Copyright
Copyright © 2018 Mary B Moore
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Cover design: Tracie Douglas https://www.facebook.com/darkwatercovers/
Cover Photograph: Adobe Stock - Andrey Kiselev
Editor: Buffy & Co.
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Quids In
My parents wanted me to marry Portia. She fit into their perfect ideals and was from a well-respected British aristocratic family.
On paper, she appeared flawless. In real-life, she was a nightmare surrounded by a media circus just waiting for her next cock up.
Then, I met her sister. She was quiet, shy, and never went near the parties that her sister did. Every time I saw her, I had to get closer to her. Every time I got closer to her, she backed further away.
She was an enigma and a challenge. For the first time in my life, I was going to chase and catch something that I wanted – Wilhelmina Campbell.
I was William Renton, and she was mine. To hell with what my family said.
Christmas in London just got that little bit sweeter.
Dedication
This book is one that I should have written at the very beginning of 2018, but I never fulfilled for health reasons. It actually means a huge amount to me because it’s part of a series started by someone that I love hugely – C.M. Steele.
See, this lady is one of the most supportive people I know and she’s as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. I absolutely love her to pieces and can’t wait for the day when I get to meet her face to face (and then kidnap her and keep her in the UK with me forever).
CM – thank you for everything. I actually struggle to put into words how much you mean to me (no, I’m not coming on to you. Fear not!). Thank you for helping me through it all, kicking me up the ass when I need it, listening to me blether on about everything, nodding at my crazy moments and not calling the dudes in white coats, just for everything. I love you like crazy and one day I really will steal you (again, not coming on to you. You know you’re actually British anyway!).
You’re awesome and you’re the one and only #CMMFS. Thank you for being a sparkly and rare crystal.
Love you, girl! Xoxo
#ThereCanBeOnlyOne
But wtf does “quids in” actually mean, Mary?
A quid is slang for a pound, a bit like a buck for a dollar. So, it’s a typically British phrase meaning one of the following:
1) You have all your bets on something, so you’re fully in on whatever it is that’s going on or that you’re betting on.
2) You stand to make a lot of money from a bet or a business venture.
3) When the likelihood of scoring with a particular woman is really high. Either by her choice, or the fact that you’re fully invested in making it so.
Chapter One
Will
“Is she here?” I asked my best friends as I scanned the large group of people attending my company’s celebratory party. We had just opened one of the largest hotels in Dubai after years of planning and building. The Renton Hotel chain was an international brand providing some of the best hotels in the world, but this one truly was luxury and extravagance in every way.
“I see the slag,” Digby muttered as he scanned the crowd.
Portia Campbell was impossible to miss. She had on a bright blue sparkly dress that only just covered her crotch and the screech of her false bravado carried through the room making us wince. I was almost certain that it was also testing the strength of the glass in the windows. Her peroxide blonde hair practically glowed in the low lighting as she felt up the head of a huge international finance company whilst flashing her fake cleavage at him. Poor bugger!
“She goes to the opening of an envelope,” my other best friend Guy chuckled beside us before taking a sip of the champagne in his hand and grimacing. None of us were champagne drinkers, never had been. It could be a ten-thousand pound bottle of the stuff, it was still vile.
Looking around, I took in the gathering and décor with far less interest than I should have given the circumstances, but my family was holding up the business end of things perfectly.
We’d planned this for months, ever since I’d seen her in front of the White Lion pub in Covent Garden. I’d recognised her immediately and after three days I’d given in and had started planning with the two men currently standing grimacing at the latest cackle and screech out of her sister’s mouth.
The three of us had met when we were young kids and had then gone to Eton school. Our parents swore that we could read each other’s minds, but I preferred to think of it as us being in sync which was why I didn’t need to say anything at that moment for them to do what I’d planned so carefully for.
Doing another brief scan, my eyes caught on the corner of the room and the beauty that was trying to disappear into the wall.
There she was, Wilhelmina Campbell. “Target acquired.”
“Be gentle,” Digby reminded me, but it was useless.
I would be gentle with her, I would be everything she needed, but she was mine.
Wilhelmina
Why was I here? I knew the answer to that rhetorical question – because of my bloody family. Every time my parents clicked their fingers, they expected me to jump. It made my life a lot easier when I did, so I’d begrudgingly put on the dress that my mum had sent to my flat for me and had come to the Renton celebration.
