“It isn’t,” he said grimly.
The floorboards groaned as he sauntered back down the hall, and I pressed my fingers to stinging lips. Joseph did not kiss me with the absent abandon of a client. He kissed me as a lover would, razors and all.
Mine. The word hissed in my ear again.
God, I’d never danced like this before.
Do you stake a claim on someone, or do they offer themselves to you?
* * * *
“To Bhan.”
Three glasses clinked and we sat back against the old pub chairs.
“I can’t believe they fired him,” Matt said. “He’d been working his balls off–”
“He didn’t have enough balls,” Poppy cut in. She paused, sighing. “He was just never going to have the commitment required. This job demands that you don’t have a life.”
“I know that feeling,” Matt grumbled.
It had been an awkward day in the office. A lump had risen in my throat as I watched Bhan clear his desk, as he tried not to cry–he’d thrown six years of study down the toilet and wouldn’t be going home to a happy wife. I wanted to hug him before he left, but he wouldn’t look any of us in the eye, let alone give us the chance to speak. I didn’t blame him.
What unsettled me the most was the way Joseph handled it. He’d been in a foul mood all day, but the green eyes that surveyed us with silent fury were the same ones I had gazed into the previous night as we fucked. He didn’t have a Charlotte for his dirty work, and it frightened me.
Intrigued me, too.
“Leila? Are you listening?” Poppy waved a hand in front of my face and I blinked several times.
“Sorry, chick. What were you saying?”
“Matt was just saying about how he’s been offered a job.”
“Oh?” I smiled brightly at him. “That’s brilliant. Where are you going?”
He bowed his head a little. “A firm back home in Wilts. Commercial property.”
“You were serious about that, then.”
“Yeah. Anything’s better than tax, anyway.” He eyed me with boyish mischief. “I used to walk past the offices on my way back from school and daydream about–”
“Drafting planning deeds?” Poppy said helpfully.
“He probably just caught sight of the secretaries.” I giggled.
Matt held up his hands in protest. “As it happens, yeah, there might have been a secretary or two. However, they also had really nice cars.” He sipped his pint. “All of them. I knew right then that I wanted to work in law.”
“Admirable,” Poppy said, nodding. “I knew because that’s what the head girls at my school always did. I didn’t actually know what else to do with myself.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Really, Pops? I’d have thought you’d have some sort of ten-year-plan mapped out by the beginning of sixth form.”
“Well, I had the stationery.” She laughed. “I think I got slightly distracted by emo music and eye liner experimentation.”
“I know that feeling, too,” Matt said.
I stole a glance at his dark eyes, the pupils framed with velvety lashes. A bit of eyeliner would suit him.
“What about you, Leila?” Poppy asked. “What made you decide to enter the thrilling world of corporate profit swindling?”
I shrugged. “I grew up with my parents running their holiday business, and I used to help my mum do the accounts. I liked to mess with them, and law was a bit less straight-laced than accountancy.”
“Is anyone else eating? I’m going to eat,” Poppy said from behind the menu.
“I think my watch actually says big-fat-burger-o’clock.” Matt tapped a leather-bound wrist. “See?”
“If they have pasta, I’m game. I’m carb-starved.” I gave a mock whimper.
Poppy disappeared to order for us, leaving me and Matt to play with the bar mats and avoid looking at each other.
“I’m really pleased for you,” I said finally, “about your job.”
“Cheers,” he mumbled.
Ask him ask him ask him ask him to the wedding! “The office won’t be the same without you.”
“Now you’re just spouting crap, Leila.” He smiled ruefully. “But thank you.”
Ask him, dammit!
No no no no no.
I chewed my bottom lip. “Was that really why you went into law? Boobs and cars?”
“No getting past you, eh?” He spun the bar mat in his palm. “I realized I was never going to play rugby professionally, or be in a band. And law seemed...sensible.”
“Sensible?”
“What, like I can’t be?” He poked my arm.
“I...that’s not what I meant. So where in Wilts is it, this sensible new firm?”
