Her Guilty Secret

by Clare Connelly

  ‘No.’ Her eyes meet mine challengingly.

  ‘No?’ I grin, not resisting when she lifts her palms to my shirt front, splaying her fingers wide across my chest. She unbuttons the shirt, just at the top, and her eyes hold mine.

  ‘What does this say?’ She presses a kiss against the swirling Celtic script that runs the length of my collarbone.

  ‘I got it done years ago.’ My words take on a husky softness. It’s after midnight and there’s a witching hour quality in the air, enhanced by Olivia Amorelli and her beautiful body and glossy hair and bright blue eyes that stare through me, seeing all my hidden sinkholes.

  ‘It’s beautiful.’

  My smile is more of a grimace. ‘I don’t think anyone’s ever called it that before.’

  A flicker of something crosses her face. She kisses the words again. ‘What does it say?’

  ‘An té a luíonn le madaí, eiroidh sé le dearnaíd.’ The Celtic words come easily to me.

  ‘It sounds like Elvish.’ She sighs romantically.

  I think of my penthouse and the empty bed there. I am suddenly no longer convinced I should leave the perfectly good bed here at the SleepInn Holborn, the bed with Olivia’s naked body in it.

  ‘What does it mean?’

  I clear my throat. I don’t know why I’m hesitating. I live by the words—I say them to myself often, knowing how vitally important it is that I remember them.

  ‘It means...’ I pause and lift a hand to her cheek, rubbing my thumb along her soft, smooth skin ‘...that if you lie down with dogs, you’ll stand up with fleas.’

  Her brows move closer together as she analyses the words, unpicking them for meaning. And I explain in a way I’ve never done before. ‘I represent assholes, Olivia. I work for them—I work on their behalf. But I’m not one of them. I will not be like them.’

  Am I imagining the tears that make her eyes shimmer in the darkness of the hotel suite?

  She nods and then her lips find mine. ‘I know,’ she says at the moment we kiss. She pulls me back with her and I can no longer resist. I lay my body over hers, my mouth claiming hers, my need great.

  She knows. She understands.

  That makes something inside me explode.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  DAWN LIGHT FILTERS through the hotel window, bathing Connor’s torso in golden stripes. I push up on my elbow to see him better, studying the way his chest moves with each breath. His face is so peaceful like this; he’s asleep, and contented.

  I’m glad he stayed—that we stayed.

  I like sleeping beside him, waking up beside him.

  My phone buzzes and I lurch for it, swearing under my breath as it buzzes again. Connor stirs. I turn my back on him and flick the screen open, to see my sisters are already messaging, despite the earliness of the hour.

  It’s like this, in our family. Lunch on Sunday isn’t enough; we have to be in contact with each other all the time. A smile twitches on my lips as my oldest sister recounts the story of her commute. Another message fires in, and another, and I turn my phone to flight mode then settle back against the pillows.

  ‘Morning.’ His voice is gravelly, better than coffee.

  I pull a face as I look at him. ‘Did I wake you?’

  ‘Yes.’ He snakes a hand out and catches my hand, lacing his fingers through mine. ‘But I’m glad. What time is it?’

  ‘It’s still early. You should go back to sleep.’

  He arches a brow. ‘Should I?’

  ‘We were up late...’

  ‘I remember.’ His grin makes my stomach flip and flop like I’ve stepped off a cliff. ‘Who was buzzing you?’

  ‘My sisters.’

  A pause as he assimilates this.

  ‘Are you close to them?’

  I frown, pleating the sheet between the fingers of my spare hand. ‘Yes and no. I’m the youngest, by several years. They’re all protective of me. I think it’s hard for them to see me as an actual grown-up in my own right. I’m twenty-five but you’d think I was still fifteen if you could hear the way they are with me.’ I roll my eyes. ‘But it’s just because they love me and they worry about me.’

  ‘That sounds kind of nice.’

  Sympathy nudges into my heart. He’s alone. He has been for a long time.

  ‘My oldest sister actually offered to live with me while I was at LLS. To cook for me, help out. Keep an eye on me.’

