Chapter 10 Lily
LILY
Is it normal to google your boss compulsively, every night? Asking for a… me.
Jokes. It’s not normal. I’m not normal.
My life has been taken over by thoughts of a man with soft brown hair and sharp cheekbones. A square jaw and the most amazing violet eyes.
I tried to get information from the women at work. Subtly. They look at me like I’m nuts, and shake their heads. They say I don’t want to know about the Devil of Croydon. That people who ask questions about him end up in body bags.
I haven’t heard from my aunt or cousin, which is a relief, and I choose not to wonder why they haven’t found me.
Instead, my head is filled with Mr Anderson. The more we work together, and have dinner together, the more obsessed I become.
Evidence: I imagine I see him everywhere.
I don’t spend a lot of time away from Mr Anderson, but when I go out to buy milk or take a walk, I see flashes of violet eyes in the strangers who pass by.
I think I like—so much more than like—my boss to the extent that I’m attributing to him what’s just random good luck.
Repeat after me: billionaire mafia bosses do not stalk normal girls with brown hair and podge around the middle, who are half their age.
Also: stalking is bad, unhealthy behaviour and a sign of obsession, not love.
I wish he were stalking me.
Gah.
He’s been very kind, but if Mr Anderson stalked anyone, it’d be someone really special and beautiful.
Someone who was his equal in brains and bravery.
So as much as the evidence points that way, and I kid myself, I’m aware it’s a dream.
Every time I convince myself that I’m being followed, and try to trap my stalker, I end up doubting my sanity. I feel him, but I can’t catch him.
Besides, it can’t be Mr Anderson. We’re together nearly all the time.
I work in his office all day, then there are a few painful hours after work where I wonder if this will be the day that he decides he doesn’t want me to have dinner with him.
I live for having dinner with him, and god but he’s so easy to talk to.
About work, obviously, but other stuff too.
Books and films and food. I don’t know a lot about the Waltham mafia, though I try to remember things that might be useful to him.
But somehow it always ends up that I’m telling him about myself.
Every evening, he knocks on my door and asks me to taste whatever unspeakably delicious thing he’s cooked, or tells me he made too much pasta, or that the grocery service delivered two steaks instead of one.
And I act surprised, then conceal that I’m finding ways to dawdle over my food like I’m a picky toddler so I can spend longer with him.
His portion control is terrible though. And he eats a lot of toasted cheese sandwiches for a man with an amazingly trim waistline. Not that I’ve been looking. Much.
Okay, I’ve spent the time between work and dinner with Mr Anderson—Kane, sometimes I allow myself the little treat of thinking of him by that name—examining every photograph of him that the internet can provide.
Afterwards, he walks me back to my apartment—even though it’s just next door, and kisses me on the forehead, exactly as he did the first night as my boss.
We keep up this farce. He pretends I’m not basically a stray puppy he adopted, and I pretend I don’t want to hump his leg.
In short, I have a terrible crush on my boss.
Reading about how he clawed his way up the roughest London mafia makes me tingle with pride.
Seeing comments about how Croydon is the most dangerous part of London, and that you shouldn’t cross its kingpin sends electricity zinging down my spine.
Waltham used to be influential, but I’ve heard nothing since I left, like Croydon has consumed me. Hidden me.
And the Devil of Croydon is my boss. He chose me to work for him, and have dinner with him. I might just be his pet, but that’s cool. I’ll be his pet. If he strokes and feeds me, I’d wear a tail and lick… Literally any and every part of his body he’d allow.
The internet searches are not sufficient though. I’ve worked for Mr Anderson for two weeks, and I’m… Itchy.
I crave more.
And I guess that’s why when he mentioned that on Friday he was going to the London Mafia Syndicate meeting my mind whirled with potential… I assured him I was fine, and implemented the most stupid plan in the world.
Stealing from a mafia boss is suicide, I am aware of this.
If he catches me, he’ll know it’s not for money.
Not since the bank reached out to me and informed me that the account my parents left me has been verified as mine, and has a million in it.
Apparently, my uncle and my idea of “nothing” vary somewhat. I’m still staggered it’s so much.
So, stealing from my boss would be for trophies. Pieces of Mr Anderson to treasure. But I’m not actually his puppy, and the key to his apartment is not a sock.
Plus, trespass? He has killed people for far, far less.
I hear Mr Anderson’s door open and close then wait as long as I can bear—about fifteen minutes—then let myself into Mr Anderson’s home, my phone in my hand to…
Yeah, look I have my new work phone because that thing has a kick-ass camera, and I’m not above taking some snaps to keep me going through nights without my boss.
I tell myself that I’m just looking around out of curiosity.
To an extent, I back up that claim admirably, wandering through the rooms that I haven’t seen.
I’m not surprised to discover a home gym with weights big enough to crush an elephant and wear marks that prove it’s not for show.
His library is amazing. It’s fitted with pale wood bookshelves and a smooth hardwood floor and there’s a ladder.
I find my heart is ready to sail out of the window when I see that it’s all thriller paperbacks.
