20. Natalie

20

NATALIE

I t would be truly helpful if someone could please explain the following to me:

Why, up until last week, Adam Wright existed to me solely by name: the thug who ruined my brother’s life and the undeserving billionaire who backs some of the biggest jackasses in the fashion and luxury sectors.

And why the hell he is now everywhere : saving me from a night in A kidnapping me; dazzling me with his palatial home and thoughtful gifts; creeping into my room while I’m sleeping and putting on a semi-pornographic show for me, and worst of all, hanging out with my fucking friends?

Gen knows most of what went down last week—she quizzed me at length when she next saw me to ascertain whether Adam had looked after me well after he swept me away, and it seems my answers reassured her well enough. Still, she made sure to give me a kindly heads-up earlier that he’d be in tonight, but Darcy sure as hell didn’t mention anything to me when she rocked up with her gorgeous menfolk half an hour ago.

I don’t have to wait long .

It can’t be more than fifteen or twenty minutes after Adam goes through to the bar, looking unfairly like a puppy who’s just been kicked, that Darcy comes out into the lobby at a sprint. She’s in a long, platinum sequinned dress tonight whose deep V plunges almost to her navel, and she looks incredible. No wonder two of the most gorgeous men in London are completely obsessed with her.

Right behind her is Maddy, Zach’s wife and another good mate of mine. I love these guys. Maddy’s speed is compromised by her five-inch heels. She may be pregnant, but nobody’s putting this girl in flats.

‘What the fuck?’ Maddy begins as Darcy puts her hand up to halt her.

‘Okay, tell me I’m crazy, but is Adam Wright, nasty dickhead bully and billionaire you told us about a few weeks ago over drinks the same guy who’s sitting next door, charming everyone’s pants off? It’s the same guy, right?’

The inexplicable rush of resentment at the concept of Adam charming everyone’s pants off barely has time to land in my reptile brain when Maddy chips in.

‘And he’s the same guy who’s taking over the Alchemy stake?’

‘Yeah,’ Darcy presses, ‘but is he also the same guy who rescued you and, like, kidnapped you last week? My sister just mentioned it in passing to me and I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? But she wouldn’t tell me any more.’

She lets her hand fall, defeated, to the lectern and they both stare at me expectantly.

I sigh, because the last thing I need is Darcy or Maddy sniffing around this story and giving Adam’s unwelcome prominence in my brain any more oxygen. ‘Yes, yes and yes. All the same guy. ’

‘But, how?’ Maddy asks, and I laugh, because my thoughts exactly.

‘Seriously,’ I say. ‘It’s ridiculous.’

Darcy holds up her hand. ‘Wait. I’m going to grab a bottle of wine from the office. Give me a sec.’

‘But the two-drink rule…’ I protest faintly, and she scoffs.

‘Oh please. We all know that’s to stop drunk dickheads not taking no for an answer and women from getting hammered and then not being able to remember if they gave consent or not. Meanwhile, the only people dicking me down tonight are Max and Dex and they’re used to me being tipsy.’

Hard to argue with that.

She returns with a glass of wine filled to the brim.

‘Classy,’ I observe.

‘Says the girl who spent the night with the infamous Adam Wright,’ she says airily, and I roll my eyes.

‘It wasn’t like that at all.’

‘Better fill us in, then,’ Maddy says.

So I do. I give them bare bones: my hypo here; Adam’s presence and his—very unexpected—skill level at reacting to my crisis; his insistence that I go home with him; the feeding and the gifts; the hyper vigilance around my glucose levels; the insane house porn. And as I talk, their eyebrows rise and rise till they’re practically in their hairlines.

‘So nothing happened?’ Maddy asks when I’m done.

I give her my best unimpressed look. ‘I had a really bad episode! I wasn’t in any fit state to make bad decisions. Besides, I wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole.’

‘That’s not what I asked,’ she points out, and I roll my eyes.

‘Nothing happened.’

‘You didn’t see him at all in the night? Because I’m sorry. I know we hate him. But he’s stupidly hot. He’s been in there for ten minutes and he’s already got women fawning all over him.’

That makes me mad. Madder than I should be. Unless I’m mistaken, he very much propositioned me a few minutes ago, in a spineless, roundabout kind of way.

I bet that guy fucks anything that moves. But the fact that he doesn’t have to lift a finger to do so pisses me off.

So I tell them. I tell them about him sneaking into my room at his place with testing kits and a huge erection, and I tell them what he said to me just now. It’s childish, and I hate myself for indulging this line of gossip about a guy who I wish would just fuck off and leave me alone, but I know my audience, and I know these two will go feral for it all.

I’m not mistaken.

Their squeals of mirth have one of the doormen opening the heavy front door to make sure no one’s being murdered.

‘Oh dear God,’ I mutter.

Darcy clamps a hand over her mouth. ‘I have to say something, and you’re going to hate me,’ she says through her fingers. ‘Two things, actually.’

I take a deep breath. ‘Go on.’ My tone isn’t exactly encouraging.

‘One, as Mads said, he’s really hot. Really hot. I’m sorry, but it’s true.’

I give a little nod of my head to suggest I’m not going to fight her too hard on that fact, even if I hate it, because the girl has eyes. No one in their right mind would try to argue that Adam Wright is ugly.

