s dash and it seemed like the whole vehicle was completely filled by the sound of ringing, endless and maddening. On the third number, Olly grunted and hit the button to answer it.

“Mr. Harvey!” Someone’s voice heralded us from the car’s speakers. “I’m so glad to get hold of you. Your phone must be ringing off the hook.”

“You could say that,” Olly replied. His tone was dripping in wariness.

“Congratulations,” whoever it was continued. “I’m so pleased for Ridley. That was a hell of a way to win a game.”

We exchanged a quick glance. “Uh, I’m sorry,” Olly said. “I actually left the game at half-time. I’m not in the loop yet.”

“It was the performance of a lifetime,” the man on the line gushed. “I just wanted to let you know that we’re thrilled with his latest results. I’m sure this will give our brand a chance to shine in the headlines again once he shares the posts we have planned this week. And, you know, ah… I wanted to let you know a message of personal support.”

“You’re happy with your sponsorship,” Olly said carefully as if he was trying to figure out some hidden meaning behind the sponsor’s words.

“Very happy,” he assured us. “I’m not going anywhere, you mark my words. Well, I’ll let you go – I imagine you must have a lot of calls to get to!”

“Right,” Olly agreed slowly before hanging up.

The phone started to ring again.

I put a hand over my mouth to keep myself quiet as he answered it.

The calls were all the same. One by one, sponsor after sponsor and client after client called just to let Olly know that they were still on his side. That the leaked footage meant nothing to them. That they were happy for him to remain their agent of choice.

By the time we pulled up outside of the apartment, he seemed to be completely at a loss for words.

“If you don’t want to come up right now…” I suggested.

He shook his head quickly. “Is it okay if I take calls in your living room?”

I nodded. “Of course.”

And so I led him upstairs to my home.

I knew there was a lot to get through right now. I had a long day, night, and who knew how long after that of comforting Clara ahead of me. Then there was work and figuring out what we should do now that everyone knew about us. It would probably be better for the company if we put out some kind of official statement – and there would be a police investigation because what Helen had done was both criminally and morally wrong.

We had a lot to talk about with our relationship and how we went forward from here. The one thing I was sure of was that we would go forward together – the rest was just detail. I thought maybe once the shock wore off and Olly realized what had really happened here today, he would need my comfort as well. We had a lot to get through.

But for now, just for a moment, I could enjoy this sensation:

Leading my boyfriend up to my house for the first time, so he could meet my sister and see where I lived.

It was the first step of many.

And I would take them all happily with Oliver Harvey by my side.

Here ends this week’s chapter! What did you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts below. I really appreciate your comments - what you like, what you don’t like, and what you’d like to see next.

Progress Report

Note: Changes are in bold, comments in italics.

TOTAL SALES:

Don’t Move Out: ebook - 747, paperback - 8, KU pages read - 370,453 (238 pages = 1,556 equivalent full-book reads), free downloads - 6,304
Don’t Go Outside: ebook - 119, paperback - 6, KU pages read - 147,850 (222 pages = 665 equivalent full-book reads)
Don’t Fly Home: ebook - 66, paperback - 4, KU pages read - 90,067 (224 pages = 402 equivalent full-book reads) - broke 400!
Don’t Leave Town: ebook - 67, paperback - 4, KU pages read - 65,083 (299 pages = 217 equivalent full-book reads)
Don’t Check Out: ebook - 57, paperback - 2, KU pages read - 36,089 (192 pages = 192 equivalent full-book reads)
CC 1-5 Boxset: KU pages read - 15,951 (1,068 pages = 14 equivalent full-set reads)
Don’t Move Your Desk: ebook - 23, paperback - 1
Serial Investigations full series (Pre-Substack releases: books 1-12, 2 bonus novellas, 2 boxsets): ebook - 485, paperback/hardback - 68, KU pages read - 375,203, free downloads - 546

WRITING:

Don’t Move Your Desk: written and edited fully, serialisation underway, all chapters queued up ready, ebook and paperback on sale
Kiss The Cook: ebook preorder up, typeset done for paperback
Cook Up A Storm: beta draft underway
Too Many Cooks: loose plot done, full plot underway
(Books 9-16): all covers, themes, and titles done, Crowhill Kitchen release schedule and titles announced, all Club and Kitchen characters created and romances/interpersonal relationships between books set up

SUBSTACK:

Subscribers: free - 63, paid - 3
Followers: 272

By the way, please like this post if you enjoyed it and would like to see more! This helps me decide what to do for future content.

XO Rhiannon

Crowhill Cove

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