Untaming Lily Wilde (17 page)

Anyhow, I've side-tracked. I don't want Tom getting in the way of me having some fun. He did that for long enough, thanks. So back to the mission. The plan is this: six months of (ahem) exploration, with the help of Ana and Grayson (and Seb, of course) with an option to extend to a year, and - more importantly - a big fat get-out-jail-free card in case I want to terminate our arrangement.

Seb will be kind of overseeing everything, and has already given me a list of dos and don'ts as long as King Kong's hairy right arm. I called him my pimp AS A JOKE yesterday and he went all Lord Serious on me. He gave me this lecture on doing everything on an equal pegging. Example: if I were to go to a party at Hatherly, and the guests had paid big money, but I was there for free, then I might feel like I was in Ana and Grayson's debt. Meaning, I might do things I wouldn't do otherwise, just to return the favour of the invitation. I said I sincerely doubted I'd do that, and Seb said it's worked for all the other girls Ana regularly invites as her special guests. Her loyals, is what she calls them apparently- and it seems like a real sticking point between her and Seb. So anyhow, he's having the cost of any parties I attend, taken out of his share of profits. So now he's PAYING for me to have sex with other people. This just gets weirder and weirder doesn't it? He also warned me not to accept gifts - same principle (don't be in anyone's debt).

He's keen of course to show me some of the ropes himself (maybe literal ropes - I wouldn't put it past him), and we've kind of broached the question of which activities I'm interested in indulging in - though for the most part I really don't know what I want - if anything. Which brings me back to my original question: Am I really going to do this? Hmm. Probably!

Yours,

Lily

PS (How could I have forgotten this?!) Had amazing sex. Twice yesterday, then twice this morning. It's a wonder I can still walk. I don't quite know how, but he manages to make me feel safe and vulnerable all at once. And, much as a hate to admit it, I'm finding all his bossiness a MAJOR turn on. Oh the shame!

12

Monday. After a crazy weekend, Lily was hardly firing on all cylinders, but there was no time to be foggy headed. The ‘relatively’ easy working week she’d had previously now seemed like a distant dream-memory, as she and Cayley began to tackle the next Pancheva/ Harper event. This one - a masquerade ball - was just a weekender, but Christ, what a weekend. The supplies list alone was endless. One of the sixty two guests had requested a bespoke outfit, providing only her measurements and an obscure little doodle, from which some telepathic designer was expected to intuit this mind's eye masterpiece. Lily was expected to A. track down this mystical designer and then, B. Hope to hell they didn't have anything important planned in the next fortnight.

By now, though for very different reasons, Lily had acquired a similar appetite for the job as Cayley, and got stuck into her various tasks with near sparkling enthusiasm. By Wednesday however, Lily’s sparkle was dull as Keanu. Not only had the excessive workload rendered all non-working relationships non-existent, but the few Seb chats she had been able to squeeze in, had enlightened her to the knowledge that she would soon be receiving her very own invitation to the ball. This butterfly-inducing notion threatened to send Lily way off her game, yet she managed to hold it together, and kept a pace with Cayley, researching and approaching vendors, and generally making good time.

In fact they’d made such good time that Friday promised to offer some let-up. Sadly that wasn’t to be, due to the unexpected absence of Cayley. Mr Bateman, who was meeting potential clients that day, had decided he just simply had to have Cayley’s skill-set on his tool-belt (and yes, he’d used those words - Bullshit Bingo anyone?). He didn't need her there, and could surely have wined, dined, and generally schmoozed the execs all by himself, but Lily suspected he liked having Cayley on his arm. So, Lily had been managing two workloads, hers and Cayley's.
Oh joy.

