Falling from Grace: A Billionaire Romantic Suspense series (The Filth Monger Series Book 1)

by Chant, Annabel

  I didn’t understand at all. I was always needed. Even when I had a holiday booked – and it was always done months in advance, in case it interfered with some pressing need of his – he always made me feel guilty as hell for taking it.

  He looked half fierce, half…something else. His jaw – which was always strong and square – stuck out so determinedly it looked almost lantern-like. A caricature of Mr Arrogant. His voice, when he spoke again, was softer, but no less definite. ‘Find somewhere else to be,’ he said, with a sigh. ‘It was always on the cards, I suppose you know that. But quite frankly, we could do without the intrusion, and I’m sure you could do without having to run around after me.’

  I still didn’t speak, just looked at him standing there, calm and unruffled in his crisp, grey suit, and wondered if he’d gone stark raving mad. In fact, I was sure, at the time, he had. What the hell did he think I’d done, for Christ’s sake? I’d done nothing. Nothing to deserve this summary treatment.

  I lifted my chin and turned away, dizzy with disbelief. I was about to walk out of the office when he spoke again. ‘I’m sorry, Grace,’ he said. ‘Really, I am. It can’t be easy. We’ll see you next week, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, trying hard to keep the wobble from my voice. What the hell was he on about? Why would whatever I’d done be okay next week? Had I made some catastrophic error? Was he covering my back, trying to rectify things, while I was at home, twiddling my thumbs, presumably suspended from duty?

  ‘And you do understand?’ He looked almost beseeching, and reached out to me. For one mad moment, I thought he was actually going to put his arms round me… hug me…. but he didn’t. We both stood there, staring at each other for what seemed an eternity of awkwardness, and it was only when he spoke again that I realised I hadn’t answered.

  ‘You do understand, Grace,’ he repeated. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose.’ My reply was almost inaudible. I looked down at the floor. I couldn’t bear him to see the humiliation in my eyes.

  He said nothing else, so presumably the interview was over. I left his office, trying hard to keep my composure, to act as if everything was normal, when it so totally wasn’t.

  Everyone knew, anyway. I could tell the minute I glanced around the office. They were all looking over at me from their booths, several with phones hanging uselessly in their hands.

  Why hadn’t I asked him what I'd done? What had I just stood there and taken it, as if I knew exactly what he was talking about? Why couldn’t I stand up for myself? I looked around for a friendly face amongst all the embarrassed stares.

  Liv! Liv Perry was there, thank God, sitting at her desk. The one person I could depend on. She looked unabashed, but her eyes were just as wide and anxious as Pascale’s had been just a few minutes before. Christ, it felt like a lifetime ago, but it really had been just a few minutes.

  I stumbled over to her desk, and collapsed in the chair next to hers. It wouldn’t be needed for an hour at least. Jeremy was always late. Came in when he wanted, and no one ever asked questions. If only I were already an accounts manager. They got away with anything, if they were good at their job. If I were on their level, I wouldn’t be in this god-awful mess.

  ‘He’s…’ I gulped hard, and racked my brain for an appropriate description. ‘A total dick.’

  Liv put her hand over mine, and gave me a sad smile. ‘He is, hon. A total, total dick. And an idiot.’

  ‘Yes he is.’ I was starting to feel angry now. ‘I do everything for him. He doesn’t know when he’s well off.’

  ‘I know, hon, I know. They never do. That’s the trouble with men.’ She patted my hand. ‘They always think the grass is greener. I should know.’

  I managed a smile, knowing Liv’s dating history. It was a disaster of biblical proportions, but hardly relevant at the moment. I decided to bring the conversation back on track.

  I took a deep breath, knowing my next statement was likely to get me into more trouble, if that were even possible. I hardly cared. It seemed unlikely anyone would overhear, anyway. The phones were practically ringing off the hook. I’d never known a morning like it. A fine day to chuck me out of the office…

  ‘Fucking, fucking Max Flint,’ I declared, in fury.

  ‘Max?’ If Liv had been standing up, I swear she’d have taken a step backwards. As it was, she merely jolted a little, and stared at me as if I were crazy. ‘What’s Max done?’

