Beckett:Thank you. @Griffin, fuck you still.
Harrison:@Griffin . . .
Griffin:Okay! Congratulations, fucker. And congrats also to me. The pool of pussy just got bigger.
Beckett:With a bit of luck, you’ll drown in it.
Griffin:Ha, funny. You know what else is also funny? Not once in this exchange did you mention love.
Chapter 34
BECKETT
In the weeks following our return to London, I discover dozens of things about Olivia. She invariably starts her day with a cup of tea the colour of brickwork and ends it in a glass of white wine after dinner without much thought to quality or palate. Her taste in fashion is eclectic and her beauty regime fascinating, and I’m especially fond of watching as she lotions her skin nightly with a product she describes asbody butter.It certainly makes me want to gorge. She likes to sleep in short pyjamas but invariably wakes up naked, though upon reflection, that might be my doing following her nightly basting. She sleeps like the dead and is just as difficult to rouse in the morning, though I have learned one or two tricks. She likes to cook almost as much as she likes to eat, which are two things I find utterly fascinating to watch. She has a favourite daytime perfume that’s citrus based and another for evenings that smells like secrets and night blooming jasmine. She’s not a devotee of jewellery beyond her wedding ring, which I imagine she wears for appearances, and a pair of earrings, often hoops. Another thing I’ve gathered is she could do with a decent watch because she’s always bloody late.
Then there are the other facts and facets that I’d somehow utterly overlooked as a possibility. She has a temper that shakes the walls, but thankfully, a very long fuse. She’s kind to a fault and not only invariably manages to find a few pounds in her purse to press into the hands of the homeless, but she also stops to speak with them. She’s a terrible actress, which came as quite a surprise, and the word she’d insisted described her personality perfectly all those weeks ago—nice?—doesn’t come close to doing her justice. There are a thousand others much better suited, but the one I find suits her best isbeguiling. And the strangest thing is that she doesn’t even realise I’m under her spell. I’m sure she thinks I follow her around just to annoy her, and that I turn up at her office to entice her to lunch because I have nothing else to do.
‘Why are you here again?’she’d asked yesterday when I’d turned up unannounced. Again. ‘You’re only supposed to show up for board meetings.’
‘I’ve come to see how the new team members are working out.’I’d leaned closer, adding in a whisper as I’d pulled her in to kiss her cheek, ‘While playing the part of the doting husband.’What I kept to myself was the fact that I find it hard to stay away from her.
I am beguiled. Entranced. Spellbound by the woman I’d bullied into marrying me. But it’s an infatuation that will run its course before the six months is out. It must.
Maddening. That’s another suitable Olivia descriptor, and one most appropriate when speaking of her timekeeping.
In one hour, we’re due at the home of Mark Jones. An invitation issued under the guise of getting to “know my gorgeous new wife”. His words, and my absolute irritation. It’s an invitation wrapped in a pretty bow to hide the fact that the old bastard’s just nosy. He trades knowledge like currency and likes to think he has a finger on the pulse of what happens in this city. But it doesn’t matter what he thinks, not when this invitation will take me a step closer to my ultimate goal.
Ownership of JBW.
I twist my wrist, glancing down at my watch—a Rolex, not the Phillippe Patek; there’s no need to remind Jones that I’m wealthier than he is—while wondering for the tenth time where the fuck Olivia is. The car has been on standby for hours to pick her up, and my calls to her phone have gone unanswered, and now are going straight to her message bank, but as the front doorclicksopen, I find I’m propelled out into the reception hall.
‘Honey, I’m home,’ she whispers, her black dress almost invisible, absorbed by the same coloured door that dwarfs her frame.
‘You’re late.’
‘Jesus, Beckett!’ Hand on her chest, she spins to face me, her eyes wide for a brief moment before narrowing. ‘You scared the crap out of me.’
‘You do know we have a dinner to attend in under an hour?’
‘Yes...’ The woman is a terrible, terrible liar. It’s perplexing how I could’ve gotten it so wrong. ‘I knew we had an important dinner to go tothis week. I just forgot it was today. Or maybe I just forgot what day it is today.’
‘Fascinating,’ I drawl, slipping my free into my trouser pocket, the other gripped tightly on my whisky glass. ‘Perhaps if you looked at your phone once in a while, you’d notice your calendar. You might also have seen my texts.’ Not to mention my calls.
‘It died on me in the bar.’ She shrugs. ‘Mir and I went to the place we’re holding the speed dating event to brainstorm and have another look at the place, I guess.’
My chest rises and falls with a terse, irritated sigh. ‘You went to work dressed like that?’
She glances down at her black dress. It’s more like a long T-shirt that gently skims her curves before ending at her calves. A pair of pink glittery Converse peek out from underneath. She looks more like an art student than a businesswoman. Young but not quite innocent.
‘What?’ She looks up from her shoes, eyes wide now. ‘You don’t think this is dinner appropriate?’
‘I don’t think that outfit is office appropriate. In fact, I don’t think it’s any kind of appropriate.’
She immediately fires from mildly amused and happy to bait me to seriously pissed off. ‘Did they teach you how to be an insulting dipshit at boarding school? Or maybe that’s where guys of your ilk go to get the stick surgically shoved up their—’
‘As charming as this conversation is, we’re due at the Jones’ in fifty-five minutes now.’ I make a show of looking at my watch.
‘I ate tapas at the bar with Mir.’ She whirls around, dropping her huge blue purse to the hall table as she begins to tug at the strands that have fallen from her high bun, a style that’s more haphazard than elegant.And one hundred percent her, if I throw in the adjectives raw and sensual.In the mirror, her breasts rise with the motion of her arms, the soft cotton moulding to her like a second skin. It evokes the way her bathwater had clung to her last night as she’d risen from the tub, the effect fleeting but so enticing. ‘I don’t think I feel like dinner now.’
