Best of 2017

by Alexa Riley

  “The answer’s fucking no. The boys stay in Oxton, end of discussion.”

  Her cheeks flush pink, her veneer slipping away in a heartbeat. “It’s not end of discussion, Alexander. They live with me. It’s my call.”

  “No,” I tell her. “It isn’t.”

  She sighs. “They want to be normal kids, Alex. They want to hang out with regular people, not with the stuck-up little toffs at private school.”

  “Fantastic. They can cast aside their future employability for the sake of fitting in with the regular kids. I’m sure they’ll be very happy to end up working in that shitty burger joint they insist on dragging me to.”

  Her eyes are on fire. “Alexander.”

  I haven’t missed that condescending fucking tone. As though she’s some permanently aggrieved little fishwife, and I’m the big bad cunt of an ex-husband.

  Although maybe that bit’s true.

  “They’re not going to state school,” I tell her, “and that’s the fucking end of it. If you wish to send your offspring through a second-rate education system, you be my guest, but my boys are not going to a shitty fucking state school.”

  Terry shakes his head, and I shoot him a glare that tells him to keep his fucking mouth shut. “I’ve already booked them into Grange High,” she tells me. “They’ve been on an official induction visit. I’ve already cancelled their places at Oxton.”

  “Then you’ll have to un-fucking-cancel them, won’t you?”

  “No,” she says. “I won’t.”

  I smile a horrible smile. “I could take you to court. Enforce my terms. I could move you into a grotty little terrace somewhere, see how you really enjoy slumming it with the regular folk.”

  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 SIX

  MELISSA

  SONNIE’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.

  He doesn’t talk about his family, or the way they call him a filthy little queer.

  He doesn’t talk about the men I know he wants, or the gay porn he jerks off to and thinks I don’t know about.

  I do wish he’d talk about Alexander Henley, for him as much as me.

  Maybe one day.

  But today is all about scoring my way into Alexander Henley’s bedroom, even if it’s only to wash his sheets. Sonnie might have her super-duper cleaning cloths, but I’ve got something she doesn’t have. Absolute determination, with a side helping of crazy.

  I’m definitely on the side of crazy today, fizzing with the prospect of stepping foot inside that Kensington house and seeing it all for myself – all his little habits, all his ways, in his most private surroundings. I want to walk barefoot across his plush carpets, strip naked and wrap myself in his bedsheets and breathe him in, so near but so far. I want to be the one to hang his suits up and load his dishwasher and walk his lovely dog. I want to be able to pretend…

  I’m already pretending. Pretending I’m already close as I sneak through the service passage to meeting suite ten. I’ve seen the roster. I know he was in there just over an hour ago. I’ll be wiping his fingerprints from the glass table top, polishing up the chair he’s been sitting in. A ghost behind him, following him, adoring him. Stalking him, Dean would say. He’s not so far wrong, I guess.

  The room is supposed to be long empty, that’s what the roster says. I’m loaded up with cleaning p
roducts and committed to my entry as I shoulder open the door and step inside. The lights are dim, the London skyline bright through the floor to ceiling windows. I don’t see his silhouette until my feet are already on the carpet, the door swooshing shut behind me.

  Oh fuck.

  Alexander Henley has his ear pressed to his mobile phone, his voice angry and curt as he barks out orders to the person on the other end.

  I back into the door, heart pounding, mouth paper dry at the thought of the disciplinary I’m bound to be getting for this.

  Discreet. You must be discreet.

  I’ve really fucked up. My dream of promotion shrivels and dies in the air between us as Mr Henley himself turns to face me.

  He steps forward, and the glow of a spotlight catches his forehead, his brows so pitted as he squints to make me out in the shadows. I lower my head, and for once I’m grateful for my stupid cap. I don’t want him to see me like this. I don’t want him to see me.

  So much for the late-night office fantasy.

  “Hold,” he says to the handset, and he’s heading my way. I’m doomed, a rabbit in headlights, unable to bolt and run because that would be too rude, unable to stay because Janet Yorkley will throw a fit at me when she hears about this.

