Chapter 34
Theo
Do you know the joke about the tart and the prude?
I’m pretty sure what the punchline should be, but it’s not working out like that. Because I’m the punchline.
I’ve gone and fallen for the most uptight, obstinate, prudish, judgemental woman I’ve ever met.
Hook, line and sinker.
Because, it turns out, she’s also warm and vibrant and smart and kind and witty and, in the biggest twist of all, sexy and wild as fuck when she’s unleashed.
When she lets someone in.
She let me in, but the joke’s on me. Because Nora Wilder, with two whole notches on her bedpost, seems capable of walking away from this intoxicating thing we have unscathed, focusing only on her starry-eyed dream of a golden prince who can keep her safe.
And I’m the dark, debauched villain who seduced her and arguably brought her back to life, but I’m not the one she wants. My spells and charms have dazzled her temporarily, but she doesn’t see them as real.
I light up her world in brief, blinding flares that blaze and die.
My light isn’t constant enough for her.
I’m smoke and mirrors, and she wants bricks and mortar. Safety.
Fucking hell.
I’m talking about myself as if I’m a cautionary tale straight out of the Brothers Grimm.
I truly have lost the fucking plot.
I know Nora can’t be completely unaffected by what we have.
At the very least, there’s no way she instantly goes from almost a decade of monogamy to being able to have sex like that and not feel a damn thing.
She may be more experienced than me with relationships—after all, she’s actually had one, unlike me—but I’m far more experienced at sex.
And no matter what I told her, what happens between the two of us when I’m inside her is not fucking normal.
I’ve been watching her—honestly, I’ve been doing nothing else but drink in every single thing she does—and she’s as addicted to me as I am to her.
She’s not just horny. She’s drawn to me like I am to her.
We can’t stay away from each other. We fall asleep wrapped around each other.
Wake up pressed against each other. We seek each other out at every turn.
When I cooked for her last night, she stood behind me, her arms wrapped around my waist and her cheek against my back for most of the time I was standing at the hob.
It felt… right.
When we begrudgingly got our laptops out after dinner, we top-and-tailed on the terrace sofa. Her legs tucked between mine as we sat there and typed away. Exchanging knowing, easy smiles whenever we glanced up at each other.
Just like a real couple.
Just like how I would sit with my girlfriend if we lived together.
The funny thing is, this fake relationship with Nora is by far the realest one I’ve ever had.
Actually, it’s not funny at all.
Because I love her.
I’m so fucking in love with her I can’t breathe. I’m a mess.
I get it now. The sensation of wanting more for another person than for yourself. The feeling that you’re living your entire life through the lens of whether they’re happy. The experience of not being able to breathe unless you’re breathing their air.
My entire consciousness has zeroed in on one woman. One woman who I’m with, and yet can’t have.
Not properly.
In one respect, I’ve opened her eyes to what’s possible. To the amazing power that lies inside her own body. And because of that, she can’t get enough of me.
But in another, she sees me exactly as my family sees me.
As everyone sees me. As I allow people to see me, because I’ve never provided them with an alternative.
I’m a flake. A happy-go-lucky party boy, with a smile for everyone and a commitment for no one.
Dancing to my own tune, fucking off to start over in New York because I feel like it.
I know it’ll hurt her to walk away from me. Nowhere near as much as it’ll fucking kill me, but still. She’ll do it because she has a clear vision of the kind of life she wants, and who am I, with my loaded and relatively functional family, to look down on her dream?
No one.
And as if that’s not bad enough, this morning I have a charmingly convenient opportunity to kill two birds with one stone while my fake girlfriend slash real love of my life spends the day in Hertfordshire at a wedding she’s planned.
Because today I have a meeting with The Montague Group’s VP Finance.
Otherwise known as Jonathan Holmes.
It’s awkward as fuck, sitting right beside this guy at a huge white table in a conference room in our City office. Yeah. Beside. Because while I explain my proposals for Manhattan, he’ll be building a financial model on his laptop to quantify said proposals.