  ‘She’s a vascular surgeon?’ He hazards a guess.

  ‘Paediatric. Close.’

  ‘And she wanted to look after you?’ He’s teasing.

  ‘I know, right? She works insane hours—I think I would have ended up looking after her.’

  He grins. ‘You’d do an excellent job of that, Miss Amorelli.’

  His compliment touches my heart, spreading gooey warmth through it.

  ‘So why didn’t she?’

  ‘Move in?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He reaches across the bed, putting a hand on the hotel phone, but watching me intently while I answer.

  I shrug. ‘They had their chance to let loose at uni—now it’s my turn.’

  He picks up the phone and orders two coffees and some pastries, then flops back beside me. One of his hands reaches idly for my exposed hip, his finger drawing invisible lines in my flesh. ‘But you don’t let loose.’

  It’s not a question so much as an observation.

  ‘I...did that when I travelled.’

  He laughs. ‘No, you didn’t.’ His fingers reach for my hair, curling it behind my ear, then his hand drops down to the mattress between us, capturing mine.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because I know you. And I think this is probably the craziest thing you’ve ever done. Right?’

  My stomach squeezes. Why would I lie to him? ‘Yes.’

  His eyes sear me with the strength of his emotions. ‘So why?’

  I laugh softly. ‘You’re full of questions this morning.’

  ‘I’m full of questions all the time,’ he corrects, lifting my hand to his lips and nipping my fingertip gently. ‘I’m just indulging them this morning. So? Why after a lifetime of being sensible did you succumb to the dark side?’

  ‘I don’t think you count as the dark side,’ I tease, but his expression is serious.

  ‘Don’t you?’

  I swallow, the lightness of the mood being sucked out into a sudden black hole.

  ‘I just wanted to do something fun,’ I say with a lift of my shoulders.

  He shakes his head. ‘I don’t believe that.’

  ‘Because you’re a cynic.’

  ‘And you’re a terrible liar.’

  I bite down on my lip. ‘Truthfully?’

  ‘Always.’ He strokes my inner wrist, and my pulse is tight.

  ‘Well, I didn’t stop fantasising about you from the moment you entered our classroom,’ I say with a small laugh. ‘You infected my mind, my sleep, my dreams, my everything.’

  I don’t know why I’m not ashamed to admit that, but it feels like the most natural thing in the world to confess. When I look at him, he’s so full of pure, animalistic pleasure that I don’t regret my disclosure. ‘But...’

  ‘But?’ he prompts when I don’t continue, bringing a hand back to my hip, curving his fingers around me and holding me tight.

  ‘But my mother was driving me batty. Do you remember I was on the phone?’

  His eyes hold mine and he nods slowly. ‘I remember everything about that afternoon.’ His wink is slow and it launches a thousand shooting stars in my blood. I too remember that afternoon. The way I touched myself, my body pressed to his, so close I could feel his strength and hardness, feel his warm breath on my temple. It wasn’t very long ago but it feels like a year, at least, for how different we are, how our relationship is.
Then, I hardly knew him. Now, I feel like I know him inside and out.

  ‘But,’ I say, a smile tickling my lips, ‘I was annoyed with my mother.’

  He laughs, a low rumble. ‘Your mother? Are you saying I have your mother to thank for that delightfully provocative display?’

  ‘Well, yes, but I wouldn’t suggest you actually thank her because she’s old-fashioned and she’d certainly blacklist you.’

  He laughs again. ‘Duly noted.’ His fingers curve around to my back and he brings his body closer, over the small gap in the mattress, so that our faces are only inches apart.

  ‘Why were you annoyed at her?’

  I can hardly think straight. I just want to stare into his eyes and be lost in their depths.

  ‘Pietro,’ I say with a small shake of my head, dismissing him from the conversation. ‘She was pressuring me to go to a lunch he’d be at, and I was fed up. Fed up with my private life being open for my family’s discussion, fed up with this constant hope that I’ll end up with him.’ Now it’s my turn to touch. I lift my palm to his chest, running my fingertips over another tattoo. ‘I was fantasising about you, knowing I’d never act on it, and then something snapped and all I wanted was to give in to what I needed, what I wanted. I didn’t want to fall in with everyone’s expectations.’ I wait for my words to sink in. ‘Is that crazy?’

