Page 20

A tap. Soft. Close.

“Don’t scream. Kiss me.”

I do not answer.

“Did you excuse yourself, Rhys?”

“Yes.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

I look at the lock. “Bathroom.”

“Door locked?”

“Yes.”

“Lucky you. Then take it out. I want you standing there with your cock in your hand and your belt open. I want you to tell me how wet you are.”

“This is a meeting.”

“They can wait. You walked out with a hard cock and my texts in your pocket. Stroke it. Slow. Use spit. I want to hear it.”

“No.”

“Yes. You came this morning. You will come again. I want it on your hand. I want you to walk back in there smelling like sex and still talking like a lawyer.”

My cock is aching. I put my palm on the front of my trousers and press once, hard, to make it stop. It does not stop. I take my hand away.

“You watched me walk into the building,” I say.

“I watch you everywhere I can. I watched you cover Noah. I watched you in your house. I watched you in that gym. I had my glove on you from behind. Undo the button. Pull it out. Let me talk you through it. I want you leaking on the sink. I want you fucking your fist and biting your tongue so they do not hear you down the hall.”

I look in the mirror. Forty-two. Suit still perfect. Eyes not.

“If I wanted a whore,” I say, “I would have hired one.”

“You did. You just have not seen my face yet. One hand on the phone. One on your cock. Say a name when you get close. You do not know mine. Say Preswood. I want to hear you ruin your own name.”

I do not take it out.

I want to. That is the part I hate.

“Pretty when you bleed,” the voice whispers. “You will be. Not yet. I want you alive and hard and walking back to that table with my words in your shorts. Go back in there and finish. Then go home. I am not done with your mouth. I am not done with your cock. I am going to fuck you in that house until you forget you run anything. And when you come, you are going to think about my glove and that white face and you are going to say thank you.”

The line stays open.

I hang up.

I wash my hands. I fix the zipper. I fix my face. I wait until I can walk.

Hale looks up when I come back in. Grant has the pen ready.

“Thirty days,” I say. “Twelve million. Two years if you pay. I will send the pages tonight.”