by Jade West
Buy Me, Sir
Jade West
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Newsletter
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About Jade
Also by Jade West
Copyright
Buy Me, Sir copyright © 2017 Jade West
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below.
Cover design by Letitia Hasser of RBA Designs
http://designs.romanticbookaffairs.com/
Edited by John Hudspith
www.johnhudspith.co.uk
All enquiries to [email protected]
First published 2017
Dedication
This one is dedicated to a flash of inspiration on a cold January afternoon whilst bingeing on Season One of Travelers.
And – even more importantly – bingeing on Eric McCormack.
Newsletter
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Prologue
Melissa
I guess it was desperation that compelled me to stalk a man as powerful as Alexander Henley.
That’s what losing your parents in a late-night hit and run when you’re barely eighteen does for you. It makes you desperate.
Not for the college life that trickles down the drain in the aftermath. And not for the stars you were reaching for in your dreams of becoming a criminal lawyer one day. Not even for a let-up in the despair that losing your whole world plunges you into – that soul-crushing pain at knowing you’ll never ever see them again.
It makes you desperate to get your shit together for the baby you’re now responsible for. The little boy that is now your everything.
That’s why I took the cleaning position at Henley Grosvenor Legal in the first place, to provide for my baby brother.
And that’s why I’m here now, in a suite at Delaney’s Spa Resort, with twenty-five grand stuffed in my handbag, and Alexander Henley’s beautiful cock in my ass…
I guess I’d better start from the beginning.
Chapter One
Three months earlier
Melissa
I’m late. I’m late. I’m fucking late.
Tube strike. Fucking typical on day one of my new job.
My reflection looks horrible as I race through the mirrored glass entrance. I’d hoped that cleaning for a firm as prestigious as Henley Grosvenor would have meant something a little more stylish than the scratchy baseball cap and hairnet they mailed out to me. More stylish than the green and white striped sack of crap apron I have to wear over a blouse and starchy polyester skirt, too. But beggars can’t be choosers.
“Cleaning induction,” I tell the pristine receptionist. I pull the crumpled instructions from my pocket as I catch my breath, and she glares at the dishevelled state of me. She thinks I’m shit. It’s written all over her face.
“Fifth floor,” she tells me. “You’re late.”
Like my burning cheeks don’t make it clear I’m aware of that.
It feels like a walk of shame, pacing through marble pillars in such a shitty uniform. A badge of minimum wage nobody amongst the tailored suits.
I pick up pace as I see the elevator is already open, rushing through the plush seating area as my heart pounds in my chest. It’s packed already, rammed full of legal staff with their morning papers and Starbucks, and so many of them are staring at me, so many of them see me coming and make no move whatsoever to hold the doors.
Until him.
My heart stutters in recognition, breath hitching as he puts out a hand and stops the doors for me.
I clatter in and ease myself tight into the corner, and I want to say thanks so bad, but I don’t. I can’t.
He doesn’t meet my eyes, or even really glance in my direction. The doors close and he stares straight ahead as the woman at his side talks him through his morning schedule. Her voice is nasal and whiny, and she over pronounces her words. Misterrr Cal-der, ten-aaay-emmm. Drunk dri-ving. I press the button for floor five, one of the only levels not illuminated. Figures. And then I look at him, trying not to make it obvious.
Alexander James Henley. Jnr.
The man I’ve been dreaming about for four years straight.
It must be hard having Jnr. after your name your whole life, but I guess that’s what happens when you take over an empire from your larger-than-life, legal legend of a father.
He looks just like I remember, and he smells like it too. Woody, like embers. Spicy, like oriental incense.
Black suit, white shirt, black tie. His hair is the same, as dark as his suit. His eyes, too, only now he’s got the tiniest lines around the corners. They suit him.
He isn’t smiling, not even a bit. His perfect jaw looks so stern and serious, his skin flawless apart from the tiny birthmark he has on his right cheek.
My fantasies of a sizzling moment of recognition shrivel and die. He doesn’t remember me, and why would he? I was just a dumb kid when he bummed me a cigarette outside my school gates. He saw hundreds of kids that day, a sea of us packed into the school hall to witness his motivational speech about the legal profession. Corporations in the Community, they called it. Some government scheme or other.
I’d been late that morning, just as I’m late today. Too late to catch morning registration, so I’d stopped outside to roll myself a sneaky cigarette before facing the music. My tin was empty apart from the dregs. Dust and a couple of meagre tobacco flakes, barely enough to make even the skinniest roll-up, and there he’d been, propped against the wall in his tailored suit, lighting up a cigarette of his own before he went inside.
