Dirty Bad Secrets

by West, Jade

My hackles rose. “Piss off, Andy. You’re dealing with nothing. I’m back, end of conversation.”

  “And what are you dealing with? Pissing hell, Faye, just talk to me, will you?”

  I dropped the empty envelopes in the bin before I met his eyes. “No.”

  “No? Just fucking no?”

  “Just fucking no. Drop it, please.”

  He folded his arms, leaned back in his chair. “You can’t have it all ways. You want to come back here like nothing’s happened, you want your cosy little desk back next to mine, you want to play your little games in the playroom. All that comes at a price, Faye. I want honesty. I want commitment. I want some fucking answers.”

  “And I want to get on with running my club. Thanks for the desk, but it really doesn’t buy you a free pass to Faye Devere’s life history, break up 101. I’m not that cheap or that fucking generous.”

  And with that I’d offended him. Again. His walls came up, lips pressed tight as he angled his chair back away from me. “That’s fucking gratitude for you.”

  “I shouldn’t have to be grateful for being allowed into my own club.” I waved the membership IDs in the air. “Where do these go?”

  “It’s your club. You should fucking know.” His screen switched to email, and he typed away to some supplier or another. Ignorant prick.

  I rooted through drawers until I found the correct file, fighting back the urge to fist pump in victory. I could fit back in here, with or without Andy Morgan’s precious permission.

  Telling him so landed me back on bar duty, but it was worth it.

  Roll on fucking Saturday, and the next bastard coin toss.

  ***

  “He cares,” Topaz said, handing me another batch of juices for the fridge.

  “He’s a control freak. Knowledge is power,” I replied.

  “That, too.” She kicked the empty box aside and opened another. “But he cares. You didn’t see his face when he first saw that cover.”

  “I can imagine,” I scoffed. “Don’t want to create a spectacle now, do we? Have people talking? That will never do.”

  She frowned, and I felt surprisingly bad. “It wasn’t like that. I think you’re being harsh.”

  “I’m not the one making him beg to help out in his own club.”

  And he’s not the one who walked away for three years straight. Topaz didn’t say it, but her expression did. She had one of those faces, one you can read a mile off. I suspected it would make her truly beautiful in the throes of orgasm.

  She stared at the bottles and not at me. “I’m sorry about the cover. I should’ve spoken to you before I showed him.”

  I could hardly hold it against her. “You’ve known him a long time, you don’t have to apologise for loyalty.” I smiled. “Really, it’s ok. He’d have seen it sooner or later.”

  “Later, probably. He’s not much of a reader.” A smirk lit up her eyes. “Can you imagine him reading them? The Magpie books, I mean.”

  The thought gave me shivers. “He hasn’t got the attention span. He can’t even read his own horoscope without getting bored halfway through.”

  “Just as well, eh? The things you get up to. I mean Magpie. Not you.” She laughed, a nervous laugh. “She is you, isn’t she?”

  “She’s a character,” I insisted. “I suppose there is some of me in her.”

  “The guy she talks about at the beginning of book one. Was that Mr Morgan?”

  My blood really did run cold, prickles dancing along my spine. “I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t?! Magpie says she’s leaving a nobody, just a man who should’ve meant something. A partner in every way but the one that really mattered. I remember everything about that book.” Her eyes glazed over in that hero-worship way again.

  “I didn’t feel like that in real life,” I lied. “Creative license.”

  I arranged the bottles in the fridge, nice and neatly to appease Mr Perfect. Topaz was on a roll, quoting this and that from those fucking books. Things I’d forgotten I’d ever said, and certainly ever done. It felt unpleasant, like she was sniffing at the crotches of the panties in my laundry basket. Still, I’d signed up for that, made my personal life public domain in the flimsy disguise of fiction. The dread of Bird in the Bush thrummed right through me. She’d never look at me the same again after that instalment. Never.

  I had to change the subject. “Have you never tried to fuck him?”

  My question cut through her rambling in a heartbeat, and the bottles clanked as she lost her grip on the box. “Sorry?”