I’d had an ulterior motive for coming tonight though. My parents had been twittering on about William Renton for months, planning a wedding to my sister Portia at the same time. I wasn’t sure if the engagement was official, or if it was even a real thing, but the news had kept me awake for weeks now. He was twenty-seven years old, so four years older than me and only a year older than Portia, but I think I’d fancied him since I was four. That was an embarrassing
fact to accept, but true!
Really, catching my ex-boyfriend, if you could call him that, shagging a student nurse should have been what I was upset about, but Will Renton had been my crush since I was eleven. Slimy Rory, the pervert doctor, paled in comparison. I just wished he’d stop calling and texting. On that thought, my mobile buzzed in my clutch yet again. Bugger off, you tosser!
My sister Portia was a socialite. Not in the southern charm sort of socialite way, as in a British ‘it girl’. She attended parties and functions so that her face was snapped by the paparazzi and splashed across magazines and websites. She made sure that she had a full social calendar that was supported by designers who were desperate for the attention that a knickerless or drunken Portia Campbell would bring their designs. Why people bought them after that I didn’t know, but they did. Personally, all I could think when I passed a shop with a dress she’d been snapped getting out of a car in was a pixilated vagina - but apparently vagina dresses sold.
Skimming the crowd and wincing as my sister screeched again, I took in the faces of the high-powered businessmen and the upper-class members of London. I had no interest in it, I just wanted to be me, but a glimpse of William would make even British royalty break form and attend one of these parties.
Seeing movement out of the corner of my eye, I turned and saw the man in question walking right toward me. What set my heart racing was that he was staring right at me as he did it with a look of determination on his face.
Oh, bloody Nora!
William
“William!” I heard the voice of Henry Campbell, Wilhelmina and Portia’s father, call out as I passed by a group that he was bullshitting.
Not even sparing him a glance, I continued to walk toward Mina, my Mina. She was staring back at me with a look of panic on her face and I realised why when a clawed hand grabbed onto my arm and a cloud of sickly perfume overwhelmed me. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the owner of the claws and stench then tried to kiss me on the mouth. I knew Portia’s tactics, I’d been dealing with them for years, so I managed to disengage my arm and shift out of the way just in time. Unfortunately, her lips still landed on me, albeit on my cheek.
“Hello, darling,” she purred or at least tried to. It just sounded like she had a cold and needed to blow her nose. “I’m so glad to see you.” She accompanied this bullshit by squeezing her boobs against my arm and rubbing them slightly.
Moving quickly away from her, quickly checking that Mina was still where she’d been, I waved my hand through the air quickly to try to clear some of the new scent called Desperation away from me. I wasn’t sure if that’s what it was its actual name, but the manufacturer should probably rename it that.
“Portia.”
Normally I had more finesse and charm, but I was sick of this one. She’d hounded me for months and had set her parents up to try and encourage a marriage between us. Like hell! She had more traffic through her than the Dartford Tunnel.
My parents had been surprised when they’d heard the rumours but had said if it was true I had their support. Last week all of the rumours had been squashed when a picture of her shagging a bouncer behind a pub had been printed in the newspapers. The fact that I’d set up the photo was neither here nor there, everyone finally saw her for what she truly was and that was all I’d wanted.
“We need to talk,” she tried again, looking at me through her fake lashes.
“No, we don’t.”
“But…”
“Nope!”
“I don’t understand why you’re being like this,” she tried to look hurt this time, but I’d had enough.
“There’s nothing to discuss,” I shrugged, using the serviette that the server had just passed to me to wipe the bright red lipstick she was wearing off my cheek.
“You have to know that I’m innocent. They set that photo up!”
Leaning in toward her, I played my trump card. “No, they didn’t. But I did!” I pulled back to gauge her reaction. “I will not be blackmailed or coerced into having any form of relationship with you. I applaud you for your efforts, but it was never going to happen. Aside from the fact that you’re known as the London bike, I have no interest in you. The days of arranged marriages are well gone, Portia. I suggest you go and try it with someone else.” Turning in Mina’s direction, I didn’t even say goodbye as I walked away.
“Are you…” it sounded like she was choking, “for my sister? That little dry mouse?” she sounded like this was impossible, but what she failed to realise was that a majority of the London gentry that she targeted and tried to trap weren’t interested in her for anything longer than the twenty minutes they lasted between her legs.
Not even dignifying her stupidity with an answer, I continued to walk away. I didn’t doubt that I hadn’t heard the last from her. The last couple of months had been hell, so she’d find a way to continue what she’d started. Last time when she’d tried to break into my house to wait for me on my bed, I hadn’t called the police. This time, she wouldn’t be so lucky.
