Chapter 2

FLYNN

‘Barbecue. Tomorrow.’

‘Fuck off. I’m not working Saturday.’ My retort is immediate though Keir, my boss, doesn’t bite. ‘Working for you is like indentured servitude. And actually,’ I add, another angle occurring to me. ‘I think that invitation might be a little racist.’

‘What was racist?’ Keir asks, not really paying me any attention as he sifts through a pile of papers cluttering his desk, searching for the plans I have in my hand. It’s late Friday evening after a hellish day, but I love my job. Almost as much as I love winding up my boss. ‘The bit where I invited you to spend an evening with pleasant company, providing you food and drink, or when I asked you where the paperwork for Simmons had gone?’

‘The barbecue,’ I respond. ‘Just because I’m Australian, don’t think you can pigeonhole me. It’s culturally insensitive.’

‘I dunno about pigeonholed, but I wish you’d shut your hole,’ Keir murmurs. ‘Where the fuck have those fucking plans gone?’

Keir McClain might be a killer businessman, but he’d be lost without me. ‘These plans?’ I say, chucking them down in front of him. ‘You left them on my desk this morning.’

‘I’ve been looking for them for an hour,’ he growls. ‘You’d better not have been fucking with me.’

‘I was prioritizing your workday.’

‘Manipulating it, more like.’

‘It’s called managing, you arsehole.’ My words come out on a chuckle. ‘Come on, admit it. You couldn’t arrange a shag in a brothel without my help.’ Not because he’s forgetful or unfocussed. Quite the opposite. He just has too many plates spinning to tend to them all. Not without me behind him, spinning those plates just as hard. I say again: I love my job.

‘Fuck, I’m done,’ he says, standing suddenly straight at the same moment his phone buzzes with a text. I know it’ll be Paisley, his wife. The pair seem to have some sort of telepathy or intuition going on. ‘You’re done, too,’ he says without looking at me but rather still looking down at his phone. Looking at it. Smirking at it. Sliding it into his pocket with a satisfied air.

That, in front of me, is a man on a promise—a promise of a good shag. And you can call that intuition if you like, too.

‘Tomorrow,’ he says, shutting his computer down. ‘Just be a good lad and turn up at three. Bring a decent bottle of wine that I’ll pretend you haven’t already charged to my credit card.’

‘The company credit card.’ One of the perks of the job. I don’t use it often—I don’t need to—and I only usually do so to wind Keir up. And occasionally to send a “thanks for last night’s fuck” flowers. And when I do that, I always make sure flowers are also sent to Keir’s house. His house is overrun with women. Paisley, his wife, Sorcha, his daughter, and Agnes, Sorcha’s stand-in granny. I love all three of them. I don’t think it’s conceitedness to think the sentiment is returned.

‘Is it a bring a date kind of thing?’

‘You can,’ he replies, grabbing his suit jacket. ‘But Chastity will be there.’

My heart does one of those cartoon thumps. Ba-dum! Though, unlike a cartoon, it’s not exactly my heart that springs forth through my clothing. My heart isn’t straining from my chest, but my dick might be feeling a bit lively.

Chastity . . . fuck me. Now there’s a handful. And a little bit more. I’ve never had a thing for posh girls before—in fact, I’ve actively avoided them—and though she pretends to hate my guts, she sure was fun to fuck.

Sun, sea, the Seychelles, and Chastity. That was a killer combination right there. I’d met her before Keir and Paisley’s wedding. At her house, in fact. Let’s just say sparks didn’t so much fly as ignite into a bush fire. She was so hot—the dangerous kind. She somehow got the idea I was a journalist and after juicy gossip from her friend, so she threatened to impale me in the nastiest of ways. Grabbing an umbrella from an antique-looking umbrella stand, she suggested she’d shove it up my arse. Then she insulted my balls. It was the liveliest bit of foreplay I’d ever taken part in. So I reciprocated by telling her if she came any closer, I’d teabag her.

Her face. My balls. A date.

