‘Jack, can we sleep in the big house tonight? It’s my last night and I want to wake up to the view of the hill.’
I glanced over my shoulder at Ivy as I threw the keys down on the side. I’d taken her out for dinner, because it was our last night. I’d decided to go back on New Year’s Eve. I was hoping Victoria was going to let me see Daisy on New Year’s Day and I wanted to call around to see her and just… I don’t know, cement the deal. But she’d agreed to it in one of the numerous texts that had been passing between us since Christmas. She’d said I could have Daisy on my own for two hours. So I needed to work out what to do with a child for two hours, when most places were shut.
I leaned back against the kitchen worktop and folded my arms over my chest.
Ivy gave me one of her sweetest, brightest smiles, saying, ‘please?’ with her lavender eyes.
I never slept in the big house now. But Ivy got this place; it had been good having her here. Fun. Cool. She’d been good company. The only downside was she’d hated the climbing, but the rest of it, she’d loved everything about it.
‘Maybe,’ I answered. ‘We’ll see.’ The bed would be made over there, it would be cold, though, the fires wouldn’t be lit. But coldness just gave sex another edge.
Maybe…
I turned and took my jacket off then threw it over the back of a chair. ‘Do you want wine or anything?’
‘Just ale.’
I laughed to myself. That was generally all she drank; she hadn’t liked the champagne. She was such a cheap girl compared to Sharon. I turned to the fridge and took out two bottles.
I held one out to her. ‘Do you fancy a game of gin rummy?’
‘What is gin rummy?’ She took the ale bottle from my hand.
‘Didn’t you play it as a kid?’ I turned to a drawer and found a pack of cards, then held up a hand, encouraging her to head into the living room. ‘You get seven cards to start with, then the top one is turned over on the pack so you can see it, and you have to pick up a card and throw one away every time it’s your turn. You can pick up cards I throw away instead of the one from the pack, too. Then with the cards you hold in your hand you have to make runs of three or more cards, so like two, three and four of hearts, or jack, queen and king of spades. Aces can be either high or low.
‘You can collect a set of three or four cards the same number too. So, for instance, you could gather three or four sevens. When you have any set of three cards you can choose to lay it down, or you can wait until you can lay all seven cards down, but the winner is the one who puts all their cards down as sets first.’
‘Okay. I think.’
‘But my extra rule is, every time one of us lays a jack or an ace down on the table in a set, or as a throw-away, the other person has to take an article of clothing off.’
‘So, let me guess, you’re collecting jacks and aces.’
‘Or just hoping to pick them up so I can throw them away…’ I laughed internally and turned to pick up my jacket. I took it into the other room and hung it up, then pulled a low table over between the chairs we’d used the last couple of nights. Although last night we’d been in only one chair, having sex.
When we played, I watched as she picked up the game, focusing on the cards in her hand. She let me see them twice when she leant too far forward to pick up a card, her mind on the desperate need to fight my attack. I’d laid one ace as a throwaway, and she gave me a stocking, peeling it off, but she picked the ace up off the throw-away pile and then put it straight back down again. I gave her a sock. Not so sexy.
She had a black dress on, which had a neckline that was off both shoulders and a narrow silver chain with a snake pendant hung about her neck. It swayed forward every time she picked up a card.
She looked a little like she did at work tonight. She had the look of concentration I saw on her face when she was typing something on her computer, with a line between her brows. I couldn’t see her eyes, she was looking at her cards, but they never really showed lavender in the firelight anyway.
I picked up the fourth jack and smiled. I didn’t lay my four jacks. I was enjoying watching her just as she was, fully clothed. Another round went past, and I didn’t lay them.
She bit her lip when she picked up a card and then slotted it in between what I knew was the five and seven of hearts, so I guessed it was the six.
‘You have to put a card down.’
She glanced up, flashing me a sharp shut up look. She was deciding which of the two possible sets she had to go for. She had the king and queen of clubs and she wasn’t going to get the jack. I had it. But she might get the ace.
She’d never win, then, if she laid—
She put down the five, six and seven of hearts. I wanted to laugh, but it depended on what card she threw away.
The two of spades.
She couldn’t win now. I had the jack she needed to get a set of four.
I could keep playing with her… But… Why not do it? Why not go over to the house? Just this once.
