Chapter 5
FIVE
MAGGIE
They are probably in there eating my damn cookies and laughing over how pathetic I am. A blister still clings to the edge of my hand where I’d burnt myself baking the treats in some misguided attempt to—I don’t know—make him believe I wanted sugar? Make him like me?
Liking me isn’t necessary.
Roman and I have a job to do. Together. I just need him to tolerate me for a week. That’s it.
My bed accepts me ten minutes later, mouth minty fresh and pyjamas matching, for a change.
Enveloped in the pillowy soft bedding, I inhale the clean scent of the sheets.
Having a fancy sleep always reminds me of home.
The holy trifecta: clean pyjamas, clean sheets, and freshly shaven legs.
When the staff took care of the washing, having everything freshly laundered every day hadn’t crossed my mind.
Living on my own, it sure did. So a fancy sleep once a week had to do.
Shit.
I’d have to share a room with Roman at Dad’s. A bed. Despite myself, my pulse skips. It has been a very long time since I shared a bed with anyone, and even then, never for more than a night or two. My brand of weird puts guys off of anything more than a quick roll in the hay.
A noise behind my headboard has me holding my breath, focusing on what’s happening on the other side of the wall.
Giggles.
Murmurs.
Scuffs.
Closing my eyes, I picture the woman I’d seen through the peephole in Roman’s thick, veiny arms. His fingers sinking into her dark curls as he tips her face…
Involuntarily, my thighs squeeze together, applying a little pressure just where I crave it.
The woman is leggy and curvy, her short dress fitting her like a dream. A stab of jealousy hits. I’ve lived next to Roman for years, and it took stealing his key impressions for him to look me in the eye properly, yet he takes other women home and doesn’t even give them his real name.
What would this one be screaming through the wall? Chris? Raef? I wonder if it ever bothers him to have every name, but his own moaned at him. That’s got to grate after a few years.
Whatever he needs to do to maintain the delicate palace of lies that he surrounds himself with.
The moaning next door increases in volume and ferocity, and I hate the way it makes me squirm against the duvet.
I screw my eyes shut, but the imaginings in my mind only increase in vividness. Strong fingers pressing open thighs. Fine stubble grazing tender skin. A wet tongue…
Oh god.
Turning over, I punch my pillow in annoyance, shaping it into a more solid lump. Hating the burning need inside me, I straddle it, matching my grinding to the knocking of his headboard on my wall. Each thud fills me with a hot jealousy.
Cries.
Squeals.
‘Fuck me’s’
‘He’s not even that attractive,’ I whimper, losing the battle against the sensations between my legs. ‘Just another lying fuckboy.’
Tell your vulva that.
The banging next door builds, intertwined with increasingly desperate moans. My own included.
‘Eli,’ comes the feminine voice next door, a ragged plea.
‘Roman,’ I whisper-moan, a seed of satisfaction at knowing his name when she doesn’t. Waves of pleasure take over, forcing me to abandon any thoughts as I pursue that moment of sheer bliss.
Roman lets out a groan that reverberates through the wall, a deep masculine sound that steals my breath and makes my thighs clench hard.
Pressing my face into my pillow, I give in, coming in a furious wave.
I come up for air when my pulse isn’t ricocheting in my throat like a hive of bees at a rave. My face is sweaty, my pyjama bottoms are wet, and my pillow is pulverised.
Stripping, I throw my pyjama bottoms and pillow into the wash basket, then find a pair of mismatched shorts and yank them on. I grab a spare pillow from the mirrored wardrobe and collapse in bed, feeling sated yet irate.
Roman and the stranger culminate their lovemaking with a noisy crescendo, and every moan feels like a personal insult.
I hope he wraps his junk at least. The only thing worse than listening to his sex life would be listening to a crying baby.
Assuming he survives my dad’s wedding.
MAGGIE
‘So sorry, Bill, I know I’ve got time off in two weeks, but my fever makes me woozy every time I stand. I really can’t make it in.’ I rattle out another pathetic cough, hamming up my performance.
Thankfully, Bill is mildly terrified of women. Even me, his lowly personal assistant/chief coffee fetcher. Any conflict with a woman makes him quake, as if he were built on a fault line.
Bill’s silence on the other side of the line has me doubting my acting skills. I cough again, trying my best to make it as thick and snotty-sounding as possible. The revulsion of it actually makes me heave, the essence of the chocolate croissant I ate for breakfast revisiting.