  The panic thrums, my mind spinning through my options.

  Maybe I should beg him to forgive my error. Beg him to turn a blind eye and not let Janet know what a fuckup I made.

  Maybe I should beg full stop.

  I’d beg for anything from him.

  I shrink into the door, my cap low and shoulders hunched, as though being small is going to save me. But weirdly, as my breath comes out ragged and my knees feel all weird and wobbly, it does.

  He stops.

  Stares.

  I feel his eyes burning as mine stare at the handset lolling in his hand, the call still active. His hands are big. Long fingers. I can’t raise my eyes.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr Henley, sir,” I whisper, clutching my armful of products like a shield. “I thought… it said the room would be…”

  “Empty,” he finishes. “Yes. I’ll be out of your way shortly.”

  The handset rises to his ear and my eyes follow, and he gestures me forward, gestures I can carry on about my business. His laptop is still open on the table, but he indicates I can clear it to the side. His coffee cup, too.

  My skin prickles. My eyes meeting his for just a moment as I dither and dawdle, and I must look petrified because he smiles.

  He smiles.

  Just for a heartbeat.

  And then he’s barking at the person on the other end again, pacing back to the windows.

  My fingers are shaky as I unload my supplies onto one of the chairs. The polish makes a hiss as I spray, too loud for the room, and I see him turn again, staring as he paces. I can’t look at him, I daren’t. I give it my best as I scrub and buff, stretching over the expanse of glass, my arms tense with effort. I lift his laptop so gently, taking care not to look at his inbox on screen. I lift his coffee cup and buff underneath, wipe down the seat he’s been sitting in, then rebuff the table until my reflection is crisp and clear and I can even see my terrified eyes.

  I see him, too.

  I see him watching me in the glass.

  Shivers. It gives me shivers.

  I don’t stop working. I daren’t stop working. I’m like a whirling dervish as I polish and wipe down the side cabinets, the corporate pictures on the wall, the leaves of the ornamental plants in the corners. I empty the wastepaper bin and make sure the new liner is perfectly even. I run a cloth along the skirting to catch any dust.

  I’m wiping down the radiator cover as he hangs up the phone, and there’s a lump in my throat, filled with apologies, a hundred words to stop him telling Janet Yorkley to fire my sorry ass.

  I don’t say a single one of them.

  He clears away his laptop. I watch him from the corner of my eye, and I see that he’s careful, picking up his things without touching the table, being so careful with his fingers.

  I don’t know why it surprises me so much, but it does.

  He reaches under the table for his briefcase, and he pushes his chair in all the way when he’s done.

  And then he heads for the door. The thought of him leaving makes my chest pang, and I turn my head, bold for just a single moment.

  He’s looking at me, his elbow already through the open door.

  “Goodnight,” he says.

  My voice is squeaky. Pathetic.

  “Goodnight, Mr Henley, sir.”

  He smiles. Again.

  He smiles at me.

  And then he’s gone.

  ALEXANDER

  THERE ARE myriad corporate species in this building, and almost all of them exist outside of my awareness. The pools of secretaries, the receptionists, the kitchen staff, the trainees.

  The cleaners.

  It occurs to me that I’ve existed in this space for more years than I care to remember, and yet not once have I ever seen a cleaner going about their business.

  Not until last night.

  Corporate efficiency – that’s what my father would call it. The great divide between the lowly minions who clean up our shit, and ourselves, the untouchable lords at the top.

  Like I said, my father is a prick.

  So what that I saw a cleaner? Some girl in a shitty uniform going about her working life, just happening to collide with my space at the same time I’m inhabiting it – who cares?

  What makes it so memorable, I decide as I examine it this morning, is the fact that I spend my recreational time paying an obscene amount of money to women who’ll do my bidding. Women who are there purely to give me what I want. Whatever I want.

  And yet not one of them has ever made me feel as powerful as that scared little creature made me feel last night.

