Mr. Knightsbridge (The Mister Series Book 2)

by Louise Bay

  “Hang on a minute,” I replied, typing out a short message to say I was sorry to Hollie.

  I stuffed my phone back in my pocket and watched as she read my message.

  She looked up and gave me a forced smile.

  I should be delighted that Daniels & Co was in this final without Sparkle. But I had no sense of victory.

  Ten

  Hollie

  And the hits just kept on coming.

  I stepped out of the Sparkle office and onto the raindrop-splattered pavement, and glanced up into the sky. Of course it was raining. When I’d first arrived in London, the rain was comforting and familiar, but now it just reminded me I’d be home sooner than I wanted to be.

  I’d known this internship was too good to be true. I didn’t fit in this kind of life. I’d been stupid for thinking I could exist outside the Sunshine Trailer Park.

  How was I going to tell Autumn I’d been fired? She’d believed in me, wanted the win for me almost as much as I wanted it for myself. I was letting my sister down on top of having all my dreams come tumbling down on top of me all at once.

  I’d never lost a job in my life before. And now the only job that could lead to something, could lead to a life I wanted, had been ripped away from me. How was this fair? I tipped my head back, letting the rain fall on my face as if it could wash away the despair rising in my chest.

  All that money on flights and renting my studio—all gone. My stomach churned at the thought of how many thousands of dollars I had wasted on a couple of weeks in England. I didn’t have enough experience for it to count on my resume, I hadn’t secured a letter of recommendation, and I wouldn’t have any savings left once I’d paid to get back to Oregon early.

  I’d had my shot and it was over.

  At least Pauly had kept my job open at the factory so I had something to go back to.

  And Dexter? I’d never see him again, never get to feel the scrape of his chin against my thigh. We’d had one dinner, but I’d never had such a perfect date. He was meant to be the icing on top of the London cake. My fun. My spa in male form. He’d been the first man who made me laugh out loud, the first man who I looked forward to kissing, the first man I ever wanted to have a second date with. Now none of that would happen.

  What a disastrous mess.

  I slumped on a bench and my phone buzzed in my hand.

  Shit, I was meant to leave the phone. That would be Sparkle’s office manager, demanding it back.

  I turned the phone over in my hand to reveal the caller. Dexter.

  I slid the green button across. “Come and get drunk with me?”

  “You going to help me celebrate?” he asked and despite my cloud of misery, I could still picture his relaxed smile. I knew he hadn’t called to crow. It wasn’t his style.

  “Yes. And you can help me commiserate.”

  “Sparkle will let you go early? I was going to suggest dinner.”

  “Yeah, Sparkle let me go early. That’s what you’re going to help me commiserate about.”

  “What? They let you go early today . . .?” He elongated the question like he knew the answer but didn’t want to put it into words.

  “I got fired,” I coughed out. It hadn’t occurred to me they’d just get rid of me if they didn’t make the finals of the competition. They said they needed the desk space now they weren’t in the competition, which made no sense to me but I guess it didn’t need to. I’d been so excited about this opportunity. I’d talked incessantly to Autumn about it, as if this was me going to Harvard or something. But this was my Harvard. My chance to focus on me, to have a career, a different life. Jiminy Cricket.

  Now I was going to have to spend money to change my flight and go home to . . . what?

  “Hollie? Did you hear me?”

  “What? Sorry? I was just—”

  “Where are you right now?” Dexter asked.

  I hadn’t taken much notice. I looked up for a sign and just saw the Sparkle awning down the street. I hadn’t made it far. “I’m getting to the end of Hatton Garden.”

  “Which end?” he asked. His voice was muffled. “North or south?”

  How should I know? “The end with the guy on the horse.” I hadn’t even had time to figure out why the statue at the end of the street was there. And the plaque on the wall outside our office. I kept meaning to read it but hadn’t gotten the chance. Two weeks in London wasn’t enough.

  “Holborn Circus end?” he asked.

  He’d been drinking already. “Nope. There’s no sign of a circus. Not a clown in sight.” Having to deal with a clown would really be the cherry on top of the most darn-awful day. “Just a gazillion traffic lights and cars everywhere.”

  “Yeah. That’s Holborn Circus. Stay right there,” he snapped. “I’ll be ten minutes. I’m coming to get you.”

  I’d been joking about him taking me drinking, but if he had the afternoon off to celebrate, I wasn’t going to complain if he wanted to help me drown my sorrows at the same time.

  I changed direction, headed back to Sparkle, dropped the phone through their letterbox and retraced my steps toward the circus that wasn’t a circus. I wandered halfway across the street to the pedestrian island separating the cars going in opposite directions, which was where the statue of the man on the horse was. I might not have had a chance to go to the British Museum, but I could at least check this guy out.

  The statue was high above me, mounted on a huge block of granite that made it all the more difficult to see it. Why in the hell was this raised high above the ground, overlooking all the traffic?

  A car horn behind me made me jump, and I snapped my head around to find Dexter’s head poking out of a car stopped at the lights. “Jump in.”

  Despite my mood, I couldn’t help but smile. He was here. I wasn’t sure why or how but I was just pleased he was. It made things a tiny bit better.

