Firm

by Emma York

  THIRTEEN

  LUCY

  Why didn’t I say yes? After he left the bedroom, I sank onto the edge of the bed, my head in my hands. He had asked me a simple enough question. Why had I had to complicate so much in my mind?

  Did I like it when he tied me down? Yes, a thousand times yes. So why didn’t I say so?

  I didn’t know the answer. The only thing that I could think of was that I wasn’t supposed to like it. I was supposed to be mega-bitch boss. I was supposed to be in charge of everyone and everything and yet I’d crumbled after one kiss from him. He told me to strip. I did it. He told me to dress in my work clothes so he could remove them. I didn’t refuse. I could have done, told him to stop treating me like a toy to be played with. But I had loved every minute of it. Even being tied to the bed, his hand on my ass.

  I had protested because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. Why couldn’t I just accept that I liked it? What was wrong with me?

  When I said, “I don’t know,” I thought he would sit me down, get the truth out of me. Then we could go back to what we were doing, forget the dance, forget the outside world, have one perfect evening together. But then that might have been worse. I didn’t want a single evening with him. I didn’t want a one night stand. Just being away from him in that moment was painful. I was desperate for him to come back.

  He’d walked away. I’d told him the truth. I didn’t know if I wanted to be tied down. My inner submissive had loved handing over control of the situation to him but the mega-bitch boss I was supposed to be knew it was wrong. He was an employee. This was a bad idea all round.

  I’d been proven right when he left me alone, walking away as if he couldn’t get out of the room fast enough. I felt awful.

  Forget this ever happened, he’d said. Forget this ever happened. Like that was even possible. I would never forget tonight, not if I lived to be a hundred. It had awoken something in me and instead of embracing it, I’d stamped it down, going back into the little girl I had been for so many years.

  When I was growing up, I never got ‘the talk.’ Instead, I got the channel changed on the TV when kissing happened, God forbid anything more than that might occur.

  When my body started to change, I wanted to talk to my parents about it. I knew I couldn’t. They had made that clear whenever I’d tried to talk about anything involving my body. My sister was no help, away at boarding school and only back long enough to tell me to leave her alone, she was too busy to talk. I picked up snippets of information from the other kids at school but the main thing I learned was that it was something to be ashamed of. Desire was something to be ashamed of. I was sixteen before Anna and I had the most important talk I’d ever had. Her parents had been the opposite of mine, happy to discuss anything with her. She wasn’t afraid of her body, of the desire she might have to explore it. Unlike me.

  I learned from her not to be afraid of my own body but I still had hang ups left over from my parents. How they had me, I had no idea. I knew it was okay to have desires but at the same time it was shameful. Sitting on the bed in that hotel room, a lot of old feelings rose up in me. If I’d been braver, if I’d been bolder, I could have been in his arms at that moment instead of on my own.

  But what did it say about me to admit I wanted to do those things?

  I sat up, looking straight ahead. Stop being so melodramatic, I told myself. The past is the past. You can’t change it. You can change the future though. Go downstairs and speak to him, mega-bitch style. Tell him he’s bringing you back up here and finishing what he started.

  I got to my feet, steeling myself for what I was going to do. I tried to leave my doubts behind in the room as I walked downstairs but they insisted on calling after me. I did my best to ignore them. Walk in. Find him. Be firm. Be strong. Be his boss. If you want him to fuck you, that’s okay. If you want him to spank you, that’s allowed too. You’re an adult, not a child. You can do what you want, no disapproving parents looking over your shoulder anymore.

  I walked into the Herriot Suite and for a moment I couldn’t see him. Then I looked at the dance floor. He was in the middle of a waltz with some woman. I froze on the spot. That was how it was, was it? Turned down by me so immediately moving onto the next conquest?

  No, maybe she was just a client, one of the authors Snow Day worked with. I recognised her. She was the woman I'd seen in the supermarket, It could be a professional courtesy to dance with her. But as the music slowed, she leaned over and kissed his cheek so softly, I felt a jealous rage flaring up inside of me.

  I was about to turn and leave when he caught sight of me. He nodded in my direction and was walking towards me, weaving through the crowds. Then his phone rang.

  He stopped dead, pulling it out of his pocket and examining it. He mouthed, “Sorry,” at me before answering.

  I turned and left. Not even as important as a phone call. I couldn’t be there anymore. How had I been so foolish? Anna had been right. I would have been nothing but a conquest for him, something to boast about back at the office. It had been a lucky escape, the knock on the door stopping things when they did.

  I made it back to my room before bursting into tears. I wasn’t even sure why I was crying. Was it jealousy? The fact that I’d fallen for his tricks? Or was it because despite it all, I still wanted him? What the hell was wrong with me?

  I was still crying when someone knocked on the bedroom door. For a brief moment, I thought it might be him but reality soon corrected me of that delusion. He’d be off fucking whoever that woman he’d been dancing with. He didn’t need me anymore. I’d chickened out of what he needed. He had to dominate and I hadn’t let him. She would bend over backwards to obey him without any of the niggling doubts and neuroses that had decided to plague me.

