I thought it was a joke when he handed me the manuscript. It had to be a joke. I couldn’t work it out. I knew that opening line. I knew that opening paragraph. Where did I know those words from?

Then it hit me in a blow that sent me reeling. It was Anna’s book. That was the one they were going to push into the summer? This was their TBC from my calendar for the year? How did he even have a copy?

I remembered Anna saying she had been talking to the CEO of Snow Day. She must have given it to him and he must have passed it on to Bill. Why hadn’t it come to me though? As head of adult fiction, I should have been one of the first to read it.

I could guess why. The CEO considered it below me. Hand me one book after another to make a decision about and I’d never have time to do anything else. They had probably got a slush pile somewhere and everyone in the office took turns with it. Bill had got this one and it just happened to be Anna’s incredible BDSM masterpiece, a romance like no other I’d ever read. Then Bill just happened to hand it to me.

I walked into the house and closed the door, leaning back against it and hugging the manuscript to my chest. I hadn’t even asked him about the gifts, about why he’d turned up to bring me flowers, grapes, and a chance to make him eternally grateful to me. It was a chance I wasn’t going to throw away a second time. I was going to grab this opportunity and run with it. Fate had given me another shot. This time I was going to be honest. This time I was going to tell the truth about what I wanted.

I couldn’t come on too strong though. I want you to fuck me every night for the rest of my life. Might be a bit much when we hadn’t even had a first date. Maybe I’d hold off talking marriage and babies until the third date.

I could hear Anna in the kitchen chopping vegetables as ever. I headed through, putting the manuscript on the table in front of me as I sat down. She looked up from behind the mound of broccoli. “Why are you smiling so much?” she asked. “I’m guessing it went well.”

“You could say that,” I replied.

“Come on then, spill the beans. Share the juicy gossip. Fill me in on the…erm...”

“You’ve overreached yourself with the third one, haven’t you?”

“Just tell me!”

“Well, you know that book you wrote?”

“Which one?”

“This one,” I said, sliding the manuscript across to her.

“That one,” she said, flicking through the pages. “I vaguely remember it. Where did you get that copy?”

“Bill just gave it to me.”

“Did he now? And where did he get it from?”

“He didn’t say but I’m guessing the CEO gave it to him.”

“Let me guess, thanks but no thanks?”

“Not quite.”

She frowned, putting the knife down on the table, the broccoli forgotten. “What do you mean, not quite?”

“Would you like me to publish your book?”

She sat upright in her chair. “I told you not to use your position to help me. I want to get published on my own merits or not at all.”

“Hold on-”

“Let me finish. If you take my book and shove some other author out to get me published, that’s…that’s just not right.”

“Right,” I said, holding my hand up. “Before that high horse of yours mosey’s right out of town, just let me talk. I don’t want to publish it. Bill does. This has nothing to do with me.”

She eyed me suspiciously. “Then why do you have it and not him? Why are you talking to me about it and not him? Riddle me that one, joker.”

“You mean riddler.”

“I mean tell me what’s going on.”

“Anna, darling, best friend of mine. Bill wants your book to be published by Snow Day Publishing.”

“So why hasn’t he told me that?”

“Because he doesn’t know you wrote it.”

“What? Of course he does.”

“Apparently not.”

“But I gave it to him. I gave him all my details.”

“From what I just heard outside, I get the feeling he might have lost a few pages from the manuscript, specifically the page with the author name, phone number, and address.”

“Oh.” She looked deflated for a moment before a grin started to spread across her face. “So he does want to publish it.”

I nodded. “And if your printer’s working, I can have a contract together for you to sign in under an hour.”

“My Kingdom for an ink cartridge,” she replied.

“Don’t tell me you’ve run out.”

“I sincerely hope not.”

I had a selection of template contracts on the cd-rom provided in the file I’d been given on my first day. One of my appointed tasks was to go through them and approve them. I never thought my first author would be my housemate.

The disc whirred to life in Anna’s computer and she sat next to me, peering over my shoulder as I inserted the important information where it needed to go. “How big an advance should I give you?” I asked as I came to the halfway point.

She shrugged. “A couple of million.”

“I’m not sure we can stretch that far. Wait, I’ve got some guidelines somewhere.”

I rummaged through the file, working out the formula. Potential sales for the TBC book, run through the calculator, minus that, divide by, add it all together. “It’s going to be four figures,” I said at last. “Better than a kick in the teeth.”

“Not quite enough for a mansion,” Anna replied.

“Doll’s house mansion?”

“I’m not that short.”

“Stop distracting me. I need to get this done.”

You started it."

"Shush!"

