A Price to Pay

by Alice Raine

  Oliver smiled at Sasha and prodded the large box which didn’t budge an inch. ‘I wasn’t sure who was helping Robyn with her packing, so I brought enough food for a small army.’

  ‘God, you really are the perfect man. Don't you have any flaws?’ Sasha asked, plucking a prawn cracker from a bag and popping it into her mouth.

  Oliver narrowed his eyes and smiled. ‘Oh, I have plenty, but none I’m going to share with you until I have Robyn living with me. Once she’s safely ensconced under our roof I can let her see all my bad habits.’ He flashed me a wink, and from the intensity of the look he followed it up with I had a feeling that he wasn’t talking about his flaws any more. Instead, he was hinting at all the naughty sexy habits he was going to share with me. My stomach gave a little flutter of excitement and my cheeks burned as I returned his gaze.

  As Sasha began digging in the box of food, Oliver watched my reaction and laughed softly, before moving closer to me and pulling me into his side. ‘That expression on your face looks decidedly promising but save that thought for later. You need to eat.’ His words were murmured in a low, heated tone that only I could hear, but judging from the smirk on Sasha’s face she’d picked up the gist of our private conversation just fine.

  Oliver gave my arse a squeeze that was hard enough to make me yelp, and then released me from his grip to start unpacking the food. He laid out trays of chicken wings, beef in black bean sauce, chicken and cashew nuts, spare ribs… On and on he went, and to my disbelief the food pile just kept growing. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he’d bought extra. This would keep us going all week in leftovers.

  Once we all had plates piled with food, I decided to return to my earlier conversation with Sasha as a means of distracting myself from the thick sexual tension that was now hanging in the air between Oliver and me.

  ‘Sasha’s thinking of buying a place in London. We were just talking about it when you arrived,’ I told him, before turning to Sasha. ‘So which areas are you considering?’

  After finishing off the spare rib she was munching on, Sasha shrugged and licked her fingers clean. ‘I don’t really know. I don’t want to be too far from work, and it would be nice to have a bit of an easier journey to see you, but I think it’ll probably come down to what I can afford.’

  ‘How many bedrooms are you after?’ Oliver asked, helping himself to a duck pancake and starting to roll it. Something about the way his fingers smoothed the delicate pastry and lifted it to his mouth grabbed my attention, and as he licked some plum sauce from his thumb I felt a sudden tingling between my legs and had to shift on my chair. God, I was getting turned on just watching him eat! I really did have it so bad for him.

  ‘Ideally two, as I don’t want Chloe to feel like she needs to find a new place to live. A tiny bit of outside space would be amazing, too, but I know how hard that is to get in London, so I won’t hold my breath,’ Sasha said sagely. Outwardly she might appear loud and a bit of a party girl, but she was extremely intelligent and very shrewd when it came to her savings and investments.

  Oliver nodded thoughtfully and wiped a napkin across his lips. ‘My friend lives across from me and he’s just getting ready to put his apartment on the market. Two-bed flat with a small balcony. Do you want me to find out how much he’s going to be asking?’

  The same street as Oliver? So Sasha could be my neighbour? We shared an excited glance, and she almost spat out her mouthful of food in her hurry to speak. Swigging down half a glass of water to clear her throat, she nodded frantically.

  ‘I’d bloody love to live on your street, but fuck, Oliver, a flat in that area will be way out of my budget.’

  Oliver smiled, no doubt amused by her colourful language, and shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. It’s in a more modern building, so it won’t be as pricy as the Victorian ones on the street, and it’s not a huge flat, but it is nicely done out. He's just found out that he’s being moved to America with work, so he needs a quick sale. I’ll message him now and ask; there’s no harm in finding out.’

  After we had all stuffed ourselves with delicious egg fried rice and chicken chow mein, Oliver left to go back to work and Sasha and I continued with my packing, being much more productive now that our stomachs were content.

  Once we had a sizeable stack of boxes and suitcases by the apartment door we decided to load her car up and take the first trip across to Oliver’s house. Or maybe I needed to start calling it “our house” – that was how Oliver kept referring to it.