  I wiped my eyes before crossing the floor and pulling the door open to find Anna looking up at me. “Fancy meeting you here,” she said before frowning. “Are you all right, you look as if you’ve been crying?”

  “I’m fine,” I lied, stepping aside so she could wheel herself in. “How’s your night going?”

  “Oh, fine,” she said, coming to a stop near the bed, spinning round to look at me. “The ramp to get in had gone missing so I was stuck outside on the pavement for twenty minutes before they decided to lift me up and carry me in like this is a sodding Sedan chair. Then while I’m trying to get up here to talk to you like we arranged, the manager pushes me into his office and insists on spending roughly half my lifetime apologising for the disabled facilities being sub par. I tried to tell him it was fine and I had a place to be but I don’t think he even heard me. So there’s that. How are you getting on with Bill?”

  “Oh, Anna.” It all came out in one go. I told her about what had happened, about my inability to just enjoy the moment and then his response when I couldn’t tell him the truth, how he’d just walked away and headed downstairs to the dance.

  When I was finished, she reached out and squeezed my hand. “So he tied you down and spanked you and you freaked out? Is that basically what happened?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And you freaked out because…?”

  “I don’t even know. It’s a bit weird isn’t it? Ropes and spanking and all that?”

  “Haven’t you read Fifty Shades? Didn’t you read my book and say it was amazing? It’s all the rage nowadays. If there isn’t a feather duster and nipple clamps involved, it hardly even counts as a first date anymore.”

  “It’s not just that.” I told her about the woman I’d seen him kissing downstairs.

  “You did turn him down though,” she said when I was done. “It wasn’t as if he was cheating on you.”

  There was a knock on the door that made us both jump. “What if that’s him?” I asked, my heart suddenly pounding.

  “I’ll answer it,” Anna said, wheeling herself over to the door.

  I held my breath as she answered it but the voice that spoke was that of the maid from earlier. “This is f
or Miss Rhodes,” she said, passing something to Anna.

  I watched Anna close the door before returning to me, passing me a slip of folded paper. “What is it?” she asked.

  “A note from Bill,” I replied. “Sorry, had to go. Will explain on Monday, hope you can cope here without an assistant.”

  I passed her the letter. She read it for herself before passing it back. “What does that mean?” I asked. “Where’s he gone? Off with her?”

  “Stop it,” Anna said sternly.

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop being so down about it all.”

  “How am I supposed to feel? Happy?”

  “You’re my best friend, Lucy, and I hate to be the one to tell you this but you need to accept all is not lost. So you fucked up this evening. Big deal, we all do it. You pick yourself up and you carry on. Now are you coming down to the dance with me or am I going to sit down there alone looking at all the working legs by myself, lonely, alone, all lonesome?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then I’m telling you, you are. Come down with me. Mingle, network, do all the things the new boss of adult fiction at Snow Day Publishing is supposed to do. We’ll also drink ourselves stupid at what I found out is a free bar.”

  “How did you find that out?”

  “Because I might have already been in. I might also have bumped into someone who works with you who escorted me in and told the staff to make sure I was looked after tonight.”

  “Who was that?”

  “No idea. He asked for a copy of my book though.”

  “What? How did that even happen?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. We got chatting. He asked me what I did for a living, I told him I was a writer, same as everyone else down there. Then he asked if I’d been published and I said no so he asked what I was working on at the minute. I told him about the book you liked and he asked for a copy. Told me to send it to Snow Day, care of the CEO.”

  “Do you mean to tell me the CEO of Snow Day is down there somewhere? What did he look like?”

  “Tall, handsome. Black suit.”

  “Sounds like Bill,” I said with a sigh.

  “Maybe it was.”

  “He’s not the CEO, he’s just an office drone like the rest of them.”

  “Well, why don’t we go see if we can spot him down there, then you can do some real networking, what do you say?”

  “Fine, but I’m only doing this because I want to, not because you told me to.”

  “Suits me. I get to get drunk for free either way.”

  I followed her out to the lift, trying not to think about what would happen if the CEO found out about this. I didn’t even know his name, no one did. There were twenty layers of shell companies and accounting files between them and me. But Anna had just bumped into him out of nowhere.

  What if he heard about me and Bill? What would happen to me then? I’d be out on my ear and the food club would close down forever.

  I vowed to find out who he was. If we didn’t see him downstairs tonight, I’d go to H.R on Monday and insist they tell me. I had a right to know, didn’t I?

  But he wasn't interested in me. He probably didn’t even know I existed. Bizarrely, what he was interested in was Anna and her book.

  “Any sign?” I asked when we reached the Herriot Suite.

  “I can’t see him,” Anna replied. “Maybe he’s over by the bar.”

  “Nice hint,” I replied, looking down to see her grinning up at me.

  “Come on then,” she said, wheeling herself slowly through the crowd. “Let’s go get you drunk enough to forget that you’re not supposed to like being spanked.”

  “Anna!” I screeched. “Keep your voice down.”

  She grinned at me. “Made you smile though, didn’t I?”

