Page 66 of Crush

Sleeping with the boss clearly had its benefits.

Shoo-ing that horrible thought away, I reread the text I’d received from Max earlier.

Everything fit?

Yes, and thank you, Max. How is Birmingham?

He responded immediately.Boring as fuck. I should ask you to send me a pic of you in your work gear. To cheer me up.

I grinned at the cheeky comment.Why don’t you? You can ask for nothing.

It would be unprofessional.He replied with an eye-rolling emoji. I grinned down at my phone.

Heaven forbid!

I’ll just have to use my imagination.Max replied.

I added a smiling-face emoji and thumbed in. You do that.

Laters sexy. Oops, sorry, unprofessional again!

Night, sir x.I added the sir on purpose as he had once said he liked to hear me call him that.

Sir? I could get used to that.Max messaged.

I sent him a blowing kiss emoji and left it at that.

It was the first time I had ever flirted by text and I liked it.

Max

My meetings in Birmingham did not go well and I had to stay until Thursday lunchtime. The company that owned the hotel and bar we were refurbishing in London had their Head Office in Solihull. It was southwest of the city and a bugger to get to. I’d taken a taxi from the station and had been late for my first meeting with Matthew Thompson, the MD of Whitman and Sons. They owned hotels and bars throughout the country and I had to spend the first thirty minutes kissing his arse. Something I was un-practiced at.

During the journey back, I had googled Alexander Harker but didn’t find out much. Jonathan did say that he’d paid to keep things out of the media. I still couldn’t believe that Amber had been subjected to a kidnapping and had ended up falling for the prick that had taken her. My blood boiled when I thought of how she had been exploited and used. Her starchy attitude towards men made so much more sense to me now.

I decided it best to give her plenty to keep her busy while I wasn’t on site. Wes had been giving me updates and saying how Amber had beenimmersed in what she was doing and was full of enthusiasm. I also made sure I texted her a few times, not wanting to come across as a dick after our night together. Something I so wanted a repeat of.

Lady Swift was now all I could think about and I left the train at Kings Cross, needing a few beers and some man time.

It was Thursday night and I had decided to meet Luca at a strip club we occasionally met in. It was the perfect venue when you were in the mood for something seedy and I needed to take my mind off Amber.

The ‘sir’ text she’d sent me had got my dick hard, I’m not going to lie.

Aquarius was on the edge of Soho and a short taxi ride away from home. It was cheap and nasty, but we’d been going there for years, so it was more of a nostalgic tradition.

During our drinking sesh, Luca and I were joined by a couple of women, Lucy, and Abbie. They both worked at the courthouse and knew Natalie. After a couple of hours, Luca bailed on me, leaving me alone with the two females and another guy they worked with, Marcus. We chatted and drank and I started to feel myself unwind.

I texted Maverick Chambers, the guy who organised fights for the fighting club I was part of and asked him to set me up. I needed to get rid of some of the tension I was feeling. Most of it being generated by that Harker fucker who was about to be released from prison. Would he try to contact Amber? Didn’t they have a restraining order and shit like that automatically for those types of scenarios? Surely past victims would be forever looking over their shoulders. I needed to speak to Gabriel about what rights she had and stuff. If I was to help Jonathan in protecting Amber, I needed to know what I was dealing with.

We were sitting in one of the booths at the back of the club, chatting, doing shots, and watching the dancers perform on stage. Abbie had her hand on my leg and had gradually been climbing it up my thigh for the last two minutes when I suddenly saw a flash of blonde hair and an arse I’d recognise anywhere. WTF?

My beer almost slipped through my fingers as Leonie Smith walked by holding a tray of drinks. What the actual fuck? Leonie worked in this shithole? The second question was, did Gabriel know about that?

I patted Abbie's leg and asked her to get our server’s attention. Michelle had been our waitress for the evening and I could see her just about to deliver another order. I also wanted Abbie’s hand nowhere near my dick. She was cute, but she wasn’t Amber.

I drew out my phone and dialled Gabe.

“Sup?” My friend answered his phone immediately. He was much better than me, I usually had mine on silent. It wound him the fuck up which always made me smile.

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