Chapter 15
Elaborate fantasies
Rafe
I’d had many adversaries in my life and, not to be too arrogant, I’d bested them all.
Whether it was the fierce competition within my profession to rise to the top, or the dangerous criminals that I routinely prosecuted, I always came out the winner.
With my career, I would stop at nothing to get what I wanted.
I would be one of the youngest judges ever to be appointed in the UK. Nothing was going to stop me.
So why, then, was a five-foot-nothing, shy little schoolteacher managing to best me now?
After the horror of my seven-year-old son interrupting the best kiss of my life, I’d taken Ozzie upstairs to get him ready for bed.
This involved an extremely uncomfortable conversation about how I’d tripped and fallen onto Miss Clara, and how she was moaning because of how heavy I was.
When that fresh hell was finally over, I came back down to the kitchen, but Clara was gone.
I went to her bedroom feeling like a fucking stalker, but the door was locked and she didn’t respond to my gentle knock. Seeing as her bedroom was right next to Ozzie’s, I did not think it appropriate to start banging on the thick oak like a caveman.
After a while I started to feel like a piece of shit for both coming on to an employee and possibly scarring my son.
I did want to apologise to Clara, but, really, I just wanted to see her again.
Inappropriate as it was, I simply couldn’t stay away from this woman any longer.
And there were things to be said. I needed to make sure that she knew her job with me was not at risk, whatever happened between us.
That I respected her and her bond with my son, that I would never do anything to jeopardise that.
That I knew I was in a position of power, and I did not want to be the kind of lowlife who exploited that.
But I’d never be able to say any of this if I couldn’t speak to the woman.
The next morning, Clara only emerged just before it was time to take Ozzie to school, and I had to leave for court, so I barely saw her.
That evening I got caught up in those two cases that had been dumped on me, both of which were proving to be a fucking nightmare since I’d taken them on, and by the time I was home, Clara was gone, and Martha was babysitting.
“Where’s Clara?” I snapped at Martha. “She should be here.”
Martha, who didn’t take any of my shit, raised her eyebrows at me. “Watch yourself, young man,” she said. “That girl is not your indentured servant, you realise. She’s gone out.”
“Gone out?” I said in surprise.
Clara never went out. She liked my house. I could tell she did, and it gave me a huge sense of satisfaction. Her features always relaxed when she arrived home. Even if she’d just popped out to the corner shop, she was always happy to have come back. And she never went out willingly.
“Yes, she went with her friend Lily,” Martha told me. “The girl’s allowed to have a social life, Rafe.”
When Clara did arrive home later that night, I was too slow to catch her before she could scurry up to her bedroom, clutching her jar of Branston Pickle. She was bloody fast for someone with such short legs.
I felt like I was losing my mind. She was invading all my thoughts.
Her soft lips when we kissed, her big brown eyes so unfocused without her glasses and blinking up at me, her lavender and citrus scent, her small, upturned nose that wrinkled when she was deep in thought.
It was all driving me insane. And now, smelling her perfume in rooms just after she’d left them as she expertly avoided me was starting to make me angry.
Clearly, she wasn’t interested in me but didn’t have the courage to tell me to my face.
I knew I shouldn’t have taken advantage of her, and I did want to apologise for that, but I wasn’t some sort of monster she had to avoid.
Well, fine, she could have it her way. Any further attempt on my part to approach her could well be categorised as sexual harassment. I was a barrister, soon to be a High Court judge. I could not be sexually harassing my employees.
I was disgusted with myself for having been so willing to chase around after her anyway.
There were plenty of women whom I very much did not have to chase – Ophelia Montlake included.
Granted, she had low-key annoyed me with how aggressive she was in her approaches, but maybe that was better.
Maybe it was easier to be with a more confident woman who knew what she wanted.
I was ready to draw a line under my obsession with Clara. If she could ignore me, then I could ignore her. But Ozzie needed her, and I wasn’t going to tolerate her leaving.
These were my not-so-fun thoughts when a knock on my office door later that night interrupted my brooding.
“Yes,” I snapped.
Ozzie was with his mum, and the staff had gone home for the night, so there was only one option left for who could be there. After a brief pause that made me roll my eyes, I called out again in irritation. My patience with Clara’s goddamn hesitancy was waning now that I was so sexually frustrated.
“For God’s sake, Clara. Just open the fucking door.”
The door opened then, and Clara popped her head around it, looking across at me with a nervous expression that made me feel like a bloody monster again.
Christ, I wasn’t going to leap on the woman; she didn’t have to be so goddamn worried.
I raised my eyebrows. In spite of my annoyance, my heart was hammering in my chest at the sight of her.
But I refused to allow her to see how she affected me.
If she found me so repulsive that she’d felt the need to hide from me for the last three days, I wasn’t going to go around begging.
“Hi,” she said, still with just her head poking around the door. “Am I interrupting anything important?”
