“Fine.”
When I looked back across the room, the guy whose dress I was wearing wasn’t looking at me any longer. Sandra’s PA, Violet, was laughing orgasmically, leaning on his shoulder, her perfect long legs and air-brushed-on dress making me fume.
I wanted him to tell her to go fuck herself. I wanted him to look at me again, but he didn’t. He refused to meet my eyes as he leaned in and whispered something in her ear. And she laughed again, sliding her hand onto his arm and I wanted to rip her head off.
I felt like an idiot standing there in the dress he’d sent me, thinking it was anything other than some kind of attempt to buy me off. ‘Have a pretty dress, don’t tell anyone I’m stalking you with a gun and don’t worry about me taking your oral virginity.’
As much as part of me was seething, I knew that he’d never do that. The way he’d touched me was real. Everything he’d said to me, everything he’d done was true. I just had to trust him. Even as I watched her angle her ample cleavage into his sightline, I knew that he wasn’t enjoying it any more than I was. This was his job. That was all.
He’d be over here with me in a second if it wasn’t for that. He would. I knew he would.
I knocked back a large gulp of my champagne and forced myself to tune back into what Sandra was saying.
Simon. His tuxedo must have fit him properly some time in the eighties. Now it was pulled out of shape by his solid paunch and the way he rounded his shoulders and slumped where he stood, leaning back on his heels to rock his crotch forward.
I pulled a tight smile onto my face and held out my hand to shake his. It took every ounce of strength I had in me not to shudder with revulsion. Sandra patted my forearm and her high heels clattered away across the floor.
The bitch had planned to strand me with him. Of course she had.
“Was just saying to Sandra, you must be so thrilled the Old Boy’s finally pulled something out of the bag, so to speak?”
“Oh yes. Utterly.” That couldn’t have been further from the truth.
“And how about you? Pretty young filly like you must be coming up to University soon.”
“I guess so.”
“May I say, you look quite ravishing.”
I gritted my teeth, ignoring the way his rheumaticky eyes slid over me like he was trying to undress me. I cleared my throat.
“Will you excuse me, I simply must say hello to somebody else.” Mum had taught me that one. She always said if you got it out confidently enough you could walk off with a bright smile and most of the time nobody figured out they’d been snubbed until you were well on the other side of the room. Far enough out of the way to cause trouble.
I was on my best behaviour, so it was better than stamping on his foot or punching him.
I wanted to find Maxim, and get Violet the hell away from him. She might be all curves in all the right places and flirty little giggles, but he was meant to be mine, and I wasn’t going to let her get in my way.
I’d never felt territorial before, but it hit me square in the gut that I would cause her proper bodily harm, would relish breaking her perfect nose if it meant she stayed the hell away from him. I’d do it in this perfect white dress and cherish the spray of blood too.
But we were being shepherded into dinner, and he was nowhere to be seen. I only had my own frustrations to keep me from slumping into a coma over the conversations that swirled around me, Sutherland incessantly the focus of them all.
Sandra’s PA was scanning the table too, and that at least made me smile. She didn’t have her claws in him yet.
Maxim
Leaning forwards in the high backed wing chair tucked into the corner of the Mayfair gentlemen’s club I’d followed Pierce Sutherland and Elizabeth into nearly three hours before, I adjusted my earpiece against a static crackle.
After the reception, I’d hunkered down away from the party. Having gotten nothing of use from the ditzy PA, who clearly thought I was someone willing to wine and dine her to within an inch of her life, I had to go to work properly.
In the corner of the dark, well appointed lounge I was sitting so still the bar staff had largely forgotten me. My laptop and large dirty martini I hadn’t yet touched provided an excuse for them to leave me alone. My black suit was sharp enough to blend in, basic enough to be forgettable. Clattering away on my keyboard, I’d been polite but unremarkable all evening and I’m sure they had me pegged as some kind of stock broker, wound tight and antisocial. It was an impression to cultivate. But I was outstaying my welcome.