by Lee, Corri
“Alright.” I slipped my shoes back onto my feet and stuffed my discarded lace briefs and tights into the pocket of my coat, hyperaware of my bare legs and behind. “I’m done.”
“Put them in your laptop bag.” He turned around and pointed at my coat with a sly grin. “You’ll sneak them back on. Put them in your bag or I’ll take them with me.” I put one hand on my hip and pulled the items out of my pocket with a sigh.
“These? You want me to leave these here or you’ll steal them?” I raised an eyebrow. “Fine. If your girlfriend is that much of a prude that you have to go round stealing women’s underwear-…” I shrugged into my coat and walked up to him, brazenly stuffing the small lace garment into his trouser pocket and tossing the tights behind me onto the table. “… just take them.” I prowled across to the door and looked over my shoulder with a small polite smile. “After you, Mr Alexander.”
“Yes, uh… hang on.” I stifled a laugh as he shuffled uncomfortably on the spot and paced past me into the lift looking a tad flustered. Okay, so maybe not gay. “You’re a wicked girl, Cecelia.”
Nathaniel ran his hand across his chin and raised an eyebrow at me as I calmly discussed the finer points of Greek cuisine with Eleanor. He was visibly much more bothered by my lack of knickers than I was, and the pained look of bewilderment he was desperately trying to hide served as adequate entertainment for my lunch.
I winced as Bethany poised to stab at her chicken with a salad fork and wrinkled my nose. “Not that fork.” She stared at me, half annoyed and half confused, and lowered the knife to the table. “Sorry.” I pouted apologetically and fiddled with the corner of a napkin, feeling vengeful after my wasted morning. “Something wrong, Nathaniel? You’re very quiet.” If nobody else had noticed that he’d barely spoken, then they had now.
His jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed slightly as he sucked on his bottom lip and tucked his hand into his trouser pocket. “Nothing major. You just look like you’re missing something. An accessory? A scarf? Something lace maybe?” I hummed contemplatively as I snatched my glass of gin and tonic up from the table and shook my head innocently.
“No. I’m not missing anything.” Bethany frowned for a moment and peered under the table to look at my legs. I quickly crossed them at the knees to save her from an unexpected eyeful. What possessed her to duck down, I’ll never know.
“Weren’t you wearing tights this morning?”
“They laddered.” I picked the lemon slice out of my drink and carefully removed the pips, getting lost in my thoughts while Eleanor droned on about the newest submission to the publishing house. I knew that my flirtatious attitude toward Nathaniel was wrong- he was a taken man, and I was a taken woman- but something about interacting with him this way and seeing him so frustrated in light of my actions sent a thrill through my soul and made me obscenely happy. He’d teased me about my wax so I was teasing right back, and behind those quicksilver eyes, I could tell that he was enjoying it too.
“So will you write another novel, Cecelia?” Eleanor pulled me from my thoughts with a question I’d never really considered.
“I don’t know,” I replaced the lemon slice into its glass, “it took me three years to write this one and I don’t really have any new ideas. Plus I’m sure Nathaniel is sick of the sight of me by now. I think writing is well and truly out of my system.” My phone buzzed in my pocket and put a swift end to any talk of a Cecelia Douglas series. I rolled my eyes at the image of Cole flashing on the screen as the handset vibrated. “Oh wonderful, it’s Tybalt.”
Bethany spluttered into her glass and snatched my phone from my hand, rejecting the call. “You’re working. You don’t have to talk to him.” I blinked in surprise and pursed my lips. How drastically the opinion of the woman who had goaded me into committing to a relationship with a man who didn’t ring my bell had changed.
“I’d rather avoid another ‘fifty shades of how to fuck yourself’ drama, thank you very much.” Nathaniel’s eyes snapped up to me in alarm and narrowed.
“What are you talking about?” I shook my head and took my phone back from Bethany’s hand as it started to buzz again. This time, Nathaniel snatched it, rejected the call and stuffed the phone into his breast pocket. My blood began to simmer.
