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I still had darkness inside of me, but it was one that Sofia owned.
She was the only one that could tame me.
“I love you,” Sofia said softly, and I felt this low growl leave me, contentment and happiness filling my blackened heart.
“I love you, too, so fucking much it consumes me.”
I might never be a knight in white armor for her, sweeping in and destroying the bad guy, but I could be the fucking devil who took care of any motherfucker who crossed her.
I could still give her that happily ever after, even if it was by the light of the moon instead of the brightness of the sun.
BUY ME, SIR
JADE WEST
This one is dedicated to a flash of inspiration on a cold January afternoon whilst bingeing on Season One of Travelers.
And – even more importantly – bingeing on Eric McCormack.
PROLOGUE
MELISSA
I GUESS it was desperation that compelled me to stalk a man as powerful as Alexander Henley.
That’s what losing your parents in a late-night hit and run when you’re barely eighteen does for you. It makes you desperate.
Not for the college life that trickles down the drain in the aftermath. And not for the stars you were reaching for in your dreams of becoming a criminal lawyer one day. Not even for a let-up in the despair that losing your whole world plunges you into – that soul-crushing pain at knowing you’ll never ever see them again.
It makes you desperate to get your shit together for the baby you’re now responsible for. The little boy that is now your everything.
That’s why I took the cleaning position at Henley Grosvenor Legal in the first place, to provide for my baby brother.
And that’s why I’m here now, in a suite at Delaney’s Spa Resort, with twenty-five grand stuffed in my handbag, and Alexander Henley’s beautiful cock in my ass…
I guess I’d better start from the beginning.
CHAPTER ONE
THREE MONTHS earlier
I’M LATE. I’m late. I’m fucking late.
Tube strike. Fucking typical on day one of my new job.
My reflection looks horrible as I race through the mirrored glass entrance. I’d hoped that cleaning for a firm as prestigious as Henley Grosvenor would have meant something a little more stylish than the scratchy baseball cap and hairnet they mailed out to me. More stylish than the green and white striped sack of crap apron I have to wear over a blouse and starchy polyester skirt, too. But beggars can’t be choosers.
“Cleaning induction,” I tell the pristine receptionist. I pull the crumpled instructions from my pocket as I catch my breath, and she glares at the dishevelled state of me. She thinks I’m shit. It’s written all over her face.
“Fifth floor,” she tells me. “You’re late.”
Like my burning cheeks don’t make it clear I’m aware of that.
It feels like a walk of shame, pacing through marble pillars in such a shitty uniform. A badge of minimum wage nobody amongst the tailored suits.
I pick up pace as I see the elevator is already open, rushing through the plush seating area as my heart pounds in my chest. It’s packed already, rammed full of legal staff with their morning papers and Starbucks, and so many of them are staring at me, so many of them see me coming and make no move whatsoever to hold the doors.
Until him.
My heart stutters in recognition, breath hitching as he puts out a hand and stops the doors for me.
I clatter in and ease myself tight into the corner, and I want to say thanks so bad, but I don’t. I can’t.
He doesn’t meet my eyes, or even really glance in my direction. The doors close and he stares straight ahead as the woman at his side talks him through his morning schedule. Her voice is nasal and whiny, and she over pronounces her words. Misterrr Cal-der, ten-aaay-emmm. Drunk dri-ving. I press the button for floor five, one of the only levels not illuminated. Figures. And then I look at him, trying not to make it obvious.
Alexander James Henley. Jnr.
The man I’ve been dreaming about for four years straight.
It must be hard having Jnr. after your name your whole life, but I guess that’s what happens when you take over an empire from your larger-than-life, legal legend of a father.
He looks just like I remember, and he smells like it too. Woody, like embers. Spicy, like oriental incense.
Black suit, white shirt, black tie. His hair is the same, as dark as his suit. His eyes, too, only now he’s got the tiniest lines around the corners. They suit him.
He isn’t smiling, not even a bit. His perfect jaw looks so stern and serious, his skin flawless apart from the tiny birthmark he has on his right cheek.