I didn’t even bother picking up a card. I threw down the four jacks and lifted my eyebrows. ‘Strip.’
‘I’m only wearing five things.’
‘All the more fun for me, then. That only leaves your thong or your bra – your choice which.’ She huffed at me, then stripped off another stay-up stocking, lifting her dress up to the top of her thighs to tease me with the view.
My dick was very nicely teased, thank you.
Then she slipped off the cardigan she’d put over her dress to keep her warm – item two. Then came the only thing she could take off next, except her thong – her dress – item three.
She stood up, gripped the figure-hugging viscose and elastane fabric at her thighs and pulled it up. It peeled off her. It was, I’d guess, a cheap dress, but it did a lot for her figure anyway. She’d look good in anything, though; there was nothing imperfect about Ivy. Pale, glorious skin caught the firelight as she threw her dress on to the sofa. Then she reached behind her to free her bra.
I stood up and turned away, to get my leather jacket off the hook. ‘We’re going for it. Come on, then.’ I turned and threw my leather jacket at her. ‘Put that on. I’ll get the key for the house.’
I slipped my walking boots on because they were by the door, but I left them unlaced, and with the keys in hand, I turned and scooped Ivy up into my arms. She was barefoot and naked bar my jacket and her thong.
I juggled her with the use of one knee, as she shivered in my arms while I locked the cottage up. Then I carried her over to the house. It was a cold night, our breaths misted in the air all around us. The grass in the field around the cottage was already turning white with frost.
After I’d unlocked the house and carried her over the threshold, I let her feet fall to the floor. She was shivering like crazy and the noise of her teeth chattering filled the large hall.
‘Run upstairs and jump into bed. I’ll get some stuff to get the fire going up there; there’ll be wood up there, I think.’
When I went upstairs, I knew which room she’d be in; the back one that looked at the hill and the wood, it faced the daybreak too and sometimes you could see deer up on the slopes. Sometimes there were deer right outside the house, grazing, at dusk.
She was in the bed, with the duvet tucked under her chin; her mauve hair a sharp contrast on the white-linen pillowcase.
I squatted down and shoved the paper I’d found into the open grate, then stacked on some kindling wood I’d picked up from the log store out back, before putting a couple of the dry logs on top. They’d been in the room; I had an efficient property manager. I lit the paper and the flame burned up bright and strong.
When I straightened up, I stripped off my jumper, then undid a few of the buttons on the navy, paisley-print shirt I’d worn out, then stripped that off over my head too. She was watching. Her eyes peeking over the top of the duvet.
Moonlight poured through the window. It cast a white rectangle across the bed, over her.
I released my belt, thinking of her beating me with hers a few nights ago and smiling. Then I began unbuttoning my fly. She watched my fingers.
I hadn’t got all that dressed up, just worn black trousers and a shirt. But we’d only gone to a local gastro pub – nowhere like the London places that wouldn’t have let me in looking like this. Maybe one day I’d take her to a decent place in London.
I slipped my remaining sock off, then stripped off my trousers and boxers.
‘Come on, get in.’ She flipped the duvet back and slid across the bed to make room for me, it wasn’t the master bedroom – it was a normal-sized, narrow double bed.
The white rectangle of light captured her beautiful body. I took a mental picture for my memory. ‘Let’s get rid of this.’ I climbed on to the bed and pushed the covers back further as I gripped either side of her thong.
‘Hurry up, lie down. It’s cold.’
Not until her thong was off.
Her legs lifted, slipping her feet free. I tossed the thing away. Who knew where? I didn’t care.
Ever since we’d come here, I’d been having sex with Ivy as if she was one of the random women Sharon and I used to play with – or a prostitute. She’d hate it if I told her that. But Ivy had played along and acted like that – dancing for me, stripping for me, letting me smack her and whipping me. Tonight I just wanted clean, honest sex with her, soul-touching sex. That was the sort of girl Ivy really was. The cold room, clean linen sheets and the moonlight, were enough stimulation. We hadn’t even smoked any dope tonight.
She lifted up her knees, parting her legs so I could come between them, and her hands came up to my shoulders as her eyes looked into mine.
The girl was amazing. I pushed into her. No foreplay. No games. No sexy tricks.
She pulled the duvet over us, while I worked inside her, pressing in, and up, moving slowly.
