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She laughs. “As if you would.”
“Don’t try me.”
“Don’t try me!” she hisses. “Your filthy fucking father can’t keep bailing you out forever, Alexander, one day one of those women are going to talk. Maybe they’ll talk to me, hey? Maybe I’ll be able to get them to testify how much of a dirty fucking pervert you are? Maybe I should give that asshole journalist a call and let him know I’ve got a story for him. I’ve still got screenshots you know, still got logs of your seedy fucking browsing history.”
“Which will mean fuck all in a custody battle,” I sneer.
“Not to your father it won’t. Not when he realises his company name is being dragged through the tabloids.”
I take a step forward, and Terry’s arm is around her shoulders again, his face white as a pissing sheet.
“Don’t push me, Claire.”
She knows I’m serious, my eyes digging into hers, my breath shallow and angry, right on the edge of composure.
She says nothing, just stares with a holier-than-thou expression on her face, and I’m done here, I’m done with their shit.
I’m through the front door and halfway back to the Merc by the time she speaks again, and her voice is a shrill little wail, an attempt at intimidation that falls pathetically short of the mark.
“They’re going to Grange High, Alexander! Whether you like it or not!”
My tyres churn up her pretty pink gravel on my way out.Chapter SixMelissaSonnie’s bought herself some non-standard cleaning cloths. I’ve seen them advertised on TV, extra strong for extra shine. She doesn’t mention it, but I see them when I look in on her wiping down the glass table in suite four.
I’m hurt for a moment that Sonnie would be so out to win, but it’s for the best. Definitely. It means I can whoop her ass without any guilt.
Being here, among the corporate glamour of floor sixteen, has only fanned the flames. Yesterday afternoon I was stuck in an alcove between suites seven and eight, and I managed to stare at him through the glass for ten minutes straight.
He doesn’t smile much, not that I’ve seen. Not with colleagues, nor with clients. He doesn’t smile when he’s on the phone, or even when an assistant drops a Starbucks in between meetings. His face always has this constant sternness about it – his eyes steely, his mouth so perfectly impassive. Perfectly perfect.
Being this close to him is doing nothing whatsoever to ease my obsession. My heart thumps every time I step foot into the executive suites, knowing he might be there, just around the corner, near enough to study, far enough removed that he has no idea I even exist.
I think about him in bed at night, when Joe is asleep in the room next door. I think about him every morning on the underground, wondering if today’s the day I’ll run into him late at the office.
I think about him all the time.
And it’s not just me and Sonnie that are suffering the Henley effect.
I checked Dean’s phone when he was in the shower last night. I wasn’t even snooping, it was right there, flashing on the coffee table. I only picked it up to stop it bleeping.
I didn’t expect to find his gallery app open, and didn’t expect to find five saved pictures of the gorgeous Alexander Henley staring back at me.
Dean says he’s dangerous, just like the internet claims, and maybe he’s right. Maybe the man they call Puppet Master is dangerous. Maybe he’s involved with things I could never imagine, but that doesn’t stop me playing with myself when I think of all the dark, dirty secrets those steely eyes might be hiding. In fact, it’s the opposite. Juicy gossip about the skeletons in his closet turns me on all the more. Fucked up, but true.
I just want… more…
everything…
I just want… him.
And I’m pretty sure Dean’s jerking off over him too.
Hot older guy syndrome – I guess it’s an affliction we both suffer from.
That’s why Dean ended up on my sofa in the first place – a not-so-secret crush on our History teacher at school, Mr Patterson. Dean was just a kid, and he didn’t like to talk about it, especially not after his dad cottoned on and beat the shit out of him at regular intervals from that day forward. Street fighting, that’s what everyone blamed it on, even Dean himself, no matter how many times I asked. But I knew, even if nobody else would believe me. I’ve always known his dad’s a homophobic piece of shit.
So, when Dean arrived on my doorstep earlier this summer with a case full of clothes and the declaration he was going to stay awhile so I could get myself back on my feet I welcomed him in with open arms. He stepped on in and said nothing about his cut lip, or his swollen cheek, or the fact he was walking with a limp, and hasn’t said a word about it since.