  I realised she was right. We both collected glasses of wine and then watched the room. I looked around and any thoughts of networking went away. I only wanted to speak to one person out of all of them and he wasn’t even there.

  FOURTEEN

  BILL

  I saw Lucy at just the wrong moment. I was still fuming from the way Sandra had just spoken to me. How dare she attempt to threaten me?

  The kiss on my cheek had added insult to injury. Those cold lips of a woman who would clearly do anything for money, so different to Lucy, who didn’t have a clue how much I was worth. She was everything Sandra wasn't.

  But as I walked away from Sandra and saw Lucy standing in the doorway, my phone rang. I had warned them not to ring me tonight unless it was urgent.

  It was.

  “Bill, it’s Malcolm.”

  “What is it?”

  “Are you somewhere you can talk?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “She’s persuaded him to start court proceedings. The guy just brought the forms in by hand. It looks like they’re going to try and fuck us over this.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “I’m going to try and set up a meeting for tomorrow or Sunday. Can you get to it?”

  “I’m supposed to be at this conference. Can you handle it without me?”

  “I can try but I need you to run through the strategy first. We have a few options I’ve put together but if we choose the wrong one, we risk-”

  “I’ll come back. Where are you?”

  “Still at the office. How long will you be?”

  “A couple of hours if the pilot’s still on duty.”

  “Thanks, Bill. Don’t worry, we’ll get out of this mess.”

  “I hope so.”

  I hung up. Lucy was gone. I thought about going after her but I decided against it. For one thing, I didn’t have time, for another, if I spent more than a minute with her, I wouldn’t be going back to London, I’d be staying here tonight and keeping her company. That would be fun but it wouldn’t help sort this mess out.

  Could they have handled it without me? Maybe. But they didn’t know Sandra like I did. From how she’d just behaved, I already had the start of an idea about how to play this. I just needed to get the rest of them on board.

  I wrote a note for Lucy and left it at reception. I’d talk to her on Monday, sort out the mess I’d made. Then we could start over again.

  I wasn’t giving up on her, I just needed to deal with one thing at a time. She would have to wait because unless we stamped on this problem, she might not have a job in a couple of months, neither might half the company. Only solvency could bring in investment and without investment, we were bound to crumble.

  I rang the pilot. He was at a guesthouse near the helicopter. He grumbled about flying back so late but a healthy bonus offer changed his mind and I was heading back for London half an hour later.

  The office building had a helipad on top. Once we were down, I took the stairs to Malcolm’s office, finding him hunched over a pile of papers. Together we got to work.

  We ended up arranging the meeting for Sunday. It wasn’t ideal, working through the weekend, but the deadline for Marty to submit was Friday and come the start of the working week, I either needed to pay him the extortionate amount in the contract and accept the clause that no other book could fill his slot in the calendar, a clause that would cost us an awful lot more than just his advance, or the alternative. Have another book ready to go.

  I hadn’t had chance to seek out any books during the weekend but then I did receive an unexpected parcel halfway through Saturday. It had come from the woman I’d met at the conference. She had been stood to the side of the Herriot suite, looking in as if she was looking for someone.

  We had got talking, not long before Sandra appeared. She had written a book, of course. It was unpublished, of course. But she had described the plot and I had to admit it at least had potential. So I’d given her my details and a courier had brought her manuscript through to me in the boardroom.

  When we finally broke for the day a little after ten on Saturday night, I had two things. A vague hint of a plan for Sunday and a book t
o read.

  I read it that night. It was long. It was good. Really good. Was I reading too much into it though. Was it my desperation for a hit that was making it seem better than it was? I needed a second opinion from someone I could trust.

  I rang Ted, asking him if he’d give it a look. He said he’d call into the office the next morning and get it from me. That left me hoping he would agree. Because if he did, I had the perfect ace to throw into my hand when it came to dealing with Marty. If he didn’t? Well, don’t think that way.

  Sunday came around. Ted arrived at the office ten minutes after me. “What’s it about?” he asked as I handed the manuscript over to him.

  “Go in blind. I don’t want any preconceptions. Just come back to me with your honest opinion. Could it be a hit or am I going mad?”

  “If it can, you might have just earned Snow Day a reprieve,” he replied. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I’m done. Are you ready for the meeting?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.” I sounded more confident than I felt. That was the important thing. Never let the doubts show.

  “What about that girl you were gunning for?”

  “Who? Lucy? That’s still up in the air.”

  “You’re hiding something. What is it? Is she married?”

  “I’ll tell you later. I need to focus on this for now.”

  “Understood.” He headed off with the manuscript under his arm and I headed to the boardroom. Malcolm and the others were waiting for me.

  When noon came around we were all sitting looking as serious as we could. Marty walked in with Sandra to his left and a guy in a suit to his right. He had to be their lawyer.

  Malcolm nodded to the man I didn’t recognise. “Gone freelance, Derek?” he asked.

  “Still sucking the corporate cock?” Derek replied.

  Pleasantries out of the way, they sat down opposite us, Derek holding up the contract. “Shall we save some time and you just pay my client now?”