Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Joshua
While Dexter was at the bar, I took a deep breath as I mentally flipped through my day so far.
First Hartford had arrived, which had been .
. . unsettling. Then Eric’s news at lunch had the potential to devastate my business and the hundreds of employees who depended on me.
It was only Tuesday. What else did this week from hell have in store?
I wasn’t sure a pint and a chat with my mates was going to make me feel any better. But it couldn’t make me feel worse.
“You seem deep in thought.” Dexter, one of my best friends, set a drink down in front of me and took a seat. “Did you suggest a drink because you want to talk about your feelings?”
“How did you guess?” I grinned, trying to act as if I didn’t feel the pressure from Eric’s announcement.
I might not want to talk about it, but I didn’t want to go home and mope either.
It was unusual of me to suggest an impromptu drink to our group of friends on a Tuesday.
Normally, Tuesdays meant working until I met Kelly for a drink before going back to hers.
Or to a hotel. I didn’t like people in my space, so my flat was kind of off-limits to women.
Which was one of the reasons I’d taken the flat next door for Hartford.
I had an extra bedroom in my place, but Hartford was pretty much a stranger to me.
Hartford.
“You pick up that girl from the airport today?” he asked, almost reading my thoughts.
“Yup.” I’d complained to the guys at our drinks last week that I was getting a new neighbor. But that news had paled in comparison to what I’d heard at lunch.
“Is she the reason for this . . . mood you’re in?”
I wasn’t in a bad mood. I was just tense, which wasn’t my normal M.O.
Not only was I facing my business being upended, I couldn’t shake the feeling of disquiet that had settled with Hartford’s arrival.
Normally I’d go home and have a soak in the bath.
But with Hartford next door, what I’d normally do didn’t seem so appealing.
I’d expected to give some vaguely familiar kid a lift back into town, give her a key to the residence next door and then get on with my day.
But when she appeared . . . there she was. Unexpected.
Despite the haziness of my memories, Hartford was instantly recognizable. She gave off a feeling of warmth and familiarity that should have been comforting. And it was. And it wasn’t.
“I’m not in any kind of mood.”
“Has Miss Tuesday Night dumped you?”
I wasn’t sure what irritated me the most about Dexter and the rest of my circle calling Kelly “Miss Tuesday Night.” Maybe it was the way it made her sound like a chore, or the way it made me sound like a slave to routine.
Sex was never a chore and I wasn’t anyone or anything’s slave. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Oh that’s right, she can’t have dumped you.
Because first you would have had to be in an actual relationship.
” Since Dexter had gotten together with Hollie, he’d become one of those men who thought everyone was better off with a serious girlfriend.
I’d been down that route and didn’t plan to travel it again.
“In case you’ve forgotten, I got down on one knee way before you did.”
He didn’t even try to hide his wince. “I know, mate.”
Tristan interrupted the two of us and took his waiting pint without even saying hello. After a long sip, he sat on the small stool between us.
“Thirsty?” Dexter asked.
“Only for attention.” I smirked at my own joke and Tristan rolled his eyes.
“Joshua was just telling us about Hartford,” Dexter said.
“No, actually, I wasn’t. I didn’t suggest a drink so we could discuss women. You should know me better than that.” I wanted to be surrounded by people in my corner. People I could count on to be cheering for me.
“I thought Miss Tuesday Night was named Kelly,” Tristan said. “Did she break up with you?”
“You’re correct that I usually see Kelly on Tuesdays. And no, we didn’t break up. We’re not in a relationship that can be broken up from.” Kelly and I were strictly no strings. There wasn’t any expectation of anything more from either side. That was how we both liked it.
“Okay then, Mr. Pouty. Did Kelly tell you she didn’t want to have sex with you on Tuesday nights?”
“No. She’s just busy tonight.” It was a lie. I’d been the one to cancel our plans. I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind for shagging.
“So, who’s Hartford?” Tristan asked.
How were we still on this topic?
“Joshua, who’s Hartford?” Tristan was relentless.
“The daughter of a friend of my mother’s.
” That underplayed our connection. My mum and Marion—Hartford’s mother—spoke to each other at least five times a day.
I could guarantee my mother’s best friend knew how often my dad took a shit.
And I’d grown up with the Kent kids. Or more specifically, I’d been best friends with Patrick and developed my flirting skills on Thea. And then there was Hartford.
Hartford, the gangly kid with her head in the clouds, now a woman who walked up to me and wrapped me in a hug like she was my best friend.
Her shapeless scrubs hid what felt like quite the grown-up body beneath.
I’d tried to think of something else as her breasts pressed against my chest, but I found myself swapping my thoughts of her breasts to the feel of her lips ever-so-close to my neck.
“Right, and why are we talking about her?” Tristan asked.
“Joshua picked her up from the airport and he’s not been himself since,” Dexter said. It was meant to be a joke but it cut a little too close to the truth for my liking.
