Page 25 of Connor's Claim

In a minute, I’d got myself set up with a mic and earpiece to hear the cues and stepped up onto the stage. Then there was a camera in my face, and a hush drew over the room.

I swallowed, remembering the pose I needed to strike from my training. Shoulders back, hands clasped lightly in front of me, and my gaze moving across the room until all eyes were on me.

“Welcome.” I smiled and launched into the introduction like a pro. I covered off housekeeping—the fire exits, the break times, the bathrooms—then dove into the city planning agenda with enthusiasm.

People smiled. The anxiety-suffering Mary Pressley sat rigid in her seat but wasn’t shaking anymore.

This was going well.

“Is it the backlight or has her ass always been that big?” a voice said in my ear.

I stumbled over my sentence and stared out at the audience. Only the other speakers were wired for sound, and one of them had made that comment, overheard via the earpiece hidden under my hair. I couldn’t tell who, but embarrassment had me shift my position, trying to make myself smaller.

Regaining my poise, I moved into the next part of the speech, speaking clearly while narrowing in on who could’ve spoken. At the row of tables nearest to the front, two of the councillors sat together, both smirking and one leaning on the arm of his chair to take him closer to his buddy.

Anton Blake and Benjamin Slaughter. The men Genevieve had told me were on her suspects list. I didn’t know what had put them there, but those thoughts were eclipsed by one of them opening his ugly mouth again.

In a light-brown suit that matched the colour of his nice-guy-neat hair, Slaughter leaned into Blake, hiding his mouth with his cupped hand like that made a difference. “Someone needs to introduce that bitch to the gym.”

Blake snorted and slid his round glasses down from where he’d rested them in his wedge of pale-blond hair. He ogled me. “But look at those tits. They’d vanish if she dieted.”

“True. She’d be flat as a board and entirely unfuckable. At least with tits like that, you can close your eyes and hang on for dear life.”

They chuckled between them, and sweat broke out on my brow. Still talking, I checked the expressions of the people nearest them, but no one else showed anything but benign attention to my speech. The two councillors were having a cosy little chat about my body. How dare they? How could they speak about any woman like that?

Hot tears pricked the backs of my eyes.

I continued, getting through the speech and maintaining my composure as best I could. I’d worked hard to be in this position. It had cost me so much, and as good as I was at this job, I sometimes wondered if I’d made the wrong choice in taking it. In persuading my father that I was a good fit.

Yet here were two men who were friends of my father, openly discussing me as if I were a piece of meat, and ithurt. I’dalways been conscious of my body shape and had suffered shitty comments in the past. But this level of brazenness stung.

My confidence took a hit. I finished, hoping my shock didn’t show on my face, then left the stage to polite applause and took my seat to welcome the next speaker.

Only someone who knew me well would know how that overheard conversation crushed me. There were none of those people here.

Chapter 10

Connor

An incoming text had me springing open my eyes.

Mick: All good.

Another appeared two hours later.

Mick: She’s at lunch now, sitting with people eating fancy fucking sandwiches and talking shop.

Our crew member, who typically worked security at the warehouse, was playing babysitter today and was under instruction to keep me posted, even when I was asleep. There was no way I could have walked away without someone watching over Everly.

After six hours, I’d rested enough and headed for a shower, no news to prompt me to rush to Town Hall for another couple of hours. In the bathroom, under the hot water, I closedmy eyes and fucked my fist to thoughts of what I’d seen this morning. Everly with her hand between her legs, reacting to the realisation of what I’d done, I guessed. Or maybe hoped.

Then her surprise at me sneaking in.

She’d fucked herself so prettily for me to watch.

The lass wasn’t what I expected. Not entirely. That little flash of challenge both in using the vibrator I’d brandished at her and then in demanding I replace her top had sunk a deep thunderbolt of need through me. I’d pictured ordering her to call in sick, lifting her onto my kitchen counter, and burying my face between her thighs for the rest of the day.

I jerked my dick faster. Last night, the lights in my bedroom had been off. I wanted a repeat where I could see exactly what I was doing. Wanted to watch the skin of her chest flush pink. Her nipples harden under my tongue. My dick disappearing inside her cunt, her pussy lips stretched wide like they had been around her toy.

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