I was aware of Digby and Guy coming up behind me as I reached my target who now looked like she wanted the ground to open up beneath her.
“Mina,” I leaned in to kiss her cheek as I said her name. Something I’d said many times, normally with my hand wrapped around my dick though. I was the only one to call her this, and her blush in response almost made me groan.
“Um, Will.” Her voice was husky as she pulled back from me, her eyes darting over my shoulder. Whatever she saw made her tense up, even more, indicating that her sister was watching us. I would have to arrange for a security detail for her as well. Portia was a savage who gave not one shit about her sister unless it involved making her life hell, so this was bound to push her to the edge.
“Alright, love,” Guy leaned around me to kiss her cheek making me clench my fists. When Digby did it, he lingered a bit and gave me a cocky grin when he pulled back and saw the tick in my jaw.
The three of us were now standing in a line blocking her view of her sister and vice versa. Looking between us, she frowned in confusion, looking utterly adorable.
The dig in my ribs by Guy reminded me why we were here.
“Mina, I need to discuss some business with you.” I had this plan locked and loaded and as soon as I said that, although she looked a bit disappointed, she also relaxed visibly.
“With the opening of the new hotel, Digby is swamped with the PR for Renton’s.” Digby nodded looking pitiful beside me. “We’ve spoken to Loraine, and she offered your help until we’re back on top of things.” I left out the hefty bonus I’d given Loraine after demanding that she loan Wilhelmina to us.
“You want me to work with you?” She looked so shocked by the idea that I almost doubted that she’d bought the bullshit I’d just spewed. Then I saw her fidgeting with her watch strap and realised that she was just nervous.
“It would be a huge help, doll,” Digby spoke up. “There’s so much piling up and piling up and…”
“We get the point,” Guy muttered, stopping Digby from his overacting. “Why don’t you get to yours.”
Glaring around me at Guy, Digby tried to give him a discrete V-sign, but Mina saw it and started laughing quietly.
“Anyway,” Digby said through his clenched jaw, “I need your help.” Looking back at Guy, he raised an eyebrow in his direction.
“When would I start?” she fiddled even more with the strap and then added in chewing on her bottom lip. I had to fight the groan I wanted to let out at the move - she was killing me.
“Immediately,” I blurted out, eyes on her lower lip as she released it, so I missed the silent choking of my two mates as they fought not to laugh.
“Now?” she looked almost terrified as she searched around the room, no doubt taking in the most prominent members of the British business industry who were all attending tonight.
“Shit, no, not this second,” I swept my hand down my face, grimacing at the sticky feeling on my cheek an
d the red lipstick that was on my hand as I pulled it away. Obviously, I hadn’t wiped all of it off. “Tomorrow would be great.”
She was silent for a minute as she thought it through. “And Loraine okay’d this?”
“I had to beg,” Digby replied to her as I wiped my cheek again determined to remove all traces of Portia from it. “But then she agreed, and now it’s all tickety-boo.”
A look of determination crossed her face as she held out her hand toward me. “What time do I start?”
I didn’t shake her hand; I kissed it. At her sharp inhalation of breath, I turned it over and kissed the inside of her wrist too before begrudgingly releasing her again.
“Eight o’clock okay with you?” I’d let her start work at bloody mid-day if she wanted it.
Nodding her head, she almost blew me away with her grin. “Perfect.”
Chapter Two
Wilhelmina
I hadn’t been able to sleep last night after the impromptu meeting with Will, Guy, and Digby. All night I’d tossed and turned wondering why me. Then my lack of self-confidence would take over and I’d wonder if it was a joke and if Portia had set them up to it. I’d seen the scene between Will and Portia first hand at the party. He’d always been disinterested in her, but now it seemed to have increased to the point that he looked like he couldn’t stand her. Not that I blamed him – she was my sister, but she was a complete cow and merciless when she went after what she wanted. My parents gave her everything and let her get away with murder which just made her behave even worse.
I’d moved out of home to go to university when I was eighteen. The second I’d finished my A-Levels, I’d moved in with my best friend, India Whitby, before we both started our degrees at the Imperial College of London. I’d studied marketing at their business school, graduating after three years with my BA. India’s father owned a bank, so she stayed to do her Master’s in business and marketing. She still had another eighteen-months left and then she would join her father’s bank.
Quids In: Covent Garden Series Page 1