I think I felt it more than I’d done when I’d smoked a joint before we’d done it. She was so warm on the inside, and soft and smooth, and I could feel the muscle in her tummy tightening as she worked in counter moves to push up against me when I pushed into her.
It was a slow, sensual dance for ages. It was the first time I’d had sex in the missionary position for I don’t know how long, and with the clean sheets releasing a vanilla and lavender smell around us and the fresh wood crackling in the fire, and Ivy’s soft pale-skinned body beneath me – it was the best sex I’d had in months, maybe years. This was the sort of sex I’d been dreaming of when I’d become tired of the way I’d lived with Sharon.
Ivy came first, and that felt amazing, because her internal muscle sucked at me, massaging me as I pushed in, trying to tempt me into spilling into her. Not interested. Not yet.
I smiled and knelt up. The duvet slid down my back so the cold air touched our skin, but I don’t think either of us cared any more. I held her hips and thrust into her until she came again, then I leaned over once more and made her come in the missionary position another time, because to me that had just become the best position ever, and her coming was a beautiful thing.
I came too, with a sigh of ecstasy. Then I rolled off her, collapsing back on to the sheet. It was cold where she hadn’t been lying.
She pulled the duvet up again and curled into me, her fingers resting on my stomach, and her head on my chest. I was exhausted, but in a really pleasant way, really relaxed. I fell asleep.
Something tickled my chin. I opened my eyes to find Ivy looking down at me. Her hand was braced on my chest.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. You just look really handsome when you’re asleep. It’s the first time I’ve woken up before you since we came here. I haven’t seen you asleep before.’
‘What’s the time, then?’
‘I don’t know. We didn’t bring anything over with the time on it, but by the level of the sun, I’d take a guess at nine o’clock.’
I sat up and Ivy slid off me, tumbling on to her back. ‘We need to get up.’ I stretched. I felt refreshed.
The fire had died down and gone out at some point in the night and the room was freezing.
I looked at Ivy. ‘I’ll turn the bath on for you. You can have a soak in the roll top. You can look out over the fields even when you’re sitting in it, and I’ll go over and get something for breakfast. Do you fancy anything particular?’
‘Just toast and marmalade.’
I smiled at her. I’d got used to that amazing look she had with her hair messed up, and her eyes sleepy, and I loved the little smile playing with her lips.
‘Toast and marmalade… Okay.’
When I took her toast up to her, she was lying in the bath, her head back on the rim and her arms stretched along the edges as she absorbed the view amidst the steaming water.
She didn’t want to leave. I knew she didn’t. But this place was an escape, it wasn’t for everyday life, and real life called. I needed to get back to see Daisy and in two days’ time we’d have to be at work acting as though this had never happened.
‘Toast and marmalade.’
She took the plate from my hand and sat upright, making the water swirl around her, so her breasts swayed too.
I stripped off, then climbed into the other end of the bath. She gave me a funny little smile. The water was nice and warm. I stretched my legs out around the outside of hers and lay my head back on the rim, then shut my eyes. I hadn’t stayed in the house for a long time. I’d stopped staying in it when Sharon had begun refusing to come up here with me.
Ivy sloshed water at me.
I opened my eyes.
I felt as if I’d been asleep again and Ivy had finished her toast. The empty plate was on a chair beside the bath. I must have fallen asleep. The water was colder too.
She rose up on to her knees and straddled me and then we had sex. One for the road. The water sloshing around us.
When we left the house and the Lake District an hour after that, Ivy was quiet and I didn’t know what to say to her. What was there to say? Goodbye. Only it wouldn’t be goodbye – I’d see her at work in two days.
I turned Bear’s Den ‘Auld Wives’ up, and when their album finished I played Coldplay, then Muse and Mumford & Sons. When we hit Birmingham, I stopped at the services. ‘I need to stretch my legs and I need a coffee.’
She glanced over. ‘And I need a pee. I was going to ask you to stop soon.’
Awkwardness piled in on me as I got out of the car. I remembered the journey up. Sexual tension had hovered all the way through the drive. Now… We’d probably put out the lust torch. We’d certainly had enough sex to do it. We’d drenched the lust torch.
I ordered coffee while she was in the toilet and bought us a blueberry muffin each, and then I picked up serviettes and forks.
When I got to the table, I asked a woman behind me if I could borrow a pen.
I was writing on the napkin when Ivy walked over and found me. ‘Hey, what are you doing?’
