2. Empty inside
Empty inside
Mike
“Look, Miss Harding,” I said through gritted teeth. “If you wouldn’t mind standing back from the doorway, then I can actually do what I came here to do and then get gone and leave you in peace.”
There it was—that beautiful, blank stare again. I tamped down my irritation and decided to just get the fuck on with it whether she was cooperating or not. Once I’d delivered the bloody coffee table, I could bugger off and hopefully go back to avoiding Victoria Harding again.
I turned away from her, jogged down the stone steps of her fancy bloody townhouse, and picked up the bespoke coffee table that I’d poured countless hours into building, then shaping, sanding and varnishing, only to have it wasted on this ice-cold woman.
“I can help you carry it.”
I looked back up the steps at her standing in the doorway.
What a bloody waste. The woman was absolutely stunning.
Her beauty was almost otherworldly. And today, wearing those fitted jeans with her hair not in its usual severe, scraped-back style, the blonde tendrils framing her face, and her tiny bare feet visible with perfect bright pink nails, she was a knockout.
But it was still a waste because the woman’s personality was, well, non-existent. Her nickname was dead-on accurate; she was the absolute definition of an ice princess. Not my style at all.
Unfortunately, for whatever fucked-up reason, she had gotten it into her head that I was her style.
Even that day when I’d stormed into Felix’s office to bollock them all for what they’d done to my sister, even then, distracted as I was by my anger, I’d noticed her staring at me.
Christ, the woman could stare. It was seriously creepy if you asked me.
At least, that’s what I told myself.
And I could just about manage it if I forced my brain to forget the dreams of her that plagued me at night.
In my dreams, she was anything but cold.
“She’s just a little fixated on you.”
Lucy’s explanation floated back to me. Er, okay. I’m not the kind of guy you develop a fixation with. I’m not like Felix or Ollie—sophisticated, three-piece-suit-wearing pretty boys. I’m rough and ready, with an overgrown beard and questionable dress sense.
Girls like Vicky fixated on men like me for one thing—they wanted a walk on the wild side with a bit of rough.
That’s why she was fixated on me. And now she’d ordered one of my favourite pieces simply to mess with me.
There was no way I could have anyone else deliver this, not after I’d spent hours and hours perfecting it.
Even if it was going to an automaton who wouldn’t appreciate art if it slapped her in the face, I still didn’t want it to be damaged.
“No offence,” I shouted back up to her, well aware that I was fully intending to cause offence. “But you’d be about as much help as a chocolate teapot. This table would crush you. I’ll carry it in if you could do me a favour and move out of the bloody way.”
Thankfully she did move back in time for me to make it into her fancy fucking house, but then gave no further indication of where she wanted the table to go.
Now, this thing was solid; all my pieces were solid and bloody heavy. It was uncomfortable to stand in the middle of someone’s hallway, holding one up in the air, not knowing where to set it down. But this goddamn ice princess just carried on staring at me.
I opened my mouth to say something, then snapped it shut as I noticed the little cracks in the icy persona showing through.
Her pupils dilated, and very briefly, she bit her full, pink bottom lip as her eyes traced the muscles bunched and straining on my chest and arms as I kept this bloody table suspended in midair.
“Eyes up here, princess,” I said, my voice rougher than it should be, but who could blame me? She was a beautiful woman, and she was blatantly checking me out. And the memories of Dream Vicky were increasingly tricky to suppress.
Immediately, her eyes snapped to mine, and then another more human sign peeped through as pink stained her cheeks.
“If you’re quite finished, do you think you could tell me where this is going to go?”
She cleared her throat. “Oh, you can put it down here.”
I frowned. “You’re going to have a massive bloody coffee table sitting in the middle of your hallway?”
She shrugged. “I hadn’t really thought where it would go.”
I grunted with the effort of holding up the table, shifting it slightly in my arms. “I’m no expert on interior design, but most people have coffee tables in their sitting rooms.”
“I already have a coffee table in there.”
“Right.” I drew the word out. We weren’t getting anywhere here, and I needed to set this thing down. “So why the fuck did you order another one?”
“I wanted to see you.”
Bloody hell, she was bold. No pretence. No trying to make any excuses. Just a straight out, fucked-up admission. I had to admire the woman’s balls, at least.
Seeing as we were going to get nowhere with the entire where’s the table going debate, and given I couldn’t think straight whilst my arms were screaming at me, I decided to put it down between us. Then I shook out my arms and cracked my neck before focusing back on the small woman in front of me.
She was still staring, but closer up, her expression didn’t look so blank anymore. No, closer up, I could see all sorts of things working behind her crystal blue eyes, and I could feel the intensity of her focus.
The coffee table was separating us, but I was near enough to make out just a hint of her lavender scent, not overpowering like some perfumes, but very subtle, and for some reason, it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“Let me get this straight,” I said slowly. “You ordered a two-thousand-pound coffee table just so that you could see me ?”
“I also admired the table, very much. But yes, my main motivation was to have a private discussion with you.”
My eyebrows shot up. “What the fuck have you got to talk to me about in a private discussion ?”
She bit her lip again, and I had the sudden and unexpected urge to reach over and pull her bottom lip free of her teeth. What the hell was wrong with me?
“I find you extremely attractive.”
There it was again—absolutely no filter on this woman.
She didn’t say it in a low, breathy, needy voice.
She stated it as an absolute, with no distinguishable emotion behind the statement at all.
Almost as though she were approaching some sort of business transaction, which pissed me off when all I could think about was dragging her onto the stupid bloody table I’d made for her and stripping her out of her jeans.
“This has not gone unnoticed, princess,” I said in a low voice. Her cheeks stained even pinker at that, and I had to clench my hands into fists to stop myself from reaching for her. “But, for the love of God, why does that mean you order furniture you don’t need?”
