by Nana Malone
Sophie suddenly realized that her arm was still suspended in midair, forgotten about as she carried out her not-so-subtle perv. Lowering it down to her side, she resolutely forced her gaze onto his eyes.
I will not give him the satisfaction of seeing me check out his body. Or his penis … Oh my God, his penis. I mean the thing was … No. What an arrogant prick, answering the door with nothing on. I mean, what an inflated bloody ego.
She cleared her throat, trying to stop the barrage of thoughts in her head and focus. “Nathan,” she said coolly, her tone dangerous, “this is the third fucking time you’ve woken me up in the middle of the night this week. Have some bloody respect and keep your music down. Some of us have work in the morning. Some of us have jobs to go to.”
Nathan held his hands up in surrender.
Don’t look down, Sophie repeated over and over to herself. Just look at his face.
“And there was me thinking you were coming over to join the party?” Nathan drawled, his smooth accent speaking of years of the best British boarding schools and access to all that privilege could buy.
She gawped at him. “I don't think so. Can you just keep the noise down? Please? I am begging you. I’m so damn tired that I will give you anything to turn it down. I mean—”
Before she’d even finished speaking, a tall, porcelain-skinned brunette wearing a thong and a smile snaked up to him and started running her hands over his pectoral muscles, blatantly and rudely ignoring Sophie.
Nathan laughed. “I’m not sure I can make any promises about keeping the noise down.” He smiled slowly, his steely blue eyes meeting Sophie’s with an unwavering confidence. “But I will reduce the volume of the music.” He backed away and shut the door, leaving Sophie standing there, stunned.
Shaking her head in bewilderment, she stalked back over the communal hallway and into her own flat, having to fight the urge to childishly slam her door behind her.
The absolute nerve of the guy. She flicked her kettle on for tea, now that she was far too wound up to sleep. Who on earth answers the door with no clothes on? The arrogance, the sheer … barefaced cheek. She allowed herself a little chuckle at her joke, plopping a teabag into the cup.
She would be a wreck for work tomorrow. Luckily, she didn’t have an event but still. Sophie had been beside herself with joy when her company had offered her this flat at cut-rate rent. She’d have to sell several kidneys on the black market to afford to pay for the place at full price, but work had wanted her close by and amongst the action, so they'd let it to her cheap as part of her contract.
Being an events manager for Glass Slipper Events meant that she had to have her finger on the pulse when it came to trends in nightlife. Part of her job was to go out drinking with friends and discover where was popular and what music was playing. Her boss needed her to be on trend to help impress clients. Her job was awesome. At least, that’s what her friends and family kept telling her, and what she had to keep remembering to tell herself.
Yes, she enjoyed it. There was something hugely satisfying about organizing and arranging an event that blew everybody’s mind, but Sophie didn’t find it particularly fulfilling.
If she were honest, sometimes the shallowness of it all got her down. The clients were stupid rich and stupid, stupid. They cared more about the brand of champagne at a party than they did their own families sometimes. Sophie found that, as a whole, they were a despairing breed of the human race. Self-important and self-entitled.
Still, she was damn good at what she did, and because of it she had bagged herself a massive flat bang smack in the middle of Soho.
Her place was above a huge, pretentious underground bar. The company certainly wasn’t lying when they said they wanted her close to the action. There was only one other flat besides hers, the one opposite, the one she currently wished was still empty.
She still couldn’t believe her luck that the guy she’d watched was her neighbor. Worse, he didn’t remember her at all. Not that she’d expect him too. Likely, he did shit like that all the time.
He was breathtakingly striking. Handsome was putting it too mildly. Even gorgeous felt like an understatement when she was trying to describe him to her best friend the day after she’d first seen him.
“He’s seriously fit. To the point where if I have to talk to him I might not be able to stop myself from touching his face.”
Her friend Gemma had squealed down the phone. “That’s it. I’m coming over.”