“Salisbury.”
“Oh? That’s near Stockbridge, isn’t it?”
“It is.” He folded his arms behind his head. “Why’d you ask?”
Be subtle! “I’m going to a wedding there this weekend.”
He tutted. “Not yours, is it? Something else you forgot to mention?”
Ouch. “No,” I said quietly. “Just a friend’s.”
“That came out wrong. I didn’t mean–”
Poppy returned then with an armful of drinks and cutlery. “I ordered you the linguini, Leila,” she said cheerfully. “With garlic bread. It looked extra carby.”
“Thanks, Pops.” I tossed her a bank note and she tucked it into her purse.
Suddenly, I wasn’t so hungry.
* * * *
I couldn’t shake the grip of Joseph’s last kiss. It squeezed me in its fist, and I oozed out of the separate ends in two fleshy lumps. One half for Joseph and one half for Matt.
And the vacant space in the middle…who lived there? The girl who walked into the office every day with a brave smile and narrowed, paranoid eyes.
Jesus, if only she’d just stop moaning.
* * * *
Joseph had been snappy all morning. We cowered, a miserable triangle in the corner of the office, and his wrath simmered steadily behind the door.
The firm lagged three days behind on a major acquisition. Three days was a long time in tax law–something had been fucked utterly and half of it needed doing again. Joseph had the rest of the department tearing the muck from their scalps, but so much needed to be done that we had our hands, laps and briefcases full as well.
“What’s left?” Joseph hovered over us, his hands clenched behind his back.
“We’re about half-way through the laundry invoices for APAK,” Matt declared. “We figured I’d do the last bit myself and the girls could start on the VAT for the drinks machines.”
Laundry and beverages. We were only trainees–we got all the fun jobs.
Joseph folded his arms, exhaling. “Don’t expect to be home before ten tonight, children. Nobody’s leaving the building until it’s case closed.”
“Do we at least get lunch today?” Poppy’s eyes were big with hope.
“Mmm.” He cocked his head. “Half an hour at one–but only because you all look like the ghosts of fuck-ups past.” He strode back into his office with a dramatic slam of the door.
Poppy grimaced. “Do we look pale, Leila? I don’t look pale, do I?”
“You’re naturally alabaster,” I said, patting her hand. “And I’m naturally...erm...pasty.”
“Actually, you’re a little flushed,” said Matt, his tone dragging with suspicion.
“It’s the stress. Getting to me. Had plans tonight,” I mumbled.
He raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Glamorous man, Leila?” Poppy grinned.
It was a glamorous manwhore, actually, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it. “Just a friend,” I yawned, “but not anymore, evidently.”
“I’m going to get Sadie to order in again.” Matt stood up and stretched. It made him look comically tall. “What shall we get? Sushi?”
“Good with me.” I waved a hand, my nose wedged firmly back into a heap of invoices.
> Poppy nodded as he disappeared to the PA’s desk. Then she nudged me beneath the desk, and I snapped up.
“What’s gone on between you and Matt?” She had that bossy tone to her voice that made me slightly afraid of her.
“Nothing.”
“Bollocks, Leila. Why does he keep making all these barbed comments?” She leaned in to whisper. “Did you turn him down, too…?”
Erm. Erm. “No–”
“Oh my God! You slept with Matt!” She slapped a hand over her painted mouth.
“No! I mean…no, I haven’t. Nothing’s gone on. All the cocoa sachet invoices have gone to your head.”
“Drunk on VAT law. Fun, fun, fun.” She chewed her pen. “I don’t believe you. I think you screwed him.”
Matt returned and froze at our paranoid glares. “What? Are my flies undone?” He checked his zip and shrugged, finding it intact.
“We were talking about…women’s things,” Poppy said finally. “Weren’t we, Leila?”
I tutted. “Yep. Tampons, flower arrangements, bra strap widths. Nothing of interest to anyone owning a penis.”
