Chapter 8
Eight
R elief was the first thing she felt when she escaped the claustrophobic heat of the underground during rush hour but her relief quickly turned to nervousness and anxiety that sat heavily in her stomach. Glancing down at her phone she saw the messages she had managed to ignore all afternoon and was no nearer to deciding how she was going to respond to them.
What do you fancy for dinner? Jon
Dinner? Remember? We’re going to dinner tonight. Jon
I’m beginning to feel paranoid. Are you avoiding me? You know that won’t work, well it might but only until Friday afternoon when you’ll be in my building. Jon
Would you please respond, even if it’s to tell me you don’t want dinner, that you want professional only. Jon
Stephanie, this is silly darling! Jon
The last one made her feel slightly ridiculous because he was right it was silly. She was silly to think she could ignore him. He wasn’t pressuring her or using his position to coerce her into anything. He wanted her to agree to an affair and the truth was she didn’t think she’d be able to resist him much longer, she’d barely managed it last night.
Hi, sorry. Just on my way home. Dinner would be nice…we need to put this to bed once and for all…no pun. I’m not a fussy eater really…no sea food though. Steph
Do I detect a decision has been made? Sorry, not trying to pressure you, but you are right. A decision needs to be agreed and then we move on, one way or another. Jon
I get that. Have no clue what I’ve decided. Steph
Where shall I pick you up from? Jon
She considered protesting and insisting on meeting him somewhere, but what was the point really?
Ok. 74B Lincoln Street. See you at 7. Steph
I look forward to it. Jon
Steph had changed several times and had eventually decided on a sleeveless, mint green, mesh pleated dress with a dip back hem sweeping below the knees, while the hem at the front finished about four inches above the knee. The round neckline that was fairly high gave an air of modesty, while the sheer nature of it added a slight edge. She completed the look with silver accessories; a thin belt, earrings, high heels and a clip that held her ponytail in place. She stood looking at herself in the mirror and decided that the high, tight ponytail fastened with a silver, metallic clip was the right look. She had kept make up to a minimum and hoped her overall appearance wasn’t too slutty, but then she was meeting a man to discuss becoming his mistress, so maybe not slutty enough.
The knock at the door made her jump. She rushed to answer and took a deep breath before opening it and was horrified to find Simon on the doorstep.
“Hi, Steph, you look great,” he slurred.
“What do you want Simon?” She made no attempt to hide her impatience.
“You. I miss you.” He attempted to lean forward to touch her.
“Tough,” she said bluntly, angry at him turning up here at all but especially when she was waiting for Jon. Simon’s timing was as poor as ever.
“Don’t be a bitch babe, we were good together.” He grinned at her.
Steph could barely believe the words leaving her ex-boyfriend’s mouth. Surely he couldn’t really think the words he said were true, and yet he sounded entirely sincere in them. Either way, she knew they were many things together and she was struggling to think of anything good in this moment but didn’t want to antagonise him so aimed for something resembling compromise. “Maybe for a time, but the last year we were together you made me miserable to the point that I thought it was all my fault and that I was a horrible person,” she told him.
“That’s not true. Let’s go to bed.” He stepped forward to enter her flat.
“No,” she protested. “I am going out and we are over.”
“Are you seeing someone else?” The anger in his voice was clear and all too familiar.
Steph stared at the man before her, unsure whether to be irritated or just laugh at his misplaced anger, especially after all he’d done to her. Sensing his intention to enter the property with or without her permission saw her spring into action. “It’s none of your business, now you need to go,” she said firmly and closed the door.
Sagging against the back of it, the fear she’d felt a few minutes before was replaced with relief while the soundtrack of Simon shouting to her through the letterbox while he banged on the door continued for several long minutes, Steph felt a sense of liberation that they were no longer a couple and this was no longer her life. Lost in her thoughts, she realised it had gone quiet, then a single rap of the door sounded around her. Running through to the lounge window, she felt a weight lift from her shoulders at the sight of Jon on her doorstep. Rushing back to the door that she swung open, she greeted him with a hug that might have been a little too tight, too warm and a little too long.
“Are you okay?” he asked with no attempt to move from her hold.
“Yes.” She hoped she sounded convincing to him if not herself as she looked over Jon’s shoulder and was grateful not to find Simon there.
“You’re lying.” Clearly she wasn’t convincing anyone but he at least reassured her as he held her against him tightly.
“Simon came round earlier, a little the worse for wear,” she explained.
“Simon?” He followed her along the long, narrow hallway towards the lounge where she picked up a silver clutch.