He’d watched me struggle with my excuse for a roll-up, and then he’d held out his cigarette packet.
Insignia. Scrawly font on a beautiful black box. So much more beautiful than the cheap cigarettes the kids at school smoked.
“Thanks,” I’d said.
He’d sparked up his lighter for me and cupped
his hand around the end of the cigarette, and I’d leaned in, trying my best not to look like an idiot as my stomach churned and my heart raced.
I’d never smelled success before, but he reeked of it.
“You could get arrested for this, you know.” I’d grinned after taking a drag. “Supplying cigarettes to a minor.”
He laughed the kind of confident laugh that made my heart race even more. “They could try.”
I didn’t know he was one of the country’s top criminal lawyers back then. Didn’t know his name was Alexander James Henley Jnr. and he employed over five hundred legal staff at his swanky London law firm.
I had no idea at all that the papers called him the puppet master, or that I’d come to know he has a penchant for asphyxiation games and brutal fucking.
He’d just been a posh guy in a suit, until he’d smiled at me.
And that smile was enough for me to gift my heart to a man I’d probably never see again.
The elevator pings on the fifth floor, and I have to squeeze through the throng of suited bodies to step out. My elbow brushes Alexander’s arm, and for the tiniest moment he smiles.
And then he’s gone.
The doors close and take him away, and even though I’m late, I watch the floors creep up on the display. Six, seven, eight, right up the way to… eighteen.
It thrills me to know he’s in the same building, just like I knew it would.
After all, that’s why I took the job here, at the opposite end of the city. They’d asked at the interview, why us, so far away from your home address, and I’d given them my polished spiel about how much respect I have for Mr Henley’s work, and that seemed to clinch it.
Phase one complete.
I’m in, and I’ve seen him. Actually seen him already.
I head off to find my induction with a smile on my face.
I’m one of ten cleaners starting today. We all match. A roomful of green and white striped minions that they assume need educating on how to use a mop properly. I imagine that’s what we are to them, nothing but cheap grunts, incapable of doing anything more with our lives.
“We pride ourselves on our professional standards,” our new line manager tells us. “Everything must be perfect. Always perfect.”
My fantasy of being assigned to Mr Henley Jnr’s office gets a reality check as they divide us into pairs. Canteen kitchen, that’s where I’m assigned. Scrubbing grease and cooking oil, taking out the food waste and disinfecting the main employee toilets along the corridor. Toilets that I doubt Alexander Henley ever uses.
I’m paired up with a girl called Sonya, and we head up towards floor seven.
I can see she’s pretty, even under her shitty uniform. Her skin is rich and dark, and her eyes are burnt umber – the exact same shade as one of the wax crayons I had as a kid. She’s blessed with the thickest lashes I’ve ever seen, and her hair is glossy even through her hairnet. Her braids are twisted into a bun, resting on her collar like a ball of coiled rope.
“What do you think, hon?” she asks. “Quite a ball breaker, our new manager, ain’t she?”
I shrug. “Seems ok.”
She rolls her eyes. “She gave me a load of abuse for using the escalator earlier. Seemingly it’s forbidden for us lowly cleaning staff to use them.”
“Forbidden?”
“An eyesore apparently. They don’t want the likes of us on display, I s’pose.”
I’m tempted to tell her that Alexander Henley himself held the door for me this morning, but decide against it. “So, we have to walk up seven flights of stairs every day?”
“Sure do. Just be glad we’re not on the top floor, hey? Although I doubt we’d ever get up that far if we wanted to. That’s where Mr Henley works.”
The thought gives me shivers.
We step aside as another pair of cleaners come racing down with an industrial floor polisher, but Sonya keeps on talking. “Apparently not even his swanky clients go up there, he meets them lower down. That’s what I heard, anyway.” She sighs. “I think I saw him this morning, heading up from underground parking. Just for a second though.”
“You did?”
“I mean, you can’t miss him, right? He’s gorgeous on an epic scale.”
I smile. “Yeah. Yeah, he is.”
She nudges me with her elbow. “Saving grace of working in this place. What I wouldn’t give to be Mr Henley’s personal scrubber, eh?”
I push open the doors at the rear of the canteen. “Maybe we could do it, get ourselves promoted up there.”
She laughs. “Up to floor eighteen? Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious,” I tell her. “Why not?”
She locates the supplies cupboard we’ve been directed to and examines our stash. “Because… well… I dunno.” She shrugs. “Because I guess everyone in this place wants to work on the eighteenth floor. I’d probably sniff his seat if I got a shot in there, then rub one off on his posh-boy desk. Oh, oh… Alexander! Yes! Your mahogany feels divine!”