He told me he enjoyed reading crime thrillers, the sort of pulpy ones you see in corner shops on a tiny shelf, and it was the truth. He has thousands, all with the spine broken down the middle and creased in the same two places on either side.
As brutal and uncompromising with his reading as he is with everything else.
I spend a few minutes imagining Kane with glasses on, sitting in that comfortable chair by the window, reading a book. My mind fills in me on his lap, or at his feet. His arm around my shoulders and his fingers tight in my hair to stop me from moving away.
Heat gathers between my legs, and I say to myself it’s to get rid of that vision that I leave the room and wander through the corridor, peeking in through doors.
But where I’m headed? Ooof, it’s his bedroom. Of course.
I know immediately that it’s his room, not a guest bedroom. It smells like him, to start with. The walls are painted a purple so dark it’s almost black.
Petrifying mafia boss has a bedroom the colour of his eyes when the pupils are blown.
It’s otherwise plain. A shelf of books, a suit hanging on the wardrobe door. My eyes are drawn to his bed. It’s predictably enormous, with black sheets in a fabric with a soft sheen.
My obsession has been fed by wandering around his home, and now it’s bold. Strong. Reckless.
I lie on the bed, flat on my tummy. My head on the pillow, I push my face into the softness and breathe it in.
It smells like Kane. I don’t know about fancy aftershaves, or what’s sandalwood or black pepper or patchouli.
All I know is that I want to roll in this like I’m a cat with catnip.
Between my legs curls with sensation and I sniff again, trying to save it somehow.
As though if I smell him enough here, I’ll remember it later…
Later in bed, when my fingers are on my clit.
My breasts are squashed into the covers, and experimentally, I shift. The cotton of my top chafes my nipples and sends sparks showering down my torso.
Mmhm.
It’s a crazy instinct, but I shuffle my knees forward, until my butt is in the air, my little skirt exposing the knickers that my stalker gave me. Or a “mistake” by the online store. Huh. As if.
Or Mr Anderson? My heart slams at the thought. Maybe. Just maybe it was him.
A fantasy unreels in my mind, so very vague and instinctual. I’m here like a cat in heat. Mr Anderson could find me, rip off my knickers, and take me.
So dirty.
Warm tingles sensitise the back of my neck, as though the hairs are standing on end from someone’s regard.
I ignore the feeling. Mr Anderson is out. I know that. I have hours to be as outrageous as I want.
A crazy cat lady usually means something else, but in this case I’m a crazy pussy girl, writhing on her boss’ bed and sticking her pussy up, dreaming of it being claimed.
Doggy style, isn’t it called? That’s what he’d do with me, his pet puppy. I giggle manically into the pillow. I’ve lost it. I’m restless and achy. I have all these new feelings whenever Mr Anderson’s big body is near me, and being in his bed is causing those same sensations to echo through me.
A lock clicks.
There’s the sweep of a door opening, and I stop, shock still.
Did I just dream that?
A soft rustle of fabric. My mind fills in Mr Anderson taking off his jacket, shrugging one strong shoulder then the other.
Oh. Shite.
No time for thirst, Lily. Get off the bed.
He’s home. How is he home? I don’t get it. He said he’d be out all evening.
I roll off Mr Anderson’s bed and look desperately around. The wardrobe. He won’t find me there. My heart is slamming against my ribs.
His footsteps echo, slow and deliberate, as he walks through the hallway.
The wardrobe opens with the silence of luxury. No squeak or clatter. Diving into his shirts, I realise a major flaw with my strategy. Wardrobes don’t have handles on the inside, and this one is a mirrored door. There’s no way for me to close it fully.
And it’s dark. Only a crack of light from the room. This never happens in movies!
I have to shut the door. Have to. There’s no way Mr Anderson won’t notice. If he comes in. If.
Casting around, before I’ve thought I draw a hanger down and I’m on my knees. The metal hook slides under the door as Mr Anderson’s footsteps draw closer. I pull it up, and drag at the door. I’m panicking.
His steps stop as the wardrobe door clicks shut.
I breathe a sigh of relief.
Sinking down, I shuffle back further, into Mr Anderson’s shirts, the soft cotton brushing my cheek.
Probably he’ll go to his lounge. It’s early. He’ll make a cup of tea, surely? Maybe he’ll have a shower and I can sneak out while he’s busy.
Even so, I hold my breath and turn my face into his shirts. They smell of him. Fresh and spicy and I can’t help breathing it in.
It’s quiet. I’m safe. I’ll just stay here with my crush’s shirts, sniffing them like a nutter. An obsessed girl.
I sit in the dark, eyes closed, having progressed to holding one of his shirts and rubbing my face into it. I’m really not normal.
This is not a normal thing to do.
But it’s okay. I’m going to indulge this impulse and Mr Anderson will never know. I just have to wait—
The door swings open and I snap my head up to look into Mr Anderson’s face, towering above me.
“What the hell, Lily?” he growls as he grabs my wrists and drags me to my feet. “What are you doing with my shirts?”