  ‘No.’ The word is gravelled.

  ‘It sounds ungrateful,’ I correct. ‘And it is. My parents are amazing people. But I’m just...stifled...by their expectations sometimes.’

  ‘You’ve always done what they wished,’ he says, scanning my face as if intuiting my behaviour from my features. ‘And you wanted to break the rules, just once.’

  I feel heat spread through my cheeks. ‘Yep.’

  ‘So I’m your uprising?’ He waggles his brows and I laugh.

  ‘Quite literally.’

  ‘I can deal with that.’ He kisses the tip of my nose. My heart squishes.

  His eyes scan my face some more, and I feel more naked than I am. I feel like he’s about to ask me something else, but there’s a knock on the door and then, ‘Room service.’

  He kisses me on the forehead and stands, pulling on some boxers as he strides through the suite. I watch him unashamedly, sheet tucked around me, heart, I fear, well and truly on my sleeve.

  It’s been two weeks since the night in the hotel when he decoded the tattoo that scrawls across his flesh, inking out his secrets in ways that I am still unravelling.

  For more than two weeks I have had his Celtic words tumbling through my mind, enchanting me and making me wonder at the forces that drive him. Is the tattoo not all the admission I have been needing—without even realising I did need it—that he wants to underscore his every point of difference to the elements he protects?

  He isn’t like them. His chest told me so.

  It’s been two weeks since I have been thinking about this.

  We have met at the hotel six times in two weeks, been to his place once and my place once.

  And now it’s a Friday night and, for the first time, we’re going out.

  There is risk in this date.

  A risk that makes my fingers tremble as they run over the silk of my dress, the slip a barely-there sheath, black, with spaghetti straps. It stops a couple of inches above my knees and I knew, as soon as I saw it, that it would drive Connor wild. I’ve teamed it with a killer pair of black stilettos. My hair is long down my back and I’ve put on an extra coat of mascara and lip gloss.

  This is our first date, after all.

  He’s chosen a wine bar in the West End. It’s far from all of our usual places. Far enough from university, far enough from my flat, his penthouse, from anyone we know. And, as if we needed any additional cover, it’s a members-only club, so I have to say my name when I reach the door.

  A beautiful woman in a white blouse and jeans skims her eyes down a clipboard, not a hint of officiousness in her diligent checking off, and then she smiles brightly.

  ‘This way, Miss Amorelli.’

  I love that he’s used my full name.

  ‘Your party isn’t here yet, but a booth at the back has been requested.’

  Better and better. My stomach flips at this information. Instantly I imagine Connor’s hands on the dress, pushing it up my legs, discovering for himself that I’m naked beneath.

  I follow the woman into the bar, which is busy, full of corporate types and a heady mix of perfume.

  The booth she pauses beside is three away from the bar. There’s an overhead light, as you might have found in a Twenties speakeasy, and the seats are a fashionably worn, caramel-brown leather. There’s no smoke, obviously, but it feels like there should be, and trendy electro-funk music fills the space. I slide into the seat, oddly breathless, anticipation and the sense of how unusual this is making my body surge with strangeness.

  I pull my phone out, skimming my emails, smiling at the latest posts in the group WhatsApp with my sisters. And then, minutes later, a sixth sense has me lifting my head, staring towards the door as I feel his approach. As I feel him coming. I don’t know how to describe it, except to say that it’s almost as though the air begins to crackle and hum when he is close, like his body sparks a magnetic awareness within me that’s as real and tangible as sound, sight, heat, cold.

  My throat constricts, blood gushes through me and my nipples strain painfully against the smooth silk of my dress. I suddenly don’t want to be in public with Connor. I don’t want to be on a date with him.

  And, it would appear, I’m not.

  My breath snags for a whole other reason when I see the man walking with Connor. I recognise him instantly, of course. I’ve done my research on all the key players at the CPS and Dashiell Alexander is a Senior Crown Prosecutor of serious renown.

