35. THIRTY-FIVE
It was almost ten when Roscoe arrived back at the flat, and to Poppy, he had the windswept look of someone who had been walking for a while.
“Everything OK?” she asked. She was on the sofa, but she muted the TV as she sat up. Roscoe stood in the doorway.
“I’m sorry for how he treated you.”
She frowned. “He treated me fine. It’s my job to do stuff like that.”
“I hated it.”
She glanced down, toying with the edge of a cushion as something uncomfortable prickled through her stomach. “That’s because you see my job as lesser. As…servile. But it’s my job, Roscoe. Could you respect that?”
“Shit.” He stepped into the room. “I didn’t mean…” He stopped half-way to the sofa and dragged a hand over his face, through his hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Poppy said nothing. Because he did mean it, even if he didn’t think so. It was at the root of everything—his refusal to take anything from her, to only give. Because he saw himself as higher and her as lower and his moral code wouldn’t let him take advantage of that. And, fair enough, she could hardly fault him. But all she wanted was to be seen as equal.
“I made some pasta,” she said. “If you’ve not eaten. There’s plenty left in the pan in the kitchen. Some chicken and white wine sauce thing I attempted.”
His smile was crumpled, still apologetic. “Thanks. That sounds wonderful.”
When he returned ten minutes later with a plate in his hand, he had changed out of his suit. He was in dark grey pyjama trousers, made of some fine jersey type fabric that did little but draw attention to his thighs. His arse. Groin. His plain white t-shirt was no more helpful. Poppy looked at the TV, and though she tightened just at the memory of it, she pretended that those moments against the door in his office had happened to someone else. In a distant galaxy, far, far away…
It might as well have been. She had no idea how one could get from this—sitting stilted and silent side-by-side on a sofa—to that.
“This is good,” said Roscoe. “The pasta.”
“Thanks.”
On the screen, two people sang enthusiastically about car insurance.
“I really need to make more time for the gym though if I keep eating pasta and takeaway.”
She eyed him sideways. “I think you’re fine, Ross.”
He winked at her.
She turned back to the screen, a smile curling her lips. Maybe this was how you got back to that. Maybe being around Roscoe would always lead inevitably back to that…
He put his empty plate down on the coffee table and leant back on the sofa.
“Here,” he said, holding his hand out.
“What?” she asked, confused.
“Feet.” He reached for them before she could understand quite what was happening and swung her feet onto his lap, so that she ended up sitting sideways, back against the sofa arm. She flushed, self-conscious, as he began to rub one of her feet, his thumbs working into the ball of it, just beneath her toes. God… That actually felt…amazing.
“Mmm,” she made a noise of appreciation that came out sounding a lot filthier than she’d intended. Roscoe quirked a knowing eyebrow at her, but she pretended to ignore him, settling back more comfortably. Now this…he could definitely do this to her all night.
“This is my first ever foot rub,” she admitted.
“Really? How is that possible?”
“Who was going to give me one? My mum? My brothers?”
“Boyfriends,” he suggested casually, working the arch of her foot now. But his casual tone was undercut by the look he flashed her, as though he was very interested indeed in her answer.
She looked at him for a moment. Was it embarrassing to admit the truth? And why did he really care, when he kept making it clear he was only interested in this bizarre one-sided friends-with-benefits situation? But she couldn’t stop herself from saying it. She was always unable to resist giving pieces of herself to him. Or maybe she just wanted to edge closer to this topic—the topic of them, what they were to each other.
“I’ve never had those sorts of boyfriends,” she said. “Ones who were…friends, too. People I hung out with. Lived with.”
“Just hot sex, right?” he teased.
“No. Not even that. More of an awkward date and then…”
“Woeful, inept fumbling?”
“Yes.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s a terrible pity.”
“Isn’t it just?”
He let go of her foot and reached for the other. She wriggled slightly, getting even comfier, and her heel brushed against the unmistakable beginnings of Roscoe’s stiffening cock.
“What were the things?” she found herself saying, pulse ratcheting up.
“Things?”
“You said you’d imagined doing filthy things to me in your office.”
Roscoe’s hands stilled. She wriggled her foot impatiently and he resumed his work with a faint laugh at her demand. “Use your imagination,” he said.
“I am.”
Deliberately, she let her foot nudge him again. He sucked in a breath, and she did it again, but he took firm hold of her foot and shifted it away.
“Spoilsport,” she muttered, as though she wasn’t cringing inside at his rejection. And he huffed a laugh. A tense, strained laugh. Why was he doing this to himself? She knew it wasn’t really a rejection—that if she allowed it, within moments he would kiss her, touch her, make her come with his fingers, his mouth. But it was starting to feel like rejection. It stung, that he wouldn’t ever give himself to her.
She drew her feet away and sat up, pretending to stifle a yawn that soon became real. “I think it must be bedtime. And you definitely need some sleep.”
He looked up at her, a glimpse of regret. Apology. He brushed it away, the way you hide things under a rug. Shove mess into cupboards. Pretend it isn’t there.
“I don’t think I could get to sleep right now. Maybe I should hit the gym.”
“At this time?”
“I…” He let out a breath, sat back again against the sofa, though his shoulders were rigid. “I’m just a bit on edge. Bit of an argument with my dad. Or not even an argument…”
“What happened?”
“Oh. Nothing really. He just wanted to tighten my leash.”
She gave him a questioning look, and he sighed, rubbing his face. “Setting up this tax service department… It’s not something I’m enjoying.”
“I know.”
He looked surprised at that.
“I can tell,” she explained. “You get all glowery and moody when you’re working on it. Your emails get clipped and blunt. You put off meetings about it in favour of client stuff, PM stuff…”
He grimaced. “It’s that obvious?”
“Maybe only to me.”
“Well. I’m stuck doing it for the next two years.”
“Does your father know how you feel?”
Roscoe just nodded, jaw tight. Then he pretended to be absorbed by what was on the TV—someone jumping out of a burning building—while Poppy deliberated whether to press the subject or not. His body language very clearly said, I do not want to talk about it. But maybe he needed to talk about it. Maybe—
He spoke just as she was about to.
“I went for a walk on the way back from the office. Needed to clear my head a bit. And I came up with an idea. I need a break. A change of scenery away from the office. So I thought I’d go visit Mabel in Dorset.”
“Oh?” She picked up their plates. Roscoe followed her through to the kitchen.
“Get out of dodge?” she teased, putting the plates in the dishwasher, Roscoe helping.
“Exactly. Yeah. Breathe some air that isn’t Blackton-fucking-Gold.”
“Do it,” she encouraged. “Book some days off. I can rearrange your diary. If there’s anyone who needs a holiday, it’s you.”
And maybe she could do with a break from him. Get her head and her heart back in line.
He shook his head slightly. “I can’t take any time off. I’ll go this weekend. Saturday to Sunday. And I’ll have to bring my laptop. But come with me. I could continue your education—show you what life’s like in a real stately home.”
Go with him? A weekend away with Roscoe Blackton?
It was a terrifyingly stupid idea.
So of course she said yes.