  ‘Sent me home,’ I said, the frustration spilling over into my voice, and tingeing it with sarcasm. ‘I thought you knew.’

  ‘Aw.’ Liv looked over towards Max’s office. ‘Just when I thought I knew the ruthless bastard, he pulls the rug out on me. What a sweetie.’

  ‘You’re joking.’ I stared at her. ‘Right?’

  ‘No, I…’ She paused and her expression softened. She looked troubled again. ‘You don’t know, do you?’

  ‘Know?’ This morning wasn’t getting any better. Every time I thought I was getting a handle on it, I was blindsided again. ‘No, I don’t. What the hell’ve I done?’

  Liv bent down and pulled her bag from under her desk. It was enormous, more like a rucksack, and contained the most improbable things. Everyone called it her Mary Poppins bag. She stood up. ‘Let’s go up to the restaurant, if you can face it. Get a bottle of wine. You’re gonna need it.’

  The staff restaurant was up on the fourteenth floor. Liv had hold of my hand, and steered me towards the bar, past the handful of employees still gulping down a quick breakfast before the work of the day began.

  ‘A bottle of white, please, Anton,’ she said, leaning on the counter. I hovered behind her. She was still holding my hand, and she squeezed it then, brief but firm. Reassuring.

  ‘Wine?’ Anton looked doubtfully at his watch. ‘It’s barely nine in the morning. I really don’t think…’

  ‘Wine, Anton,’ repeated Liv. She nodded behind her, to where I was standing. Anton followed her gesture with his eyes. When they hit me, they widened considerably. God, it was getting ridiculous.

  He still looked doubtful. There were probably laws against selling alcohol before a particular time. I didn’t have a clue. I rarely drank.

  Finally, he nodded. ‘Just this once.’

  Liv steered me over to a table by the window. It could’ve been a great view, if it weren’t for all the blank, staring windows of the flat, modern buildings opposite. It felt like everyone and everything were staring at me that morning. It was almost surreal.

  Anton brought the wine over to our table, where he placed it gently, almost reverently, before shuffling away backwards to the bar. I watched him go, perplexed. I turned back to Liv, who was already sloshing wine into my glass. When it was full to nearly overflowing, she poured a meagre half glass for herself. Well, she was expected back in the office at some point. I wasn’t.

  ‘Tell me, Liv.’ I ran my finger around the top of my glass, catching the splash marks with my fingertip. Even as I said it, I half didn’t want to know. Whatever it was that’d happened, it was clearly god-awful. I felt almost sick with nerves. Better to get it over with.

  ‘Drink first.’

  I took a sip of wine. It was harsh and sharp on my tongue, and I suddenly realised I hadn’t had as much as a glass of water yet, that morning. I didn’t think I could face wine, and went to put it down.

  ‘Drink.’ Liv was fumbling in her Mary Poppins bag, and didn’t even look up.

  I took another sip.

  ‘All of it.’

  ‘Really?’ I looked up at her. ‘The whole glass?’

  ‘The whole glass.’

  Her tone brooked no argument. I lifted it reluctantly to my lips, tipped my head back slightly, and gulped down half its contents, droplets spilling down my chin in my desperation to end the tart, overpowering assault on my mouth. By the time I’d managed to finish it, Liv had put her handbag down, and was clutching a newspaper.

  She passed it across the table to me.

  ‘Page tw
o,’ she said.

  Her face betrayed no emotion, and I took the paper from her without a word. I opened it at the second page, feeling slightly sick from the wine, and immediately felt sicker than I’d ever felt in my life.

  Footballers in sleazy sex romp

  I recoiled instinctively, and pushed the paper away from me. My breathing got faster, harder, and I began to tremble.

  ‘You may as well read it,’ Liv said. ‘Get it over with.’

  Reluctantly, I picked it up. My hands were shaking so much I could barely keep it still enough to read. Added to which, I had so many thoughts whirling in my mind, it was as if I were in a fog. It was hard to focus enough to take it in.

  I went to put it down again, but Liv stayed me with her hand. ‘Read it.’

  I looked up at her, then back down at the paper.

