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He turns, and steps in beside Gen at the lectern, and oh my God. Oh my fucking God. It’s him.
Because if Tom Ellis reminded us of anything in Lucifer, it’s that Satan is in fact a fallen angel… and he looks every inch of the celestial being he once was.
But the mention of his name forms a bridge from this world to that, a portal that has me hurtling through time and space to a past I’d give anything to erase. I whisper my yes. Somehow, impossibly, I know what she’s going to say next before she says it. ‘Well, it seems Nat is his sister.’
The Devil himself is sitting right next to me, and he’s crying. Actual tears are streaming down his face. Whatever. I don’t have the energy to care. I just feel… ugh. Horrific. Sick and shaky and fucking wiped like I’ve just run a marathon, my hands still trembling.
‘Sending you back to Seven Sisters isn’t an option. You need to get checked out now, and you need some rest and a balanced dinner. I’m only a couple of miles away.’ He pauses. The fact that I’m too exhausted to bite his head off mid-speech is working in his favour. ‘I live right behind Kensington Palace,’ he continues, ‘and I have a car outside right now. Please believe me when I say I’m well aware there’s no one you’d rather get in a car with less than me. I know that. But I’m here, and you need to let me help you.’ I roll my head to one side and open my eyes. He’s staring down at me with a
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‘Certainly, Mr Wright,’ Toby says. ‘He’s in the drawing room.’ ‘Good. Send through’—Adam stops and surveys me with narrowed eyes before continuing—‘a grazing platter. Nothing too sugary. Plenty of protein. We’ll eat properly when Dyson’s done his thing.’ We certainly won’t, I think, but instead I shoot Toby a smile I hope is grateful and apologetic as I follow Adam, who’s already striding off to one of the sets of open double doors. Oh, sweet Jesus.
I’d stay forever if it wasn’t for the fact that this enchanted palace comes with a royal beast of an owner, unfortunately.
Dr Dyson returns with Adam a couple of minutes later, both men talking in low voices. As they come around to stand by the fire, I can’t help but gape. Because clearly Adam has used his banishment as an opportunity to shower and change. Holy shit. He’s in grey jogging bottoms and a form-fitting white t-shirt under an unzipped navy hoodie bearing the Wright Holdings logo on the chest. His hair is damp, his curls raked sleekly off his face and his feet encased in moccasin-style slippers.
I glare at him. This definitely feels like a conspiracy to imprison me here. And his suggestion of a bath—and a sound sleep—almost made me laugh. There’s no way I’d ever feel comfortable enough in Adam Wright’s house to get naked and bathe, let alone catch a wink of sleep. I play my trump card. ‘I don’t have a change of clothes. I don’t even have a toothbrush! I can’t turn up at work tomorrow looking like this.’
If I didn’t know who Adam Wright was and what he was capable of in the past, if I hadn’t lived twenty years with the scars his despicable crime had left not just on my brother but my entire
family, if he was a random, dashing hero whose presence of mind and extreme generosity and stunning home and overall concern for my welfare represented the extent of my knowledge of him, then let me tell you this: I would be swooning right now. Swooning. Hard.
He’s sitting up against a pile of pillows, legs stretched out, curly head flung back in an uncomfortable-looking position, fast asleep and snoring gently with his fingers intertwined over his stomach. He’s lost the hoodie, kept the soft-looking white t-shirt, and gained a tent in his jogging bottoms the size of a bloody wedding marquee. Oh my God. Oh my God. I eye it in disbelief. It may be dim in here, but I’d have to be registered legally blind not to be able to make out that thing. It’s testing the limits of his jogging bottoms, the jersey stretched taut over his, um, tent pole.
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I may despise him, but I can’t deny it’s been a while since I saw any form of dick, let alone one that impressive. And it seems my greedy little vagina doesn’t care about his morally corrupt soul or his black heart.
His fingers have been inside my mouth today, and now his dick is pointing north on my bed. He needs to get out of here before I do something I regret. Like climb on it. Or kick him off the bed. Not sure which.
It’s a testament to the outrageous comfort level of the bed that I found sleep again after Adam and his dick left the premises, but I did.
He’s in a similar uniform to the ones I’ve seen him in the past couple of times we’ve met—black, beautifully cut trousers, white, beautifully cut shirt, open at the neck. But there’s something about seeing him here, freshly showered, his dark curls damp and raked off his face, beard immaculate, that motherfucking cologne already wafting over to me, that steals the breath from my lungs.