  Our house. Together. It would take some getting used to, but I definitely liked the sound of it. Grinning, I shook my head as I tried to absorb the idea and help Sasha lug the boxes down the stairs and into the car.

  Just as we were pulling up to the kerb outside Oliver’s house – our house, I corrected with a grin – I felt my phone buzz in my pocket and pulled it out to see a text from the man himself. Quickly scanning the words, I winced at the huge figures included and then read it out to Sasha.

  ‘Oliver heard back from his friend. Apparently if he sells through an agent it’s going on the market at four hundred and fifty thousand, but if you’re willing to do a private sale he’ll drop fifty grand off the price.’ Those amounts of money were hard for me to even comprehend, so I expected Sasha to let out a shocked choke when I said them, but to my surprise she raised her eyebrows and nodded.

  ‘Sounds pretty cheap for a two-bed in this part of town.’

  In the end it was me who let out the choking noise as I turned to gawk at her. Was she nuts? ‘Cheap?’ I squawked. ‘Did you hear me correctly, I said four hundred and fifty grand!’

  Sasha smiled at my outburst and shrugged. ‘I heard you perfectly. I know it’s a lot of money, but this is central London and the flat’s on a really nice street close to a Tube station. To be honest, I’m surprised it isn’t double that price.’

  ‘And… you… you can afford that?’ I spluttered. I’d known for ages that Sasha had a large inheritance from her parents, but I’d never realised the sums of money involved were quite in this league.

  ‘I can,’ she replied a little sadly, perhaps thinking about her mum and dad. As much as her money made life easier for her, I knew for a fact that Sasha would give up every last penny if it meant she could have her parents back.

  Glancing out of the car, she looked over her shoulder at the houses on the opposite side of the street. ‘Which one do you think it is? For that price it must be tiny.’

  ‘I’m not sure…’ Looking at my phone again, I saw that I had now received a second message. ‘Oliver’s sent the address now… House number 220, the flat is 220a. He said his friend won’t be home, but apparently he’s left a key with the neighbour downstairs and if we tell her Mr Stokes sent us she’ll let us in to have a look around.’ I peered across the street but couldn’t make out any building numbers from here.

  ‘Well, what are we waiting for, then? Let’s get your stuff inside and then go and have a nosy around my potential new pad!’ Sasha pulled the keys from the ignition and grinned. ‘I’m not going to get too excited, though. I don’t want to live in somewhere the size of a matchbox, even if it would mean I’d get to be your neighbour,’ she announced, before jumping from the car and practically ripping the boot open in her excitement.

  So perhaps she was going to let herself get a little bit excited, I thought with an amused chuckle as I followed her and started pulling boxes from the car.

  Opening the door to Oliver’s house, I smiled fondly as I saw the moss-coloured paint that now adorned the hallway. Months ago, Oliver had casually asked me what my favourite colours were, and I’d mentioned a fondness for moss green, silver grey, and teal, not realising that he was going to use my choices to steer the direction of the decorators who had been working on his home.

  Moss green now lined the hallway, silver grey flanked the walls in the kitchen, and there was a teal feature wall in the master bedroom. It had been quite a surprise, but I secretly loved the fact that even
so early in our relationship he had been trying to make me feel at home in his house.

  I wanted to give Sasha a full tour, but it was obvious that she was excited about looking at the flat across the road, so we piled my stuff just inside the front door and set off in search of her potential new abode.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sasha

  The numbering wasn’t very clear on this side of the road, so it took us a few minutes to locate the building, and when we did I paused and gave the exterior a critical examination. It was modern, but had bay windows on the lower floors, a central front door, and a high peaked roof. I liked it. Turning to Robyn, I saw that she looked as pleasantly surprised as I felt.

  ‘When Oliver said it was a modern building I thought it might be a seventies monstrosity, but it’s pretty nice.’ And it really was. Even though it was clearly a more recent build than some of its Victorian neighbours, it had been well designed and fitted snugly with the architecture of the street. I could only hope that I liked the inside as much as the outside. I was sceptical, though, because four hundred and fifty thousand for a two-bed flat in this postcode was an absolute steal.

