“What I want, Olivia…” he finally grits out. “What I want is for you to wear your hair up in a bun like a ballerina. I want you to dress like a young Audrey Hepburn, and I want you to behave like a pleasant young ballerina who is enamored with me and respectful of me but also grounded and real. I want you tocharm the socks off George Merrick. I want you to dazzle his granddaughter. In general, when we’re at his home, I want you to be on your best behavior.”
He takes a seat on the sofa next to him, leaning back, spreading his legs, and placing his hands on his thighs. “But first, I want you to get down onto your hands and knees and crawl to me, and then I want you to give me a relaxing job of theHorBvariety. I’ll let you decide. You have ten minutes to complete this task, and then we both need to get ready for the meeting.”
I lower myself to my hands and knees on the rug.
“Well?” he says. “Can I rely on you for all of that?”
“Of course. I was waiting for you to ask me something before speaking.”
“Excellent. Proceed.”
I do.
I proceed to very reliably crawl toward him on my hands and knees.
CHAPTER 20
JOHN
Turns out Olivia and I were both right.
Or both wrong.
Itwasa relaxing blow job. And I should have stayed the hell away from her because I am not in the right frame of mind for this meeting at all. I managed to get us to Merrick’s house in Chipping Campden without getting into an accident, but we’re five minutes late. I’m never late. For anything. Ever. This is a disaster.
Olivia touches my hand as I turn off the car engine. “I’ll tell him it’s my fault we’re late.”
“Itisyour fault we’re late.”
“It weren’t my fault ya took so bloody long tuh come in me mouth, guvnah,” she says in some horrible Eliza Doolittle accent as she opens the passenger door.
“Could you please refrain from the cock talk while we’re here?” I stage whisper.
“Here in the Cotswolds, or here at this house?” She blinks innocently.
“In public, anywhere on the planet.”
She purses her lips and then says, “I honestly don’t think I can, no.”
“Just so we’re clear, I was thinking more along the lines of Audrey Hepburn inRoman HolidayorSabrina, notDr. Doolittle.”
“Bahhhaahaaaa! Oy think ya meanMy Fair Lady, notDr. Doolittle, guvnah!”
“Whatever.” I grab my briefcase from the back seat and lock the car doors. Then I look around this idyllic, quaint little road and wonder if it’s considered rude and in bad form to lock my car doors here. So I unlock the doors. And then I lock them again because this is a rental.
I will say that Olivia did a fine job of dressing like a young Audrey Hepburn, though. She also did a fantastic job of the other kind, but I’m not going to think about that right now. She’s smiling as primly as I think she’s capable of smiling as she holds her hand out to me.
“He said he’d be in his garden and we should just go through the gate,” I tell her.
“Audrey Hepburn trained as a ballet dancer, you know,” Olivia says, excited to share this trivia with me.
“That’s nice, dear.”
This would be considered a cottage, I suppose, but it’s a good-sized home. Merrick has made a fortune from licensing, so he could afford something much more luxurious, but I get why he doesn’t want to leave this place. It’s so quiet and lovely. Birds chirping, bees buzzing, butterflies flitting about. Olivia squeezes my hand and hops up and down when she spots a bunny rabbit by a hedge.
We walk hand in hand through a garden gate and down a lawn path that’s bordered with dense rows of flowers and shrubs along both sides. I have the strangest flash of an image of us walking down an aisle together and glance over at Olivia, wholooks over at me at the same time. She looks sad again. Or possibly peckish.
I spot Merrick up ahead, near a table with four chairs, under the shade of a big tree. He’s fussing with leaves on a shrub, wearing a sun hat, linen shirt, and long khaki shorts with socks and rubber shoes. When he turns to wave at us, I expect him to say,Welcome…to Jurassic Park.He’s younger than Dr. Hammond, but that’s who Merrick reminds me of.
