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I’m sure you would, comes her immediate response.
Free. Gratis. On the house. I quickly send her another text as I head towards the staff entrance. I forgot to mention the arse shagger was exercised this morning.
And how was it for you? Oh. Cheeky Sadie. I like it.
I’m processing.
Or maybe imagining.
The sound of my shoes echoes in the corridor as I send her the texts in quick succession, immediately following one with another.
Just so we’re straight, the arse shagger was the dog?
I know we snuggled last night, but I guarantee you’d know if you’d had the pleasure.
I can just imagine her expression as she read that. Slack jawed and heated, hopefully imagining it, too.
Thank you for walking Sir Lancelot.
That’s it? I respond. No thanks for the snuggles?
I very much doubt snuggles were had, comes her response.
Snuggles were indeed had, and well you know it.
Well, thank you for walking Sir Lancelot.
You’re quite welcome. Still.
I chuck my bag and jacket on the desk, wondering if she’ll answer before I have to step into the fray. Fuck it. If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, I’ll just have to guilt her into in.
As thanks, you can come and support me as I play rugby tomorrow morning.
Support you? Score one for Will purely for her response. Is that some kind of euphemism? Playful, her interest is officially piqued.
Be my cheer squad of one. There’s lunch in it for you afterwards, my treat. We’re usually ravenous. Exhausted and bruised to fuck, but definitely ravenous as we head to the pub.
I don’t know. Of course, you do, Sadie!
Come on! A slap-up Sunday roast with all the trimmings? I’ll even treat you to a pint of ale and a traditional British pudding so heavy it’ll weigh in your stomach like lead.
That’s not exactly tempting, she types back.
Sadie, I know for a fact, everyone likes a bit of spotted dick.
I repeat, that’s not exactly tempting.
I’m prepping my answer when Mary, one of the senior midwives, pops her head through the door.
‘Andie’s arrived,’ she says in her delightful Dublin accent, referring to the anaesthetist, the princess having opted for an epidural.
I nod my response, barely looking up from my phone. ‘How is our illustrious patient?’
Mary steps in through the door, pulling it closed behind her. ‘Like she should be doused in feckin’ Vagisil.’
As I look up, she’s frowning.
‘What do you mean?’
Mary’s hand is already on the handle, and she’s halfway out the door as she answers.
‘Because she’s an irritating twat.’
I chuckle because she isn’t far off the mark. Her Royal Highness is more a very demanding twat.
Sport and a roast dinner are British institutions, I type out, returning to Sadie and my plans. If you refuse my invitation, I’m afraid I may be forced to contact immigration re: your refusal to assimilate. Please don’t make me.
Also, you’ll get to meet my friends, I finish with.
On the strength of that alone, count me in, comes her response. Because I think they’ll turn out to be imaginary.
It looks like I’m in for a cracking Sunday. A bit of rough on the field in the morning, followed by a lot of tumble in the sheets for the rest of the day.
I should thank Julian for being such a useless bastard, I think, as I slot my phone away. Without him, my plans wouldn’t be nearly as sweet. Which happens to be exactly what Sadie is.
I slam my desk drawer shut and adjust the slight chub I’m sporting at the thoughts of her.
Flushed chest, her nipples erect, those dilated pupils stealing the green of her eyes. Her dress tangled, like her hand in my hair. Her bottom lip trapped between her teeth as she rode my face.
From semi to fully hard in a few thoughts.
It doesn’t usually happen like this. Maybe it’s the whore angle—my excitement to be used. At the thought, I laugh.
But fuck, there’s something about her. A daring untapped.
And guess what? I am going to tap that.
Chapter Eleven
SADIE
Later that morning, after texting Will and receiving my first rugby game invite, I decide to take a walk to get out of my own head. Armed with my trusty maps app, I take a walk through Marylebone with a notion to visit Portobello Road Market, which, in my mind at least, has to be one of the world’s most famous markets. At least, to those who watch TV.