  After ringing the doorbell for several minutes, we discovered that the occupier of 220c – Mrs Linden – was eighty if she was a day, with thick-rimmed glasses and a pronounced stoop in her shoulders that looked like it might be quite painful.

  Pasting a bright smile on my face, I gave a quick wave. ‘Hi, we’re here to look at the top floor flat. Mr Stokes said you had a key we could use.’

  Mrs Linden might have looked old, but she was obviously still very with it, because she gave the two of us a long once-over before narrowing her eyes. ‘Are you two a couple?’

  Realising that my statement of “we’re here to look at the top floor flat” might have implied that Robyn and I were together, I snorted out a laugh and shook my head. ‘Fuck no!’

  Mrs Linden’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. ‘I beg your pardon?’ As she wheezed her words I winced, realising that I’d just done my usual and sworn like a trooper.

  Beside me, Robyn tried – and failed – to disguise a laugh as a cough, and an uncharacteristic blush rose to my cheeks. I didn’t blush that often, but for some reason Mrs Linden’s surprised look was making me feel guilty, as if I needed to cover up my mistake pronto.

  ‘I said, “what? No!”’ I clarified quickly, ignoring Robyn’s continued chuckles and hoping that Mrs Linden might be hard of hearing and accept my botched attempt at a cover-up.

  The old lady narrowed her eyes for a second. Just when I thought she was going to call me out on my language she shrugged. ‘Oh. I wouldn’t have minded, I was just curious. Big people-watcher me, you see. I’m afraid I’m a bit of a nosey neighbour,’ she confided with a grin that was growing friendlier by the second.

  Relaxing, and deciding that I could grow quite fond of Mrs Linden and the curious twinkle in her pale blue eyes, I smiled again. ‘It’s just me who’s interested in the flat. I’m Sasha, by the way.’ Waving a hand at Robyn, I did a quick introduction. ‘This is my best friend. She’s just here to give me a second opinion.’

  ‘Nice to meet you both. Would either of you like a cuppa? Or a biscuit? I baked some gingerbread fresh this morning.’

  She looked like she wanted company, and as bad as I felt rejecting her now, I made a mental note to stop in on her if I did end up buying the flat. Although at this point, having not even seen the place, it was still a pretty big “if”.

  ‘If you do end up living here, you should know that the back garden technically belongs to my flat, but I can’t tend it properly any more with my bad back, so I’ve told everyone they can use it as communal space as long as they tidy up after themselves.’

  Nice kerb appeal, excellent postcode, and use of the garden? This place was getting better and better… It would be just my luck if the flat turned out to be an absolute dump.

  ‘Wow. That’s brilliant. Would I be able to grow some herbs to use in my cooking?’ I could save a fortune if I could grow some of the ingredients I used on a weekly basis.

  Mrs Linden looked thrilled by my enthusiasm and nodded. ‘Oh yes! I have some raised beds for my vegetables, but there’s plenty of space for some herbs, too.’

  With some difficulty, Mrs Linden reached up to a hook beside her and pulled off a key ring. ‘Here’s the key. I hope you don’t mind showing yourself up. The stairs are a bit much for me these days.’

  ‘Not at all. I’ll bring it back when we leave.’

  The three flights of stairs didn’t bother me at all, and to my utter amazement I loved the flat as soon as I walked in. It wasn’t big, or flashy, but it was so cosy and homely that I instantly felt comfortable in the space.

  Oliver had sort of been right when he’d said the place was small, but that was just because it was in the eaves of the building, so the ceilings were all sloped. But the floor space was big, and the sloped ceilings gave a lovely quirky feel to the place.

  Whoever designed this flat had certainly made the most of the limited space, because instead of making it boxy and putting up lots of dividing walls, they’d kept it open plan. They’d also installed skylights all over, so it was bright and airy.

  Most of the main room was devoted to a lounge diner, and bi-folding doors separated off a kitchen to the rear. The doors were currently open and pushed back, making the space feel even larger, but I supposed they would come in handy if you were cooking something smelly like fish, or one of my many Thai creations. There was one decent-sized double bedroom, a slightly smaller second bedroom, a nicely fitted bathroom, and tons of storage space in some of the roof cavities.