Her phone buzzed on the desk. A text from Seb:
Hi, Gorgeous. Get off work by 6? X

I wish, she thought.
6 might be tight. 6.30/7? Why? X

A few minutes later:
OK. Gray will meet you from Bellevue. Ana's booking a table at Lomoco. See you there x

Oh God! The Ana/Grayson meet-up! Eek…
What's/where’s Lomoco? Why Grayson, not you? X

Lily drummed her fingers against the glass of her mobile, waiting for Seb’s response. And moments later, there it was:
Glitzy restaurant Ana likes. Need to keep up husband/wife image, arrive together etc. Got to stay in her good books for the next 6 mths :-S x

Jeepers - this is it. We’re going to have ‘the’ conversation - all of us - sitting round, eating dinner, figuring out how/when/where I’ll be having sex in the next few months. Oh, Jesus.
Could make my own way there? :-/ x

His reply was almost instantaneous:
No need. Raining. See you later x

Crap.
She needed to crack on with the vendor hunt, but Seb's texts had sent her into a spin. The last time Lily had seen Ana, she'd bare-faced lied about her phony marriage. Even worse, the last time Lily had seen Grayson, he'd been tying her to an altar, ready for a bit of debauchery. This evening could turn out to be just very slightly excruciating.

When Grayson arrived at Bellevue, Lily was still knee deep in lists, files, and phone calls, with no hope of leaving the office any time soon. She made a flustered offer to make her own way to the restaurant, which fell on defiant ears. Grayson snapped up Lily's mobile, and buzzed Cayley, telling her she sounded particularly luscious today, and that Lily was needed elsewhere. Lily could all but see Cayley swooning on the other end of the phone call. She shook her head incredulously at Grayson.

"Shameless."

"Oh, please - she loves it. And I gotcha off work didn't I?" He grinned.

Lily didn't bother pointing out to Grayson that the work wasn't going to do itself. She was just relieved to be feeling a degree of normality between them.

Rain slammed against the revolving reception doors, and Grayson grabbed her hand, making a bee-line for a zippy little coupe, which Lily had seen once or twice outside Hatherly. They squeaked down into the leather seats, and as Lily caught her breath, Grayson pulled out into the already thick traffic.

"It's just up here," he said, nodding towards Bishopsgate.

"Really? I could've walked. You really didn't have to -" she began.

"It's raining. I was nearby. Plus - I wanted to talk to you."

"Oh." That last bit had an ominous edge.

Grayson momentarily diverted his eyes from the road. "Nothing bad. Don't look so damn timid. I just want you to fill me in about Tom."

Oh great - Tom - my favourite subject.
Lily felt a knot of tension form between her shoulder blades. "So what do you want to know?"

"For starters, how about, is he a threat? I've got some contacts in his line of work. He knows I could make life difficult for him if he goes public with our story. And as far as he's concerned, you've seen a doctor about your shoulder, so he thinks it's all on record - our counter attack, so to speak." A white van pulled in front of them, interrupting Grayson’s speech, causing him to hammer down on the horn.

Though, on one level, Lily knew there must have been some kind of dialogue between Grayson and Tom, she'd been doing a pretty good job of suppressing any thoughts of it, up until now. She suddenly found herself both surprised and slightly nauseated by the idea of the two of them making tit-for-tat threats .

"Problem is," Grayson continued, "there are no witnesses to his pushing you about, whereas - unfortunately - your neighbours caught the end of Seb's boxing debut. So what I want to know is, what's the chance of this jerk calling it quits?”

Lily was as much in the dark here as anyone. “Honestly, I just don’t know,” she admitted. What could she say? For eight years she’d been with Tom. She should have known exactly what his next move would be. But right now, Tom Stockard felt as unfathomable to Lily as the man sitting next to her.

“Well, has he contacted you since it happened?"

He hadn't. Lily had readied herself at first - prepared for an onslaught of angry texts and voice-mails. But nothing had come, and she'd eventually stopped watching her phone like it might detonate any second.

"No, he hasn't. There's been nothing. He's a proud guy - I thought there'd be payback, for sure - but maybe whatever you threatened him with worked."

Grayson didn't respond at first. Perhaps it was the traffic, but that pause made her uneasy. "Maybe," he said, finally. "Hope you're right. Next time how's about writing in code like a good little girl scout though, huh?" He turned into a side road off Middlesex Street and hovered in front of a gated driveway.