He broke into a grin. “I quite like flowers,” he said pointedly. “Receiving, as well as giving…”
Poppy kicked me under the table again and I tried not to wince.
Matt sat down opposite me and his knee pressed against mine, his leg warming the leather of my boot. I expected him to jerk away but instead he held my gaze, the heat of his flesh making me buzz and shiver. I had to look away before I demolished any remaining pretense that we were just friends.
Despite Matt’s little advance, as one o’clock rolled closer, I found myself staring at Joseph’s door. Could I ease his frustration with something other than a spreadsheet?
Would Captain Covert let me?
So when the food arrived, I rose and smoothed my hair.
“You’re not eating?” Poppy asked.
“In a minute.” I grabbed a random handful of papers. “I have a couple of things I need to sort.”
I knocked tentatively on Joseph’s door. My heart thumped in the few seconds it took him to reply, but he did, and I disappeared into his office with a click of the lock.
“This had better be–can I help you, Leila?”
I chewed my bottom lip. How to seduce someone I’d seduced already, and to talk in echoes?
“I’m worried about you,” I said. “You seem really stressed.”
“I am stressed.” He laughed. “I’m guessing you didn’t lock my door just so nobody could hear you state the obvious?”
I perched on the edge of his desk, my skirt riding up just a little. “Maybe…I could help?”
He stroked a fingertip over my exposed thigh. “Leila, I don’t remember hiring you this afternoon. Even if I did, time–”
A flush spilled over me, hot and prickly. I could lie crushed underneath this man, but now I could barely talk to him with my clothes on? “That’s not what I meant.”
“Right. So…”
“I don’t mean to be weird,” I mumbled.
“You’re not weird, sweetheart. You’re a bit confusing, but if you admit that you swanned in here to suck me off, I’ll forgive you. Just this once.”
“Now you’re just being opportunistic.” I stood up and he tugged me onto his lap.
“I’ll settle for a quick grope–technically, we’re charging Groverton for this,” he said.
“Pfft. I’m still sore after you refused the post-shower massage.”
“I changed my mind.” He grazed my nipples. “And I like that I left you…sore.”
A knock sounded at the door then and we both jumped. I waited a second. Was he going to kiss me?
No. Strange boy.
“I’d better get that,” I mumbled, going to climb off.
“Leila.” A finger silenced me as he held my waist. He eased the skirt up my thigh to reveal a blossoming blackberry of a bruise. “What’s this?”
“I…uh.” What does it look like, Mr Merchant? “You know how I got that.”
Joseph circled the bruise with the pad of his thumb. Then he scooped inward until the purple paled and my nerves twinged, and his gaze cut into me, ushering a whimper. I bit my lip, clutched at his shoulder, willed myself not to break. But when a nail scored across the marbled skin, the heat went acidic and the whimper came.
Another knock shook the door, and it was impetuous, impatient.
I scrawled a few things I already knew over the papers, and hurried over to loosen the lock. Algie Bach–a senior partner they called BFG, big and fucking gruesome–stood outside in all his Fester-esque glory. He shot me a disapproving stare.
“I hope you’re not distracting our Joe too much, Miss Vaughn,” he said.
I tipped my chin. “I’ve barely been in here five minutes, Mr Bach. I shall leave you to it.”
Outside, Matt wouldn’t look at me as I sat back down.
“Did you get everything sorted?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said tentatively, making sure Poppy didn’t pick up on his disapproval. “Just got a bit confused over some of the sub-clauses and didn’t want to do a Bhan.” I waited for his petty remark, but it didn’t come, and that made me feel more uncomfortable than if he’d said it in the first place.
In the end, we were finished long before ten, though I was too brain-dead to endure anything remotely as chipper as a conversation with Aidan. I’d cancelled with him earlier on.
Matt and I walked almost the same route home and that night, as the past few, I deliberately stayed later so that I didn’t end up loitering awkwardly behind him.
It seemed he had cottoned on to this because he waited by the Starbucks on the corner.
“Are you avoiding me?” he asked.