  ‘You have to know what’s gone on, Grace,’ she said. ‘Or you won’t be able to protect yourself.’

  I nodded slowly. She was right. I had to know. I didn’t want to in the least, but I had to find out what everyone else already knew.

  I took a deep breath, and began to read.

  Three

  fag British public (boarding) school institution (now allegedly out-dated), whereby a junior boy is in service to a senior boy. A fag’s chores could include anything, from making tea and taking messages, to more demeaning tasks, such as polishing shoes, depending upon the fag master and his whims. An honourable fag master would also look out for his fag; by protecting him from bullies, etc. Fagging did not usually have sexual connotations.

  I saw her again on the news, that lunchtime. My morning hadn’t started well, but she seemed to be having a worse day even than me.

  ‘Poor kid,’ I murmured to myself, watching her come out the front entrance of Ffyvells. She was just as beautiful, even with her make-up smudged and that tight, wan look. It was no surprise she was with a Premiership player, even if he was only in one of the lower teams. She could’ve had one of the stars just as easily.

  She was so delicate; slim and fine-boned, with huge, shocked eyes that peered out from between locks of her hair. It looked as if she’d deliberately pushed it forward, to afford herself some protection. Long tendrils of it twisted across her face, and the sun caught it as she gazed around her, turning it to copper and gold. She looked hunted. Beautiful but defeated. It was a marked contrast from the defiant Amazon I’d confronted in Max’s office, who’d just dared me to look at her after Max had yelled at her like that.

  I’d been furious with him, even though she’d clearly pissed him off somehow. He’d had four calls while I was in with him and, looking back, they were obviously something to do with her. After the third, he’d seen her through his window, and shouted for her like she was his fag at school. I’d hated it then, and I hated it now.

  He’d never had to fag. He’d had acne, when we’d started school together, and none of the older boys had wanted him. I hadn’t been so lucky, and when I’d taken on a fag of my own, I’d known how to treat him.

  Max had ridden roughshod over his, and hearing him yell like that had thrown me back twenty years. I could almost feel the roughness of the starched white collars and the frock coats; taste the vile muck that passed for dinner; smell the musty, echoing classrooms. He hadn’t changed. He still treated his underlings as fags.

  I’d tried to smile at her, there in his office, let her know secretly that I was on her side. She’d been too proud to take my pity. She’d just glared. She didn’t need my solidarity. That girl - perfect as she was - I could have forgotten. She was a match for Max. She could fight her own wars. This broken version was a different matter.

  As the cameras played on her, she stood on the front steps of Ffyvells, gazing around at the bustle of Lombard Street as if she were seeing it for the first time. She seemed dazed…like she was wondering what the hell was going on. She seemed to have no clue why the reporters were there, how famous she was…or how beautiful.

  She’d also been drinking. Most people wouldn’t have noticed, but I owned clubs. It was second nature to me to spot when someone was vulnerable, and she might as well have had it stamped across her forehead. As far as I was concerned, it was a cry for help.

  I almost turned away from the screen at the thought. No more. I’d had enough. She had a friend with her, anyway; beautiful too in a black-haired, emo way and oh-so-fierce, leading her by the elbow and pushing her through a wash of reporters to a waiting taxi. And even now, despite everything, she was holding her head proud and erect. With her burnished locks, her startling blue eyes, and her haughty air, she was perfect camera-fodder. The mascara down her cheeks was a story in itself. Fucking journos. Parasites, to a man.

  Or woman, I reminded myself, casting my eye towards the door of my bedroom.

  It was ajar. Charlotte was still asleep in there, sprawled naked across the silk sheets, an open invitation to some men. Not to me. It was the whole vulnerability thing again, and it was the reason I’d finally agreed to train her in the first place. She’d have ended up hurt, if not dead, if she’d carried on the way she’d started. At least I’d saved her from that. Not that it hasn’t completely backfired on me, I thought ruefully, chopping fruit, one eye still on the news.

  I’d locked her in when I’d gone to see Max, just in case, but I needn’t have bothered. I wondered when she’d finally wake up. She was so still and peaceful, she could almost be dead. It was the way with subs sometimes, after an intense night of play. Not that it had been that intense. I’d gone through the motions; tying her, punishing her, teasing her submission from her, but my heart hadn’t been in it – never had, really, with Charlotte. It had ended abruptly, too, when she’d begged me to fuck her.