I leaned towards him slowly and cleared my throat. “Either give me back my phone, or give me back my underwear.” Bethany and Eleanor announced their surprise with a spray of shiraz and a calamity of dropped cutlery while Nathaniel’s mouth curved into a lazy smile. “Of the two, I’d prefer my phone. Commando is quite liberating- you should have told Bethany to burn all my pants too.”
“Well played, Douglas.” He passed me back my phone with a dangerous flare in his eye and smiled slightly at our company. “Well, I’m sure that made your lunch time quite interesting.”
I rolled my eyes and sat back in my chair to return Cole’s rejected calls. I had expected to have been met with a torrent of verbal abuse. Instead-
“Sweet pea, I was interrupting your work. I’m sorry.”
My forehead creased at both his greeting and his apologetic tone. “It’s fine, I’m free now. We’re just eating lunch.”
“We?” I knew that he was looking for a reason to hate Nathaniel further and I refused to provide it and be that woman who worked too much as was suspected of having an affair with her boss.
“I’m with a few members of the publishing team. It’s something of a business meeting.” That wasn’t strictly a lie, though there wasn’t exactly any fiscal benefit from my dip into exhibitionism.
“Oh. I haven’t heard from you since yesterday. You’ve been busy?” His tone was calm- too calm. The eye of the storm.
“Yes, sorry. I’ve been working on the novel since I got home.”
“Did you rewrite the love scene? Did Nathaniel approve?” My eyes twitched deceitfully and my annoyance sky rocketed. It had been a competition to him.
“Yeah he thought it was great,” I lied, “almost as much as I did.” Bethany and Nathaniel berated me with matching you-dirty-liar utterances and I seethed. Neither of them could possibly understand how it felt to be in Cole’s situation- to adore somebody who was so brutally complacent in return. I was being nothing if not merciful and trying my damned hardest to learn to love him.
“Can I see you tonight?”
“If you’re going to come in to the bar.”
“I thought you had Wednesday’s off.”
I sighed, knowing that my answer wouldn’t please him. “I swapped my shift to keep Friday open for Nathaniel. I’ll-…” I panicked and plucked a solution from thin air. “… I’ll come and surprise you tomorrow.”
“… Okay. Cecelia?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“You know how I feel about you, don’t you?” My stomach knotted and churned all at once.
“Yes, I do. Let’s just not label this yet.” I threw my phone down on the table and buried my face in my hands. This situation was awful and I couldn’t see any way of escaping without hurting his feelings. Plus the fact still remained that I was desperate for fireworks of my own, and Cole was my sole candidate.
“If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.” Eleanor muttered behind her glass. “And what a conversation to have with your pants in another man’s pocket.” I stared down guiltily at my empty plate and remained silent for the remainder of the meal. If I stood any chance of making my relationship work with Cole, I had to keep my relationship with Nathaniel strictly business only. As much as I was loathed to sacrifice a friend for the sake of a relationship that was barely off the starting blocks, I knew that Cole was theoretically perfect and I was lucky to have the opportunity of the full package.
I worked solidly through the afternoon, keeping my head low and my interaction with Nathaniel minimal as he guided me through the minor tweaks and adjustments to various passages of my novel. My revision of the love scene was rubbished and deleted, while ‘greed’ was met with gratuitous praise. With my underwear and tight
s firmly back in their rightful places, I withdrew from our tender friendship and made no hint of the warm affection I truly felt. It broke my heart, but it was necessary- not only to my success with Cole, but also to Nathaniel’s own relationship. There would come a time when his yin would object to his close friendships with other females and I didn’t want to be the driving force to failure. His confounded glances of disappointment that I wouldn’t banter with him didn’t go unmissed, but he would thank me for this when he was watching his woman walk down an aisle towards him to commit to him for life.
He cleared the pieces of the dinner setting away into a box as my fingers tapped tirelessly at my laptop keys, and paused at my shoulder. “Will you really give up writing after this?”
I continued typing to finish my sentence before turning to him with a sigh. “The words don’t come so easily anymore, Nathaniel- I’m drying up. I couldn’t write another book if I tried.”
