Page 14 of By His Side

“Well, I don’t. So either tell me who you are or I’m going to hang up.”

“Don’t hang up!” I cringed at the slight note of desperation in my voice, hoping it hadn’t been apparent to the man on the other end of the phone. “It’s Felix. Felix Church.”

“Felix.”

To my surprise, there was no note of irritation in Darien’s voice when he said my name. Would there have been in his expression if I’d been able to see it? I wished I could, Darien handsome enough that looking at him had been far from a chore on the two occasions when we’d met so far. “I have a new phone,” I said, conscious that I was coming up with an excuse for having called him when I hadn’t intended to use one. “I thought you might need the number.”

“Yeah? Great. That will give me an easy way of getting in contact with you when I need to. The number came up when you rang, so I can just add it. If you’re not in a rush, I can do that now?”

“I’m not in a rush.” That was an understatement. Now that I’d done the shopping, I had nowhere to go except home. Either that or just sit here.

About a minute passed before Darien came back on the line. “Done. How are things going so far?”

“Things are…” I had no idea how to finish that sentence. Was I supposed to lie and say things were great?

“Have you got out of the house at all?”

“I’m at Brent Cross.”

“Yeah?”

“You sound surprised.”

“Well… I will admit to having had clients that found stepping outside their safe bubble difficult. Especially when they’re living in a private residence and they don’t have a job to go to. It’s good to know you’re not one of them. Makes me worry about you less.”

“You worry about me?”

A slight pause. “I worry about all my clients.”

I dropped my voice to a seductive purr. “That’s a shame. I thought I was special.” Silence. “Don’t you have anything to say to that?”

“What? Sorry. I got distracted by something in the office.”

I was ninety-nine percent certain that was a lie, that I’d flustered Darien enough he hadn’t known what to say. “Aren’t you meant to tell me I am special?”

Darien’s laugh sounded far from natural. He definitely wasn’t immune to my charms. With that realization, came a pang of something. Even if Darien didn’t reciprocate, flirting with him made me feel alive. It made me want more. It made me want to take his statement that he preferred women and show it for the mockery it was.

It would be a horrible thing to do to set out to seduce my probation officer. But it wasn’t like I had a reputation to ruin. Everyone already thought I was scum, so what did I have to lose? And the more I thought about it, the more delicious the thought was. I’d spent seven years in prison for something I hadn’t done. Wasn’t I due for some fun?

“Felix?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought we’d gotten cut off. You went quiet.”

Too right I had. My mind had been too full of how far I could push him. “I was thinking about our meeting in a few days?”

“Yeah?” There was a caution in Darien’s voice. “What about it?”

“I know we said I’d come to your office, but is there any chance you could do a home visit instead?” I could almost hear Darien’s frown.

“Any particular reason?”

Because seducing you in your office seems like too difficult a feat.I took a sip of my coffee while I tried to come up with a credible reason. “It’s like you said, it’s hard to get out of your bubble. I did it today, but I’m not gonna lie and say it was easy. If it’s a problem...”

“It’s not a problem. I might have to switch the time, though. Make it my last appointment of the day.”

I grinned into my coffee.Even better.“That’s very accommodating of you, Darien.”

---