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About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
A massive thank you to my editors, Victoria and Charlotte, and to the rest of the HQ Digital UK team for all of their hard work on my books.
A shoutout to my Pink Ink girls, Tay and all the lovely reviewers for all of their support. Thank you to everyone who has bought a copy of any of my books, and thank you for all the lovely feedback - I hope you enjoy this one as much as my others.
Finally, huge thanks to my family and friends for all of their support. And for celebrating every little victory with me with cocktails/coffee.
For my family
Chapter 1 (#ulink_5925abc8-db79-5f1c-be83-33a6d2ace9a6)
‘We should get up.’
‘Just five more minutes,’ I plead as I snuggle closer.
‘Two more minutes,’ he negotiates. ‘Someone will be round with the post any minute. Do you want them to see us like this?’
‘Let them see,’ I gasp. ‘I’m too happy to care.’
Of course I’m joking, and Will knows this.
For two peaceful minutes we just cuddle up, naked, in perfect silence. I have my head resting on Will’s chest, gazing down at his bare stomach. He’s starting to get a bit of a belly, the one a lot of men seem to develop as they approach the big 4-0. Will can’t be blamed for ‘letting himself go’ a little, though. As the managing director of his family’s massive haulage company, he works tirelessly to keep the business running smoothly.
I use a finger to trace lines on his body, of where his six-pack used to be. His heart is pounding, but the gentle rise and fall of his chest relaxes me, quickly returning my own heart rate to normal.
I wonder what he’s thinking right now. I often wonder what’s going through his mind, and how often he thinks about me when we’re not together.
‘I’m starving,’ I say out loud, although I’m pretty sure I only meant to think it.
‘You’re always starving.’ He laughs. ‘Sticking to the diet though?’
‘Of course,’ I lie. I mean, I am sticking to it for the most part, but it’s so hard when you have to pass a branch of Millie’s Cookies on the way home from work – that temptress still manages to seduce me every now and then.
Conscious of the tummy he’s developing, Will is on a health kick at the moment, and knowing how much I love my junk food, he suggested I might like to join him. I suppose I was a few pounds overweight – and maybe this was his tactful way of telling me – so I agreed to do the same. Oh, how I wish I hadn’t now.
‘OK, fine, I’m getting up,’ I say, although I make no attempt to move whatsoever. ‘Can I get you a coffee?’
‘Please,’ he replies, also remaining in position. ‘This thing wreaks havoc on my back. It’s not very comfortable, is it?’
‘Well, it’s a desk, not a bed,’ I say as I pull myself upright. ‘It’s not supposed to be comfortable.’
‘Maybe we should get a bed for in here. Well, not a bed, that would seem odd.’ He laughs as he glances around his office, as though trying to figure out where one could go. ‘Maybe a sofa bed?’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ I reply, unable to fake even a little enthusiasm. He makes it sound like we’re a married couple, picking out furniture for our home.
A few more seconds of silence together, me alone with my thoughts and him with his – that is until a knock on the door breaks us from our thoughts. We know the drill.
‘Damn,’ Will says quietly as he wrestles on his trousers before calling to whoever is behind the door: ‘One minute, please.’
‘It’s locked, right?’ I ask as I hurry on my underwear, then my dress.
‘Yes, it’s locked, but that still makes us look bad.’
This isn’t our first moment like this; you think we’d be better at it by now.
‘No rush, Mr Starr.’ It’s Caroline, his secretary. ‘Except I’ve got the post for you, and it’s quite heavy.’
‘She’s not going anywhere,’ he whispers to me, panic in his voice.
I exhale deeply. Being romantically involved with your boss is not all it’s cracked up to be, especially when you have to keep your relationship a secret.
Will and his wife, Stephanie, were in love, once upon a time. They got married, had a couple of kids but then, as Will moved through the ranks of the company, eventually reaching the top spot when his dad retired, they just fell out of love and decided to call it a day. The thing is, Will is very much the face of the family business, and despite the company being huge, they really play up the family angle. Now that Will is in charge, they paint him as a good guy, a family man, so leaving his wife and two young kids simply because he didn’t want to be with his wife any more would not have painted a pretty picture. And in a way Will was lucky that Stephanie agreed to pretend they were still together, to keep up appearances, and to keep Will’s/the firm’s wholesome reputation in tact. So, despite Will and Stephanie’s understanding, divorce isn’t on the cards any time soon, and if Will were to be caught sleeping with his assistant, it would ruin him. So it isn’t exactly unusual for us to sneak around and keep our relationship a secret.
‘You’re going to have to hide,’ he snaps at me in a whisper – like this is my fault.
‘Hide?’ I ask in disbelief. I’ve never had to hide before. ‘Where?’
‘Under the desk,’ he instructs, pushing me under the large, oak desk in the centre of his office.