According to my maps app, it’s going to take me an hour to get there by foot, which is fine. The day after I arrived, I’d walked all the way to Westminster, saw the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, and walked across Tower Bridge, and even found my way to the Palace. And all by myself.
Walking is easy and free. But mostly, it means I avoid travelling by Tube—on the London Underground, I mean. Quite frankly, the idea terrifies me.
I get a venti iced coffee from a nearby café to keep me company on my walk as fancy mansion block apartments turn to even fancier mansions, then a shopping precinct—antiquated buildings housing fancy cafés, delis, designer clothing stores, and florists full of summer blooms. According to the internet, Marylebone village has enough to keep me occupied for a day, but I forge on. And after another twenty minutes of walking, I spy another item on my London experiences list. So I climb in a real-I-am London black cab, and cab it the rest of the way!
An item checked off my list and a save for my aching feet.
The market is a feast of the senses. I’m not sure how else to describe it. Buildings painted the shades of a box of French macaroons, the street between covered with stalls with canvas canopies. People of all creeds and ethnicities jostle on the pavement for airspace amongst the vendors touting their wares. Some cry and cajole, and some quietly serve. This has to be the most colourful corner of the capital, and the things available to buy here? You name it, I imagine it’s here, along with the kitchen sink.
Artisan breads and Mardi Gras beads. Vats of turmeric and coriander and a million other spices. A dozen antique shops, and even a stall selling nothing but silver spoons. Brightly coloured vegetables and street food. Lord, the street food!
I have a bowl of Caribbean chicken served with fragrant rice, then I devour something called a cruffin, which appears to be a cross between a muffin and a donut that is the most spectacular thing. Seriously. Topped with a yellowing French custard. I buy more bread than one person can eat and spices I have no idea when I’ll use—or for what. Then I sit outside an English pub with a glass of cool golden nectar in the form of a beer.
Today, London is good to me. I’m a million miles away from my worst fears, doing the things I imagined I would. That I’m doing them alone is okay, even if my previous daydreams included Julian holding my hand.
The thought hits me from nowhere, but I refuse to dwell.
Today London is good to me, and tomorrow might be better still.
Late in the evening, Kallie calls. I’m snug on the sofa, my hands curled around a cup of tea the colour of teak.
‘Hello, you old lush!’ she greets me. ‘How goes it in Blighty? How was your day?’
‘Hey.’ I smile at her greeting and rush of questions. ‘I’ve had a great day. I spent the day doing things I thought I’d only ever get to imagine.’
‘I knew it!’ she squeals. ‘Posh boys for the win! I reckon it must be the years they spend at boarding school getting up to God knows what, with God only knows who. It has to make them a little fluid, sexually speaking, which can only make it all the better for—’
‘Kallie, slow down,’ I say, laughing so hard I jostle my tea, spilling it on my t-shirt. ‘I was talking about my trip to Portobello Road, not . . . not anything else.’
‘Oh. Hmm. Well, that is disappointing. I thought you were talking about Will.’
‘Hang on, sleep with the what?’
‘Come on, Kallie,’ I say, disapprovingly. ‘I’m not going to screw the man who’d then charge your credit card.’ Yep, I’m a big ole hypocrite, but at least my orgasm was on the house. On his face? And my face is hot suddenly, but I think that’s possibly because of the rising steam.
‘Is that what he told you?’
‘The man is far too classy to admit anything.’ He just mostly teases me like it’s a personal commitment. ‘Firstly, it’s illegal,’ I say prissily. ‘And how the hell does he get to be both classy and crass?’
‘He was a bit of a naughty boy, was he?’
‘There’s no need to sound like you like the sound of that.’
‘Even if I like the sound of that because I can tell you like the sound of it. Like you like the sound of his incredibly posh accent?’
‘It’s not that posh.’ There’s definitely a hint of something else, but I’m not admitting that during the Kallie inquisition. She’d probably go out and by a wedding hat. ‘Also, that’s too many likes. Dial it back.’
‘Oh, I think you’ve got a thing for the blond poshy in the flashy suit,’ she sings.
