by Lily Morton
“How did she come to work for you?”
I reach over the table, intending to pour myself some tea from the pot, but, witnessing my wince of pain, Felix takes over the task. I smile gratefully at him and take a sip, trying to conceal my pleasure in the fact that he’s remembered how I take it.
“I’m not sure, to be honest,” I confide. “Her sister housekeeps for the couple next door, and Mrs Finch appeared one day and sort of informed me that she considered I’d be fortunate to employ her.”
He bites his lip, and his eyes light up. They’re the colour of old pennies today and look almost translucent in the sunlight. “So, you did as she said?”
“Of course, I did,” I say, slightly offended. “You’ve just met her for Christ’s sake. If she’d announced it to Saddam Hussein, he’d have jumped too.”
Mrs Finch comes into the room at that point, interrupting his laughter and carrying my breakfast which she positions in front of me as if I’m some sort of dangerous animal. Felix’s mouth twitches, but he says nothing, and for a few minutes, the room is silent apart from the clinking of cutlery and the distant sound of the radio in the kitchen.
I relish the silence with him just as much as I do the witty chat. He has a comfortable way about him which is ironic for someone as sharp and snarky as he is. I’ve always been at ease with him, and he interests me like no one else I’ve ever met—even Ivo.
Finally, he pushes his plate away. “I’d better get dressed,” he says, and I know I’m imagining the reluctance in his voice.
“Why?” I ask, slightly panicked.
He shakes his head, looking at me chidingly. “You’re not concussed, and apart from your arm inconveniencing you, you’ll be fine. So, I’m going back. There’s a train in an hour.” He stands.
“Wait,” I say far too loudly.
He hesitates for a moment, but then lowers himself back to the chair. I take a fortifying breath. What I’m about to do is highly risky and could quite easily backfire on me, given Felix’s temperament. But I’ve got to try because this might be my last chance.
“I need your help,” I say, leaning forward.
His eyebrows rise. “Why?”
“Well, you’ve fractured my arm.” His eyes flare, and I quickly say, “I mean, obviously it was an accident.” I pause. “Brought about by you not concentrating on your driving, to be honest.” If he could incinerate me with his eyes, I’d already be ash, but I carry on. “But despite whose fault it was, I find myself in a position where I need your help for the next couple of months.”
“Really? What for?” His voice is posh and regulated, but there’s a snap to the consonants.
“Well, I’m in the middle of writing a book, and now I find myself in a situation where I can’t type anything.”
“Dictate,” he says, snapping the word off.
I wave my hand cavalierly. “I can’t do that.”
“Why? Do you absolutely loathe the sound of your own voice?” His sweetly poisonous tone startles a laugh out of me.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Felix. I adore the sound of my own voice,” I say pompously. “It brings sunshine and positivity to all the people in the world who most need it.” He rolls his eyes, and I repress a laugh. “For some reason, dictating doesn’t work. Last week I used the word fucking, and it changed everything to ducking. I mean how many times a day do I use the word ducking? It’s a fucking lot less than I say fuck.” I smile at him, and the words come quickly. They should, because I practised them for ages last night. “I have the European leg of my book tour to get through and a book to finish. I have fan letters and hundreds of emails that need answering. I need an assistant.” I pause and take an unobtrusive breath. “And I think that’s you.”
“What?” His eyes narrow dangerously.
I shrug in an unconcerned manner even though the expression he’s wearing has always made my balls shrink. “Think about it, Felix. You were my brother’s assistant for years, and now you’ve maimed his sibling, you should be mine for a bit.” He opens his mouth to interrupt, but I carry on talking. “I’d pay you, of course, and the agency for your time, and you’d find it really easy work. I just need someone to help me now…” I give a sad, dramatic pause and a little sigh. “Now that I’m down an arm.”
His expression conveys that he’s contemplating testicular homicide. I hope it’s just a passing thought, but I cross my legs quickly, not wanting to risk it.
He taps his fingers on the table, staring at me with an inscrutable expression. I suppress the urge to fidget. “So what you’re saying is that because I ran into you, which was entirely your fault as you were lying on the ground pretending to be dead, that I now owe you duties as your very own personal assistant?” he asks coolly. “I am to look after you, answer your emails, type up your book, and organise you from one corner of Europe’s bookshops to the other.”
There’s a long silence. “Well, I don’t think it’s too much to ask,” I say primly. “It’s actually the least you can do after injuring me.”
“And what does Zeb have to say about this?”
I remember Zeb’s initial four-letter-word response when I unveiled my plan last night and conceal a wince. “Oh, he thinks it’s the perfect solution,” I say airily. “Says you can have the two months off happily. Bev can handle it all, apparently. He’ll be around, and you’ll be on the other end of the line if she needs anything else. He says to pay yourself a bonus too,” I continue, making a mental note to transfer the money to Zeb before he strangles me.
I’m paraphrasing Zeb very loosely at the moment because his actual words were, “Fuck right off. I’m not doing anything to help you with this insane plan.”
Felix drums his fingers on the table. “So, you're actually blackmailing me to leave my own life and follow you around and be your gopher for the next two months?”