“My attempts to approach you have so far been unsuccessful,” she said, still in that odd business-like tone. “This appeared to be the most expedient option.”
My eyebrows went up. “Ordering a fucking expensive one-of-a-kind coffee table was the only way you could think of to talk to me?”
“Yes.” She gave a firm nod. “Especially given that we are never alone, and we have never had a direct conversation before. My half-brother is extremely protective. He does not really approve of my… fixation with you.”
I smirked at that. “I bet he doesn’t. Not surprised he doesn’t approve of the likes of me.”
“The likes of you?” she asked.
I chuckled.
“Princess, I’m about as rough as they come. There’s no way the Duke of Fuckingham would want me anywhere near his sister.”
“Half-sister.”
I shrugged. What was with all the half-sister, half-brother bollocks? Who cared? Clearly Ollie didn’t see her as any less than a sister. It seemed cold. But then, this chick’s personality was positively Arctic.
“Okay,” I said, losing patience with this entire aggravating conversation. “Here I am then. What did you want to say to me?”
She cleared her throat and then swallowed before speaking again. The only indication that she was nervous was the slight shake to her hand as she pushed her hair behind her ear.
“C-can we sit down? Maybe you could come to the kitchen? I could make you a cup of tea as per social protocol.”
As per social protocol? What the hell was wrong with her?
“Just spit it out, princess,” I said. “I’ve had a long day, and you’re not my only delivery.”
“Oh.” She stared at me again, and I didn’t bother suppressing my sigh. “Okay. Well, as I was saying—I find you very attractive, and as such, I was wondering if you might be open to… to progressing things on a physical level and?—”
“Is that a fancy way of saying you want to fuck me?”
Vicky blinked. It was the only indication that what I said got to her at all. “Well, yes that would be part of the?—”
I felt my temper spike. I’d always had a bit of a temper, and if I was honest, a slight chip on my shoulder about people born with silver spoons in their mouths.
This woman thought that because she could probably buy and sell me and my entire family, that gave her leave to do and say whatever she wanted.
Rich people were entitled: she found me attractive, so she felt entitled to snap her fingers and bang me.
“Let me get this straight,” I said through gritted teeth. “You get me here on false pretences when you don’t even need a goddamn coffee table. Then you proceed to make some sort of fucked-up pass at me because you’re bored with your rich pretty boys, and you fancy a bit of rough?”
Her eyes went wide, and I was gratified that I was cracking that icy persona and extracting even more of a reaction.
“N-no,” she said.
I would never have called her tone hesitant, but compared to the way she spoke before, I could just about make out that quality.
“You misunderstand me. It’s actually quite common when someone like you interacts with someone like me. You see I?—”
“Someone like me?” I said in a low, furious voice. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“W-well you and I, we’re very different, and it might be hard for you to fully understand what I?—”
“Just because I do a manual job does not mean that I’m stupid, princess.”
“Of course not. If you would just listen, you would understand?—”
“I understand perfectly. You want some fun with a bit of rough, and I’m not interested.”
“But… but you are interested in me physically.”
Oh, wow. This bitch certainly had a high opinion of herself.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Is that right?”
She blinked at me. “Yes, the evidence would point to the fact that you find me physically attractive.”
“Evidence?” How had she gathered any evidence? I’d barely ever spoken to the woman.
“Yes. When I was at the pool in Little Buckingham in a bikini, you spent a large percentage of your time looking at me, and you had to use one of Margot’s outdoor throw cushions to cover your groin area after I got out of the pool.”
It was my turn to blink at her now. Words stuck in my throat as a vision of Vicky in that barely there bikini floated through my mind.
I was ashamed to say that Vicky emerging from the pool, soaking wet in that bikini, had been my go-to when I was on my own late at night, for quite some time.
And it annoyed me. It annoyed me even more that she had noticed.
I felt my face heat up and thanked God for my thick beard. It was rare that I got embarrassed, but this woman had managed it. And, fuck my life, she wasn’t even finished.
“Your gaze will often shift to me in a group. Your pupils dilate when I look at you directly. And you have been observed ‘staring at my arse,’ as Lottie put it, which I understand is a sure-fire way of distinguishing sexual interest. Also, I’m aware that I am, in general, physically attractive to men.
I have been aware of this fact since I went through puberty at around fourteen years old. ”
“Wow, you’ve got a pretty high opinion of yourself.”
She frowned. “On the contrary, I don’t?—”
“Well, I’ve got news for you, princess,” I said, my tone now full of the anger she’d stirred up for being so beautiful but so unbelievably cold.
Anger at all the bloody rich people I’d known who thought they could walk all over me and treat me like shit. But most of all, anger at the promise of her being nothing but a lie.
“I wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole.
You’re beautiful, and yes, maybe my body did react when I saw you half-naked, but just because I had a physiological response to you doesn’t mean I would be tempted to ever touch you.
I like my women warm, cute, kind, able to express actual emotion and equipped with a personality.
You… you’re like a beautiful vase—great to look at but empty inside.
I’m not so hard up that I’d fall into bed with someone like you just because you made my dick hard once when you wore a bikini.
So you can stop with this bullshit staring at me all the time.
Stop fantasising about roughing it and go back to the pretty boys you should be fucking. ”
Nothing about her expression changed as I spoke to her. Not one flicker of emotion. So maybe I had let my anger get the best of me, but it wasn’t like anything I said affected her. I slapped the delivery receipt down on the coffee table, which she did react to with a brief flinch.
“It’s been real, princess,” I muttered as I turned and stalked out of her house.
I didn’t look back, but I should have.
I should have bloody well looked back.