“Hey, I saw him first. Besides, he’s an arrogant git,” Sophie protested.
“Uh, you have a boyfriend, you slag. I’m the single, sad and lonely one. The least you could do is let me hang around outside your flat for a couple of days, so I can check him out.”
Sophie had laughed and promised Gemma she’d introduce her to him. Not that she intended to intentionally speak to him. She was more apt to kill him first.
Nathan
After Brianna passed out from orgasm number he’d-lost-count, Nathan lay in bed scowling. He should be asleep. Contrary to what his uptight neighbor thought, he had a big day tomorrow too. He just had a later start.
And how the hell was he supposed to know she was home? Nine times out of ten she got home later than he did. And that was saying something.
Hell, he should be thinking about the woman in his bed. The girl was a bloody supermodel. But no, his mind was on his uptight as fuck neighbor from across the hall. He’d felt her gaze on him. It was hot and familiar and made him want to tug her blond locks. That gaze reminded him of the sexy redhead from that night.
Fuck. Instant hard-on.
It was next to impossible not to replace Brianna’s image with hers as he’d fucked the model into a stupor. Didn’t matter what he tried. He couldn’t shake the sense of familiarity with neighbor Sophie.
He scrubbed his hands over his face. He needed to get it together. His brain took him to that first day he met her.
As he'd crossed her on the stairs, he couldn’t help but look his female neighbor up and down out of habit. Tight body, even if it’s been hidden underneath that God-awful coat, he'd thought. So much of fashion was bullshit. He preferred women in their natural state: naked.
He'd clocked the curves beneath the thick material. Her blond hair had been pulled off her face in a chunky bun. But it was her almond-shaped green eyes that had stopped him cold. There’d been a hint of recognition in them. And he was dying to know more.
She’d bumped right into him. Or he, into her. He hadn’t been able to explain the feeling, but he’d wanted to keep her in his arms for a moment longer. Given his history, that was one hell of an anomaly.
He'd flashed her his most winning smile. The smile he knew generally worked on women. Then he’d dropped his opening line.
“Hi, gorgeous.”
She’d blinked. Then scowled. Then crossed her arms as if waiting for him to come up with something better. Eventually, she’d brushed past him on the way to her flat. “My name is Sophie by the way.”
“I’m Nathan.”
“Oh, I know.”
It wasn’t so much that she knew who he was. It was that she seemed to know him. And somehow, he’d ticked her off. But how, though? He knew for a fact he hadn’t slept with her. He remembered them all.
So, what the hell had he done to her to make her hate him so much?
Over the last nine months, Nathan had tried to reestablish himself on his own. And okay, maybe his bed rarely went empty. But he’d been through every rational reason in the book. There was no reason for her to have such a strong reaction to him.
He’d tried to start conversations and spark up some kind of rapport, but she was completely oblivious to every charm trick he pulled out of his sleeve.
That shit was bloody frustrating. She was completely immune. Maybe that’s what he had been waiting for. Someone to see through his brand of bullshit. Someone to actually see hm. Too bad she found him lacking.
No amount of attempted convers
ations put her at ease. The girl simply wouldn’t thaw out around him. In fact, if at all possible, her layer of ice just grew thicker.
He’d actually started to enjoy sparring with her. He liked getting a rise out of her. Just like she got a rise out of him. Pun intended. He hadn’t missed her blatant appraisal of him.
One night, she’d started by banging the shit out of his door because she reckoned his music was too loud. He’d tried to invite her in. His friends had come from Warwickshire and he genuinely wanted her to come and get to know him over a drink.
That was when he’d learned that she was seriously uptight.
Her boyfriend looked like a wound up old fart too, but Nathan was more than familiar with getting the cold shoulder from pretty girls’ boyfriends, so he wasn’t too fussed. He couldn’t say he liked the lad, though. He pretty much had twat written all over him. The two of them barely seemed to spend any time together, anyway. In Nathan’s opinion, she could do better.