I nod. When there’s no sign of temper or humour in his expression, I shift nervously. This is never a good sign with Felix. He’s at his most evil when he’s calm.
“Well, that’s just perfect,” he says.
“What?”
“You want an assistant that badly, then you can deal with the consequences, Max.”
I swallow hard. “Consequences?”
“Let’s be honest and just call them repercussions,” he says sweetly, the light of battle burning bright in his eyes.
And even though I’ve just signed up for whatever retribution he can rain down on me—I can already hear him sniping and snarking and plotting—having him near will be worth more to me than a ransom of gold.
Chapter Twelve
Three Weeks Later
Felix
I wake up to cold sunlight on my face. I’m snug and warm under the thick duvet, and I stretch happily, feeling the tug and pull of my muscles. The sheets smell of lavender, and the bed is so much the right firmness it could have been picked by Goldilocks.
“Hmm,” I say out loud and smile as it echoes around the hotel suite.
My smile widens. The huge and extremely expensive hotel suite. I look around the room. It’s sumptuous, with luxurious bath products, a massive TV, and bedlinen that’s soft enough for a king to rest on. Then I think of where Max is sleeping, and my grin turns into laughter. I’m still chuckling when I stride into the massive shower enclosure and start the water for what will probably be an epic amount of time. No one appreciates endless hot water and good water pressure more than a narrowboat owner.
An hour later, I slide into my chair at the table opposite Max in the hotel restaurant. He looks up from his bacon and egg that he’s attempting to cut up with one hand and gives me a very jaundiced look.
“Thank goodness you finished your shower within the two-hour time period, Felix. The water board were getting worried about the supply to Central London.”
“How did you know I was in the shower?”
He gives me a look. “Please, Felix. I spent months sharing hotel rooms with you. You made more orgasm noises in the sh
ower than you did in bed.”
I wink. “Said no satisfied lover ever.”
He shakes his head and carries on trying to saw his bacon in half with the knife clutched in his hand like a toddler with a training set.
“Why didn’t you ask the hotel staff to cut that up for you?” I ask cheerily.
“They’re not cutting up my food,” he says in a scandalised tone as if I’d suggested they’ll be washing his privates with a flannel at any second.
I shrug. “Your loss.” The bacon shoots across the plate and disappears under the table somewhere. “Goodness, I hope that hasn’t gone cold by the time you manage to find it,” I say happily, and he scowls.
That intensifies the power of my smile at the waiter as he arrives to take my order. “Ooh, I think I’ll have eggs benedict,” I say, handing the menu to him.
“Stop flirting,” Max says gruffly as the waiter departs.
“I never flirt before breakfast. It would give me indigestion.”
He grunts something in response.
“Pass me the plate,” I say with a sigh, and he hands it over happily with no sign of his earlier indignation. “How come you’re not protesting about me doing something for you?” I ask, cutting his sausage into neat bites.
He gives the one-shouldered shrug he’s perfected over the last few weeks. “I like you doing it. It feels right.”
I smile at him sweetly. “I wonder how right it will feel when I say, ‘Here comes the choo-choo,’ and stuff it in your big fat mouth?”
“You wouldn’t?”
“Are you daring me?”
The thought obviously appeals to his inherent naughtiness, as he hates backing down from a dare—a fact that my neighbours on the boat would attest to, after he streaked down the canal towpath completely naked one night.
However, this time he shakes his head. “Felix, this is the Ritz,” he says primly. “Kindly show some decorum.”
“I think I left it in my football-field-sized bed,” I say slyly.
He can’t hide the smile tugging at his lips. “How epically fortunate for you, Felix. I hope it doesn’t get lost. I, on the other hand, do not have the same problem, as a flea would have trouble hiding in my bed, such is its minute size.”
I want to laugh so badly, but I put on a very sad face. “It’s shocking, really, how small these hotel economy rooms are.”
“Shocking,” he says, slowly relishing the word.
We stare at each other for a second that lasts too long. I can’t help but smile, and unfortunately, it’s not the smile I usually offer him—cold and full of teeth. This one is the real deal, and it takes his widening eyes to realise my mistake. I hasten to wipe it off my face, but from the way he’s looking at me, it’s lingering like glitter dust.
The waiter arrives with my food at this opportune time, and I seize on the distraction, chatting to him and trying to ignore the way Max’s eyes have darkened and his breathing has picked up.
When the waiter’s gone, I apply myself to my food with diligence. Max gives me a break and goes back to his paper. I sneak secret little glances at him. I’m free from discovery, because when Max reads the news, he really reads it. His concentration is absolute, and you can practically hear the cogs in his brain whirring. I always used to love the way he’d launch himself into powerful diatribes afterwards, dissecting articles and summing up events in the world with a mind that is as sharp as a knife. That’s the thing with Max—it’s easy to forget he’s scarily intelligent because his air of irreverence and naughtiness so neatly covers it up.
His lips purse in thought as his eyes scan the newsprint, and I remind myself not to let down my guard. At some point he’s going to cotton on to the fact that I’m actually enjoying myself and then he’ll use that information to shoehorn himself back into my life. And I can’t have that.
