‘I see you’re already on a first-name basis with my intern.’ She folds her arms as she glares at me. ‘Or was it second? I can’t seem to recall.’
‘Yes, because I’m here specifically to infiltrate your staff and steal all your secrets.’ Both of our gazes fall to the girl sitting at the desk Olivia leans against, her head moving back and forth between us as if she’s at the finals of Wimbledon.
‘You could go out onto the roof,’ she offers, noticing she’s been caught.
‘What a helpful suggestion. Thank you...’
‘Miranda,’ she obligingly supplies.
‘It’s nice to meet you, Miranda. I’m Beckett, a friend of Olivia’s.’ I pull out a business card from my jacket, something I wouldn’t ordinarily do, but the occasion calls for it. ‘If you’re ever looking for an interesting challenge, work wise, please give my PA a call.’
‘Hey, stop that,’ Olivia protests, trying to swipe the card out of my hand. ‘You can’t poach my staff!’
‘It’s a free market economy,’ I reply smoothly, sliding the card into her employee’s hand.
‘JBW, the venture capitalists?’ Her gaze rises from the card before darting between Olivia and myself all over again, all kinds of ideas sliding through her gaze. ‘You should take him next door for a coffee,’ she adds quickly.
‘I’m not taking him anywhere,’ she complains obstinately.
‘Course you are. You obviously havea lotto talk about.’ The conversation between the two is mostly unspoken and like a battle of silent wills, which makes me wonder if the staff here are privy to how close the business is to collapse.
No, I decide. She’s too stubborn. She’s not protecting them out of the goodness of her heart but rather out of obstinacy. Not because she’s sweet. If she was, she’d fall on her sword to protect their jobs.
‘Okay,’ she eventually mutters, making her way over to her desk as though en route to the guillotine. I stifle a smile as her assistant does the same, adding a lift of her brows and a slight shrug.
‘But I’m only doing this to get you to leave,’ she complains as she stomps past me.
I follow her out of the office and down two flights of stone stairs, her feet tapping out an angry tattoo as she pushes open the door at the ground floor, not bothering to see if I’m following.
This is a less than salubrious part of Hoxton. Down at heel, I suppose. She ignores the old-fashioned looking coffee shop next door where I pause expectantly, then lengthen my strides to catch up with her when she doesn’t stop.
‘You can’t outwalk me, you know.’
‘I wasn’t trying to,’ she mutters. ‘I was hoping to do a Pied Piper and get you to follow me to the river.’
‘Oh?’ She doesn’t need a pipe; the sway of her hips is enticement enough.
‘So I could drown you down there,’ she continues, deliberately ignoring me.
‘And would that be a mercy killing?’
‘For one of us, at least.’
‘I doubt there would be many to mourn me.’ Just my investors, I suppose. ‘But you should definitely marry me first. Think of the money.’
‘I think that’s what they call living off immoral earnings.’ Her gaze cuts my way, her cheeks pink and her eyes blazing. It’s easy to see what she thinks of my proposition. ‘Stop looking at me like that,’ she mutters, looking away again.
‘You think marrying me would be tantamount to prostitution? If that’s the case, half the wealth of England would be in the hands of the immoral.’
Oligarchs and their streetwalkers, earls and their tricks, high-flying businesswomen and their male escorts. Money and sex make the world go around, just as they say.
‘Just... stop talking,’ she mutters as we approach a bakery on a corner advertising takeaway coffee. She strides straight past the plate glass window.
‘You really weren’t joking, were you? I’m sure there are easier ways to murder me. It’s quite a walk to the river. I imagine those shoes must pinch.’
Her heels are electric blue, pointed at the toe, and sharp at the heel. They can’t be comfortable for a lengthy stroll, but I’m not complaining. I’m not the one wearing them, but I am the one who gets to appreciate the sight of her in them. The way they force her back ramrod straight and the effect they have on her smooth calves. The way, as they hammer against the pavement, they demand your attention and leave you wondering what she’d look like wearing them and little else.
I also appreciate how they make her a little taller, bringing her under my chin. Her skirt swishes against her bare legs as she strides. Floral and diaphanous, the fabric falls from a thin blue belt, the colour matching her footwear. She wears a plain black T-shirt with girlish puffed sleeves and a scooped neckline, the soft cotton betraying the rise and fall of her breasts with each step. As always, she looks very pretty. She doesn’t exactly move with grace but rather determination. But something about the set of her expression makes me want her all the more.