  I’d called an immediate halt to play. She’d known the rules from the start, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t do that.

  Damn Alex. If he’d agreed to take her on, I wouldn’t be in this mess. But he was right. He was busy enough as an overseer, not to mention the numerous other roles he took on for me.

  I’d found it strange, even so, that he’d turned her down. It wasn’t like Alex to decline a beautiful face, or a perfect body. She had both. She was the complete package, in many ways, with long, soft hair that dripped down her shapely back like melted caramel, and eyes to match. But he’d been firm. There was something not right about her, he’d said. She was just too eager to learn, too full of questions. I wished now I’d listened to him.

  When I’d refused to fuck her, she’d whined so much that, in the end, I’d agreed to let her stay over. That never happened. Absolutely never. But I was exhausted. I’d been in a shareholders’ meeting most of the day, and our session - intense as it wasn’t - on the back of it, meant I simply didn’t have the strength to argue. So I’d let her cuddle up to me, as I lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling and wondering how the hell I’d let her invade my personal time.

  It was such an unusual sensation – her soft, bare skin pressed up against me, her hot breath on my neck - that I couldn’t sleep. I just lay there, wondering how I was going to call time on this whole thing. She didn’t need further training. She needed a Dom of her own, one that would take care of her, keep her safe from predators and weirdos and, most of all, from herself.

  I must have drifted off at some point, because I remember coming to, feeling her rubbing at my cock through my sweatpants. I’d changed out of my suit, once it became apparent she was going nowhere, but I wasn’t sleeping with her naked. She was staying for comfort, not for a fuck, and I’d made that perfectly clear.

  I struggled to wake up, but my mind was heavy, drugged with sleep. Even in that hazy half-state, I was aware of my cock stiffening, involuntarily. Charlotte gave a moan of delight, and began licking at it over my sweatpants, cupping my balls with one hand, while the other pulled at the top of my pants, inching them down across my hips.

  I woke fully at this and pushed her head away. She gave a low moan of disappointment… or was it anger? I couldn’t tell
until she sat up, fury etched into her face.

  ‘Why not?’ She pulled the sheets up around her, hiding her nakedness. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘I can’t,’ I said, pushing myself up onto my elbow. I felt a complete bastard. ‘I could, but I won’t. I don’t do this. Ever.’

  ‘Am I not submissive enough for you?’ Her hair, still tumbled from the session earlier, fell in sensuous tendrils across the swell of her breasts. I had to stop myself reaching out. She was doing nothing to ease my aching cock. Judging from her body language, I didn’t think she’d welcome it now, not after my refusing her, and it would have complicated matters beyond belief. I had to keep my self-control. It was who I was.

  ‘It’s not you,’ I said. ‘Really.’

  ‘Is that the best you can do?’ She gave a harsh laugh, and went to get up. ‘Well, if it’s not me, who is it? Is there someone else?’

  Christ, she still didn’t understand even the most basic tenets of our relationship. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t spelt it out often enough. She’d been warned about becoming too close, opening herself up too much. She was in training, but not for me. She was being trained by me. To help her find a Master. No self-respecting Dom would’ve touched her before. She hadn’t been submissive. She’d been a push-over.

  I sighed impatiently. Surely she hadn’t let herself fall in love with me? How could she? She didn’t even know me. Not that she hadn’t tried. No one had tried to crack me open like Charlotte, but her endless questioning had been in vain. She had no idea of what I was really like, or she wouldn’t have tried it on like that.

  She stood up, the sheets trailing after her and slipping to the floor.

  ‘There’s no one else,’ I said, as she walked out of the room. She didn’t turn around.

  She’d gone into the bathroom. I could hear her running the shower. I looked at the bed. It looked like we’d fucked after all. The sheets were hanging off the bed, spilt like milk across the oak flooring, and her pillows were ravaged. I leaned across, pulling them back to rearrange them. It was when I pulled back the bottom one that I saw it, nestled there like a smoking gun.