Cue a disgusted grunt from the receiver.
‘No. No. You get yourself back to bed, kiddo. I’ll borrow Greta’s PA if I need to today. Take tomorrow too. I have a golfing trip at the weekend and don’t want that.’
Hand me the Emmy already.
A day stalking my target and a day to myself? Score.
Roman should be leaving in a few minutes—he always does on a Tuesday morning.
Unfortunately, the inconvenience of my having a job means I don’t know how long he’ll be gone.
Fingers crossed he’s off having a big old gym session and not just popping out for milk.
He’s got to be racking up gym time looking the way he does.
All six foot and change of him. This presents me with another problem.
How do you kidnap a man who makes you look like a Polly Pocket next to him?
Logistically, I know the answer. You paralyse him with drugs and get the cable ties out. But how would I manhandle him down three flights of stairs without anyone seeing us? How do I even move a massive ass dead weight like Roman-fucking-Ellis?
A problem for future Maggie to ponder over, for sure.
Standing in front of my wall of Roman—which is actually more of a corkboard of Roman—I pull my hair back into a knot.
Not that I figure he’ll be scouring his apartment for evidence of me having been there, but knowing how many long dark hairs I find when I clean my own home, I opt to mitigate the risk.
The central image on my vision board is Roman smiling out at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners. So bloody happy for a hypocrite. Suits my purposes, though.
A rough schedule covers one side of the sheet, gappier than a six-year-old’s mouth. One reason for today’s invasion is to see if I can scope out his daily schedule and what he has planned for our week away. Can’t have anyone reporting him missing.
The throaty grumble of his motorbike draws me to the window, where Roman pulls down the visor of his helmet, flexing his leather-clad biceps as he does. Such a cocky twat.
‘Okay, Maggie. It’s go time. Get in, get out.’
Grabbing the neon duck-covered tote bag that contains my instruments, I take the copied key and leave my apartment, pulse skipping like a scratched CD.
Trying to channel my inner Pink Panther, I close my door behind me and slink over to his apartment.
The door looms like a bodyguard, the last defence between Roman’s life and me.
I feel more like a stumbling panda than a sleek Pink Panther as I try to calm my shaking hand enough to get the key in the door.
The action is smooth, the lock clicking without any sign of the crime I’m committing.
If Roman were a better guy, I wouldn’t be doing this. I remind myself.
And just like that, I’m in.
The house is suspiciously clean. Like, dude might have a problem clean. Not a single dirty dish or tea-stained counter crop circle to be seen. I shudder. If Roman ever steps into my apartment, he’ll probably break out in hives.
It’s not that I’m like a grade-A slob or anything, but there are signs that I live there.
An abandoned dish here and a forgotten sock there.
Half-scribbled notes littering the face of the fridge to remind me of the billion things I’d forget if I didn’t write them somewhere.
Potted plants surviving on little more than kettle condensation and hope.
In stark contrast, Roman’s place is like a museum.
Far bigger in square footage than my postage-stamp-sized home across the hall, and everything has sleek, defined edges.
Having grown up in old money wealth—all ancient hand-me-down furniture which might have a patch on the arm, but had seated Queen Victoria’s arse at some point aeons ago—I’d never had the luxury of new money chic.
I don’t hate it.
Roman’s home suits him. The furniture wears the same gleaming leather as he, the precision edges like his sharp jaw.
Stop it.
You’d think I fancy him with the way my brain keeps interjecting my thoughts with his biceps and jaw.
It’s not like I’m taking him because I like him.
He’s just the obvious choice. Supremely local and easily blackmailable.
Pulling myself back to the task at hand, I take out the peppercorn-sized cameras and set about hiding them where I think they are most likely to be beneficial in finding out his passwords.
If I were a long-limbed, muscle-having human, where would I sit to check my fan mail? Because I have zero doubt that his followers ram their praise up his arse on a daily basis.
Low-hanging lights cascade above his kitchen island, right beside the barstools. I picture him having breakfast there, sipping a coffee, and probably eating some kind of Desperate Dan-style meat pie. Horns and all.
Yes. Perfect.
The first camera hides quite well in one of the light shades, almost blending into the dark shade behind it. Being as prepared as a scout, I already installed the app on my phone. With a bit of fiddling and only a smidge of cursing, I get the picture to pop up.