“My ex-boyfriend.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“No, he was a bit drunk and suggested that we should go to bed.” She was still struggling to get her head around why he thought that was ever likely to be an option for her.
Jon stared at her, his expression giving nothing away. “Were you tempted?”
“No.” She was sure she should be offended if not pissed off by that question, but somehow she was neither. “It wasn’t that good by the time we stopped sleeping together anyway, but no, it’s well and truly over. Then he asked if I was seeing someone else and he got a bit pissed off when I told him it was none of his business and shut the door.”
“Why did you open the door to him?” Jon asked, sitting on the arm of the sofa where he pulled her between his open legs.
“I thought it was you.”
“Does he do this regularly?”
“No. First time, a one off I’m sure. We were both miserable for months before we split up and he was shagging someone at work, so when I said I wanted out he was more than happy with the decision and I haven’t seen or heard from him since until tonight.”
“Is he an accountant too?”
“No he’s a teacher, we met at uni, but he was a couple of years older than me and then we met a couple of years later and started dating,” she revealed.
He looked up at her hoping she was right and drunken visits from her ex that left her shaking in his arms were a one off. Although her being in his arms felt amazing, better than it probably should. “Maybe it was just the drink. You know that we all do stupid things when drunk.”
“Are we back to slutty Steph with the stripper and the dancing and drinking at the hen night?”
“Yes we are, and it was drinking drinks bought by strange men, not just drinking.” He frowned and added, “That still annoys me.”
She laughed at his obvious annoyance. “I remember you threatening me with acts of violence.”
“Not quite. Let’s go. We have things to discuss.” He got to his feet and stared down at her with a small smile. “You look lovely by the way.”
“Thank you, I wasn’t sure what I should wear,” she admitted with a flush at his compliment.
“Then you chose well.” He took her hand and led her to the door.
When they pulled into an underground car park, Steph had already realised that they were back at his flat. The one she’d stormed away from a few weeks before and as he led her to the lift from the car park she saw him smile at her.
“You seem amused, Mr Brooker.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Miss Pryor.”
“Then I suggest you keep your hands and everything else to yourself until we have completed our negotiations this evening,” she said sounding very corporate.
“As you wish.” He laughed as the lift doors closed.
She watched him from her position sitting at the pre-laid table in the diner area of the open plan room that also housed the kitchen and lounge. Sipping the glass of red wine she’d been given, she laughed at the sight of him carrying foil containers.
“You have invited me for dinner and you are serving a frozen meal?” She couldn’t hide her amused surprise.
“How dare you,” he cried. “This is handmade by the local Italian and kept warm by my own fair hands.” He dazzled her with a huge smile at her amused expression.
They made polite conversation as they ate and as Jon returned with coffee they had moved to a soft, thickly upholstered, cream leather sofa.
“Shall we address the elephant in the room?” asked Jon.
She was relieved that one of them had finally broached the subject, although fear and anxiety were already seeping in and threatening to overpower her relief. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you, but I can’t make you my girlfriend in the traditional sense of the role, you pointed that out to me, but I would expect you to behave like my girlfriend. What about you?”
“I don’t know really. It seems odd to me, have an ongoing casual relationship and presumably it would be a discreet, secret arrangement we would have.”
“I think it would have to be to some extent, for us both. It could be professionally damaging for you to be viewed as the girl screwing the boss, but to be screwing the boss on a casual basis? Not good, although it may not be that casual.”
“What happens if we thrash out the details and then after one night one of us decides it’s not our thing?” Steph couldn’t imagine anything about one night with Jon not being her thing.
He laughed at her. “You mean if one of us turns out to be really crap in the sack?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, I might have put it more that we weren’t compatible but I suppose your summing up is accurate too.”
“I’m not crap and I have a feeling that you will be anything but. However, if either of us changes their mind, then so be it. It’s not a legal contract we’re entering into, Steph, it’s a verbal agreement where both of us will know what to expect. Does that sound reasonable?”
“Yes.” she said a little too quickly.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying to me again, Stephanie. That will be one of my requirements, honesty,” he said with a slightly serious tone to his voice. “What?”
“I don’t even know what I am agreeing to here. I just know that I can’t get you out of my head. I like you and under different circumstances this would be easy, but then I keep reminding myself that there are no different circumstances for you, for us.”
“No,” was all he said with a dark and almost sad expression on his face.
“I don’t know anything about you and your wife.” She sighed the last word wondering how she found herself in this position. Was she really knowingly considering the option of becoming a married man’s mistress? Every word she spoke seemed to suggest that she was.