I stay standing. ‘What, no “Turkish eggs with extra black beans” for you today?’ I make bunny ears with my fingers when I reel off my not-so-voluntary breakfast order. ‘I thought it was your favourite.’ He takes a sip from his espresso. ‘It is on Saturdays. I tend to do intermittent fasting during the week.’ A pause, then a little smirk creases
the corners of his unfairly attractive mouth. ‘You know, because I can.’ The jibe takes me a second to absorb, but when it does, my mouth drops open. ‘Hang on a sec. Did you just diabetes shame me?’ He’s still smirking. He looks awfully pleased with himself, and I can’t help it. I grin. ‘You smug bastard.’ ‘Yep. But I suspect you already knew that.’
‘Thank you for letting me look after you,’ he says softly, and then he’s gone.
‘Bollocks. Give me the dick porn.’ ‘It was there. It looked big. It looked hard. It looked like the answer to nuclear warheads and cancer and food inequality and every other problem facing mankind. Okay?’
The giant Selfridges bag turns up at the studio a few hours later, with a sheepishly smiling Nigel attached to it. ‘Your stuff, Miss. The boss asked me to bring it over.’ So poor old Nigel has had to come into town twice today on my account. Fuck’s sake. I swallow my exasperation and thank him sincerely for his trouble, lugging the bag back upstairs to the studio. Aside from the pairs of Vejas that didn’t fit me, it’s all there. The pyjamas, the skincare—the used and unused skincare, the unused underwear, and a couple of spare t-shirts from the original haul, as well as two surprises. The
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So yes, I steer clear of Alchemy. The irony of my investing in a sex club where I can have any woman I please except for the one I actually want is not lost on me. Seeing Natalie will serve no purpose, ergo reacquainting myself with her enchanting face and perfect body and vicious tongue is pointless.
‘Hi,’ I say softly, taking her in. Her hair is tied back in a long, sleek ponytail. It’s a little like the one she sported the other morning, but more glamorous, somehow. Or perhaps it’s the heavy eye makeup that provides the glamour. She even has an arc of tiny, immaculately applied crystals above each eyelid. All I know is that she’s a vision.
Will I see you in there later? Do you ever slip through those doors and let any of those hungry, entitled arseholes fuck you? Would you ever, in some inconceivable parallel universe, let me fuck you? Let me make you feel as good as I know I could, if only you’d let yourself judge me on the man who stands before you today and not the sins I was capable of committing half a lifetime ago?
There’s a second where we hold each other’s gaze, and I swear our souls speak to each other, before she shuts me down. ‘I never fraternise.’ Okay, then. Time to drag myself away and preserve what little is left of my dignity.
She screws up her face apologetically at the last word, and Maddy winces like she can’t believe Darcy went there. ‘So maybe you guys could find some, I dunno, middle ground?’ ‘By middle ground, she means his dick,’ Maddy chimes in helpfully.
‘I shouldn’t want this,’ she whispers, almost to herself, as those huge eyes take me in. ‘Seriously.
Not with you, of all people. What the fuck is wrong with me?’ No no no no no. I can’t have this. Can’t have her beating herself up because I’ve broken her will. A sudden surge of self-loathing courses through me, as chilling as the flood of relief was warm just now, when she finally acknowledged her internal struggle. I step forward again and slide my hands under her long earrings and up her neck, finding and cupping her jaw. ‘No, sweetheart. Absolutely nothing is wrong with you, you hear me? You are fucking perfect.’
‘You only want me because your ego needs to prove you can conquer any woman you like, especially one who despises you.’ ‘And you want me because you’re far too intelligent to underestimate the mind-melting power of a good hate fuck,’ he says evenly, those long, clever fingers rubbing at my nipples through layers of pleated silk chiffon and satin.
‘If you want me to touch that pretty little cunt of yours, Natalie, then you’ll need to show it to me first. I’m not getting you off under your skirt. No fucking way.’
‘Such a shame you hate me,’ he muses against my breast. ‘I’d love to kiss you. It’s interesting, though’—he twists his finger inside me, and oh my dear God—‘that you can’t keep your legs closed for me, isn’t it? And it’s positively fascinating that you are absolutely soaked.’
It doesn’t help that he’s so fine. So handsome. I could have swaddled myself in his beautiful black wool coat when I saw him standing
in the doorframe. I know, without even touching it, that it’s double-faced cashmere.
‘They’re not pretty,’ I tell him now. My numbers, that is. ‘Spoiler alert,’ he says quietly. ‘Nothing bad will happen if you show me your numbers. I won’t laugh. I won’t judge you. But I may be able to help you a little. Whatever’s stopping you, don’t let it. There’s nothing on the other side of that fear, I promise. Absolutely bugger all.’ So Adam Wright is a hot male version of Oprah with British swear words. Excellent.
‘Are you working this evening?’ he murmurs into my hair, his arms more a cocoon than a cage around me. I mumble my assent. ‘If I swing by when you’re done,’ he asks haltingly, ‘would you come home with me tonight?’ He releases me and takes a step back so he can pin me with that clear, pale blue gaze. ‘I can’t—I want to move forward with you, but I’m conscious that there’s a lot to say first. There are some things I’d like to show you.’