“So what after this? Where do you go when you’re published?” I paused for a beat before turning back to my laptop. There was a shimmer in his eyes that almost looked like sadness and it tugged at my heart.
“If I’m as good as you say I am- book signings, conventions, movie premieres, Hollywood. I don’t know. I’ll be a flash in the pan until someone else releases the next best-seller, then I’ll go home to my quaint hovel of a townhouse and be satisfied that, even if just for a short time, people knew my name. I only ever wanted my work to be available- you’ve known that since day one.” The prospect of my success being short-lived didn’t distress me. I knew that the novelty would pass.
“What about me?” My lips tightened into a line and twisted. How could I possibly be expected to know where his life would lead him?
“You’ll make lots of money from my book sales and you’ll gallop off into the sunset with your girlfriend and set off Catherine Wheels to rival the London Eye fireworks. I’ll send you both invitations to dinner parties but you’ll be too important to attend. Your path will cross mine at The Duplicate one night and we’ll fall foul to Bruno’s cherry bombs- there’ll be a brief moment in which we reminisce and promise to keep in touch, but we won’t. You’ll get married and have children, your children will have children and they’ll put you in a very nice domiciliary with the billions they accrue from taking over your businesses when you tire in old age. You’ll die as a legend and your wife soon afterwards from a broken heart. There’ll be a joint funeral and you’ll be buried in the same plot as a lasting symbol of your undying devotion to each other. It’ll be an international tragedy and eternal love story they’ll tell for eons. Does that sound like a feasible prediction?”
Nathaniel lowered himself down into his seat and scrubbed his hand over his face. “That’s quite a grim outlook.”
“Are you joking? You’ll get the happily ever after you always dreamed of.”
“Not if you’re going to vanish back into the crowd like a wallflower. I enjoy spending time with you, Cecelia. If not working with you means losing you, I’ll pick this novel to pieces and postpone its release.”
My jaw dropped and my heart sank. “My friendship can’t be bought with bribes and it sure as hell won’t be preserved with blackmail. If that’s your attitude, I’ll take my chances on other publishing houses.”
I didn’t even bother to pack my laptop into its bag when I stormed out of the office- I tucked it beneath my arm and staggered into the corridor awkwardly and off balance until I could set myself straight in the lift. The sound of Nathaniel’s voice calling out across the office floor, having followed me as soon as the lift had returned to the basement level, was a distant whisper compared to the rushing of blood in my ears as my heart pounded with rage. Not only was I trapped by Cole’s love, I was trapped by Nathaniel’s friendship. Whether or not I was being caged with good intentions, manipulation was still manipulation, and I wasn’t going to allow myself to be made miserable any longer.
Bethany rolled into the bar around nine, and gaped in alarm at the assortment of envelopes across the bar top. She took the pen from my hand upon entering the staff side of the bar and set it down, pulling me into a hug with an awkward simper. “He didn’t mean it the way it came out.” I pulled back from her arms and scowled, not particularly pleased with the idea of them having cosy little chats about me. “He’s just worried that we won’t all see each other when you don’t have a professional relationship. He likes having us as friends.”
“Well he should know how to verbalise that better as a man who specialises in the written word,” I hissed, “we don’t interact with him on a social basis anyway.”
“That’s what I told him. So he’s dropping by tonight.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling the stirrings of a tension headache starting to throb in the back of my skull. “Oh my god, relax. I’m joking.” My head shook critically at her poor humour, but I should have known better. Nathaniel would never be seen dead in our bar- as much as I loved it, it was a dive. Definitely not billionaire stomping ground.
I gathered the envelopes together and gratefully accepted the offer of a drink from a patron who said I looked like I needed it. I did, and I brushed the nagging thought that I was starting to become alcohol dependant to one side, letting the Kraken soothe my aching and weary mind. Everything looked better with an alcoholic haze these days.
