“I’d like to make some appointments with Miss O’Shea while I’m here,” I declare. “We need to get a quick turnaround on this.”
“Absolutely. Are you looking for a design, or a design consultation and a project manage?”
Ava shakes her head. She knows what’s coming. Who am I to disappoint her? “The whole package,” I confirm, and Patrick Peterson very nearly raises the dead with the sound of his excited clap.
“Super! I’ll leave you with Ava.”Yes, please do.“She’ll take good care of you.” He extends his hand, and I take it blindly, watching as Ava squirms all over her desk.
“I know she will,” I say quietly, tearing my eyes away and looking at him, raising from my chair. “If you give me your company bank details, I’ll arrange an immediate bank transfer. I’ll also make an advanced payment on the next stage.”So you don’t have to get on Ava’s back.“It will save any future delays.”And my sanity.
“I’ll get Sally to note them down for you.” He heads back to his office, pleased as punch. Now, then. Back to the matter at hand.
I drop to the chair and give Ava my full attention. She’s in a bit of a trance, but I’m quickly faced with pursed lips and a face to rival any filthy look I’ve seen before. “When are you free?” she asks.
Easy. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day. “When are you?”
“I’m not talking to you,” she snaps.
“What about screaming for me?”
She recoils. “Neither.”
Wrong. So wrong. “That may make business a little tricky,” I muse, taking immense pleasure from her attempts to keep me in her bad books.
“Will it be business, Mr. Ward,” she asks, “or pleasure?”
“Pleasure, all the way.”
“You do realize that you’re paying for me to have sex with you. That, in effect, makes me a hooker.”
Why does she do it to me? All the fucking time, she ruins the moment with that mouth of hers. If I didn’t want to kiss her so much, I’d sew it shut. I move forward, getting threateningly close. “Shut up, Ava. And just so you know, you will be screaming later”—I nod in approval, relaxing back—“when we make friends.”
She looks utterly exasperated. And then she laughs.
“Is something funny?”
She starts going through her diary with a heavy hand. “Yes, my life. When shall I pencil you in?”
Pencil? I don’t think so. I scan her desk and spot what I’m looking for, claiming it and holding it out to her. “I don’t want to be penciled in anywhere,” I say quietly. “Pencil can be erased.” She looks up slowly, warily, her eyes on the black marker pen.Just you try to erase me, Ava.“Every day.”
“Every day?” She laughs. “Don’t be so stupid.”
I’ve never been more serious. I remove the lid and slide her diary over to my side, making sure our hands skim as I do. She inhales. I smile.
I start working my way through, page after page, filling her diary with my name every day of the week. When I reach Friday, I smile. “You’re mine then anyway.”
Monday’s page shows a ten o’clock appointment penciled in, and to prove my point, I reach for an eraser and rub out the name. Gone. Like it was never there. Let’s see her try to rub out the marker pen.
I dip and blow across the page, smiling as Ava looks on, stuck for words. So I carry on to the next week.
“What are you doing?” she eventually asks, halting my writing.
I look up at her stunned face. “I’m making my appointments.”
“You’re not happy enough controlling the social aspects of my life?”
Controlling? I’m not controlling. There’s absolutely no control anywhere to be found.
“I thought you didn’t make appointments to fuck me?”