‘Hoping you still want to work for me.’ The repercussions would be massive if she didn’t. Em would know.
‘Yes, why?’
I finished what I was writing. ‘Here.’
I officially re-recruit you, Miss Ivy Cooper, as my employee. If you want your job back. Your boss again, I hope.
I signed it.
She looked up with an odd expression, and she didn’t smile, but she nodded.
‘You’d better sign it too, then, to make it official.’
She did.
I turned and handed the woman her pen back.
When we finished our coffee, Ivy would have just left her new contract on the table, but I picked it up and shoved it into the inside pocket of my leather jacket.
I dropped her off outside her place a couple of hours later – where I’d picked her up a week ago. She didn’t accept my offer to help carry her case up to her room. She said goodbye to me on the kerb. I kissed her, but it was only a press of lips. I think we both knew we had to get back into work mode. From January 2nd we couldn’t touch – we’d need to be professional again.
‘Thanks for taking me with you. It was fun, Jack.’
I gave her a restrained, twisted smile. ‘You’re welcome, it was fun for me too. You were good company.’
‘Thanks,’ she said again, then she carried her case up the steps of the house she had a room in.
When I sat in the car, I looked at my phone, then I picked it up and texted Victoria. ‘Can I come over and see Daisy now? I thought she might feel better about spending time with me tomorrow if I agree with her what she wants to do.’
‘Okay, but you’ll only have half an hour – we’re going out.’
I was sitting on the desk in my office looking out at the angular skyline of different-shaped buildings of varying heights. My spirit longed to see hills. But the city did have a charm of its own, and I got the city vibe too; when I was in the mood. I loved being in the city a lot of the time because it was so fast-paced. But tonight… Tonight everything seemed out of place.
For the last couple of New Year’s Eves Sharon and I had held parties in the office. We had a good view of the fireworks over the top of the buildings, so we’d invited people here to watch them and supplied several bottles of champagne, so a lot of naughtiness had followed the fireworks.
This year I had no idea what to do with myself. I’d been at home and I’d smoked a couple of joints and thought about going out to a bar… But I wasn’t in the mood.
Everything was planned with Daisy, a hot chocolate in Hyde Park was about all we’d have time for by the time I’d driven her into the city and home again. But Daisy had wanted to go out for a hot chocolate, and I thought her first time alone with me she’d probably prefer to be in an open space among other people.
My heart beat steadily. Tomorrow I was picking up my daughter and taking her out for the first time. For the first time in her life I was going to be her proper father.
Me… a father.
It was bizarre. My life had tipped up on its head this year.
I sat on my desk looking out at the city as my hands gripped the edge. It was New Year’s Eve. There was something fucking wrong in this.
My phone was on the desk beside me. I’d put Arctic Monkeys on, then switched it off – it brought back too many memories of sex with Ivy and I wasn’t in the mood to recall it. It made me want it.
But it wasn’t the end of the holidays yet…
There was still over twenty-four hours.
Fuck it, why was I fighting the urge. I picked up my phone. Maybe I hadn’t drenched my lust torch enough to douse it. Or maybe I was bored. Whatever. I wanted to see her.
Her phone rang.
‘Hello.’ Her hello said why are you calling? We’d said our goodbye.
‘Hi.’
‘Jack?’
‘I…’ I took a breath.
‘You what?’
‘I’m at the office, with some bottles of ale. No champagne. If you want to come and join me? I’m going to watch the fireworks at midnight. You could watch them with me…’
She took an audible breath, as though she was deciding. ‘Okay. I’ll see you in half an hour-ish.’
‘See you then.’
‘Bye.’
She ended the call. My heart thumped a steady bass rhythm. I probably should’ve brought up something to eat too.
It was fifty-five minutes before I saw her at the door. She didn’t wait for me to go over and open it, but keyed in the entrance code. She smiled at me when she came in. She had on the woollen hat I’d bought her when we were away, with her loose parka coat and her stripy gloves. But below the coat she had black patent stiletto heels on her feet and sheer black, what I’d guess were stockings, decorated with pretty silver stars.
I walked out from my office. ‘Thanks for coming. It’s boring alone.’
She unzipped her coat and turned as she stripped it off.
I stepped forward and took the coat off her shoulders.
‘Did you see your daughter?’
