by Lesley Jones
“It’s not fucking funny, George. You’re not the one that has to put up with her tantrums and meltdowns of Georgia proportions.”
I just give a loud yawn. I’ve heard it all before.
“Jim, you handled me just fine when we were fifteen, I’m sure you can handle her now that you’re a grown arse woman.”
“Yeah, just like you handle Tallulah.”
“I handle Lu just fine, and if I can’t, Cam does.”
“Pfft, she has Cam wrapped around her little finger.”
“Oh my god, are you two just gonna stand and argue all day?”
“Shut up.” They tell me in unison.
“And cover your mouth when you yawn. Did your mother teach you no manners?”
My mum glares at my aunt, her mouth open in shock at her accusation.
Giving another huff, I flick my hair over my shoulder, and stomp towards my uncle’s office, swinging the door open without bothering to knock.
I stop in my tracks as soon as I realise there is someone in there with him.
Cam is sitting back in his chair, his legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankle, and propped on his desk.
The other person is a man, but I can only see his dark hair and his legs. He has the ankle of one resting on the knee of the other.
They each have a short rounded glass containing an amber coloured liquid in their hands.
Cam looks up, wide-eyed with surprise at first and then he gives me a smile.
“Book, what you doing here?”
My uncle tells the worst jokes ever. Because my name is Paige, he’s always called me Book, and he seriously thinks he’s funny. He’s not. And even when he is, I’m funnier.
“All right, Queenie, how are you?” His surname is King, so my play on his name has always been to call him Queenie, which is actually funny, considering the size of the man. He’s big, like really big. Taller than my dad, my pops and my uncles and cousins. He has really wide shoulders, and I suppose you might call him good-looking in an old man kind of way . . . he must have something going for him anyway because my aunt married him, and she is beautiful. So beautiful that she was once married to a famous rock star.
“Paige, you can’t just barge in there without knocking,” my mum calls from behind me. I turn and roll my eyes at her.
G is pretty bad arse most of the time, except when she bangs on about being respectful to my mum. My mum has a stick up her arse most of the time though when it comes to manners, not swearing, pronouncing my words properly, knocking on closed doors before entering a room . . .
I remember that I’ve come to ask my uncle a favour and turn to give him my sweetest, most innocent look, but the man that is sitting in the chair on my side of the desk has turned it to face me.
My heart and my belly do this thing. It’s like they’ve somehow become tethered inside me. My belly tries to turn itself in knots, pulling my heart down into it. My heart attempts to escape and flies up through my chest, lodges in my throat and beats erratically.
He stares at me with the bluest of eyes.
I’m just fifteen years old, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that this grown man sitting in front of me is potentially going to be my first real-life crush and quite possibly, the love of my life.
Prologue
Will
“S
o you’re happy with all the changes, the new terms, expectations and package?”
“Yeah, it all sounds good. Do I get a choice of car?”
My boss cocks his head to the side and narrows his eyes as he looks at me. My heart rate accelerates marginally.
Cameron King is now somewhere in his late forties or early fifties, but he’s still an imposing and formidable force. Using the help of Google, I’d done some research. Despite the fact he was portrayed as a mild-mannered nightclub owner and businessman extraordinaire, happily married to his beautiful wife and devoted to his family, you could write a book about the things that bloke had supposedly gotten up to in his past. And I was man enough to admit, he scared the living fucking daylights out of me.
“Will a Land Rover work for you?” He asks, a small twitch at the corner of his right eye the only indication that he's being just a little facetious.
“Depends on the colour.”
He raises his eyebrows and stares at me.
Fuck, I hope he gets that I’m joking.
I’ve been working for K.L.U.B for over six years. Out of all of the partners who owned the nightclub chain, I’d had more dealings with Cam King than any of the others, and right now I was just accepting a job working directly for him as South East of England area manager, looking after the K&K clubs in that area.
“If I let you choose your own, will it stop you walking around with a face like a smacked arse?”
My stomach churns as I think about the reason why I’m wearing the expression my new boss just described so eloquently.
She was really doing it. My Sarah Sunshine was really gonna marry the Aussie fucker. I’d gotten the invite yesterday morning, making me want to vomit up my coffee.
“Will?”
“What?” I start as Cam calls my name and snap at him a little more harshly than I intend.
“D’you want this job or a fat fucking lip? Coz you’re going the right way to get the latter.”