Time was ticking away. I had to get the contract over to his by midnight. “Finger’s crossed,” I said as I hit print.

We both held our breath as the printer noisily came juddering to life. The first inch of paper appeared, white, nothing visible. “There’s no i-” I began then stopped. A black line of text had appeared.

We both breathed out at the same time. The rest was easy. I got the pages in the right order. Anna signed in the right places. Then came the hardest bit of all. Choosing what to wear.

The layout of our house had been predicated on Anna. Her wheelchair was unfortunately not rocket powered so she was confined to the ground floor. We had living room and kitchen down there, bathroom tacked onto the back of the house. What would have been the dining room was her bedroom. Upstairs was my bedroom, the second bedroom serving as mixed storage for food club and study for me.

I brought a selection of clothes down from my wardrobe and laid them out on Anna’s bed. She ran her eyes over them all. “You don’t want to be too slutty,” she said, pulling one top out and starting a pile at the edge of the bed. “Or too serious.” Another top gone. “What about that floral thing you got for Christmas.”

“It never fitted me, made my boobs look like they might burst out any minute.”

“I know, it’s perfect.”

“It’s gone to a charity shop.”

“Oh, shame.”

“What about this?” I held up a dress.

“You’re not going to a funeral, you’re going to his house to hand over the contract and hopefully hand over your clothing too. This needs to be right.”

“There is a chance he’s just going to take the contract. You do know that, right?”

She looked at me and shook her head. “A man does not invite his boss to his house at midnight to talk contracts. He wants to finish what he started at the hotel.”

I tried not to get too excited. If I did that, the doubts from before might creep back, the fear, the shame.

It was a horrible fact that the things that happen to us in childhood never really go away. I had just climbed for the first time in years because I remembered how fun it was. That memory had never faded. But the memory of being ashamed of my body was still there too. I wanted Bill. I wanted him to dominate me. I also wanted to shut those feelings down and ignore them.

Stop it, I told myself. You’re not a child anymore. Mum and Dad might have been ashamed of what they had to do to make you but that doesn’t mean you have to be the same as them. You’re an adult, you want to be spanked, you can be spanked.

I noticed Anna was holding up a dress, the one I’d worn at the conference. “The ultimate test,” she said. “Can you wear it and seduce the poor innocent Bill?”

“He’s not exactly innocent.”

“Come on, try it on.”

I took it upstairs and changed into it, looking down at myself as I descended to Anna’s room again. She was waiting for me. “Wow,” she said. “Makes me want to fuck you and I’m straight.”

“You sound it, saying things like that. You really think it’s appropriate for taking a contract round?”

“Wear that. Trust me.”

“Fine but if he laughs at me, I’m moving to Scotland.”

“Suits me. I like Iron Bru.”

“I better go. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck and enjoy the fuck.”

“Anna!” I blushed as she giggled at me.

“Go on,” she said. “Go get him.”

I headed out to the car, then realised I’d forgotten the contract. On the second attempt, I managed to get going, contract on the passenger seat. His address was on the outskirts of the city but I was sure when I reached it that my GPS was wrong. I was stopped by a solid looking pair of gates that blocked a road completely. I typed the post code in again but the machine was just as adamant as the first time. This was where he lived.

By the gates was an intercom. Reaching out of the window, I was just able to hit the button. It came to life at once. “Yes?”

“Hi, it’s Lucy.”

“Come on up.”

The gates swung open and I set off along the drive. Where was this place? To either side of the car, grass was lit momentarily by the headlights before vanishing once more. I swung around a lazy bend before a house came into view from behind a row of tall trees. It wasn’t a house. It was a castle. An enormous castle. The kind of place that would make invading armies change their mind and turn back for home, shaking their heads at the very idea of taking it on.

I stopped the car by the portcullis, feeling as if I’d gone back in time. Did he really live here? How on earth was that even possible?

Getting out of the car, my feet crunched on the gravel as I crossed to the front door, hidden inside the portcullis gate. There was a bell pull next to the door and I yanked at it, wondering if I really knew Bill at all.

The door opened. I half expected a butler to answer and inform me the servant’s entrance was round the back. But it wasn’t a butler. It was Bill.

“Good evening,” he said, his eyes running down my dress. “Won’t you come inside?”

“This is your house?” I asked, taking a slow step into an enormous entrance hall. “You live here?”

He nodded. “You like it?”

“I mean, it’s a bit poky but it’s not bad, I suppose.”

“I’m glad it meets your approval.”

The door closed behind him and he looked me up and down once more. I noticed how pale his face appeared. He looked stressed. “I need to tell you something,” he said. “And I think we’ll both need a drink before I’m done. Come this way.”