The truth is that I’m enjoying myself more now than in all the time I’ve been apart from him. When he first blackmailed me into helping him, I’d been furious, but my anger was mixed with wanting to laugh. It’s that enormous charm of his.
My fury has faded to the point where I no longer want to do him bodily harm. Instead, I have dedicated myself to fucking him over on a mammoth scale. In the first week, I ordered him forty cases of printer paper rather than the forty packets he’d requested. When he’d told me about my mistake, I’d explained indignantly that his handwriting needed to improve. Then last week, I booked him for a course of speaking engagements with a sexual health clinic with the title, Max Travers. My Life in Condom Wrappers. Even though I’ll be long gone by the time he gets the confirmation, it was well worth it. And I’m only just getting started.
Still, I’m not sure I should celebrate any successes. Mostly, Max has only laughed at my attempts at fucking with him, and that old lazy approval of me keeps appearing in his eyes. Dangerous, because it affects me far more than I ever want him to know. I used to live for that warm, heated look on his face, the expression that said he was proud of me. But I’m never sliding down into that pit again. I’m not naive and young enough to believe that what’s between us is anything more than attraction. Yes, he was the best fuck I’d ever had, and, yes, it had been impossible to fuck him out of my system after I left him. But Max had also been the best at breaking my heart, and I can’t go there with him again. Ever.
I push my plate away. I glance up and meet his eyes. He’s obviously been watching me. There’s a dark and almost lost look about him, and for a mad second, I want to comfort him and demand to know what the matter is. Then it’s gone, and he smiles, leaving me to wonder whether I imagined it.
“Time to go,” I say cheerfully. “The bookshop and your army of fans await you.”
He groans. “Please don’t say it in that fashion. I’m not Justin Bieber.”
“A fact I am very aware of,” I say tartly. “You couldn’t hold a tune in a bucket.”
Instead of being offended like a normal person, he just laughs.
“I’m going to check us out,” I say. I stand and make my way towards reception, aware of him following me.
Max leans on the desk as I give the receptionist the room numbers. I wait while she brings up our details, trying to ignore the way she’s eyeing Max like he’s the last chocolate in the box.
“Here we go,” she says brightly. “How was the suite, sir?” she asks Max, as I deal with his credit card that I now carry as if he’s the fucking queen and I’m his lady in waiting.
“Oh, he didn’t sleep in the suite,” I say brightly. “That was my room.”
When we’d begun the book tour, he’d urged the idea of sharing a room for cost reasons. When that hadn’t worked—because we’re not the plot of a Mills and Boon novel—I’d taken his diary and systematically gone through it. I’d booked another room for him on each stopover—the smallest room possible—and happily taken the bigger one for myself. The whole thing had seemed to amuse him, which just goes to illustrate how truly contrary the man is.
“Oh?” the receptionist says, obviously confused. All the staff are aware of who Max is. He’s only gotten more famous over the years, the mystique and glamour of being a foreign correspondent having stayed with him as he switched to being an international bestselling author.
“Yes,” I say perkily, putting the card in my wallet. “He believes in keeping his staff happy.”
“That’s me,” Max says. “I’m a people pleaser, through and through.” He gives me a sultry look.
“Make sure you wrap up your people pleaser, or you might get an infection,” I say tartly.
His laugh echoes behind me as I make my way to where our bags are waiting. The staff at the Ritz is very efficient. There’s a lot to be said for travelling with Max. He doesn’t spare any expense. I remember him saying once that he’d eaten and slept in some of the worst hellholes imaginable, and he’d always sworn that when he got home safely, he would never skimp on comfort.
And everything about him is quietly luxurious, from the clo
thes he wears, which flatter his long body and broad shoulders, to his cottage in the Cotswolds. I think of the little house and smile. It was so snug and warm with books everywhere and deep, comfortable furniture that just begged you to sink into it.
But then, he can afford this life. I’ve been liaising with his agent over the last few days, and the figures he disclosed have made me blink. Max is undoubtedly successful. I think of my narrowboat and want to laugh because this is the sort of thing I need to focus on. The disparity in our income and lifestyles. Max shops at Ralph Lauren and eats at The Ivy. I live on a narrowboat and eat pot noodle.
I concentrate on that thought as we climb into the car and his scent of sandalwood winds around me like a cat looking for a scratch. After we split, it never got any easier to be near him in a confined space. Only then, I’d usually had a man to force between us, and now there’s just us. Him, me, and his wonderful scent and the heat his body gives out.
I sit absolutely still, and he shifts. When he moves again, it catches my attention, and I look up only to get caught in his eyes. They’re full of heat, and to my absolute horror, I feel my cock stiffen.
“Felix,” he says in a low, hoarse voice, and instantly I bend, reaching for my iPad in my bag and brandishing it as though it’s a barricade between us.
“Emails,” I say brightly.
He sighs and sits back, shaking his head. “Emails,” he echoes.
I pull up the app and scan down the list. “Ooh, how scrumptious. You’ve got another letter from your number-one fan.”
“Oh God, no,” he groans.
“And this is such a lovely one. He’s devoted ten pages to the mistakes you made in your last novel. You know, I think I’d like to meet this man.”
