Off Limits

The children on the Heath are running now, and the mother and father are watching, holding hands, laughing as the littlest one tumbles down and lands in the middle of some wet grass. One of the older siblings scoops him up, cradling him and spinning in circles until the little one’s laughter peals across the grass towards me, hitting me like a slap in the face.

I’m not clucky. I don’t want children. The agony of my own childhood is one I would never inflict on another. Oh, it’s not like I was abused or anything. My parents loved me. Loved me enough to hire only the best nannies and tutors and horse-riding coaches. To send me to the very best schools... Clue: the best schools for meeting handsome, eligible husbands-to-be.

And they loved me enough to question my sanity when I enrolled in joint honours at Oxford and then post-grad at the LSE. But there was Grandma in the front row when I accepted my Master’s degree.

‘I’m just flat out,’ I say quietly. ‘Work’s crazy at the moment.’

Grandma is quiet, taking this in. Then, ‘You’re coming for lunch tomorrow?’

Tomorrow? Shit. It’s almost the weekend. But the idea of seeing Grandma makes my heart soar. ‘Lunch? Yeah, sure.’

‘And you’ll bust me out of this hellhole again? Take me out for so much champagne I get woozy and disgraceful?’

I laugh, because the ‘hellhole’ nursing home Grandma is in

costs more per year than most people earn in a lifetime and is the last word in luxury. She has a personal butler, for crying out loud. But the staff there don’t entirely approve of her love of bubbles, whereas I am more than happy to serve as her occasional enabler.

‘Yep. You betcha.’

I stand up, giving one last look at the family as they move over the crest of a hill and disappear out of sight, then I walk across the grass, making my way to the gate nearest the lane that leads to Jack’s mansion.

I try not to think about whether Jack will be in the office when I get back.

Chapter Six

IT’S JUST AS well I’m busy. Between running one last glance over the Wyndham contracts, checking the files I’ll need and locking down the details for Australia, responding to some urgent emails and looking at some high-level staff CVs for the foundation, the day passes quickly.

It is evening before I know it and I am still at my desk.

My phone bleeps just as I’m packing up.

I’m in the City. Hughes will bring you here when you’re done.

I read the text three times, my bemusement growing with each moment. True, I’d basically begged him to fuck me earlier that day, but this is hardly a masterpiece in flirtation and seduction.

Do you need me for something?

I fire the message back, lifting my bag over my shoulder and switching the lights off at the door.

You know what I need you for.

I don’t reply. I don’t know why. But I make my way outside and smile at Hughes—possibly the only guy in the company who works hours as long as Jack and mine. He doesn’t have a family. He was in the army and returned from three tours of Iraq ready for a change. He’s smart, safe and we trust him implicitly.

We.

I do that a lot, but I don’t mean ‘we’ in a romantic sense. It’s just that we’ve almost become partners over the years without either of us realising it.

‘I’m meeting Jack at his place in the City,’ I murmur.

When I was sixteen my dad caught Roger Cranston and me fooling around in the kitchen. I was so mortified with embarrassment that I spent the next week making up elaborate stories that would explain exactly why Roger had been kneeling in front of me, my skirt pushed up my legs.

He dropped a pen and...um...I was reaching for another...

I feel that now. That same sense of embarrassment—like I’ve been caught doing completely the wrong thing and need to explain. To Hughes, of all people.

My cheeks flush pink and I don’t meet his eye. ‘I need some documents signed.’

He pulls the door open and smiles. ‘Long day?’