  “Hey,” I said as I climbed in the passenger seat. “You skipped out of class early?”

  “I had the head teacher’s permission.” He paused. “How are you feeling? Those bastards at Sparkle are lower than a snake’s belly.”

  “I feel kinda numb.” But being here with Dexter was nice. More than nice. Just sitting next to him dulled the pain and frustration. More time with Dexter, even if it was just a couple of hours, would make this London trip memorable even if it all ended up being a waste of time and money.

  “Did they at least pay you until the end of your internship?” he asked.

  “It wasn’t a paid thing. I saved—” I didn’t want him to think I was bummed about the money. The money was an issue, but it was the lack of experience and opportunity that was the worst of it. My future felt bleak—an endless parade of trailer park living, factory work, and dreaming dreams that would never come true.

  Dexter’s jaw tightened. He wove through traffic before pulling up sharply by the side of the road. “Come on,” he said, opening the door. “Let’s get drunk.”

  Eleven

  Dexter

  “Do we have the same drink?” Hollie asked, holding up her glass and squinting as if she were trying to spot a koi carp swimming in her glass.

  “You have vodka,” I replied.

  She slammed her glass down. “Well that was a bad idea. I’m seeing lots of things . . . everything—there’s two of everything.”

  “Vodka was what you asked for.”

  “You should never listen to me. Ever,” she said, dramatically shaking her head. She was a cute drunk. And cheap. She was only on her third drink, albeit each one had been different. She’d started with whiskey. “I have terrible brain ideas.”

  “Brain ideas?”

  “Like coming to London.” More head shaking. “Should have saved my money.”

  Charles Ledwin was a shit. I hated him for making Hollie wish she’d never come to London. Sparkle hadn’t even offered to pay her air fare home. And then it hit me—if she was out of a job, there would be no reason for her to stay. She’d be heading back to
the US before we’d even got to know each other properly.

  “I thought it was the start of something, you know?” She pinched her brows together, earnest in her drunkenness.

  I knew exactly what she meant. If she’d stayed the extra few months, I’d have liked to have hung out with her more. She was sexy and fun and sagely naïve. And I hated that she felt bad.

  “You’ve still had the experience though, right? You’ll still get something out of it.” I was grasping at straws, trying to say something that would help.

  “We shouldn’t talk about it.” She craned her neck toward the bar. “We should drink more. What’s this?” She held up her glass.

  “Vodka.”

  “Right. I think maybe wine would be better.”

  No amount of wine was going to make this better. But I knew I could help.

  “I have an idea,” I announced. I was pretty sure Beck would tell me it was a terrible idea if he was here. And probably so would Gabriel. But I didn’t care. I couldn’t stand by and let Sparkle kill Hollie’s dreams. I just couldn’t. “You should finish your internship at Daniels & Co.”

  “Definitely wine,” Hollie said, wincing as she swallowed the last gulp of vodka.

  I’d expected her to throw her arms around me and tell me I was her hero. But she seemed more focused on her drink. “Did you hear me?” I asked.

  She clasped my shoulder. “God, I’m being awful company. I’m sorry. You said you have an idea.” She pointed at my head and I couldn’t help but grin. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen anyone quite so adorable when they were drunk.

  “I have several.” I called the waiter over and ordered some soft drinks while Hollie held a conversation with the candle.

  I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her toward me.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” she asked. “I thought we were going to drink wine?” Dropping her voice to a stage whisper, she asked, “Are we going to have sex?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  She turned to me, the expression on her face as if I’d just insulted her.

  “Hollie, you’ve had far too much to drink . . .” I paused. That wasn’t quite true. She hadn’t had much to drink at all. She was just drunk. “You’re too tipsy to be—I’m just moving you closer so you can hear what I’m saying.”

  Sex wasn’t going to happen. Not tonight. Not when she was in a position to be able to regret it.

  “I want to talk business with you,” I said.

  “You don’t want to sleep with you?” Her stage whisper had transformed into a semi-shout. “With me, I mean. You don’t want to have sex with me?”

  I chuckled. “I think you just proved my point.” Our tray of nonalcoholic cocktails arrived.

  “Pretty!” Hollie said, bouncing in her chair as the waiter transferred each of them from tray to table. “I like this better than wine.”

  I should probably wait until tomorrow to talk to her about working for Daniels & Co, but I wanted to cheer her up. And it would stop her booking a flight home.

  “So, what do you think about being an intern for me?” I asked.

  She turned to me, looking at me over her shoulder. “You want me to dress up? Like role play? That’s your thing?”

  “Hollie, will you focus?” I took the martini glass out of her hand. “Look at me.”

  “I’m looking,” she replied, staring at me. The blue flecks in her green eyes seemed to have expanded over the course of the afternoon.

  “Stay in London and finish your internship at Daniels & Co.”

  She seemed to be following what I was saying and her eyelids fluttered open and shut a thousand times and she reached for me.

  “You would do that?” she asked, stroking the palm of her hand down my cheek.

  I swallowed, trying to push down the instinct to scoop her up and take her home. “It makes sense. We need more hands on deck now we’re through to the finals. And you need a job.”