“Sorry. Sorry, Cam. Of course I want the car…shit, the job. I mean the job. I definitely want the job and the cars great too. A Land Rover, wow, yeah, that’s great. Thanks.”
“All right, you can shut the fuck up and stop brown nosing now. What’s wrong? The reason I’ve poached you for this role is that you’re always so switched on. Right now, I’m worried I’ve made a mistake and picked the wrong man for the job. So, I’ll ask again, what’s going on?”
He stands as he speaks and proceeds to pour us both a bourbon from a bottle he’d taken from the small bar area in the corner of his office.
“Nothing. It’s all good.”
I like my boss, but that’s what he is, my boss. I wasn’t about to get into a D&M with him and discuss the ‘the one that got away’.”
He passes me my glass, sits down and stretches his long legs out, resting his feet up on the corner of his desk. He watches me the whole time, staring silently while tapping his index finger on his bottom lip as he does.
“I’m not your mother or even your father for that matter, so I don’t need to know all the ins and outs of your business, but what I do require from my employees, is honesty. You don’t have to tell me what it is that’s obviously pissing you the fuck off right now, but don’t lie and tell me that it’s nothing.”
I knock back everything in my glass. The bourbon warms my belly and makes my head spin slightly as I consider my response.
Cameron King is a lot more perceptive than I gave him credit for. I suppose living life as an East End gangster, as he once did, being able to read people is essential to staying alive.
“It’s a girl.” I stare into my now empty glass and confess. I have no one else I can talk to about this. Usually, it’d be Luke, but Sarah, the girl that has broken my heart, is his sister, and Liam, the Aussie fucker she’s going to marry is his business partner.
I hear Cam let out a long sigh, before he stands, collects the bottle from the bar and places it between us on his desk.
Without making eye contact with him, I top up both our glasses.
“So a bird has got you all twisted up like this?”
I finally look up and meet his eyes, nodding my head slowly as I do.
“Not just any bird, the bird.”
He nods in return, wiping his hand over his mouth and the salt and pepper beard on his chin.
“What’s she done?”
“Marrying some other fucker.”
“That’d explain the face then.”
“It would.”
“Fucking hurts like nothing else. I know, I’ve been there.”
“You have?”
He nods his
head, “and I’ve gotta say, you’re handling it a lot better than I did.”
“I don’t wanna handle it I wanna do something about it. I wanna stop her from doing it, stop it from happening.”
“Why don’t you then?”
“I left it too late. I had the chance. I’ve had many chances. I just didn’t take them. I thought I had more time and then along he came and swept her away, right out from under my nose and there’s been fuck all I’ve been able to do ever since.”
“Does she know?”
I lean forward in my chair and rest both my elbows on my knees and drop the hand holding my glass down between them.
“She knows, but I didn’t tell her how I felt until after he’d shown up, not until I realised that something was going on between the two of them.”
He chews on the inside of his lip for a few quiet seconds, and I got the sense that he’s contemplating whether or not to say something.
“I lost Georgia once,” he finally says.
I’m shocked. Not only by his confession and the fact that he’d confided in me, but also by the information.
Cam’s wife is stunning, in a supermodel kind of way. She’s probably around forty and as gorgeous now as she was in the pictures I’d seen of her in newspapers and magazines while I’d been growing up. It’s entirely apparent to anyone that’s ever been in their company, that they’re bang in love. The way they look at each other, it kinda makes you uncomfortable to be in the same room.
“To another man?”
“Well it weren’t to a fuckin’ woman. My wife don’t swing that way.”
I roll my eyes and let out a long breath through my nose. “I didn’t know if you meant you fucked up and she left.”
“I did fuck up. A bit like you, I kept my mouth shut for too long and didn’t tell her how I felt. I went away on a business trip, and by the time I got back, she’d reconnected with her ex.”
Fuck, it was hard enough never to have had Sarah. Imagine having her and then losing her. I think it’d kill me. This hurts hard enough.
“So it was before you were married then?”
“Yeah, way before then. I think she was only about nineteen at the time.”
“What happened?”
“She married him.”
“Oh fuck. Maca? You were with her before she married him?”
“Yep, not for long, but long enough for me to know that she was the one.”
He sips his drink, before adding, “it nearly killed me. I’d spent the previous couple of years getting myself cleaned up. After the death of my first wife, I was a mess.”