My fantasies of a sizzling moment of recognition shrivel and die. He doesn’t remember me, and why would he? I was just a dumb kid when he bummed me a cigarette outside my school gates. He saw hundreds of kids that day, a sea of us packed into the school hall to witness his motivational speech about the legal profession. Corporations in the Community, they called it. Some government scheme or other.
I’d been late that morning, just as I’m late today. Too late to catch morning registration, so I’d stopped outside to roll myself a sneaky cigarette before facing the music. My tin was empty apart from the dregs. Dust and a couple of meagre tobacco flakes, barely enough to make even the skinniest roll-up, and there he’d been, propped against the wall in his tailored suit, lighting up a cigarette of his own before he went inside.
He’d watched me struggle with my excuse for a roll-up, and then he’d held out his cigarette packet.
Insignia. Scrawly font on a beautiful black box. So much more beautiful than the cheap cigarettes the kids at school smoked.
“Thanks,” I’d said.
He’d sparked up his lighter for me and cupped his hand around the end of the cigarette, and I’d leaned in, trying my best not to look like an idiot as my stomach churned and my heart raced.
I’d never smelled success before, but he reeked of it.
“You could get arrested for this, you know.” I’d grinned after taking a drag. “Supplying cigarettes to a minor.”
He laughed the kind of confident laugh that made my heart race even more. “They could try.”
I didn’t know he was one of the country’s top criminal lawyers back then. Didn’t know his name was Alexander James Henley Jnr. and he employed over five hundred legal staff at his swanky London law firm.
I had no idea at all that the papers called him the puppet master, or that I’d come to know he has a penchant for asphyxiation games and brutal fucking.
He’d just been a posh guy in a suit, until he’d smiled at me.
And that smile was enough for me to gift my heart to a man I’d probably never see again.
The elevator pings on the fifth floor, and I have to squeeze through the throng of suited bodies to step out. My elbow brushes Alexander’s arm, and for the tiniest moment he smiles.
And then he’s gone.
The doors close and take him away, and even though I’m late, I watch the floors creep up on the display. Six, seven, eight, right up the way to… eighteen.
It thrills me to know he’s in the same building, just like I knew it would.
After all, that’s why I took the job here, at the opposite end of the city. They’d asked at the interview, why us, so far away from your home address, and I’d given them my polished spiel about how much respect I have for Mr Henley’s work, and that seemed to clinch it.
Phase one complete.
I’m in, and I’ve seen him. Actually seen him already.
I head off to find my induction with a smile on my face.
I’M one of ten cleaners starting today. We all match. A roomful of green and white striped minions that they assume need educating on how to use a mop properly. I imagine that’s what we are to them, nothing but cheap grunts, incapable of doing anything more with our lives.
“We pride ourselves o
n our professional standards,” our new line manager tells us. “Everything must be perfect. Always perfect.”
My fantasy of being assigned to Mr Henley Jnr’s office gets a reality check as they divide us into pairs. Canteen kitchen, that’s where I’m assigned. Scrubbing grease and cooking oil, taking out the food waste and disinfecting the main employee toilets along the corridor. Toilets that I doubt Alexander Henley ever uses.
I’m paired up with a girl called Sonya, and we head up towards floor seven.
I can see she’s pretty, even under her shitty uniform. Her skin is rich and dark, and her eyes are burnt umber – the exact same shade as one of the wax crayons I had as a kid. She’s blessed with the thickest lashes I’ve ever seen, and her hair is glossy even through her hairnet. Her braids are twisted into a bun, resting on her collar like a ball of coiled rope.
“What do you think, hon?” she asks. “Quite a ball breaker, our new manager, ain’t she?”
I shrug. “Seems ok.”
She rolls her eyes. “She gave me a load of abuse for using the escalator earlier. Seemingly it’s forbidden for us lowly cleaning staff to use them.”
“Forbidden?”
“An eyesore apparently. They don’t want the likes of us on display, I s’pose.”
I’m tempted to tell her that Alexander Henley himself held the door for me this morning, but decide against it. “So, we have to walk up seven flights of stairs every day?”
“Sure do. Just be glad we’re not on the top floor, hey? Although I doubt we’d ever get up that far if we wanted to. That’s where Mr Henley works.”
The thought gives me shivers.