  “You are so sweet.” She sighed. “The British.”

  “So that’s agreed. You’ll start on Monday.”

  She picked up her martini glass. “Absolutely not. I shall not work for you.”

  I groaned. I should have waited until she was sober after all. “We can discuss it again tomorrow.”

  “You don’t have to offer me a job to get into my panties. You are welcome there. There’s a little brass band down there, ready to say hi whenever you’re ready. They have banners and balloons. There is no job required.”

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or be completely horrified by the idea she thought I was offering her a job in return for sex. And I guess I should also be slightly freaked out by the idea of her vagina band. “I’m not offering to swap you a job for sex. It might surprise you to know that I don’t have to pay for it.”

  “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” she said, suddenly completely sober. “Why would you even do such a thing?”

  I got it. She was a gorgeous girl and I could imagine that she’d been offered a number of things to sleep with a guy before. “I do not want to have sex with you.”

  “Rude!” she said. “I thought . . .”

  This girl gave me whiplash. “Yes, of course I want to have sex with you—if nothing else so I can meet the tiny brass band in your underwear.”

  She started to giggle and it was so bloody delightful that I wanted to grab her hand and escape somewhere I could hold her for the rest of the evening in front of a roaring fire, watching the London rain freshen up the city.

  “I’m not offering you the job so you’ll have sex with me. I’m offering you the job because you need a job and I need the help.”

  “Really?” she asked. “Tell me the truth.”

  “Okay. That’s the truth. Also I don’t like the way Sparkle has treated you, and if I get to right some of their wrongs, that makes me feel good.”

  “Any other reason?”

  No more holding back or skating on the surface. “And I’d like to hang out with you some more and if you fly back to Oregon, I won’t ever see you again.”

  She looked at me, concentration freezing her expression. “The problem is . . . if I’m your intern, I can’t sleep with you. Because I want to be taken seriously. I want people to see that I’m hardworking and that I have potential, not that I’m humping the boss.”

  “Humping?”

  I got where she was coming from. Daniels & Co wasn’t that kind of organization. The people I worked with were professional. They weren’t gossips but she wasn’t to know that. “Looks like I won’t be getting laid, then. Not if you’re back in Oregon and not if you stay in London.”

  She grinned, as if the thought delighted her. “Are you serious? You want me to intern?”

  “I have two conditions. First, I need to be open with my head designer, Primrose, about how I know you. I don’t keep anything professional from her. But she’s discreet and won’t judge either of us.”

  “And the second condition?” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at me.

  “Everyone who works for Daniels & Co gets paid. So, for the next nine weeks, you’ll get a salary. Just above minimum wage, so don’t get too excited.”

  “Are you serious? No, I mean, I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right.”

  I just offered her a minimum-wage salary and she’d reacted as if she’d won the lottery. “Take it or leave it. But you’re not working for my organization for free. That’s not the way I operate.”

  “Life is freaking ironic, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Why? Because the day you lose a job, you get one so much better?” Sparkle were idiots.

  She tilted her head to the side. “No. Because I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to sleep with a man more than I want to get naked with you. And now you’re my boss and it’s strictly not allowed.”

  Before I could respond, she called the waiter over and asked for the bill—or “check” as she put it. “I’ll get this,” she said. “As a thank you.” She took the bill fr
om the waiter at the same time as I handed him my card. There was no way I was going to let her pay.

  “Hey,” she said. “This is my treat.” And then her eyes widened at the total. “Okay, well, maybe I’m going to let you get this. But I owe you.”

  “You don’t owe me anything. Be a good intern. That’s all you need to do for me.”

  “I’m going to have to tell the guys in my panties to stand down,” she said. “It’s disappointing for them. They’ve never been so . . . animated.”

  I chuckled. “Animated. Right.”

  “But,” she said, and I could almost see the cogs in her brain whirring, “I’m not technically your intern right at this moment, am I?” She slid off her bar stool and stood, her body slipping between my thighs. “A kiss wouldn’t hurt, would it?”

  Hollie was an adorable drunk. Adorable and gorgeous, particularly when she pouted, drawing my attention to her pillow-like lips. “I think a kiss would be acceptable,” I replied, standing and turning so I had her pinned against the bar.

  Her hands slid up the lapels of my jacket, and I breathed in the clean scent of sunshine and summer flowers as she looked up at me with those green-blue eyes that I wanted to dive into.

  She pushed her fingers into my hair, and I bent, pressing my lips into hers, sinking into her softness, relishing the warmth of her. Instinctively, I groaned at the sensation of relief and satisfaction I got from feeling her, from tasting her, from being this close to her.

  She sighed against me as if the feeling was entirely mutual and I pushed into her with my tongue, wanting more, needing to be closer.

  When had kissing ever been like this before? It felt so perfect, so intimate, so completely necessary.

  A loud cough brought us back into the room and we jumped apart like guilty teenagers.

  My heart juddered in my chest and my blood ran thick in my veins as I tried to compose myself.

  What would I be missing if I couldn’t have more of Hollie Lumen?

  She looked up at me, her cheeks flushed, an expression of longing on her face. I had to stop myself from tossing her over my shoulder and sprinting home with her.