Page 106 of So Wild

“Company protocol dictates you be here for no longer than thirty minutes,” she said with yet another irritable sniff. “See that you’re gone before then.”

Sam considered telling her to go fuck herself but couldn’t get her mouth to work properly. She smiled and McJizzcrackers sailed away without a care in the world.

What’s wrong with me? Am I losing my touch? I knew Scott was posher than me, I call him Galahad, for fuck’s sake. How is this a surprise?

“Samantha?” Scott appeared in the doorway, his cheeks slightly red beneath his stubble. “Sorry about all that. Martha and I just had some things to talk over.”

Yeah, like whether or not you’re dating a pleb and how the said pleb will delight the champagne classes with her fun body paint—that is if you don’t chuck me for Dragon McJizzcracker’s hot niece.

Sam forced her fake smile wider. “No problem. Can I see your office?”

She told herself she wasn’t going to lose her temper, but no sooner had the door closed than she was backing away from Scott’s outstretched arms.

“What the hell was that conversation with your boss? Do the people you work for have such shrink-wrapped anuses that a few tattoos are enough to blow their minds wide open?”

Scott blinked. “How did you…?”

“I picked up the phone and it buzzed to your intercom. Is this what I have to look forward to if we become a couple? Sneering indifference and suggestions that you date someone more on your level?”

“Of course not. Martha isn’t indicative of everyone I know,” Scott said, but Sam noticed he couldn’t meet her eyes. The tightness in her chest returned, a corset made of the realisation she’d spent her entire adulthood wondering why she and Scott had never gotten together, and been too egotistical to consider the obvious.

“All those years you spent lusting after me and never asked me out, was it because I’m not posh?”

Scott frowned. “I’m not a snob.”

“Maybe not, but you run in snob-circles. You have money, you wear suits and do rowing. You don’t have any tattoos.”

“What does me not having any tattoos have to do with anything? I loveyourtattoos.”

“But you’ve never gotten any yourself,” Sam said, feeling as though huge chunks of puzzle pieces were finally clicking into place. “You don’t have any tatts because they’re not the kind of thing upper class people like you have.”

Scott’s brow furrowed. “Why are you determined to bring class into this? I agree Martha was rude, I tried to discourage her without being openly hostile and I’m not ashamed to be dating you. We grew up next door to each other, I don’t understand why you think we’re so different.”

The ridiculousness of that statement almost took Sam’s breath away. Was Scott so blind he couldn’t see how his Oxbridge education, brand new cars, cushy banking job and married parents had made his life infinitely, permanently, different from hers? Never mind the fact that they’d been neighbors?

Sam pointed to his office door. “Class is real, Scott. She can see it, and I can see it. Why do you get to be in posho denial just because you want to have sex with me?”

“Okay, it was silly of me to say,” Scott admitted. “I know I have privileges you don’t, but we can still be happy together. There are arseholes in every class and that doesn’t mean you listen to them. I don’t give a damn what people like Martha think.”

“Easy to say when you’re not the one being gossiped about at the fucking Christmas Gala.”

Scott took her hand, pressing it between his cold ones. “But I’m not ashamed of you or how I feel about you. I’d be proud to take you to any event I attend for work. I take you to my Cambridge friend’s weddings. Tattoos and all.”

Tattoos and all, Sam thought.Just like how people say ‘warts and all.’ He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand.

She let her hand slip from his, feeling incredibly, overwhelmingly lonely. She wanted to take comfort in him, but it was just too fucking hard.

“Samantha,” Scott’s voice was sharp. “I know why you’re upset and I don’t want to bring up buy­scott­sanderson­aroot.com, but honestly, this feels like you’re just looking for another reason to deny how you feel about me.”

There was truth in this, Sam could feel it, but the heat of what he’d just said and of Martha’s criticism made it impossible to acknowledge. She checked her watch. “I don’t want to brush you off, but I need to get out of here before your boss calls security.”

Scott’s jaw clenched but, ever the consummate gentleman, he nodded. “Would you like me to walk you out?”

Sam shook her head.

“Then I’ll see you later,” he said with icy courtesy.

The hardness in his face made Sam’s stomach roil with guilt. Hadn’t she promised to get better at this? Didn’t she want to change?

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