‘And I think you must’ve been in the sun far too long today,’ I sing back.
‘Actually, I have been sunbathing in the garden.’
‘You usually avoid the sun.’ I take a sip of my tea now that it’s past the burn the tastebuds from my tongue stage.
‘Like a vampire,’ she intones, à la Sesame Street’s Count von Count. ‘But my mother’s coming to town to see Dee’s baby, so she’ll also start on me.’ She sighs. ‘So I’m working on turning my wheatish complexion to a tan.’
‘A little contextual background might help.’
‘When my mother turns up, I turn into Bart Simpson,’ she says by way of explanation. ‘And you can’t really tell a devout Hindu not to have a cow. Not without her needing to visit the nearest temple.’
‘But I thought Hindus didn’t eat beef, therefore don’t have a cow. Tell her as well as vegetarian, you now eat girls.’
‘That wouldn’t go down well. Ha—go down! Hindu gods might be allowed to get their same sex funk on, but not good Hindu daughters. I’m breaking my mother’s heart with a lack of husband and children already. Anyway, stop distracting me,’ she adds. ‘This call was supposed to cheer me up. But you didn’t hump the hottie.’ Her tone is pure pout, and even though she pauses again, I know instinctively what’s coming next. The thought turns my tea bitter and spills words from my mouth.
‘He ignored me. Julian. No, actually worse than that, he didn’t remember me. At. All.’
‘The bastard.’ Kallie’s voice drops to a low growl.
‘So either our meeting wasn’t as memorable as my mind made it, or—’
‘Don’t do that,’ she says, interrupting. ‘Don’t you dare bear the burden.’
‘Well, something had to be up. Because he literally had no idea who I was. Maybe he had a fear of flying and was doped up with meds to help his fear. Or maybe he’s suffered a nasty bump to the head recently and forgotten everything. Or maybe he’s suffered from an illness, or a syndrome—’
‘Or maybe he’s just a complete twat?’ she answers, mimicking my tone. ‘Stop being so reasonable. We both know that men can be utter bastards.’
‘It’s not just women.’ There are one or two such women we work with.
‘Agreed. Twattage is a human condition. But that aside, fuck Julian. And fuck men like him. In fact, no! Men like him don’t deserved to be fucked.’
‘That’s a lot of fucks—a lot of fucks to give,’ I say, trying not to giggle.
‘You’re right. Absolutely. They don’t deserve one of our fucks. They deserve fuck all fucks! But on the other hand, you deserve a fantastic f—’
‘You had to go and spoil it.’
‘A fantastic fu-flippin’ holiday,’ she says. ‘One with sunshine and rain and sightseeing and food.’
‘I deserve a trip to Madame Tussauds,’ I add. ‘And the London Eye.’
‘And dinner at Nobo and a West End show. And a really good seeing to by the willing man named Will.’
I sigh. ‘Do you really think so?’
‘A summer fling is definitely what the doctor ordered.’
‘But you’re not a doctor yet, and even if you were, I don’t think a doctor of education can hand out those kinds of prescriptions.’
‘You’ll just have to call me the love doctor, then.’
‘And if the charges hit your credit card in the thousands, will you still feel the same then?’
‘He’s not going to charge you.’
‘No, he’ll charge you.’
Her credit card is on his agency’s file. I’m being ridiculous—I know I am. An invitation to a rugby match, some pub grub, and the offer to meet his friends isn’t a ploy for business. A ploy to get into my panties, maybe. But I think I might be okay with that. A no-strings vacation non-romance?
‘I have it on extremely good authority that Will has no intention of charging either of us a thing. And that he’s not the settling down type.’
‘Great deduction, Sherlock.’ I doubt many escorts have husbands and wives.
‘Sadie, what are you frightened of?’ she asks quite suddenly.
‘The same as everyone. Getting hurt.’
‘Then what better opportunity than this? You’re there for six weeks, tops. Will is the perfect opportunity for a summer fling.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ I respond. Truthfully, since he’d turned up on the doorstep, it’s been hard to think of anything else.