Sophie had said that she had work in the morning. Who in their right mind had a job where they had to work early on a Saturday? He worked hard, but hell, he knew how to have a good time.
Sophie never had any fun. Ever. He didn’t think that he’d ever seen her smile or wear her hair even slightly out of place. Quite literally, he'd never seen her let her hair down. Frankly, he wanted to muss her up in more ways than one.
The only communication between them was a set of terse conversations about him keeping her up all night. And not in the usual way I’d keep women up too late either.
Now, the only time Sophie spoke to him was to moan at him for his music being too loud, or because one of his guests was laughing too loudly in the hallway. I mean, come on. Who on earth gets angry because they hear laughter? The girl was, quite simply, a pain in his arse. And he wanted to get under her skin. Good thing he had an idea or two how to do that.
5
Sophie
As Sophie left her flat that morning, as immature as it may have been, she couldn’t resist closing her door hard. Make that slamming her door especially hard. She gave a snort of laughter, imagining Nathan and his supermodel clutching their sore heads. The way her petty was set up, she went for little digs. It was a satisfying start to her day.
“Stupid, inconsiderate wanker,” she muttered as she stepped down each step and out into the day.
The most annoying thing about Nathan was that his late-night, playboy revelries stuck in her head during her entire journey to work and sometimes beyond. Swaying as the tube made its way to Islington and the offices of Glass Slipper Events, the chug of the underground train lulled her deeper into her preoccupied mind.
Seriously, that guy had a different girl at his place almost every single night. How could one man go through so many girls? Never the same one twice, either. He was the sort of guy that Sophie had avoided her whole life. Just like her father.
Every one of his women looked like a model too. And Sophie had met her fair share of models at work. In fact, she even thought she recognized a few. She’d seen them leaving his flat in the morning for their walk of shame. A more elegant, more poised walk of shame than Sophie or her girlfriends had ever done, sure, but a walk of shame nonetheless.
A few times, Sophie had been tempted to warn the poor, hyper-skinny souls about what they were letting themselves in for. Several times, the words ‘He’s just gonna use you. You’re one of hundreds,’ formed on her lips, but she never spoke them aloud. Let them make their own mistakes.
The vibrating of her phone in her pocket brought her back to attention. It was from Chris, checking that they were still on for that evening. She quickly typed her reply.
Sophie: Yes, but can we just hang out at mine? Dickhead across the hall woke me up again so I just want a really chill night.
He replied instantly.
Chris: Okay.
She smiled at his perfunctory response. She knew he wasn’t being cold. He was just being Christopher.
The tube ride was short, and she emerged from the underground blinking wildly as her eyes adjusted to the white light of the autumn morning.
As usual, the office was already buzzing as she stepped into its warmth. Saturdays were prime work days in publicity and events. Most people ended up taking Sundays and Mondays off. People were dashing everywhere, stabbing at iPads without looking up. Sophie trudged blearily to her desk and plonked her handbag onto the table. She’d barely undone three of her coat buttons before her boss came dashing up to her.
“Sophie. I’ve sent you an email with the details, but I need you to manage an event coming up. It’s soon.”
Sophie took one look at the desperation in Allison’s eyes and sighed.
“How soon?” she asked, although she knew exactly what was coming.
“Two weeks … Uh, New Year’s Eve.” Allison grimaced, aware that she was giving her a tough assignment. “I know, I know. But the client is really clear on what they want and it’s such a big contract for us, with the chance of—”
“Long term work,” Sophie finished Allison’s sentence, having been on the receiving end of these impossible time frames before.
“Well yes. Quite. Plus, it’ll be a breeze for you. Location is already booked and set. It’s right underneath your building. The new Bar there. How perfect will that be? No travel time. Their previous Events company booked it, but then couldn’t handle the load of the party, so they called us in.”