“Is she hot?” Tristan was nothing if not on-brand.
“Not my type.” That was true. Nothing about Hartford reminded me of the women I usually spent time with. I was accustomed to women who looked like they just stepped out of the pages of Vogue, and sometimes they had. Glamorous, beautiful women.
Hartford, on the other hand, clearly didn’t give a crap about her appearance. Her hair looked like it had gone five rounds with a cat before being piled on top of her head, and there was no trace of makeup or carefully chosen wardrobe.
But there was no doubt she was beautiful.
I didn’t like surprises. But everything about Hartford’s high cheekbones, full pink lips, and very grown-up body had knocked me off my feet.
I wasn’t sure whether it was the way she was so open and unfiltered, or the way she clearly wasn’t impressed with me, but something about her had thrown me sideways.
As we drove home from the airport, she’d chattered away.
I’d been trying to figure out what exactly it was about her that was so unsettling.
Then she bit into her apple and groaned at the taste, the noise shooting sparks right to my groin.
Images swooped into my brain of her naked, riding me, her head thrown back, her nails digging into my chest.
That’s what was disconcerting. I was imagining having Hartford naked in my bed.
Hartford, the gangling kid sister of a girl I practiced my flirting on.
Hartford, the daughter of my mother’s closest friend.
Hartford, my new neighbor.
I needed to give her some space. Or more accurately, I needed to give myself some space from her.
There was no way I was going to cross the line with Hartford.
There were too many reasons why it was a bad idea.
First, she was so far from my type it was actually comical.
Second, I wasn’t about to have casual sex with someone who might end up hurt, especially when that someone was so inextricably linked to my family, and most importantly, I didn’t do relationships. Ever.
Hartford was only next door for three months and then she’d be gone. Between now and then, my time would be taken up trying to stop my business from going under.
I glanced up as Andrew took a seat at the table. I hadn’t expected him to make it.
“So, why are we here?” Andrew asked, peeling off his suit jacket and carefully placing it on a free seat behind him.
“I’m trying to figure out a way of stopping my business from collapsing.”
“Collapsing?” Dexter asked. “What’s happened?”
“My biggest client just bought a pharmaceuticals business.”
“Who? GCVB?” Tristan picked up his pint. “Why would a luxury goods company buy a pharma company?”
“Maybe they want to repackage the muscle relaxants?” It wasn’t the right time for Dexter to crack jokes. “Apart from that not making business sense—why is that a problem for you?”
“It’s more than a problem.” I told them how Eric wanted to appoint one agency for the entire enlarged group.
“Right,” Andrew said. “But you’ve won the pitch every time. You’ll end up doing Merdon’s branding and advertising as well as the rest of the companies in the group.”
“We brand and market luxury goods,” I said. “Not pharmaceuticals. We have zero experience. There’s no way Eric is going to have us do the branding and marketing for Merdon.”
“Looks like you might have to go full time and figure this out,” Dexter said.
I couldn’t suppress an eye-roll. “I do work full time. I’m in a creative industry; number of hours at my desk doesn’t correlate with productive output.
” I wasn’t in the mood for Dexter giving me a hard time about not working long-enough hours.
I needed to try to devise a plan, a way out of what was sure to be wreckage.
“First step, hire some people who know pharma,” Andrew said. “GCVB obviously knows and likes you. It’s not a foregone conclusion that they’re going to drop you. I know a few people. I’ll put you in touch.”
Luca Brands was the best there was in the luxury goods market. Eric knew that. But he also knew that I didn’t know anything about pharma. Then again, I hadn’t gotten to where I was by giving up. If Luca Brands was going to go down, we’d go down fighting.
“Every pitch you go into, you end up winning,” Dexter said. “Yes, this is a different industry, but the underlying business of what you do is the same. You’ve got this. I have no doubt.”
I exhaled. This was why I’d cancelled on Kelly. I needed someone to tell me this was doable. Who better than the men who knew me better than I knew myself—and all of them titans in their own industries?
“And in the meantime, you have a hot new neighbor you can distract yourself with,” Tristan said.
“I can tell you now that I’m never going to touch Hartford. Not like that. Not at all.”
There were lots of logical reasons to stay away from Hartford that mainly involved her connection to my family.
More than that, the overriding reason I planned to avoid Hartford was because today, riding home with her in the car, I’d felt like a teenager again.
Like I’d done before I’d launched Luca Brands.
Before I’d made my first million. Before I’d been dumped by my fiancée.
It was unsettling—like traveling backward through time in my own body—which was exactly what I didn’t need at the moment.
Saving my business and my employees meant I had to be laser focused.
Nothing about the next few months was going to involve unsettling women who’d moved in next door.
I was going to be fighting for my professional life.
Hartford might be a doctor, but she didn’t have a cure for my condition.