‘You’re effing kidding me?’ I ask, and Will shoots me a look – I know that he doesn’t approve of swearing, but I thought that might be OK given the circumstances. I can tell from the look in his eyes that he is dead serious. ‘Fine.’
Down I go, underneath his desk. I watch as Will straightens up his tie before bushing his suit down, exhaling deeply as he heads for the door. I am just about to tuck myself away when I realise that I forgot to put my stockings back on. I spy one of them on the floor, and it’s within arm’s reach so I grab it. No sign of the other one, but there’s nothing I can do. Will is opening the door.
‘Good morning, Caroline,’ he says breathlessly. ‘I thought you were at the doctor’s this morning?’
‘I was,’ she replies. ‘I’ve been, all is well. I know I took the morning off, but I thought there’s no sense in waiting until the afternoon to come in – may as well make myself useful. I see Candice is running late.’ Caroline sighs. ‘Ah well, best she has a lie-in. I think that one is getting a lot of late nights at the moment.’
I can only see Caroline’s feet, but I feel my eyes narrow as I shoot them a death stare.
Sweet Caroline (that’s what I call her – because she isn’t) may just be an evil genius, and were I not the target of her evil master plan to oust me from the company, I might actually be impressed by the way she operates. You see, Sweet Caroline is nothing but sweetness and light to me – in front of other people. Sometimes, I even hear her saying nice things about me to other people, making caring excuses for any mistakes I might make, or excusing my lateness for me like she did today (by making it sound like I’m out partying every night). This means that, to everyone else at the firm, Caroline is Sweet Caroline, but when it’s just me and her she is horrible to me, and because I know her niceness is an act I cannot be nice back to her, or be nice about her to others. This leaves everyone else wondering why I don’t like Caroline, because she’s just so nice to everyone, and speaks so highly of me… I’m telling you, she’s an evil genius.
There aren’t too many female employees here, but Caroline is certainly the queen bee. As female employees come and go, she takes them all under her wing (everyone but me, who she took an instant disliking to) and I’m guessing she drips poison in the ears of them all, because none of the women seem to like me. Thankfully, I always have Will on my side.
‘You look warm,’ she observes, not suspiciously as far as I can tell, just curiously.
‘Yeah, I was just getting a bit of exercise in,’ he tells her, before laughing it off. ‘Getting a bit portly in my old age.’
Oh, that was fast thinking. I’d probably be impressed were I not so incredibly mortified right now.
‘I just bumped into Stephanie,’ I hear Caroline say.
‘What, she’s here?’ Will replies.
‘No, no. I saw her at the doctor’s – how is she doing? She looked a little peaky.’
‘She’s fine, she’s fine,’ Will babbles, instantly arousing my curiosity. I get that Will is sticking around for his kids, and because it’s a smart business move, but it never occurred to me that he might be staying around for other reasons – is his wife ill? I mentally pinch myself as Will and Caroline chat about work stuff. It’s this silly situation; it makes me paranoid and needy and feel just plain bad about myself. I know that we’re not doing anything wrong and that it’s only a matter of time before we can be together properly – Will assures me every day – but on days like today, when I’m hiding underneath a desk clutching one of my stockings, it doesn’t feel like I’m not doing anything wrong. I feel very much like the ‘other woman’ that I am most certainly not.
As Will and Sweet Caroline chat, I watch them from my hiding place – well, I watch them from the knees down, like the opening sequence of The Bill circa 1985. That’s when I notice my other stocking, caught on the heel of Caroline’s shoe.
I slowly peep out from under the desk, in an attempt to quickly grab the offending hosiery before it can be spotted. I pull it, but it’s not budging. It’s well and truly caught on her heel. I give it a hard yank and it finally comes loose, but Will spots me out of the corner of his eye.
‘Come here,’ Will instructs Caroline, pulling her close for a hug. ‘I’m glad you got on OK at the doctor’s.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ Caroline replies brightly. I quickly crawl back underneath the desk and Will finally releases her and she leaves.
With the door closed, Will locks it before leaning back against the wall and breathing a sigh of relief so huge, I practically feel my hair blow in the breeze.
‘That was a close one,’ Will says.
‘Yep,’ I reply, scooching out from underneath the desk. I feel deflated at having to hide, but I do my best to remain positive.
‘You want to be careful hugging Caroline like that.’ I laugh brightly. ‘She’ll have you for sexual harassment.’
‘Candice, that’s not funny,’ my lover ticks me off. ‘That was too close. Way too close. And when she mentioned Steph, I thought she might be here.’
‘Is Stephanie OK?’ I ask, curiosity getting the better of me.
‘Yes,’ Will replies quickly, ‘why do you ask?’
‘Just that Caroline said she’d seen her at the doctor’s… I was just checking.’
I smile sweetly, hoping that if my face looks happy then my mood will follow. The truth is, I’m starting to grow tired of our situation. I mentioned this to Will recently and he promised to do something about it.