My shift passed with no fights or spats between our geriatric real ale aficionados- a rarity when Jenga was involved. My vision was liquor-skewed and only just at a tolerable level to continue working when the last standing drunk finally admitted defeat and caved to our requests for him to evacuate the building at two in the morning. Bethany assisted me in my befuddled closing duties, blaring Green Day from the tinny speaker on her phone. The door swung open and closed behind me, footsteps approached the bar, and a man coughed.
“Go home, Derek.” The visitor left, and the door slammed behind him. Rolling my eyes, I turned back to the bar and my attention fell on one of Nathaniel’s signature bouquets of pink and yellow roses and white tulips. “Oh for god’s sake…” I snatched up the large envelope that accompanied them.
I’m sorry. Your friendship means everything to me.
Come with me on Friday. You don’t want your tea to get cold.
I was horribly bored of Nathaniel’s cryptic messages when I tore open the envelope and pulled out a piece of tea-stained card that was roughly the size of a cheque, and decorated like an old wartime propaganda poster.
Counterpart Records wants YOU…
… to attend this Friday.
Doors open at 8pm- dinner is served at 9pm.
All proceeds to this event will go towards GOSH
Dress to please the Red Queen.
Your country needs you.
Chapter Fourteen
My heels clicked loudly across the grey tiled floors of the college as Adam escorted me through the corridors to Cole’s classroom. I was drunk- but not excessively so for the given time of ten minutes to midday- and a steady flow of early dismissed students were filing out in my wake with pointed fingers and hushed gossips.
“Shit.” I whispered as my heel buckled underneath me on the polished floor and sent me lurching forward a step, breaking the illusion that I strolled with innate grace and sophistication.
Adam grabbed me by the elbow to help me regain my composure and stifled a titter. “You’re setting an awful example to these impressionable young adults, Cecelia.”
“Show me to the English Literature students and I can shatter their illusions about rising to fame through prose.” I smoothed down my Veronica Lake hair and plastered on a smile. “I am cool, calm, composed and assortment of other adjectives beginning with C and pertaining to tranquillity.” He shook his head in exasperation and beckoned me towards a door.
“He always goes right up to the hour so-…” I held up a hand to silence him and peered through the long wire enforced window in the door.
Through my beer goggles, Cole looked delicious. Suited and boote
d with an authoritative stance, his power over his students stood firm as they stared at him, glass-eyed with boredom. I tapped on the glass quietly and gave him a slow sexy smile when he looked in my direction. His eyebrow jerked as I pulled back the side of my coat to reveal that I wore little more than a small black cotton mini-dress that was better suited to a boudoir than an establishment of education.
His eyes closed for a moment and his chin dropped to his chest. His students’ heads turned to look at me, their faces displaying a mixture of shock and twisted pride. There were whoops, there were claps, and then there were insistent calls for my entrance.
Cole slunk over to the door and heaved it open, striving to keep his face expressionless. “Everyone out.” The students leapt to their feet and I stepped back as they pushed their way past him with a mass of gibes and congratulatory pats on the back. One girl stopped in front of me and flicked a shock of green hair out of her eyes with a petulant sneer.
“Aren’t you Nathaniel Alexander’s bitch?”
I raised an eyebrow and leaned casually against the wall next to me. “Sweetheart, I am nobody’s bitch- least of all an Alexander bitch. He couldn’t bed me if he tried.”
“So you’re Cole’s bitch?” I stepped up to her and towered over her for a second before I turned into the open door way.
“No, he’s my bitch, and he knows it.”
Adam shook his head at me and patted Cole on the shoulder. “Good luck, man. You’re going to need it.”
Cole closed the door behind him and turned back to lean against it, obstructing the view of lingering students. “When you said you’d surprise me, I wasn’t expecting this.”
“So it was a surprise. Jobs a good’un.” I pointed at the chair at his desk and ran my tongue across my teeth. “Sit.” He stepped towards me uncertainly, but complied with my demand. I swung a leg over his to straddle him and pulled him into a kiss. I was determined to feel a rush from his touch, even if I had to adopt the element of danger to achieve it.