“Do you need to? Want to?” Jon asked her. “I am not ready to bear my soul, Steph. I might never be, but my advice to you would be to ask me anything you want. I won’t guarantee I’ll share it all but I will try and answer your questions honestly.”
Steph nodded. “That’s kind of the problem. I don’t think I want to know about her. I don’t want her to be real to me and I don’t want to know what her favourite flowers or chocolates are or the date of your anniversary or where you’re going on holiday. That might just make it too real and force me into really facing up to what this is and what I am within it.”
“Okay,” was his single word response this time.
“Okay,” she repeated.
“I don’t want you to feel pressured into making a decision. If you need more time . . .”
“For what? To keep swinging from yes to no and back again. I think we both know that this is a yes . . . if it was a no it would have been a no sooner without so much deliberation.”
“So, it’s a yes?” He edged closer, close enough to slide a hand along her jaw, into her hair to cup her head preparing for a kiss.
“What if this is the biggest mistake of our lives?” Steph suddenly asked.
“And what if it’s not?” Jon replied before sealing the deal with a kiss that quickly saw them lost in a tangle of arms and legs and sounds of breathing and gasping.
Steph quickly found herself lying back on the sofa with Jon over her, their lips still worshipping the other’s mouth. Jon had one hand cupping her head and the other was snaking beneath the skirt of her dress while her hands were beginning to tug at his shirt so she could run her hands across his abdomen and then his chest.
A low hiss left Jon’s lips causing him to pull back slightly as Steph’s nails began to graze across the taut skin of his belly.
“Maybe we should have sex,” she announced making him smile and arch his brows simultaneously. “What I mean is that we should have sex first, see how it is and I think that as we both want it there is nothing to lose. If it works for us both, we can decide how we move forward, and if it’s not right, we draw a line under it and walk away from the idea and never mention it again.”
She looked at him studying her and wondered whether she had just pissed him off by potentially offering him a one-night-stand with her after protesting that she didn’t want that.
“Let me take you home,” he suddenly said.
Shit! She really had pissed him off and potentially the whole thing was off now and she really did like him and she was desperate to have sex, full stop, but specifically with Jon.
“Why? I don’t understand,” she said confused. “I really am not slutty Steph, but the premise of our relationship is not going to be working on our compatibility to build a future, not like a girlfriend and boyfriend style thing, that’s all I meant,” she babbled.
“You’re right,” he said, already on his feet and offering her his hand to take. “We need to have sex.”
“Oh,” she whispered, still confused.
“Steph. There is still no rush, but it was your suggestion.”
“Yes. I want to and it might help make things clearer, in my head.” She immediately wondered if it would or would it simply cloud things further?
“So we can either go to yours or you can go and collect some stuff for work tomorrow. Come on, what do you want to do? Are we staying at yours or coming back here?” he asked.
She stared at him unsure what to say now.
“Stephanie, if we’re staying at yours I need to grab something to wear for the office tomorrow.”
A small smile curled her lips. “Sorry, I really wasn’t expecting things to move so quickly.”
“Too quickly?” he asked, checking she was sure with what they were about to do again.
“No,” she admitted, making him smile.
“So your place or mine?” He was pulling her towards him again, kissing her gently, teasing her lips with his.
“I don’t know that we have to spend the whole night together,” she replied, pulling his face back to hers.
“This is not just a quickie I am suggesting and as it’s been a while for you I intend to make it memorable, so I think we do need the whole night.”
Steph nodded but made no further response.
“So, I will ask one last time, your place or mine?”
“Yours,” she replied with a nervous swallow but knew she wanted this. In many ways she hoped this would be disastrous, that they’d be sexually incompatible and then they could forget this plan. Another swallow followed along with the sure knowledge that there would be nothing incompatible about them sexually if the sparks and heat his kisses and touches elicited were anything to go by and she was fairly certain he felt it to. “But I can get a cab.”
“What? While I sit here and wait for you to come back? That’s pointless, plus your drunken ex-boyfriend may put in an appearance again.”
“I’m sure Simon has skulked off back home by now.”
“Well, I’m not taking any chances so come on, darling, we’re wasting time.” He was already taking her hand in his and pulling her towards the door.
Steph had just thrown some toiletries into an overnight bag in the bathroom and was on her way to the bedroom to grab some clothes for the following day.
Jon followed her and pulled her down onto the bed with him and leaned over her. “Or we could stay here a while.”
She reached up to kiss him when the phone rang making them both fall back on the bed and laugh.
“Are you getting that?”