She looks at me and her eyes twinkle. And then she gives a sniff to demonstrate, and it’s funny, it’s really funny, and it makes me laugh.
I think I’m going to like Sonya a lot.
“Everyone calls me Lissa,” I tell her and hold out a hand.
“Everyone calls me Sonnie,” she says and shakes it. She hands me a bottle of de-greaser and a fresh scrubbing sponge from the pack, and arms herself with an industrial-sized vat of cream cleaner. “Just my fucking luck to get the shitty floor,” she groans. “They fired the last two. Thankless fucking task, the canteen, so they say.”
A rush of horror sweeps through my gut. “Fired? How do you know that?”
She taps her nose. “I love knowing what’s what. Made friends with one of the girls who cleans the IT suite. She told me. Said she used to work this floor, too, until she got promoted. Said she had to work her fucking sweet ass off to get out of this crappy gig. Rather sell a kidney than come back here, she said.”
“Great…”
“Yep. Life’s fucking rosy. Hope we last the month out at least, I got rent to pay.”
Me too, I tell her. I’ve got a little brother to take care of, I tell her, then take a moment to pull out my phone from my apron and show her my screensaver.
“His name’s Joseph.”
“Aww, he’s a cutie, hon. Got your eyes.”
“From our dad.” I take the handset and stare at my little brother. We really do share the same eyes. Big and blue, and cheeky. He has the same pasty skin as me, and the same wisp of mousy hair. Not the dimples, though, he got those from our mum.
I try not to think about it, not now.
She’s weighing up whether to ask, I know it. I save her the anguish, giving her the clipped spiel about how my parents died in a hit and run last Spring.
“Shit, I’m so sorry,” she says, and she is, her eyes are kind. “You having to pay for childcare? That crap gets expensive.”
I shake my head. “I have a friend, Dean. He’s cool. He helps out. I’m lucky.”
Lucky. That’s a joke.
“A friend friend?” she asks, and her eyes twinkle.
I smile. “No. Just a friend. Definitely platonic.”
He is as well. I’ve never seen him that way. Never seen anyone that way, apart from Alexander Henley.
Suited me just fine holding onto my V-status anyway. Getting enough A-grades to one day be his peer was the only thing I was focused on.
I shove my phone back out of view, and Sonnie’s staring at me strangely, as though she’s wondering whether she’s going to divulge some more insider info or not. I hope she does.
“Keep a secret, right?”
I nod, and she hands me her own handset. Two beautiful little girls stare back at me, their smiles the sweetest thing. “I got two little ones,” she says. “But don’t say nothin’. Didn’t mention it at the interview, was worried they wouldn’t take me, single mum and all that, iffy childcare arrangements.”
“They took me.”
She smiles. “Guess you’re braver than me for risking it.”
Braver or too desperate to care.
I shrug. “Having responsibilities doesn’t stop either of us scrubbing their ovens just as well as the next candidate, does it?”
“Better,” she says. “We’ll be better. Coz we need to be. Mouths to feed.”
She isn’t wrong there.
She tips her head at me, and her smile is conspiratorial. “What say we give it a shot?” she asks. “Show ’em that us little minions from floor seven got what it takes to get out of this gig. We could do it, have this place cleaner than they’ve ever seen it. Clean enough to eat your lunch from their swanky toilet bowls. That’ll show ’em.”
“You mean go for promotion? Off this floor?”
She nods. “Yeah, off this floor. All the way up to floor eighteen, that’s where I’m thinking. Hell, I ain’t been one of life’s winners, not up to now, but ain’t much I don’t know about cleaning.”
I grin. “Floor eighteen? For seat sniffing and rubbing one off on Alexander Henley’s desk?”
She laughs. “Hell to the yes.”
“You’ve got yourself a deal, partner,” I say.
My feet ache like a bastard when I kick off my shoes in the apartment doorway. That’s what you get for buying budget footwear. Blisters and anguish.
Dean’s voice is only just audible over the cartoon theme song sounding from the living room. “Lissa’s home, yes she is. Let’s go see your poor tired sis.”
My heart swells to bursting as Dean steps into the hallway and passes the smiling little guy into my arms. Ignorance is bliss.
It’s the best feeling, being home. Even better than smelling Alexander Henley.
“Hey, little man!”
Joseph smiles, but is clearly still far more interested in the cartoons than me. Tears prick at the relief that he hasn’t been crying all day, but it doesn’t stop the resurfacing of the guilt I feel. The first day away from him was always going to be tough ride.