The top of the counter. Riveting.
Spying the large green flourishing plant behind the sofa, near the window, I select it as target number two.
Between jutting leaves and a far less stickable surface, I’m sweating by the time I get it positioned to show an over-the-shoulder view of the couch, the TV in the distance behind.
The sofa cushion has an optimal TV-facing position, and I hope he’s not some freak of nature who chooses some other arbitrary seat.
Only a maniac would.
With the cameras in place, it’s time to get my butt outta there. Heading for the door, I grab my duck tote and very nearly make it.
So close.
An ajar door steals my focus.
A bed.
Roman’s bed.
Behave yourself, Maggie.
Yet, like devious little souls, my feet carry me toward his inner sanctuary unbidden. Just a peek.
The room is large, stretching back to where his wall meets mine. Finally, I face it, the place where moans are made, slamming into my wall and keeping me awake for so many nights.
It looks kind of… disappointing.
I’d tried very hard not to picture the room on the other side of the wall too thoroughly, but I’d expected it to hold some hedonistic magic.
The boring grey walls envelop an equally boring white bed.
The floor-to-ceiling mirror by the bed had my eyebrows scraping my hairline.
Damn. What a view that must provide. Roman on the floor by the bed, firm hands gripping naked thighs as he lets you watch him devour you.
Right on cue, my pussy thrums.
No.
Absolutely not. Not here.
I should leave. Yet… A nugget of a thought pops into my head, worming its way deep. What if I took a photo on his bed? To send to Eliza. Would she believe that he’s my boyfriend then? There were pictures of him in this very room on his socials. It was something.
Biting my lip, I ignore the massive red warnings that sound in my head. Rummaging in his wardrobe (also perfectly fucking neat-ugh) gifts me with a T-shirt covered in the worn graphic of some old band. Lived in. Perfect.
Stripping off, I pull it over my head and let my hair down, throwing caution to the wind and mussing it up to give that freshly-fucked vibe.
It has been so long, I try to remember how tousled bed-head gets.
With a wince, I pinch my cheeks to flush them with red, and lie myself back on his bed.
I snap off a few images, looking all giggly and coy.
Choosing the best one, I send it to Eliza with the caption, ‘Skivved work to have a bed day together.’
Shoving my phone in my bag, I quickly dress myself, and in a moment of complete adrenaline-induced hysteria, I shove his t-shirt into the tote too.
Shit.
The brief laydown has his bed looking anything but the military-pristine level of tucked in.
Working from one side to the other while shoving my feet back into my shoes, I do my best to restore it to pre-Maggie perfection.
With my hair sticking to my cheeks, I get it as close as I can, gathering up my belongings and making for escape.
A key turns in his lock.
Oh god.
Oh god.
Oh god.
Panic sets in, and I circle the bedroom like a lost puppy looking for a place to wee.
This isn’t the plan.
I throw myself into his wardrobe, tucking myself deep in the hung-up shirts and blazers, trying to minimise myself beyond the realm of possibility.
Roman is going to find me in his cupboard, and my plan will be ruined. It’s one thing for my insane plan to make me need to move after I complete it, but failing?
Trying to calm my panicked breaths, I wait, listening intently as Roman moves through his apartment. Footsteps draw closer, and I squeeze my tote tight to my chest, screwing my eyes shut, as if it will magically make me invisible.
He stops outside the wardrobe, and I bite my lower lip, trying to be the most silent thing that ever silent-ed.
Moments pass as I squirm on the precipice of certain disaster.
The wardrobe opens, and he sticks an arm in, feeling for something. His fingers graze against the clothes beside me, only inches from my face.
‘Where is it?’ he grumbles. The closeness of his voice freezes me, tension pulsing through my limbs.
‘Ah!’ He yanks on a hoodie, setting it free from the coat hanger and pulls it from the wardrobe without a second glance. The door closes, and I practically implode with stress.
Too close.
Yet… excitement melds with fear at the idea of him catching me. What would he do?
Call the police, you ninny.
Maybe I could convince him to punish me instead—
Like fuck. You wish.
It takes another fifteen minutes of lurking in the darkness like a gremlin for him to leave. Extracting myself is tricky with the way my thighs protest having held my crouched position too long.
I don’t hang about.