“They can leave a message.” She leaned in to kiss him, but as the caller’s voice was heard she sighed and the moment was lost.
“Steph, it’s me, Simon. I miss you, babe, and seeing you tonight made me realise just how much I miss you, how much I love you. Please, Steph, pick up if you’re there or call me when you get back, maybe I could come round and we could talk about us.”
The line went dead. “Do you want me to go? You can call your boyfriend back and sort things out with him.”
“No.” She answered immediately and without delay got up, crawling over him until she straddled his groin. “I don’t have a boyfriend. I told you that we were over and I meant it. I have no interest in Simon. I don’t want to see him or speak to him and I want to meet with him to discuss ‘us’ even less. Let me get my clothes for work tomorrow and we can go, unless you still want to stay here for a while?”
“No, get your stuff and let’s go back to mine, but this thing with your ex-boyfriend is no longer a one off.” He moved Steph into a sitting position on the bed. “Wear trousers for work tomorrow and try to look less attractive as I will be on the other side of town to you for half of it.” He smiled but was still serious she thought.
“Yes, boss.” Getting to her feet, she gave him something between a wave and a sarcastic little salute.
He smiled at her, genuinely amused by her. “Do you drive to work?”
“Sometimes, but mainly I get the tube, which is usually quicker into the city, but I drive in the evening and at weekends, like last night. Why?” Her curiosity was piqued by his apparently random question.
“Is your car parked outside?” he asked without answering her question.
She nodded which resulted in him just staring at her.
“Yes,” she huffed.
“So Simon knows your car and could use that as an indication in the evenings to tell if you’re at home or not?”
“I suppose so,” she conceded.
“I don’t like the idea of that. I’ll give that some thought,” he said almost to himself more than her.
Steph had already put underwear, socks and boots into her bag and had pulled out a grey pinstripe trouser suit and a white, button through blouse from the wardrobe when she turned to face him. “Come on then.”
They reached the underground car park again and Steph was beginning to feel a little nervous. Maybe this was too planned. Where was the spontaneity? She knew this had been her idea, to have sex before deciding if they were compatible, if the option of her becoming his mistress was actually an option at all!
She jumped as the car door opened next to her.
“Are you okay? Second thoughts?” Jon stood, holding the door open for her.
“What? No, of course not,” she replied as she got out of the car and came face to face with him. Suddenly, she felt a little more at ease as his blue eyes studied her expression and he smiled.
“You’re sure?” He brushed the few stray hairs from her face. “There really is no pressure on you, Steph?—”
She almost lunged at him to kiss him and as she wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him closer he met her lips eagerly before pulling away slightly. “Okay, no second thoughts then.”
He picked her bag up off the back seat and took her hand before leading her to the lift where a young, blonde man was already waiting. As it arrived he gestured for Steph to enter before him. She smiled as she did so and saw Jon frowning as he joined her and ‘blonde guy’ in the lift.
“Which floor?” asked Steph who was standing next to the lift panel.
“Ten please,” replied the blonde man smiling at her.
She selected floors ten and fifteen, then stood back against the wall.
“This may sound a cliché, but do I know you?” asked the man.
Steph smiled and shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Stephanie, you were friends with Lindsay,” he said slightly surer of himself now.
“Yes,” said Steph hesitantly.
“South Road Technical College. I’m Ade Davis. I did engineering and you did A-level maths in the room next to me. My friend dated one of your friends for a while, but I was never brave enough to ask you out.” He blushed slightly.
“No way!” she exclaimed and then laughed. “I remember you now. Lindsay had a bit of a crush on you at college.”
“Wow. I didn’t know that.” He laughed too before Jon interrupted.
“Sorry, I hate to interrupt your trip down memory lane, but we appear to be approaching your floor,” he said sarcastically.
“Sorry, no offence meant,” said Ade as the lift stopped and the doors opened. “See you around,” he added as the lift doors closed after him.
“What the fuck is it with you?” Jon stepped closer to her. “He couldn’t take his eyes off you as you got into the lift, although your arse is very impressive and then he was positively drooling as you turned to look at him.”
“It must be my natural allure.” She smiled as he cornered her against the door.
“I think it must be because I would quite happily do you right here, right now,” he said as he brushed her lips with his and bit her bottom lip gently.
She giggled, enjoying the banter, appreciating a slightly lighter hearted Jon, but more than that wanting to tease him a little. “And I would let you.”
The door began to open and as she fell backwards he grabbed her and pulled her towards him, a grin curling his lips, “Careful, you’ll crease your suit if you throw yourself around like that.”