‘Your stomach is looking a little…full today,’ Will observes, changing the subject.
‘What?’ I run my hands over my tummy self-consciously. ‘Oh, I ate a bagel yesterday – wheat makes me a bit bloated,’ I explain.
‘Wheat isn’t great for the body,’ he reminds me. I know that he’s just trying to help me keep healthy and in good shape, but sometimes it feels like criticism and it makes me feel self-conscious.
Will walks over to me and helps me up from the floor.
‘Don’t be grumpy,’ he says, pinching my cheek between two of his fingers as he flashes me a smile. I am weak for him; I wish I wasn’t, but I am. ‘Everything will be better next week, when we have our little holiday from the world.’
I feel myself defrost almost immediately and my forced smile blends seamlessly into a real one. I cannot wait for my holiday with Will. It’s going to be an entire week, just the two of us. We won’t need to sneak around or hide, no sex on uncomfortable desks, we can hold hands in public and go out for dinner together – all the little things that couples take for granted. It’s going to be pure bliss, and the mere mention of it appeases any doubts I may be having about our relationship. I just want things to be normal, and this holiday is going to be a glimpse of that. Depending on how it goes, I think this will be make or break for us, which just makes me all the more determined to make sure things are perfect.
I examine my stockings before I put them on and realise that the one I yanked from Caroline’s shoe is laddered. I toss them in the bin. It’ll have to be bare legs today. Thankfully I keep on top of waxing them, or I’d have been in big trouble.
‘So, how about that coffee?’ he reminds me as he starts tapping away on his laptop. ‘And, Candice, maybe put those in a bin somewhere else. And make sure no one sees you leave.’
‘Sure,’ I reply, grabbing them from the bin before heading for the door. He isn’t exactly in my good books after making me hide under his desk, but that combined with the fact he now expects me to reach into the bin…! If we were a normal couple I’d be able to tell him to get his own fucking coffee. I’ve no choice today, though. He is my boss, after all.
Chapter 2 (#ulink_dcd676ad-637e-5bff-bfbb-386457124cc9)
There are certain things that we, as women, just know not to do. No one ever told us that we shouldn’t do these things but we just know, deep down in our ovaries somewhere, that certain things are a bad idea.
One should not, for example, become romantically involved with any of the following types of men: married men, bosses, control freaks and egomaniacs. We know this. We know this like we know never to over-pluck above our eyebrows. We know this like we know never to brush our hair when it’s wet. It is instilled in us by every failed relationship we’ve ever seen play out, every cruel-to-be-kind piece of advice our best friend has offered us, every romcom storyline we’ve ever watched and every magazine article we’ve ever read on ‘types of men to avoid’.
Despite all of this knowledge, my fella ticks every box on the list. Well, I say ‘my fella’ but he’s not my fella at all, he’s his wife’s fella. He’s my boss.
I worked in the sales and marketing department at Starr Haul for a year before Will even noticed me, and our first conversation actually took place when he called me into his office to fire me. The truth was that not only did I hate working for the sales team (haulage, warehousing and distribution – yawn) but I wasn’t particularly good at it either, and I think those two factors only made each other worse. Combined with the fact that I was often late, employee of the month I was not, and if I were Will, I probably would’ve fired me too.
I could tell from the look on his face when he called me into his office that he was going to let me go, but with everyone always banging on about what a kind, generous family man he was, I thought I’d try and appeal to his better nature. I told him about losing my parents, about being alone in the world and barely having enough money to live on. Suddenly, Will started talking to me about his problems too. About how things weren’t working with his wife, telling me they were separated but pretending to still be together to save face. It was nice to have someone to talk to and our long chat comforting each other about the state of our lives eventually turned into a kiss, which quickly turned into sex on his desk – the first time of many.
After that first time, as I buttoned up my white shirt (as best I could considering he’d ripped a few buttons off) and watched Will thoughtfully rub his stubbly chin (probably pondering whether or not it would be wise to fire me so soon after fucking me), I swore to myself that it wouldn’t happen again. Separated from his wife or not, I didn’t want to get involved.
Unsurprisingly, Will decided not to fire me, taking me out of the sales department so that I could work under him (yes, I did just say that). As we started spending more and more time together, we started getting closer and closer and here we are. Nearly a year together and still sneaking around.
I push my key in the door to my flat and let out a sigh before letting myself in.
‘Honey, I’m home,’ I call out as I ditch my handbag on the sideboard. No, I’m not so lonely that I’ve resorted to cracking witty jokes to myself about my situation – Honey is my cat. So not so lonely that I’ve started talking to myself, but lonely enough to talk to my cat, it would seem.
‘Well, it’s about time,’ a voice calls back and, despite being a familiar one, it is unexpected and causes me to jump out of my skin.