  He smiles at something Connor has said. I have about forty seconds before they’re at the table.

  My mind is flooding with pertinent recollections. How much does this dress look like lingerie? I dip my head forward and subtly tug at the straps, lifting it higher around my neck, and simultaneously pull my hair over one shoulder, which I always think makes me look somehow studious.

  Meet me at The Rhinestone Club tonight at eight.

  I have a surprise for you.

  Okay, to me, the note he left on the hotel pillow at some point during the night when he crept back to his apartment screamed romantic date.

  But to Connor Hughes apparently it was an entreaty to join him for a business meeting. With a man I really seriously admire. A man I hoped would be my boss one day.

  And I’m wearing a sexy nightie.

  Oh, God.

  When I was younger, I studied speech and drama. My teacher was an ex–BBC newsreader, a glamorous woman with impeccable diction and a smile that could light up a room. She used to tell me that the secret to success in life was to bluff one’s way with convincing bravado.

  I have no idea why Connor has arranged a meeting with Senior Crown Prosecutor Dashiell Alexander, nor why he didn’t have the courtesy to warn me so that I might prepare, and I’m wearing a dress that is perfect for a romantic assignation with my forbidden, secret lover, but not for this!

  But what choice do I have? I stand up, grateful for small mercies when my height means the table top hides the fact the dress has now risen up my thighs because I’ve hoisted it to a safe distance over my breasts.

  I think of Mrs Eldrickson and her advice to blag my way through life and force a huge smile to my face.

  ‘Mr Alexander,’ I say, ignoring Connor, though I glimpse the speculative look on his face as I extend my hand to SCP Alexander.

  ‘Please, just Dash is fine.’

  Dash? What the hell?

  ‘Dash and I go way back,’ Connor says, his tone efficient. ‘I’m not in the business of losing potential criminal
defence solicitors to the other side, but you seem to have your mind made up already that my firm’s not for you.’

  ‘Definitely,’ I say through gritted teeth, holding only Dash’s gaze. I return to my seat and clasp my hands under my chin, knowing it hides any lingering glimpse of cleavage. My hair does the rest.

  Be calm, be calm. Blag it.

  ‘I had a date tonight,’ I blurt out. ‘But when Mr Hughes mentioned you were free to meet with me, I came straight over.’ I hope the lie will cover the fact that I look like I’m dressed for a sexy cocktail party rather than a job interview, which is sort of what this feels like.

  Dash nods. ‘Very good of you. I understand you want to do your training through the CPS?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ve applied every year for vocational experience, actually,’ I say. Connor slides into the seat beside me and our knees brush beneath the table. I pull mine away. ‘I know admissions are incredibly competitive and I get why. But I’m really holding out for a placement after I graduate.’

  ‘Connor tells me your academic results are exceptional.’

  Pride runs through me. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Dash, please.’

  I nod, without repeating his name.

  ‘Tell me—’

  Dash—I can’t call him that...in my head, he’ll remain SCP Alexander—is interrupted by a waiter in a grey apron.

  ‘What can I get you folks?’

  Connor orders. ‘A bottle of the Château d’Yquem.’

  I’m tempted to tell him I want a Diet Coke but don’t want to appear childish in front of Senior Crown Prosecutor Alexander.

  ‘I’ve admired your career for a long time,’ I say, angling my body away from Connor’s slightly. ‘Your verdict against the Robinward Council was the subject of an essay I wrote in Year Eleven.’

  ‘Now you’re making me feel old.’ SCP Alexander laughs, tilting his head back. He has black hair with a hint of grey at the temples, and eyes that are dark brown. One of his front teeth is slightly uneven, bridging over the other, but it somehow adds to his overall appeal.

  Of course, I’m aware of this in a very academic way, because Connor’s body is right behind mine. We’re not touching at all. He’s keeping a respectable distance, as befits a lecturer and his student, but every cell of me is aware of his proximity and I am dangerously close to forgetting that we cannot appear to be what we are.