She wasn’t impressed. Seems the foreplay idea was a bit one-sided. So by the time the wedding rolled around, she’d made it abundantly clear that as far as she was concerned, me and her weren’t ever going to happen. To cement the point, she brought a parasol to the beach service—a white floaty thing I overheard her telling Sorcha was to protect her English rose skin.

Nah, she brought it to make a point. And that point was: I should keep my distance or else she’d make good on her threat. But I’ve always liked a challenge. And Chastity was certainly that. And though she might look like an angel, it’s a total ruse. She’s petite and sort of sweet looking. Blonde ringlets, peachy skin, and she has an accent a bit like the Queen. But beneath her sweet beauty and those warm chocolate eyes, she’s fierce, feisty and fiery. And she runs a porn company, of all things.

My dad once jokingly said he’d aspired to marry a nymphomaniac with her own pub. I think an angelic looking pornographer is something more along my fantasy lines.

Jesus, how she burned in my arms—flayed the skin from my limbs. Because, despite her apparent disinterest in any activity that didn’t involve some kind of disfigurement of me, we spent the night together, fucking until dawn. I’ve never had a night like it. And probably never will again. At least, not until the next time I get to work my charms on her . . .

‘Was the question too hard for you?’ Keir’s voice brings me back to the moment. The office. The dreary London spring.

‘What?’

‘I asked you if you were still bringing someone. You know, seeing as how Chas will be there?’

I try not to wince. As an Australian, it’s in my DNA to shorten everything. We Aussies love a good yarn, or chat, but we like to abbreviate where we can and are the kings of brevity when it comes to renaming things. Service station? Servo. Breakfast? Brekkie. Afternoon? Arvo. Australia? Straya. John? Jonno. Okay, so the last one didn’t quite work, but you get what I mean. But I hate—hate—how Chastity’s friends shorten her name to Chas. She so isn’t a Chas. A Chas is a Charles or a Charlotte, but never a Chastity. At least, not my Chastity. Not in my eyes. Not from my tongue.

Come to think of it, maybe that’s because her name has the word titty in it? And as far as tits go, she has the best fucking—

‘You’re doing it again.’ When I look up, Keir has this weird half-smirk on his face.

‘Have you got wind?’ I ask with an aggressive tip of my head. ‘It’s not like you to smile so much. That must be, what? Three times today?’ That’s not true. Keir is a solid bloke, as well as a good boss, but I shake my head in fake exasperation anyway. ‘It must be Paisley’s influence.’

‘My smile is a reflection of how good my life is.’

‘You’ve become an evangelist. Next thing we know, you’ll be banging on doors to spread the word.’

‘I don’t need to. See, I’m also smiling because of what I see in your face when I mention a certain blonde cinematographer. Looks like you’re about to be clued in.’

‘Clued in? Mate, stop talking in riddles.’

‘Flynn,’ he says, clearing his desk to clamp his hand on my shoulder. ‘Women are good news. Relationships are good news. Embrace it. And get your arse to my house tomorrow afternoon. Bring wine but not a date.’

‘It was just a thought,’ I say with a shrug. ‘My mate Sorch is all I need for entertainment.’

‘And do yourself a favour,’ he replies with an air of long suffering. ‘Don’t keep shortening my daughter’s name in front of Agnes. Or one of these days, you’ll get a nasty surprise. Most likely via delivery of her rolling pin.’

What is it with women threatening me with long or sharp objects lately? A question for the ages, though not one for Keir.

‘Nah, me and Agnes, we’re like that.’ I cross my middle finger over my index one, holding them between us so he can see. ‘Tight.’

‘Yeah, ’cause everyone loves Flynn.’

‘Too fucking right. And you especially.’

His hand slips from my shoulder as he makes for the door. ‘You keep tellin’ yourself that. And don’t forget to lock up when you leave. See you tomorrow.’

‘You do know it’s March, don’t you?’ I call after him. ‘It’s fucking freezing—not barbecue weather.’

Keir doesn’t turn. He’s adept enough to shoot me the bird without breaking his stride, multitasker that he is.