“Clara, I am always doing important things,” I told her, uncaring that I sounded like an arrogant dickhead. “Especially when I’m in this office.”
She looked like she wanted to run then, but after closing her eyes for a moment, she seemed to make a decision.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice, and I gritted my teeth. Her relentless apologies weren’t as cute now. “This will only take a moment. If I could just really quickly speak to you.”
“Fine,” I snapped. “But if you want to speak to me, then you can do me the courtesy of coming into the room like a normal human being.”
“Oh yes, of course,” she said, her face falling. She looked really upset now. To be honest, I felt like a bit of a prick, but I wasn't going to fall for her kicked-puppy routine anymore, not when I knew that she could kiss like that.
She came into the office and sat in the chair in front of my desk, clasping her hands on her lap and looking down at them to avoid eye contact, as per bloody usual.
I sighed.
“Clara, can you please get on with what you want to say?” I told her.
“Yes, of course,” she whispered, but her next words were so quiet that they were a struggle to make out.
I frowned. “Clara,” I snapped, “for the love of God, drop the shy act. I had my tongue down your throat less than seventy-two hours ago. I’d really rather that we communicate as adults.
That involves you actually speaking at a normal volume and maintaining eye contact with the adult that you’re addressing. Understand me?”
Her eyes flew to mine. There was that flash of fire that I loved before she quenched it. She cleared her throat to speak again. This time, I could at least make out what she was saying.
“Look, I came to say I’m sorry.”
I blinked at her. “You’re sorry,” I said slowly, then pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration.
Good God, what was wrong with her? She was coming to me to apologise for not being interested in me?
My God, this had a sexual harassment lawsuit written all over it.
If my colleagues in chambers knew what I was up to, they would think I’d lost my bloody mind.
“Clara, I—”
“It doesn’t... you don’t have to...” she stuttered out, before something flashed across her face and she leapt to her feet. Her hands were trembling before she bunched them into small fists at her sides. “I was totally inappropriate.”
She wasn’t whispering now, far from it. What the hell was going on?
“It was very, very wrong of me to grab you like that. When you hugged me after Ozzie’s breakthrough, I’m afraid I.
..” she broke off, and her face flooded with colour as she sank back into the chair.
She briefly looked out of the window before forcing herself to meet my eyes again.
“I have a ridiculous crush on you,” she told me in a surprisingly firm voice.
My mouth fell open in shock as my mind raced to catch up with what she was saying.
“And then I came onto you when you were vulnerable and grabbed you without your consent.”
Vulnerable?
“Clara,” I said slowly, “are you telling me that you think you took advantage of me?”
“Oh God, this is really embarrassing,” whispered Clara, her hands going to her cheeks, which were fire-engine red now.
“It’s this stupid, stupid crush, you see.
” She closed her eyes briefly, then focused back on me.
“You might as well know everything. I’ve been watching you.
Even before you approached me at the school about Ozzie, I knew who you were.
Every Tuesday, I made sure that I was at the classroom window just so that I could.
..” She broke off, whispering, “Oh, kill me now,” before she continued, “…just so that I could… perv over you, okay? Like some weirdo stalker. I mean, it’s not totally my fault.
You can’t really blame me. It’s your whole vibe: the three-piece suit, the coat that billows out behind you when you walk, you know, the long fancy one? ”
“My overcoat?” I asked, trying to keep the humour out of my voice. Clara looked devastated, and I didn’t want her to think I was laughing at her. “You watched me because I wore an overcoat?”
“Oh no. I mean… It’s not just the coat. It’s the whole package.
You must know the effect you have on women?
Your body, your face, those piercing blue eyes.
Look, I promise I’m not usually like this.
I’m not someone who hangs out of the classroom window and pervs over dads.
But I’d done it for so long with you and constructed such elaborate fantasies around you that when I had access to your actual physical body, something just tripped in my brain.
There you are, giving me an innocent hug, excited for your son, and I practically climbed you like a tree and wouldn’t let go.
I just couldn’t get close enough to you. My monkey brain took over, you know?”
“Your monkey brain,” I repeated slowly, trying really hard to suppress my smile now but not quite managing it.
To be honest, I was having a hard time even remaining in my seat since the moment that Clara mentioned her elaborate fantasies.
Every muscle in my body had strung tight as if I was a predator ready to pounce.
I could feel my heart beating in my throat, and there was a strange whooshing sensation in my stomach as if I was free-falling.
So much blood went south that I almost felt lightheaded.
It was a struggle to focus on her next words.
“You see, my crush was bad before, but when I started working for you, it got even worse.”
Clara went on, completely on a roll now.
She wasn’t looking at me anymore either, which I didn’t like at all.
She was focusing on the ceiling instead.
I looked down at her lap to see that her hands were shaking.
That was when I started to feel like a bit of a shit.
Whilst this was all music to my ears and entertaining in the extreme, it was clearly distressing for Clara, who had got it into her head that she’d crossed some sort of line.
Her taking advantage of me?
Was she mad?