My daughter… The word kicked me in the stomach. But… ‘Yes. We’re all signed up for hot chocolate in Hyde Park.’
Ivy turned around and smiled as I hung up her coat. ‘Sounds fun.’
‘Or scary… I’m probably as scared as you were of that cliff. What if she hates it, hates me?’
‘Kids are hard not to impress.’
‘I hope so. But I don’t have any safety harness.’
‘Her mother is on the end of a phone…’
‘Yes, I suppose so, but I don’t want to use that get-out.’
She smiled. ‘No, you wouldn’t… But you’ll be in control, you’ll be fine.’
My gaze travelled down Ivy’s body, then up again. ‘Did you dress up for me, or were you planning on going out and I stopped you?’ My lust devil was definitely not dead, not for her. She had on a silver dress that slipped off one shoulder at an angle, and the hem was also on an angle, rising up to show an awful lot of thigh coated in that black starry stocking.
She pulled her hat off and threw it on a desk. She’d done her hair too, curled it so the curls fell in a less-cluttered cloud of mauve. ‘I was going to my best friend’s party, but her boyfriend, Steve, is Rick’s best friend, and she rang me an hour ago to say don’t come. Apparently Rick has been a pain in the arse for everyone. Even Mum is on my side now. He got cross with her at Christmas when she told him there was no way she could change my mind, it had to be my choice. She said he expected her to ground me like I was a kid unless I took him back. I think he said some horrible things. She’s not speaking to him any more, and so my parents have fallen out with his parents.’
‘It’s all been kicking off, then, while you had your phone turned off.’
‘It sounds like it. Milly, my best friend, said Steve thinks if I go tonight Rick will make a scene. He’s been around there every night since Christmas trying to find out from Milly what I’ve been doing and why I haven’t answered his calls.’
‘Are you okay about not going to their party?’
‘Yes. But it was nice to hear your voice. I thought I was going to end up watching the telly. How dull is that for New Year’s Eve?’
I smiled. ‘Dull. I never watch TV.’ I turned and picked up one of the bottles of ale I’d left on the reception desk. I don’t know why I’d chosen to buy ale, I didn’t drink it very often – but I’d been drinking it all week with her.
I flipped off the lid with a cheap bottle opener I’d bought to accompany them and held it out to her.
She took it. ‘I’d already guessed you never watch TV. Do you even own one in London? You never had one up there, either in the house or in the cottage.’
‘I do own one in London. Sharon has one. I haven’t got one in the place I’m in now. I can’t concentrate on TV – my brain is too busy thinking about work, or whatever comes next.’
She looked hard into my eyes for a moment. ‘Have you been smoking a joint?’
‘A couple, but over an hour ago. Why?’
‘Because your pupils are dilated.’
‘Are they…’ I smiled at her; she’d probably been looking up FRANK since we’d got back; what did that scary grass do to me? ‘Let’s sit in my office.’
‘And what?’ She looked wary of me.
‘Talk, maybe… Look at London…’
I held my hand out for her to walk ahead of me. This may have been a bad idea, asking her here. It was going to make things a hundred times harder when we had to work together the day after tomorrow. It had been selfish taking Ivy away. I was still being selfish.
Sharon had yelled at me numerous times in the last few months that I was a selfish bastard because I’d fucked off and taken all my money and her free ticket to a good time with me. That hadn’t been selfish. But Ivy should be yelling it at me right now – she had good cause.
If I hadn’t asked her, though, she’d be at her place, alone.
I sat on the desk and slid back on it, with my legs dangling from the knee. She leaned her bottom against it and looked out over London.
We talked then, about nothing and everything. We said more about ourselves than we’d probably said in the whole time we were away, while the cannabis ebbed from my blood. We didn’t drink much, either. It was like catching up with a friend, chatting over a drink.
But then I turned and looked at my phone, it was nearly midnight. I found a radio app and we left it playing on a show that would do the countdown.
When we heard Big Ben’s first chime, it silenced our conversation, and we looked at one another counting the chimes as they rang-out.
‘Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.’ Midnight became the first minute of the new year!
The first fireworks boomed into the air, a splendour of colours, red, white and blue. My arm wrapped around Ivy’s shoulders as the fireworks continued, explosion after explosion, while my phone played out the music they were erupting to. Colour filled the night sky above London, bright and bold, and when the last firework died out and fell, I turned to Ivy. ‘Happy New Year.’