We shake hands, exchange some terse small talk from which the N-word is carefully omitted by silent agreement, and get down to it.
Once we’re sitting, I sneak a look at him.
The guy has a couple of inches on me and, I’d guess, a couple of stone.
He’s in beige chinos and a bulky checked shirt under a navy v-neck jumper.
He’s so fucking Sloaney—I bet he drives an ancient Landrover.
I swear, he’s late twenties going on fifty. The guy screams dad.
Which is exactly what Nora is so desperate for. A man who can give her the stability her own father couldn’t. She’s got abandonment issues. Serious daddy issues. And Jonathan fucking Holmes is her self-coined solution.
Jesus.
He breaks my train of thought, his fingers hovering over the keyboard and an empty spreadsheet ready on his screen. ‘Why don’t you give me an idea of what you’re planning. Then I can start building it out?’
‘Sure.’ I pull up the presentation I’ve been working on.
‘There are a few ways we can go. A few moving parts. Like a membership club. A complete aesthetic revamp. Most extreme, the conversion of a couple of floors into apartments. So we’re looking at a lot of CapEx, and possibly a far greater variety of revenue streams.’ I exhale.
‘And I don’t have the first clue where to start with modelling that. ’
‘No problem.’ He rubs his hands together. ‘We’ll build several scenarios for each of those ventures, and we’ll make them fully dynamic so we can change up whatever inputs we like.’
I shrug. ‘Sounds good. Let’s start with the club concept.’
He’s calm. Methodical. And surprisingly effective.
I watch in awe as he builds models for each part of my business plan, keeping them simple—though he tells me he’ll build out the detail later—and talking me through them as he goes.
Explaining how he’s arriving at the initial assumptions he’s inputting, and how we can change them to stress-test the cost and revenue forecasts.
We sit there for two hours, drinking coffee and fiddling around on Excel, and it goes by surprisingly quickly.
Not only does Holmes build the model, but he shares his views on how feasible the various projects are, how soon they may cover their costs and what levels of capital we’d need to consider to fund them.
It’s eye-opening and surprisingly absorbing.
Once we have something that looks pretty damn professional to my eyes, he turns to me.
‘I’ll keep playing with this. I want to add detail in. I’ll send it over tomorrow.’
‘That would be great, mate.’
‘Not a problem.’ His eyes flicker back to the screen. ‘It’s quite fun seeing it all come together. Looks like a solid plan. Aggressive, but do-able.’
‘Thank you. I appreciate you saying that.’
He doesn’t meet my eyes. Drums his fingers on the table.
‘So, would Nora move out there with you? If you took the lead on this?’
The blood rushes to my head.
It’s now or never.
I swivel my chair to face him and push back so we’re not creepily close.
‘Mate.’ I swallow. ‘I need to talk to you about something.’
He looks up. ‘What’s that?’
Fuck.
I feel lightheaded. Can’t believe I’m here. That I’m about to do this. About to ruin everything I have. But I’m not, because I don’t have her. She’s only mine on loan. She doesn’t see me as a long-term prospect. She made that abundantly clear the other night. Practically had to spell it out for me.
‘Do you still love him?’
‘Yeah. I do.’
This guy, who should be nothing to me except for a walking spreadsheet, holds Nora’s happiness in his hands.
I don’t know how the fuck he walked away from her.
He’s so average. So forgettable. And I know the way he fucked her must have been just as forgettable, because the way she’s responded to me…
Let’s just say she doesn’t strike me as someone for whom those kind of orgasms are the norm.
And yet, she wants him. Because, unlike me, Nora is capable of making life decisions based on something other than the needs of her sex organs, which I respect. Intimacy and loyalty and steadfastness are important to her. Crucial. And they’re things she doesn’t believe I can give her.
He dumped her, I tell myself. He doesn’t fucking deserve this. He’s with someone else.
He’s what she wants, I counter. He’s all she wants, and you said you’d get him for her. You had a deal. And all you want is for her to be happy.
Atruism.
It really fucking sucks.
I clear my throat.
Just say it.
‘It’s about Nora.’