When she spots me, her face lights up to an extent that’s beyond gratifying, giving me the confidence to do what I do next. And that’s to stride down the hallway, past the two guys, lean over the lectern and kiss her full on the mouth, my hand wrapping around her neck in a signal I hope reads MINE - BACK OFF. ‘Hi,’ I murmur when I release her. ‘Hi,’ she returns dazedly. She puts her fingertips to her mouth, but she can’t hide her smile as Douche One and Douche Two clatter off down the corridor in search of a more available conquest.
It’s an effort to hold myself together when I’m brave enough to open this box, and I despise that the innocence of Ellen’s memory is so inextricably linked to an event so horrific, so shameful. I tarnished it that day, and I allowed my demons to set in motion atrocities that impacted lives far beyond our own family’s, and I’m so fucking ashamed I’ll never live it down.
But it’s her smile that gets me. So bright. So trusting. You can see the trust radiating off the page. She always had faith that her big brother would be there for her, to look out for her and to monitor her levels and see her through when she was so little, so vulnerable. And I fucking failed her.
She’s still scratching softly at my beard, and it feels so good. ‘How did you get a job, if you didn’t have any A Levels?’ I smile against her mouth. ‘Anton took a chance on me,’ I say, and then I kiss her. There’s a time for talking. There’s so much more to say.
But it can all wait.
He leans forward, planting his hands on the bed and looking me over. ‘Time to lose the thong.’ I scoff. I don’t think so. ‘Get those clothes off, mister, and then we’ll talk. Unless you really do have a hairy ba—eeek!’ My words turn to a squeal as he makes a grab for my ankles and tugs me down the bed, towards him. ‘You’d better help me, then,’ he says, and I scramble to my knees at a speed that makes him chuckle. But I don’t care, because I’m finally, finally getting to unwrap my delicious present, and I couldn’t give a shit if his back was an actual pelt. (Well, maybe I would. But I’m pretty
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She has a beautiful soul, and after everything she’s been through I’m so fucking relieved she’s finding a way to feed it—even if that way is far more rife than I’d like with stress and financial woes.
I’d love to take away all her headaches and allow her to focus only on the work that makes that soul of hers sing. As I unfasten her seatbelt and pull her into my lap, I vow this to myself: If it’s in my power to do it, I will.
I start to roll my eyes at what is an absurd proclamation from a businessman who’s astute enough to know better and most likely still sex-drunk, but he reaches up with his free hand and grabs my chin gently. ‘Listen to me. The only thing separating you from Omar Vega is circumstance. The only thing. And if you’d like to chat at any point about taking steps to change the circumstances of your brand, then I promise you I will do anything in my power to support you through the process.’
Her eyes are wide. ‘Really? That would be great, but you’ve done so much already. I don’t want to take up any more of your time.’ Jesus Christ. I pull her up onto my lap, sighing heavily into her glossy, lavender-scented hair. ‘Sweetheart. If you consumed every single minute of my day, I’d be a happy man. This is your baby—how can I not be interested in it? You’ve built a beautiful brand. Let’s at least see if we can find it some oxygen.’
This… thing with Adam is consuming me so rapidly, so ardently, that I’m going up in flames. I don’t stand a chance at withstanding his onslaught. If it was purely physical, I could walk away. (I couldn’t, actually, but I’d like to think I had more of a chance of withstanding him that way.) But it’s not. It’s everything. Every moment, every gesture. It’s the way he comes to fetch me after every single Alchemy shift, even though his chef Kamyl let slip the other day that he’s usually early to bed and early to rise. It’s the quiet times when I’m draped over him in his beautiful library and we’re
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It’s his obsession with getting Kamyl to concoct the most delicious high-protein meals and snacks for me with slow-release carbs aplenty. It’s the hours and hours he’s spent pouring over Gossamer’s numbers over the past fortnight, grilling me on the most random points and making suggestions that are utterly brilliant and incredibly helpful.
Surely he’s planning on going? He is the brand new part-owner of Alchemy’s overseas operations, after all, and the opening of the New York flagship is a biggie. Maybe he’ll go without me? The thought of it makes me feel physically sick: Adam in some glamorous Manhattan sex club, all tall and gorgeous and commanding, the glossy women of New York fawning over his model-grade looks and British accent, begging him to exercise that twitchy palm that he won’t unleash on me. Ugh ugh ugh.
I shut my eyes in mortification, but they fly open when Darcy hits me on the arm. ‘Oh my God. Did you have all the hate sex? We told you you should, didn’t we?’ I groan and screw up my face. ‘Um… kind of?’
Maddy pushes her enormous pizza plate away so she can put her elbows on the table and glare at me. ‘Spill it, Bennett. All of it. Now.’