He sips his drink and shrugs, “I’m not an alcoholic or a drug addict, but I have been known to overindulge when things get tough. When I met Georgia I was the happiest I had been for the first time in years, maybe in forever, but definitely for a while. Then I lost her, and I just needed something to numb the pain. Cocaine, whisky, vodka, they all fit the bill.”
He lets out a long breath, causing his lips to roll together.
“You need to accept it and move on Will. I’m probably not the best person to give advice, but I will tell you this, you can either live each day in the hope that something will happen to make her come back to you, or you can save yourself a whole world of heartache and pain, and move the fuck on.”
“Is that what you did.”
“Nope.” He doesn't hesitate with his response. “I knew that one day I’d get her back. I never expected it to happen the way that it did, nor would I have ever wished for that to have happened, but, I just always knew, in my heart, in my gut, even in my head, I just knew that my time would come.”
“I don’t feel that.”
“That you’ll one day get her back?”
“Yeah, I know that I’ve lost her for good.”
“Then move on. If you don’t, the hurt will consume you, churn you up and spit you out, that, in turn, will make you a shit employee and I don’t employ shit. I only employ the best.”
I give him a small smile, “and there I was thinking that you wanted to be my new dad and that you actually cared.”
“I’m not that old you cheeky fucker, and I already have four kids of my own, thank you very much. And…” He lets out a long slow breath before continuing. “I do care, about my business. You’re a part of my business, so, I’ll give you this one last piece of advice.”
He stares at a framed photo that sits on the desk in front of him. I can only see the back of it, but I know from memory that it’s of him and his wife.
He takes a sip of his drink and then raises his eyes back to meet mine.
“If you do ever get another chance with her, or, if you ever meet another girl that makes you feel the way that she did, or does, don't hesitate, not even for a second to let her know. Make sure there is no miscommunication between you. Just put it the fuck out there and let her know exactly how you feel.”
He gives his big shoulders a small shrug, but before either of us can say anymore, the door to his office swings open and the voices of at least a half-dozen women talking at once invades our space.
Cam's eyes widen before he smiles.
“Book, what are you doing here?”
“Alright Queenie, how are you?” I hear someone question. The accent is similar to Cam’s, cockney or Essex but at the same time slightly refined. ‘Posh Essex,’ if there is such a thing.
“Paige, you can’t just barge in there without knocking.”
Cam’s eyes widen further, and I turn my chair to face whoever has caused the noise and interruption.
I get this feeling inside me, but I’m not sure where it’s actually centred, it could be my chest, it could be my belly. It’s like when you think there’s one more step left at the bottom of the stairs when you’re in the dark, but there’s not, and just for a split second, you think you’ve missed it and are about to fall. That feeling where everything inside you plunges and then drags itself back to its rightful position, only my insides have lost their way on the return journey, becoming twisted into a tangled mess, making my gut churn.
I stare at her.
She stares right back at me.
She’s young. About twenty if I had to guess. And she’s stunning. Tall, slim. Long, light golden coloured hair. Olive skin and gorgeous blue eyes that look almost too big for her delicate face.
“Kitten.” I hear Cam say from somewhere within the room. I move my eyes to his wife as she appears in the doorway and my stomach once again takes a dive to my boots, and my heart all but stops beating when I realise the likeness of the younger woman to Georgia King.
Fuck. My. Life.
She must be their daughter. My bosses daughter for fuck's sake. I have to shut down each and every improper thought I’ve had the previous few seconds. Thoughts about those pouty lips wrapping around my dick, thoughts about those big blue eyes, smeared with mascara as I fucked that beautiful mouth.
I blink, take in a deep breath and tuck each and every one of those inappropriate thoughts away.
Lesley Jones was born and raised in Essex England but moved to Australia in 2006 with her family. Her first book, Saviour, was published in 2013 and she quickly gained a reputation as a writer of gritty, down to earth characters, involved in angsty and emotional plot lines. Carnage, her third novel, has won a number of awards for ‘Best Ugly Cry’ Her readers love the fact that she can switch her stories from hot and steamy, to snot bubble ugly crying, followed by laugh out loud moments, in the space of a few sentences. She has declared that the very best part of her job is meeting her readers and has travelled the world a number of times over the past few years to do exactly that.
When not writing, she has admitted to being a prolific reader, getting through around four or five books a week. She is a fan of trashy reality TV, listening to music, watching her son play football and enjoys a glass of wine… or three.
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