She pulls her hand away, emboldened. ‘And… I know what he did to your brother. I mean, I don’t know much, obviously, but I know enough. But it’s hard to square all that wi th everything you’ve just told us. He sounds like he was… nice?’ She screws up her face apologetically at the last word, and Maddy winces like she can’t believe Darcy went there. ‘So maybe you guys could find some, I dunno, middle ground?’

‘By middle ground , she means his dick,’ Maddy chimes in helpfully.

I roll my eyes again. ‘I figured as much. Look, I know you’re trying to help. But I’m not looking for anything from him. I can admit that he may only be ninety-five percent bad, but the stuff he did to my brother—that’s a total dealbreaker. Got it? And it’s not like he meant what he said to me, anyway. Like you said, he’s got women crawling all over him. I’m sure he won’t let one rejection keep him down for long.’

I’m sure he’s already lining up his next fuck.

I stew for the next ninety minutes.

I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me.

I don’t know why I have such FOMO, why the idea of Adam partying the night away with Darcy and Maddy and everyone else while I stand out here alone is bothering me so much.

I don’t know why the stare of those pale, arresting eyes as he waited for my answer felt grave, a pressure as great as if he were piling rock after rock on my chest.

And I really don’t know why I feel the need to disqualify said answer, to walk straight in there and prove to him that I am, in fact, capable of fraternising.

On my terms.

God knows what he’d do if I turned up and started hooking up with someone right in front of him. I’d love to see his face. I’d give anything to take him in as his jaw set and his eyes glittered.

I bet Adam Wright doesn’t get told no very often these days. I have this odd, vague feeling that if I went in there, and he saw me, my very presence would provoke him. To do what, I don’t know. I don’t allow myself to delve that deeply into the thought.

But the idea is there, like a devil sitting on my shoulder, for the rest of my shift. And it’s dangerous enough, enticing enough, that when I finish up at eleven o’clock, I don’t change into my flats and grab my coat like I usually do.

Instead, I reapply my lipstick and walk the other way, down the corridor and into the bar area. It’s thinned out in here. Not that many people are interested in nursing their two drinks for hours when they could be next door, seeking the kind of pleasure it makes me nervous to imagine.

Adam’s not in here, and he certainly hasn’t exited the building on my watch, so there’s only one explanation.

He’s in The Playroom.

In for a penny, in for a pound. I smile at Stan, the burly security guard manning the double doors to the space where all the action happens, and he winks and lets me through. I won’t dwell on why it feels like he’s cranking open the lid of Pandora’s box.

There’s thumping trance music and dry ice and dim light and bodies. Lots of bodies. Dancing and grinding and getting naked. I’m not sure what I want to achieve, exactly. I just want a peek. I’ll do a circuit of the space and sate that nosy devil, even though Adam’s probably in a private room somewhere. He’s not going to be just standing around in here.

Suddenly I really, really wish I drank .

There’s some kind of performance on the stage. From here, it looks like a pole dancer. I turn away, slinking around the edge of the club. It’s so clever, how it’s divided into sections with pillars and white, billowy drapes. It gives the illusion of privacy. I’m not sure I thought this through properly, because I told myself I wouldn’t look too closely at anyone getting it on, and yet I’ll have to if I want to spot Adam. Maybe I’ll just look for a head of dark, curly hair atop an unfairly tall, unfairly broad-shouldered body.

It’s not until I get to the back part of the space, where the banquette is, that I spot exactly that.

Oh my dear God.

The banquette is really a giant long ottoman, high enough and long enough that several people can be bent over it and laid out and fitted with various hooks and cuffs.

There’s only one woman on it right now, and she’s completely naked, her pale skin a stark contrast to the black leather.

I draw closer. She has her head turned away from me, so I can’t see her face. Her hair is dark. I don’t know if she’s a member or one of the hosts. Behind her, facing me, is a man who is on his knees, his nose and mouth buried in her pussy so I can only see the top of his head as she wriggles her arse in his face.

But I’m not interested in him, because standing beside them both is Adam. He cuts a tall, commanding figure in the shadows. He’s with them, but apart, still fully dressed in his standard white shirt and black trousers.

Exactly what he was wearing the other morning when he bade me goodbye in his library.

He’s just standing there. What is he doing—is he watching ? It certainly looks that way.

Until the other guy raises his head and cranes backwards slightly, and Adam’s hand comes down on the woman’s backside. Hard. She bucks, and I swear I nearly jump out of my skin with the shock. He straightens up, and I’m nowhere near close enough to see his eyes, but I’m close enough to see his face twitch with satisfaction as the other guy gets back in there, licking away, and I’m definitely close enough to see the huge bulge in his trousers.

So he’s still a sadistic bastard under all that fine tailoring, under that veneer of wealth and respectability. Uptightness, even. What a shocker.

But that doesn’t explain the impression I get that, unlike the violent kid who beat my brother to a pulp, the Adam before me looks to be wholly in control. Turned on, yes. Intense as fuck. But contained. That slap was more of a blow, but it was measured. Choreographed, almost.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

Neither does it explain why arousal soaks my thong in a single warm rush as my pulse finds its home in my clit, tattooing out an urgent staccato.

But none of those things are my biggest problem, because it’s at this precise moment that he looks up, and his astonished gaze finds my horrified one.