  I’m so sorry, Mr Henley, sir.

  I wish I could recall her voice more accurately. The hunch of her shoulders as she recoiled from my stare. The dip of her head, the jitters almost unperceivable, like a ghost of a scent on the air.

  Mr Henley, sir.

  The women I pay never use my real name. I’m Ted, or Bill, or Vladimir, or whichever poxy name I fancy for the evening. I could be Henry VIII for all they give a shit.

  Mr Henley, sir.

  It’s been a long time since someone called me that and really meant it.

  My assistant Brenda never means it. She says it with as much of a sneer as she dares without landing herself out of a job.

  The cleaner was just a ghost in the machine, I didn’t even see her face, not under the stupid hat I assume we make them wear. Her face doesn’t matter. Shouldn’t matter.

  And it doesn’t.

  Aside from the fact that her meek little apology gave me a hard on, the girl cleaned with more dedication than I’ve ever put into anything.

  I wasn’t just hard, I was fucking impressed.

  I call up my corporate extension list, wade through the reams of names I’ve never had any reason to take notice of.

  Janet Yorkley – Cleaning Services Manager.

  I buzz Brenda and tell her I want to see this Janet, and not ten minutes later the woman is outside my door with red cheeks and an expression nothing short of terrified.

  I beckon her in and point to an empty chair on the opposite side of the boardroom table. The same boardroom table.

  I hold up a hand as she makes to pull herself in.

  “Don’t. Touch,” I say, pointing at the glass. It’s still perfect, pristine, untouched. I don’t want Janet Yorkley’s grubby prints on it. I tell her so. I tell her that’s exactly what she’s here to observe. “I want you to look,” I tell her. “At the glass. Tell me what you can see.”

  The woman has no idea what I’m talking about, her breath still ragged from the ascent. Lord fucking knows why she didn’t take the elevator.

  “Look at what, Mr Henley, sir? I don’t understand.”

  Her voice is nervous, but it does
nothing for my dick. It’s gravelly, hoarse. Too confident.

  “The glass,” I say. “It’s perfectly clear. Perfectly. Not a single smear. Not a print. Not one.”

  She puffs up her chest like a proud little peacock. “Thank you, sir, our cleaning staff are dedicated to the very highest levels of…”

  I shush her with a shake of my head. “Yes, yes, Janet. I don’t need the brochure spiel, and this isn’t an award ceremony.”

  Her mouth slaps shut, a little bit like a toad’s.

  “There was a girl here last night. A cleaner,” I continue.

  Her eyebrows go so fucking high. “You saw one of our cleaners?”

  “Yes, Janet, I saw one of your cleaners. In here. Last night. I was talking, and she was…”

  Janet Yorkley looks mortified. She holds out her hands, dithering in the air so as not to spoil the cleanliness of the table I just pointed out to her, and she’s waffling apologies, assurances that it won’t happen again, that the cleaner in question will be demoted. Fired. Dismissed immediately.

  I tell her the table is perfectly fucking clean and she wants to fire the girl.

  Imbecile.

  I can’t fucking stand imbeciles.

  The woman isn’t listening to a fucking word I’m saying, and I hate that. I think it’s probably my biggest hate – people who won’t shut their trappy fucking pie hole long enough to just fucking listen.

  “I don’t want her fired,” I tell her, and my voice is irritated as sin. “I want her promoted.”

  “Promoted?” Her eyes are like golf balls. “You wish to have her promoted?! The girl you saw? But she’s in breach of–”

  “Yes, Janet, I wish to have her promoted. To my house. To my office. To anywhere I’ll get the best personal use of her talent.”

  Janet Yorkley bores me.

  I can practically hear her brain clunking around her skull.

  “To my house, Janet. Do you understand? I have an extensive collection of gemstones. My tumblers are Dalton Crystal. My dining table is antique walnut. I want that girl to clean it. All of it.”

  She nods. Her brain chugs around some more.