Chapter Twelve
WILL
My phone rings again, though I’ve already sent six of his calls to voicemail. Which means my father is either drunk, or in one of his moods. Or both.
‘I want you up here next weekend.’
There’s no preamble with my father. No greeting or easing into a discussion as there would be with a regular call.
‘So you went, then?’ I saw my father on Saturday morning for the first time in eight months. He was planning on taking the train to Scotland to the crumbling pile he owns up there. I should’ve listened to instincts and not met him at all because he’s like a dog with a bone.
‘Of course, I bloody well did! I said I was going to, didn’t I?’ I bite my tongue from suggesting those sorts of questions are the first signs of senility, mainly because this call needs to be short, if not sweet. ‘And I want you here by Saturday morning at the latest,’ his raspy twenty-a-day for fifty years voice demands.
‘And I told you,’ I reply evenly. ‘I can’t.’
‘Can’t? Can’t! Of course, you bloody well can,’ he yells down the phone. This is generally how our calls go. Thankfully, they’re few and far between.
I turn my back on my office door and lean back against the desk as my fingers instinctively pinch the bridge of my nose, warding off the tension in my head from this conversation.
‘Can’t. Won’t. Take your pick,’ I answer.
‘Do you care nothing for your family, boy?’
It’s been a while since I was a boy. I’m thirty-fucking-two, and seeing as he’s my only family now, the answer is no. I care not a jot because it’s hard to care for someone who’s interested in nothing but himself, and his “good name” that never means, because the Travers family tree is one of gambling philanderers and general fuckwits right back to the Battle of Agincourt.
And my father is right up there with the best of them, the drunken sot.
‘You will be here Saturday, boy,’ he warns, his tone full of bombast. ‘If you know what’s good for you.’
‘I suggest you keep your threats for someone who’s actually frightened of you, old man. If you can find anyone, that is.’
‘Frightened!’ Anger spills f
rom impotency. ‘You should be fucking frightened, my boy. If not of me, then of the tax man! When I die, what will you do then, hey? What will you do!’
‘Sell off the little that’s left. Burn the rest. Let it turn into rubble that scatters the ground.’
He knows I won’t do any of that, unless I want to end up in prison for destroying architectural history. Travers Hall was designed by the eminent eighteenth-century architect, Sir John Vanbrugh. It might be falling apart poxy brick by brick—half of one wing destroyed by a fire decades ago—but it’s not like I can just knock it down.
And that is my lot. Once he dies, I’ll be in debt to the taxman for the rest of my life, while paying for the upkeep of a pile of sandstone and the rotting carcass of an ancient castle that no one wants.
‘Tax still needs to be paid on rubble, boy.’ He cackles like one of Macbeth’s witches. ‘The fucking Russians will be here next Friday night, and they’re bringing their youngest with them.’
‘She’s twenty-fucking-two,’ I answer wearily.
‘And the daughter of an oligarch. Only money will solve your problems, boy! Who gives a fuck that the girl’—in his archaic plummy accent, this sounds more like gel—‘has a face like a blind cobbler’s thumb!’
His guffaws turn to a deep bout of coughing, and for a moment, he struggles to catch his breath. But I’m not that lucky. At least, not today. But at seventy-eight years old, and after a lifetime of drink and debauchery, the devil must need him back in hell sometime, surely?
‘But you won’t mind, will you, Willie boy, eh? You’re used to looking at cunts every day as it is.’ The coughing turns to wheezing as I wait patiently for him to expire. Then I decide I’ve had enough for today—hell, the next decade—so I cut him off.
My father married my mother for love, or what little he was capable of, so it’s ironic that he expects me to marry for money, but he does.
I’ve given up explaining that I don’t give a fuck about history or lineage, that I won’t be marrying for Russian money, nor Chinese. And I won’t ever marry for love. How could I profess to love someone, only to ruin them afterward by saddling them with my lot in life? I won’t be passing this albatross on to my offspring because there won’t be any.