  “Andy. Have you never tried it on? He’s always here, you’re always here. There must have been ample opportunity.”

  “I, um... no. Never. I’m not really his type.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just know,” she smiled shyly. “I mean, look at me. I’ve got green hair, and he’s like Mr Polished.”

  “Mr Polished who owns a sex club for deviants and weirdos,” I said. “And the green hair’s cute. You’re cute. Universally. You shouldn’t put yourself down.”

  “Thanks,” she mumbled. “Like I said, Mr Morgan doesn’t notice me. I’m not naive. There are so many beautiful women in this club. If he’s not going to fuck them, he’s hardly going to look twice at me.”

  “That’s crazy,” I said. “You’re stunning. Trust me on that.”

  She actually laughed aloud, poor little cow. “Thanks,” she said. “But it wasn’t me he was all over in playroom two the other day, was it, legs eleven?”

  “That was my fault. I started it.”

  “Gah,” she smirked. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. He’s my boss crush, and I can dream. I’d just have liked to have had him once, you know? Just one crazy night, for the memories.”

  I took the last two alcopops from her hands, taking them to the bottle opener instead of the fridge. “There’s always time,” I said, handing her one.

  “Now that’s crazy. He’s loopy about you. Pissed off, and grumpy, and out to make your life as miserable as humanly possible for as long as humanly possible, I don’t doubt. But still, he really wants you.”

  The idea thrilled me way more than it should have.

  And way, way more than I wanted it to.

  ***

  Faye

  “He’s... he’s... nobody. A man who should’ve meant something. We should’ve meant something. Life works out weirdly sometimes, doesn’t it?”

  Lights twinkle from the plains down below, stretching out towards Venice. This is a magical place. Vincent Blackthorne smells divine. His scent on the breeze is exotic and dark. Black treacle and amber. He’s bigger than I expected from his author photos. His thigh is so thick against mine. My Prosecco is going down well.

  “This man, he’s your partner?”

  “Business partner. A partner in every way but the one that really matters.”

  “And you want more?” His eyes twinkle. Searching. He wants me. I know he wants me. The thrill sizzles through my drunken limbs. I only came for a signed paperback. This is crazy. Crazy.

  “Wanted more. Funny thing, how much you can want someone you shouldn’t have.”

  “Shouldn’t or couldn’t?” he smiles. “This man... did he fight it as hard as you?”

  “No,” I sigh. “There, I said it. How liberating. He didn’t want me. Only my brain. We make money together. He wants that. Just that.”

  Warm fingers brush the hair from my bare shoulders. His breath on my neck. Vincent Blackthorne’s breath on my neck. My fucking God. How fucking surreal.

  “This man must be an idiot,” he says.

  “He is,” I laugh. “He’s such a prick. He’s uptight, and controlling, and difficult, and a workaholic. He always has to be right. All the fucking time. He’s an idiot.”

  “His loss is another man’s gain.” Vincent’s voice is like satin. His touch, too. “I, too, want your brain.” His lips touch my neck, and I shiver. He feels so good. “But I also want your body... I want your
laugh... I want your soul, my sweet bird.”

  Shit. I’m drunk. So drunk. And his words sound like heaven.

  “Stay with me... stay here...” He turns my face to his. “Say you will stay with me. I need a muse, my beautiful magpie. A beautiful creature to inspire my beautiful words. You will be her. You will be my muse.”

  “Stay? On holiday? My flight goes tomorrow...”

  Dark eyes capture me. Solid hands take mine. I’m floating on air, high in the Prealps, in the gaze of a master. “No holiday,” he breathes. “Just stay…”

  I’m nodding. I can’t even believe that I’m nodding, but I am.

  He smiles, perfect white teeth. “And what about this man? What about the man who could have meant something?”

  I hold out my glass for more Prosecco. “Fuck him.”

  ***

  Andy

  “And what about this man? What about the man who could have meant something?”

  My magpie dazzles me with her beautiful eyes. They sparkle like the bubbles of Prosecco in the lamplight. She holds out her glass for more. A toast, her smile says, before she answers my question about that man. The man waiting for her back home. That stupid man who let his beautiful bird flutter into my open arms.