“I’m sorry - I - I never thought he’d just let himself into my flat. I never would have -”

“It’s done. Don’t stress it.”

Easily said, thought Lily. Perhaps she’d been wrong, but for a split second Grayson’s cucumber-cool mask seemed to slip a little off centre.

The sign above the iron gates read 'Harper Cane Legal’. Grayson pressed a button on his key fob, and the gates automatically opened onto a small courtyard-style car park. Grayson parked the coupe and grabbed an umbrella from the back seat.

"This way’s quicker," he said. Instead of going back out through the gates, Grayson beckoned Lily through the back entrance of Harper Cane, past various individual offices, each marked with a shiny brass plaque.

“So, you work here… as well as -
you know
-” she whispered.

Grayson put a finger to his lips. “I’m just part-time here now. The rest of the time, yes, I’m freelance.” He flashed his eyes at Lily. Point taken:
keep gob shut.

They passed through an ornate, oak and leather clad reception, where a young woman sat hunched over a pile of documents, behind a high brightly-polished desk. She looked up, distracted, as they walked through, snapping awake when she saw Grayson. “Afternoon, Mr Paige.”

“Evening Laura.”

Grayson turned back to Lily, readying the umbrella. Lily looked back over her shoulder to nod ‘hello’ also, but clocking the stony pout on Laura’s lips, thought better of it.

As they exited the heavy double doors, Grayson wrapped an arm around Lily’s shoulders, positioning the umbrella above them both. She was burning to ask him why he’d lied about Seb and Ana. All those little digs at Seb about his marriage - all bogus. As they stepped out into the rain, she stole herself and decided to bite the bullet. Best just to come straight out and ask, and easier to do it now, alone with Grayson, than in front of Ana and Seb.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you too,” she began.

“Don’t tell me - you’ve been itching to know what you missed out on the other night. I’m a good looking guy - I get that…”

Jesus, this man is just insatiable.
“Ha-ha,” she said dryly, “Good looking and funny. Quite the catch. No. Not that. I wanted to ask you - everything you said to Seb, about commitment - I don’t get it. Why would you say that stuff?”

Grayson tensed. The rain pelted the umbrella, relentlessly. He raised his voice to be heard, glancing about to double-check their privacy as they walked. “Seb does have commitments. He agreed on this set-up. He wanted it. I could have married her instead - I’ve got British citizenship you know. And we’d have made a hell of a lot more money from the start if I’d been steering the ship. Seb’s no business man. But they made more sense together. They’d known each other longer, and he wanted an excuse to get away from the family business. It was mutually beneficial.”

OK so, sure, it had made a kind of sense when they started out. But come on, she thought. People change. What had seemed like a neat little idea at twenty could easily feel like a life sentence at twenty-eight.

"He can't change his mind?" she shouted, over the din of the rain.

"Not without screwing things up for Ana. The Pancheva family are full-on bigots. Wouldn't look kindly on a gay divorcee. We’re here."

Lily could barely see through the downpour. Grayson opened a glass door and ushered her into a chic, buzzing restaurant; clearly a favourite with young city workers. As Grayson stowed the umbrella, Lily hung back.

"You care a lot about her," she murmured.

He looked at her. "I know what you're thinking, and no - she's just a good friend. Same used to be said of Seb."

Ouch.

“Mr Paige!” Announced the maitre de, shaking his hand, then nodding politely at Lily. He promptly took their coats and led them towards a set of stairs, to one side of the dining area.

“It’s fine - I know the way,” Grayson told him, taking Lily’s hand.

He led her up to the next floor, toward a door clearly marked as ‘private’. He placed a hand on the door handle, but paused before going in. “Look. Don’t go thinking I hate your boyfriend,” he said. “It’s just that we’ve got some issues right now. But, who knows - maybe with you on the scene, we'll all start getting along better.”

Maybe. Who knows… naked sex-obsessed pigs might fly.