  All in all, it was pretty perfect.

  ‘My God, have you seen this balcony?’ Robyn’s shocked voice travelled in from outside and I realised that in my excitement I hadn’t actually looked out of the double doors in the lounge. I jogged to the doors and gasped excitedly and stepped out to join her.

  ‘It’s more like a roof terrace!’ Which was perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but it would certainly be big enough for a small table and chairs, and would look great once I’d decked it out with some fairy lights and a few plant pots.

  Robyn gave me an excited look and nodded. ‘The whole place is gorgeous. Are you interested in buying it?’

  I could barely contain my excitement. ‘Fuck yes! It’s bloody lovely! It’s near the Tube for work, on a gorgeous street, and I’ll be your neighbour!’

  I dragged her back indoors, grabbed her bag, and dug out her mobile phone before shoving it into her hands. ‘Call Oliver and ask him to see if he can set up a meeting with his friend for me!’

  Robyn

  I loitered outside on the balcony enjoying the sunshine while Sasha had a conversation with Oliver’s friend to set up a meeting. Minutes later, she bounced out looking excited. ‘I’m meeting him next week when he gets back from a business trip, but he’s promised not to show it to anyone else until then.’

  We locked the flat up, and after saying goodbye to Mrs Linden and handing the key back, we jogged down the steps to the street feeling positively buoyant. I was going to be living with Oliver, and Sasha could be just across the street!

  ‘So, now we’ve hopefully set my new move in motion, let me get a look at Mr Wolfe’s swanky lair.’ Sasha linked her arm with mine and practically skipped across the street.

  Giggling at how she continuously referred to Oliver as a wolf, I slid the key in the front door and ushered her in before me, just knowing that Sash was going to love Oliver’s house. My man had better taste than most top interior designers, so to be fair she’d be hard-pressed not to love it.

  Sasha was barely past the mountain of my boxes when she stopped abruptly and dumped her handbag so she could flail her arms wildly in the air.

  ‘Shit a brick! This place is amazing!’ She spun on the spot, her eyes darting around Oliver’s lovely light hallway, no doubt taking in the stained-glass windows above the door, the antique coat s
tand, and the wide staircase complete with beautifully turned wooden detailing. To use Sasha’s own words, it was pretty swanky.

  With gushed words of praise, she dragged me around his house, getting more and more excited as she went; stroking cushions, gasping at his lovely furniture choices, and “ahhh-ing” over the gigantic walk-in shower and twin sinks in the main bathroom.

  Finally we reached the kitchen, and Sasha released my arm and came to a standstill in the centre of the space. ‘My God, this is like my dream room… The marble surfaces are gorgeous, and wow, he has so many cool gadgets! Have you seen this coffee maker?’

  Laughing at her boundless excitement, I leaned back on the counter and smiled. ‘Yes. You know me and my intimate relationship with coffee. It was practically the first thing I discovered when I stayed over.’

  Sasha grinned and narrowed her eyes. ‘I bet it wasn’t the very first intimate thing you discovered…’ she said with a teasingly suggestive lilt to her voice, and a wicked twinkle in her eye. ‘I’m sure your first visit involved popping into that incredible master bedroom, not the kitchen, and I’m sure the gadgets he has in his bedroom weren’t food-related either… Not that you would let me poke around in the cupboards up there, you spoilsport.’

  While we were in the bedroom Sasha had tried to have a nosey around Oliver’s wardrobes and drawers, no doubt hoping to uncover something to tease me about, but I’d stopped her. It was an invasion of his privacy, and while we might be best mates there were some things that I liked to keep private. Besides, even I hadn’t delved into all the drawers in Oliver’s bedroom yet… He might have a stash of kinky stuff I didn’t know about, and I didn’t want to discover it for the first time with Sasha by my side.

  Glancing around us, Sasha suddenly frowned. ‘Actually, thinking of Mr Wolfe and his penchant for all things kink, I’m quite disappointed there isn’t a sex room in this mansion of his.’