  “Fuck him,” she says.

  And I know my pretty bird is here to stay.

  Fuck him.

  The words jumped off the fucking screen at me. Who’d have fucking thought the Look Inside option on Amazon would give you such a perfect fucking snippet.

  Infuriating, snotty fucking cow, waltzing back in, wanting everything on a silver platter without so much as the courtesy of a straight fucking answer. Turns out I was finding my own. Fuck him. He’s a prick. He’s an idiot. I flicked my lawyer’s card around my fingers over and over. I should make the call, man up and start sorting out my fucking mess. Maybe I could own up to my oversights. Offer her a deal to be gone and finished and out of my fucking business, once and for all.

  We’d never make it any length of time in the same airspace. Especially not now I knew how things really fucking went down in Venice. Not without killing each other.

  Or at least causing each other grievous bodily harm.

  My cock betrayed me at the thought, totally and utterly. Un-fucking-real.

  Fuck him. He’s such a fucking prick. Such an idiot.

  I slammed the card back in the drawer, and dialled the bar extension.

  ***

  Chapter Seven

  Faye

  Summoned like a schoolgirl to the headmaster’s office. It could have been horny if I wasn’t already at the end of my tether with his self-righteous, aggrieved shit. I hadn’t even had a chance to argue. My office, Faye, right now. Then the flat, dull bleep of the call-ended tone.

  “What have you done now?” Topaz asked, catching my scowl.

  “Fuck knows,” I groaned. “Breathed? Put my pen in the wrong place? Dared to exist in the same air space as him? Guess I’ll find out soon enough.”

  I smoothed down my skirt and blouse before I opened the door to face the music. My clothes felt stiff and starchy, not quite imbuing me with the sexy CEO confidence I’d been hoping for when I’d picked out a blouse in corporate-bitch scarlet.

  Andy was already standing, cutting an imposing stance in his black pinstripe tailoring. His tie was the richest deep purple, stark against the perfect white of his shirt, and his stubble was just a shadow, pairing with his ever-so-slightly messy hair to present an immaculate display of manhood.

  His expression screamed pissed off, but as much as I wanted to slap him across his sanctimonious face, I couldn’t deny he looked ridiculously hot. Ridiculously, annoyingly, insanely fucking hot. Pissed off really suited Andy Morgan.

  “Just fiction,” he said. “That’s a fucking joke, isn’t it?”

  I folded my arms, kept my chin high. “Sorry?”

  He clicked away on his keyboard. “I quote: he’s uptight, and controlling, and difficult, and a workaholic. He’s an idiot, fuck him.”

  My heart thumped in my chest. “I was drunk. Prosecco. And it’s a story.”

  “Fuck him. That’s how you felt about swanning off and leaving me to pick up all your fucking slack, is it? Fuck him. Fuck Andy and all the work he put into our club. Fuck Andy, who invested thousands in a future for both of us, who took a risk by ploughing a shit ton of his own money into a dream you fucking came up with. Who invested in you, a twenty-four year old, hormonal, high-maintenance fucking nightmare with nothing but a bad credit rating and a string of weirdo ex-boyfriends in her back catalogue. Fuck him, right, Faye? Just fuck him.”

  “Jesus, Andy. It’s only a couple of pages, don’t take it out of context.” I kept my nerve like a trooper, despite my elevated heartrate. “You weren’t there, it wasn’t like that. Anyway, you are uptight and controlling and difficult, and you’re definitely a workaholic.”

  “And a fucking idiot?”

  My mouth couldn’t help itself. “Yes. Yes, you are. Sometimes. Just like I may have sometimes been a hormonal, high-maintenance fucking nightmare. We’re not exactly pure as the driven snow, either of us. And you wanted to invest the money. You had the cash, I had the vision. Don’t try and make out it was some kind of mercy mission, we both did alright out of it.”

  “You left me in the lurch, ditched every shred of commitment we had to each other and this business, and then you laughed about it. You laughed about it, and you let that piece of shit put it in a fucking book!”

