Page 332 of Double or Nothing

“This isn’t a competition. Your I’m back declaration doesn’t need bells and whistles.”

“Everything is a competition.”

Eli’s eyes harden when I laugh. Trying to be myself again. Trying to retreat to the safety of banter again.

I look down at the file.

“No,” I say. “It isn’t. Ok. Three it is.”

Silence settles between us.

Eli watches me for another moment, then nods towards the door.

“Your office is still set up. It’s likely still got empty champagne bottles and used johnnys in it. I didn’t make the cleaning staff suffer.”

“I’ll sort it.”

I stand with the file beneath my arm and take a breath before I turn for the doorway.

“Jack,” Eli says, before I reach the door.

I turn.

He looks at me with an expression I can’t read.

Caution. Relief, perhaps. I don’t know.

The complicated patience of someone who stopped expecting me to return but kept a space available anyway.

“Welcome back,” he says. “It’s good to see you.”

No joke follows, and I get another lump in my throat.

This time I don’t hide the tears springing up in my eyes.

“Thanks.”

I step into the corridor.

Later tonight the doors will open and this place will be alive again, with everything that used to thrill me.

Players will arrive carrying money, hope and a belief that wanting something badly enough can alter the odds in your favour. Reckless abandon in pursuit of fun.

I know better now.

I tighten my grip on the file and head for my office.

CHAPTER FIFTY

BRYCE

Two weeks since the auction, and I’m being chiselled out of Parker Capital one slice of flesh at a time.

This morning Christopher is presenting the new Landia outline, like he’s the grand expert. My input is null and void.

My name has now disappeared entirely from insider documents.

I’m still employed, still paid, and still technically responsible for a project I’ve been thrown out of, but that’s purely so outsiders won’t notice any difference. Bill still affords me a smile whenever we meet key figures who have faith in me, but that’s all.