‘Happy New Year.’
I pressed my lips to hers and she leaned her body up against mine. My tongue slipped into her mouth and her fingers gripped my bum through my jeans. My hands slid down to grip her bottom cheeks through the cheap, thin fabric of her dress.
In the other room her phone rang out. We broke apart and she ran to answer it.
I heard her say, ‘Happy New Year…’ I didn’t listen to her conversation beyond that, I turned my phone on to music and put Calvin Harris’s album, Motion on. That wasn’t breakup music.
She came back in holding her phone, by her side. ‘My mum – she always calls me at midnight for New Year’s.’
‘I’d ring Daisy, but she’ll probably be in bed—’
‘There’ll be lots of years to call her at midnight.’
Oh my God, a vision of the future played out before me, of me calling Daisy when I was old, when she was my age. I couldn’t imagine where I’d be then? For the first time in my life I had no idea what the future was for me. The box of my life, that fate had shaken up, had left everything out of place this year – last year. I’d always had a plan, a vision I was working to. Now all I knew was I wanted Daisy in my life, but I couldn’t see how that would fit with anything else.
I gripped Ivy’s hand and pulled her close again. She put her phone down on the desk and then her hand came up to my neck and we carried on from where we’d stopped.
I didn’t try to take her dress off, just slid it up and pushed down her thong, while our lips remained locked. Her thong fell on the floor and she unravelled her feet and high-heeled shoes from it, then I lifted her on to my desk, undid my jeans, slid my boxers down to my thighs and pressed into her as I kept kissing her. We kissed the whole time as I pressed into her over and over, while her hands ran over my hair and gripped at my hips and my bare bottom.
I’d imagined having sex with her in here. But I’d imagined her bent over the desk and I’d never imagined it would feel like this.
Her fingers gripped the back of my neck and my bum cheek while she kissed me like her life depended on it. I felt as if I depended on it and when she came I didn’t even try to fight her body’s call, my orgasm piled in on me, catching me in its white foam as if I’d been in the tunnel of one of those massive Hawaiian waves and it had collapsed on me. I sighed into her mouth, then breathed in the breath she breathed out.
Heady.
Her phone rang.
I was still inside her. I slipped out of her and started sorting myself out as she picked up her phone. She didn’t answer it. ‘It’s Rick.’
Instinctively I snatched the fucking thing out of her hand and pressed the answer icon. ‘Hey, mate. Fuck off. Can’t you get the message? She’s moved on. She doesn’t want to talk to you.’ I didn’t wait for his answer – I ended the call and threw her phone down.
‘Jack!’ She yelled at me, but then she laughed and then she took a breath as though she didn’t know what to do. ‘He’ll know I’m with you.’
‘He won’t, he won’t know it was me. But hopefully it’ll get him off your back.’
Her eyes said she was still deciding if that was a good thing as she pulled her dress down.
I moved between her parted legs again before she could jump down to get her thong. My hands settled on her thighs. ‘We can’t go back to mine, I’m sorry, Sharon’s probably having the place watched to get more evidence for her divorce claim. But what about going back to yours?’
Her lips twisted up, in an uncertain look. But she answered, ‘If you want.’
‘I want.’
‘Alright. But you’ll have to bring the ale, I haven’t got anything in.’ I moved back and let her slide off the desk. She bent and picked up her thong, then slid it on awkwardly over the top of her high-heeled shoes. She picked up her phone then and turned it off when she walked out of the office ahead of me.
She glanced back over her shoulder. ‘You do realise my place is one room with a kitchen in it, and a shower room attached and I only have a single bed. You’re leaving all your luxury behind. You don’t pay me enough to have any of that.’
‘Then maybe I owe you a pay rise.’
‘No way. That would be paying me for sex … I AM NOT a prostitute, Jack.’
‘I know. I didn’t mean it like that. It was a throwaway comment.’
She turned around and waited ‘til I caught up the couple of steps between us. I thought we were going back to the prostitute conversation, but instead she gripped my shirt either side of my waist and pressed a quick kiss on my lips, then looked into my eyes, trying to judge my thoughts. ‘It’s no big deal. But for the record, I earn what I should for my job. I’ll work my way up to better pay, not earn it in bed with you.’
I nodded at her, then laughed. She was so different to Sharon.