  “I wasn’t laughing.”

  “Doesn’t seem like it from where I’m standing.”

  “Maybe you’re standing in the wrong place, then. I was there, you weren’t.”

  “And what about this...” My stomach churned as he resumed his scrolling. “A partner in every way but the one that really matters. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  I wished the ground would open up and swallow me whole. “It’s quite self-explanatory. You did actually bother to read the rest of the chapter, didn’t you?”

  The corner of his mouth twitched, eyebrows pitted as he stared right through me. “You never told me you wanted more. Not so much as a fucking hint.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t think I needed to, just like you didn’t need to say you didn’t. It was obvious. A thousand opportunities you never took. A thousand times when it was there, simmering, where we could’ve, but didn’t. Where you didn’t.”

  “Business and pleasure don’t mix. I thought we were on the same page with that.” He took a seat, rested with his elbows on the table, staring so fiercely I could’ve burned up. “Lots of women flirt, Faye, it doesn’t always figure they want something more. If you wanted more, you should have used that smart fucking mouth and told me so.”

  I smiled, shaking my head in disbelief. “Whatever, Andy. You knew. We both knew. Rewrite it all you want, but it was right there and you always chose the other road.”

  “I’m telling you now, Faye, I had no idea. Yes, we had an intangible something. We also had a business. A business that needed us to work well together, without any messy shit in the way. It would have gone tits up in five seconds flat if we’d started fucking. I assumed you realised the same.”

  I shrugged. “It’s all water under the bridge now. You’re reading a fictionalised snippet of a conversation I had three years ago. Nothing in that book matters anymore.”

  “I think I’ll read it anyway.”

  “Please don’t.” My stomach lurched at the prospect. “There’s nothing important in there, nothing else about you.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nothing.” I hoped I wasn’t lying, since I wasn’t planning on checking my facts anytime soon.

  He let out a pissed off sigh. “Fucking hell, Faye. What are we doing here? We can’t work. This can’t work. You’ve rocked up with a whole fucking bag of chips on your shoulder, straight back into a club I’ve been running perfectly well on my own for three years, thank you very fucking much.” He
ran his fingers through his hair, exasperation mingling with rage. “For someone that claims to have spent so much time wanting more and doing nothing about it, you made short work of inciting a full-on fucking pain session in the playroom. What the fuck was that all about?”

  I took a seat in the chair opposite him, making sure to keep my distance. The hackles on my neck were well riled, heart thumping with anger, and defensiveness, and a whole lot of pent-up lust. “I changed in Venice. Vincent changed me. Taught me. I’m not the girl who left here. I’m not afraid to go after the sex I want with the people I want.”

  “I can’t see what the fuck Vincent taught you. You didn’t come back with the manners of a decently trained submissive. Or manners in general, for that matter. Some fucking master he is.”

  “I have manners, you just don’t bring them out of me,” I said. “We’re both pissed off, both aggravating the shit out of each other constantly. There hasn’t been much call for pleasantries since I’ve been back.”

  “I don’t think we can work together, Faye, not as an even partnership. Probably not at all. We’ll ruin each other, and the club with us. That’s the sad fucking truth of it.”

  I tried not to let his words sting, but they hurt. I forced the humiliation aside and met his eyes with fire in mine. “You really think that? No bullshit this time, Andy. For real?”

  He was quiet for a few seconds. “Yes, I think that.”

  “You really do seriously want me to leave? Just walk away like I never came back?”

  “Fuck him. That’s how you felt when you left. Why should I want you back? The hard work’s been done. And I fucking did it,” he snapped.

  And then there were tears. I could feel them behind my eyes. Feel the choke of hurt in my throat. Suddenly the whole thing felt ridiculous, every little fantasy I’d had as I’d run away from Vincent turning to dust. I battled against it, long enough to initiate one final showdown.

  “If you’re really serious, then I’ll go,” I said. “This is your chance. Tell me to leave. Tell me you never want to see me again. If you mean it, I’ll leave.” I grabbed my handbag from my desk. “I’m tired of trying to make it up to you.”