‘Gosh,’ I exclaim. ‘Don’t do that to me, Aims.’
‘I told you I was going to be here. You must be missing me if you’re talking to that thing.’
My soon-to-be ex flatmate nods towards Honey, who hisses back at her.
‘You two still not getting on?’ I laugh.
‘Let’s just say it makes me feel less bad about hardly ever being here, and the fact that in just over a week I will be officially moved out helps too. Nice use of “gosh” by the way. I take it your old bloke doesn’t appreciate you blaspheming, as well as swearing.’
Amy wanders into the kitchen. It’s only now that I notice the smell of food drifting through the house.
‘There’s nothing wrong with being more ladylike,’ I call after her. ‘I can’t believe you’re getting married and moving out like a grown-up.’
Amy returns, spoon in hand, and points at me with it as she speaks.
‘And I can’t believe you’re wearing that disgusting dress,’ she says harshly. ‘Or what you’ve done with this place. Or that you have a cat. Or that you have nothing but vegetables, chicken and milk made from fucking almonds in your fucking fridge – thank God I brought shopping.’
My friend puts extra emphasis on the word ‘God’ and she reels off her list of things that she can’t believe about the new me. Well, the new new me.
As Amy stands there, still brandishing her spoon in an attacking position, she waits for me to justify all of the above. I don’t see her as much as I’d like to these days, and I guess I must be changing a lot.
Amy Kelly is my best friend, and she came into my life when things were the most difficult for me. By the time I was twenty-four I had lost both my parents. With no grandparents, siblings or even so much as a distant aunt I could turn to, when my dad passed away I became an orphan. Both my mum and dad were very ill in the years before they passed, so as soon as I finished sixth form, rather than going to university or travelling like the rest of my friends, I stayed at home to take care of them. I was happy to do it, and if I had the time again, I wouldn’t do things even a little differently, but it had a huge impact on my life. I stopped seeing my friends; I had no social life, no love life. When my mum passed, it just made my dad and me even closer. As he got worse, he had to go into a home and that’s where I met Amy – she was one of the carers who looked after him. When my dad died I was left with pretty much nothing. That’s when Amy told me she was looking for a new flatmate. Growing up so shy combined with my lack of a social life as an adult had turned me into this quiet little mouse, and Amy saved me from that. It took a year of my life to get there, but I was happy. Truly happy.
Growing up, I was not a tidy child. I would take out a toy, play with it for a while, and then take out another, leaving the previous one on the floor. I never made my own bed, and any clothing I took off would wind up inside out on my bedroom floor. My mum would be constantly telling me to tidy my room, and every now and then she would offer me something in exchange for cleaning up and I would do it, and for a day or so my room would be tidy…until it wasn’t again. I wish my mum were still around to see my Manchester city centre apartment, because she wouldn’t believe just how tidy it was.
When I first moved in with Amy, our place was everything you would expect of the home of two twenty-something chicks. We had fairy lights almost everywhere, fluffy cushions, lots of weird and wonderful ornaments and pictures on the wall. We had so much pink shit, it would make even Barbie herself dizzy and, my gosh, was it messy! No matter which room you were in, the chance of you being able to see a wine glass (clean, dirty or decorative) was very high. The place was full of smells too: hairspray, coffee, a cocktail of perfumes, the unmistakable whiff of chocolate from that one time we tried to use a chocolate fountain and it malfunctioned epically, spraying chocolate everywhere. I remember that night so well, and yet when I think about it, it feels like it didn’t really happen, like it’s something I saw in a movie once.
It was a particularly cold December, not long after I’d started working at Starr Haul – before I got with Will, in fact. I don’t even think he’d given me a second glance at that stage. Both Amy and I were skint, and we were stuck in a battle with our landlord over who should pay for our broken central heating, because he thought it was our fault it had broken down. I was young, I didn’t have my parents to support me and things were so bad I couldn’t even afford to take the bus to work – I had to walk. It was so cold I resorted to buying cheap cups of takeaway tea, exclusively for keeping my hands warm during the journey. One evening we decided we needed to do something to try and keep us warm and it just so happened that for Amy’s birthday someone had bought her a chocolate fountain and bars of the stuff to use with it. So for dinner that night, melted chocolate was on the menu, but without any wooden skewers to stab our Poundland marshmallows with, we resorted to using forks, and when Amy dropped her fork into the fountain it jammed it and the result was us, our furniture and our living room being lashed with chocolate.
As well as smelling delicious, the place had bags of personality. Amy is very hippy-chic. She’s into all this weird and wonderful stuff that I don’t understand, like crystals and dream catchers, and I’ve no idea what they do, but they definitely made the flat look cool. As she started spending less time here and more time at her fiancé’s place, she started taking all the stuff away. And as it started disappearing I realised that although the flat had bags of personality, none of it was mine.
My friend stares at me, waiting for an explanation.