New Year’s flipping Eve? Sophie gritted her teeth and forced the corners of her lips up, hoping that resembled a smile. She liked Allison, really. She was a frenetic, highly-strung woman, but as bosses went, she was pretty fair and Sophie knew that she was one of her favorites. After all, they’d sort of come up together. Most of the time Allison felt more like a friend than a boss.
“Brilliant. I get to take my work home with me literally, huh? Okay. I’ll do it. You know I’ll do it. There just better be no bloody ice sculptures on the list this time.”
Allison looked visibly relieved at Sophie’s acceptance and then laughed lightly at the memory of Sophie’s disaster with the ice sculpture on her last event. They’d been delivered a very pornographic, naked man for a Roman-themed charity dinner.
Sophie had ended up having to shave down the giant ice penis, so it looked a little less like a model for a joke sex toy.
“No ice sculptures, I promise. This one’s a breeze in comparison to that.”
Finally removing her coat at last, Sophie read through her email to get the specs for the event. Two weeks was a push and would be stressful for her, but New Year’s Eve would be next to impossible.
No, not impossible. You can do anything.
It seemed to be a straightforward event, drinks and canapés for a fairly successful internet start-up looking for further investments. Waiters and waitresses would be straightforward, and she had a list of hundreds of award-winning caterers who could take care of food.
The theme was a bit vague. The client had simply listed ‘festive jungle,’ which made Sophie tut, but at least she could keep it quite simple and build on it if they weren’t happy.
She was, though, excited about the venue. Despite living over the top of it, Sophie had never been to the underground bar beneath her. It was one of those bars that was so exclusive, it didn’t even have a sign on the outside.
To the uninformed, it just looked like a grand, Edwardian London house in the middle of Soho. To those in the know, it was somewhere that was so cool that it didn’t even exist to outsiders. She was curious as to what the inside of a hidden bar might look like, even if she was certain that she would hate the type of hipster that would usually hang out there.
She had already begun to email her wait staff agency while she checked over the rest of the document. And then she froze.
There, on the required invite list from her client, was a name that she had not expected to see.
Nathan Windsor.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she whisper
ed at her computer, the email abandoned. Of all the people that she did not want to have to be enclosed in a basement bar with. It had nothing to do with his late-night antics and everything to do with the last event he'd been at. How did he even get invited? It’s not like he was one of those Windsors. She frowned, contemplating. No. Couldn’t be. This guy was a total lay about. Not some mogul.
Sophie had to check something in a panic. “God damn it.”
She pushed her chair back from her desk, ignoring the frowns of her colleagues. The client, the owner of the fancy schmancy, new, hot as shit app that everybody was going to want a piece of was a woman. There would be no convincing her that Nathan was a dick.
He was far, far too good-looking—it was blinding to everybody, including her sometimes. But why in the hell was he on this list of potential investors in this business? It suddenly dawned on Sophie that she knew absolutely nothing about her neighbor other than the fact he was into rock music and brunettes. And blondes. And redheads.
Nathan
Nathan almost flung his phone across the room after yet another argument with his father. It had gone much the same way it always had.
Dad: “Come back to Windsor Corp. I need you. I’ll expect you for Christmas Eve Roast and we can discuss it.”
Him: “I'm on my own. Get used to it. And I won’t be home.”
Dad: “You’re being immature. We can work out these differences. After all, what the hell are you going to do with yourself?”
As if I hadn’t been the one to build Windsor Corp. in the last five years and drag them into modern times. I’d been more than wise with my investments, so my Windsor inheritance could go away tomorrow and I’d still make the Forbes list.
But then, Dad had pulled a fucking low blow bringing up his stepmother.
Dad: You’re breaking Judith’s heart with what you’re doing.
With what he was doing? Nathan shook his head. What a load of bullshit. A friend had said that his father had made the marketing girl a junior associate. He was such a fucking git. And now because of his old man, he had to avoid Judith. He couldn't look her in the eye.