“I thought you might want to avoid me,” I said feebly.
“Well.” He shifted from one foot to the other. “I did, for a bit.” He started forward. “Walk with me?”
Fortunately, we needed to focus on weaving through the knitted pedestrians–a good excuse to ignore the elephant in the tomb. We walked like that for about five minutes until the streets became quieter, the trees denser before the rows of imposing Victorian builds.
He stopped suddenly. “What are you doing tomorrow night?”
“Um…nothing, I think.”
“I’ve got this rugby fundraiser thing. You should come with me.”
“Oh?” Ooh.
We walked shoulder-to-shoulder now, albeit about half a foot in height difference.
“Do you want to?” He blatantly knew why I’d gone into Joseph’s office, and along with everything else that had occurred, the last thing I had expected was another proposition.
“I just…I suppose…why?”
He caught my eye for the first time that evening. “Because against my better judgment, Leila, I do like you.” He lowered his gaze again to fiddle with his bag strap. “And I figured that while I know he’s a fucktard and I’m infinitely better, I need to show you.”
I couldn’t help it, I started laughing. How did a girl refuse that line?
“I’m glad you find me so amusing,” he grumbled.
“No, it’s not that. It’s just…well, you were very blunt.”
“I’m trying to be assertive. Do you like it?”
“Yes, actually.” I smiled. “I do.”
“So…if I assertively tell you to come with me, that’s that then?” he said hopefully.
“What happened to not wanting me with all the Joseph stuff going on?”
He was quiet for a few steps. “I figured we could just have a good time, you know. Talk. Assault the buffet.”
“A buffet? You spoil me, Matthew.”
He elbowed me playfully. “So will you come?”
Ask him ask him ask him ask him ask him! “Yes, okay. But I need you to return the favour.”
“If you think of this as a favour, maybe you shouldn’t come after all.”
“No, no…I meant, this wedding thing I have to go
to. I wondered if you’d like to come with me.”
He looked surprised. “This weekend?”
“Is it a problem? Because if it is–”
“No, no. I can go. Who’s getting married?”
I hummed awkwardly. “People from my, er, other job.”
“Oh. Oh.” He started to laugh. “Is it going to be like one of these big, pink porn star jobs?”
“Nooo! William was my boss. He’s very low key, actually. But there will be whores everywhere.”
“You say it like it’s a bad thing.”
“Man whores, mostly,” I added. “They will be worse than the insolvency queens, I warn you now.”
“Will I need to wear some sort of protective codpiece?”
“Yes. With sequins.”
“I’m sold.”
In the moments we continued walking, it was almost as if we’d never ended up in that hotel room. We were easy with one another, everything flowed, and yet, I couldn’t help but notice the dimple flashing in his right cheek, the way his almost-black hair spilled over his eyes, how his trousers were cut over his thighs and buttocks. The primal stirred beneath the placid facade.
We paused at the corner where we went our separate ways.
“Where shall I meet you tomorrow, then?” I asked.
“I can come to your flat, if you’d like.”
Charlotte oozed quietly beneath my skin. Not there, she said, as if the flat was as much her space as me. “I’ll meet you here,” I said quickly. “Does that work? What time?”
“Is eight okay?”
“Yep. Do I need to dress like I’m posh?”
“Nah. It’s pretty casual.”
Fuck. I didn’t own anything casual! “Right. Well.” Should I have hugged him, kissed his cheek, touched his arm? I couldn’t bring myself to do any of those things. Our reconciliation felt too smooth to believe. “I’ll see you tomorrow, anyway.”
“Yeah.” He lingered in the same uncomfortable fashion. “So. Bye.”
He pulled his iPod out of a pocket and stuffed the headphones in as he walked away.
For somebody who didn’t want to date anyone, I rippled with too many cool shivers.
Not that it was a date, of course.
* * * *
“I’m sorry, you need to borrow what?”
I grimaced over the phone. “Clothes, Clemmie. Casual ones.”
Breaking Leila Page 8
