Turning to Stone

Waking up at 5am was not how I liked to start my day, and adding a misplaced bra onto that only pissed me off more. If it hadn’t been one of my favourites, I might have cut my losses and scampered out of the dark room before I risked getting caught sneaking out. But it was one of my favourites, and it cost me a small fortune even during the sale, so I continued to fumble around in the pitch black while attempting to recall how and where it had left my body last night, as if that might help me narrow down my search.

Had he torn it off and flung it across the room? Had I unclipped it and simply let it drop to the ground? Were we inside his bedroom when clothes began to come off, or had we started in the living room?

For fuck’s sake.

A sleepy sigh caused me to pause foraging under the bed. The deep breathing suggested he hadn’t woken, but I rose to my feet anyway.

It was fine. As long as he didn’t hate me for sneaking out on him, we could be adults about the situation—for the sake of my bra. After all, it wasn’t like this was the first time we’d had sex. Even if we had only recently revived our friendship, it didn’t have to be awkward.

But I wasn’t prepared to take that chance right now by waking him up. So I slipped out into the fresh, autumnal morning and dropped down into the nearest Tube station.

By the time I’d Tube-hopped across town, it was past 6am. That still gave me enough time to wash the smell of sex off my skin and change into something more appropriate for work. Zola was a laid-back boss, but turning up in a short, figure-hugging dress—sans bra—might be pushing it.

As I’d hoped, the Tube had been quiet at the crack of dawn, and nobody had batted an eyelid at my lack of clothing. I’d been in good company with a group of girls who dozed a few seats down, wearing the evidence of a fun night out.

But although I’d got away with it on the Tube, I didn’t fancy waltzing into the 5-star hotel, smiling at the same concierge I passed every day while clearly doing the walk of shame, and then brushing shoulders with early-rising, smartly-dressed businessmen as I navigated the corridors to my room.

Also, I really didn’t want to face any of the Security team. It would be mortifying.

So I bent the rules and exploited my knowledge of the access codes to slip in through the side door and call for the lift. Technically I wasn’t supposed to use the secret entrance, but it was unlikely that anyone had noticed me failing to return to my room last night, so I figured I was safe.

Until the lift arrived, and the doors opened.

Ed’s tall frame leaned against the far wall, a skin-tight running top stretched around his broad torso and loose joggers hanging low on his hips. Noticing me, his eyes drifted over my body, lingering on my chest before darting back up to my face.

“Sophia,” he said, quirking an eyebrow at me.

“Morning.” I stepped into the lift and hit the button to hold the doors, jerking my head towards the corridor when he didn’t move. “You not getting out?”

“In a rush...?” By his leading tone, he’d obviously gathered I was trying to sneak in unseen.

“Yes,” I said, not in the mood for games. “So if you don’t mind...”

Lips twitching, his eyes raked over me again with slow intent. I tried not to wither under his intense scrutiny, but all I could think about was that fucking bra and how he’d be able to tell exactly where I’d been and what I’d done.

“Did you have fun?” Ed asked, his voice low and laden with suggestive undertones.

“Yes.” I refused to give him any more, refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing that nobody had come close to him, no matter how hard I’d tried.

Yet when his lips curved into a devilish smile, all I wanted to do was cover them with my own and swallow that smug expression into the depths of my mouth.

“Could have fooled me. Anyone would think you’ve not been laid in months with how tightly wound you are.”

“Fuck you.” Tired of waiting, I released the door button and tapped my card against the sensor.

I was tightly wound because I’d potentially lost my favourite bra.

Ed’s hand darted out to stop the doors from closing, and I folded my arms, patience running thin.

“Do you have somewhere to be? Or were you just riding the lift for the fun of it?”

Ed chuckled. “Seriously, Soph. Was he really that bad?”

Heat flooded my cheeks as I clenched my fists. It hadn’t been bad—that was the frustrating part. In fact, it had been pretty good. Fun. Not exactly mind-blowing but still satisfying. Two orgasms—that was nothing to scoff at. But standing in that lift, feet away from the guy who’d raised the bar to unattainable heights for all other men, stirred a longing deep inside my gut.

No matter how good the sex had been, I still wanted more. I wanted him. His filthy mouth. His insane body. His dominance, his power, his taste. Him.

“It was great, actually,” I said. “I’m tightly wound because I’d much rather be in bed with him right now instead of standing in this lift talking to you, yet here we are.”

Ed’s jaw ticked, the arm blocking the door tensing as his fingers curled around the metal panels.

The air between us hummed with a thick tension that we’d grown accustomed to, one that bubbled beneath the surface, only breaking free via small jibes and point-scoring. Usually we were well-matched, reaching an impasse before giving up and moving on with our days, but I felt like I was on the brink of losing this one, and I needed to claw back some of the power.

Yet as I stared at the straining muscles in his hand, all I could think about was the softness of his palm against my throat, the vice grip of his fingers around my wrists, and the bite of his nails digging into my hips.

That inconvenient trip down memory lane allowed him to snatch back control of the here and now, though. Before I’d even noticed him move, he destroyed the distance between us, his hips nailing me hard against the lift’s railing. My back arched upon impact, air rushing from my lungs.

The same hand I’d been watching closed around the nape of my neck, fingers twisting into my hair and tugging my head back until I was forced to look up into his glinting eyes.

“How about I help relieve that tension, then?” His minty breath tickled my lips, hot and humid as it floated through the short space between us.

Yes please.

My heart hammered in my chest as a thrill rushed down my spine, every instinct in my body begging me to give in.

“Pass,” I forced out through gritted teeth.

“Swallow your pride, Soph. We both know it’ll be worth it.”

The darkness in his eyes sparkled as he pulled my hair taut, hips pressing into me harder until I couldn’t ignore the heavy bulge growing against my thigh. Heat rushed through my veins, kicking up sparks of electricity that crackled along every inch of bare skin. As my nipples tightened, straining against the thin fabric of my dress without a bra to hide them, I became acutely aware of the way they scratched against his solid chest with every ragged breath that passed between us.

His offer continued to hang in the charged air around us. On any other day I’d have said yes. But today…

“I literally just came from another guy’s flat. Find some fucking class.”

I didn’t know if my brutal words were aimed at him or myself, but it had the desired effect, and he put up no fight when I shoved a palm against his tight stomach muscles to push him off. If I’d offended him, he didn’t show it. That same amused twinkle bounced in his eyes as he released my hair and stepped away from me.

“Suit yourself,” he said.

With a knowing grin, he pressed to re-open the doors and then strode out into the corridor. The spicy scent of his cologne lingered in the lift, like a tormenting reminder of his presence and magnetism.

As if I needed to suffer any more torment.

“You’re in early.” Zola dropped her notebook onto the table with a loud thump, then placed her laptop down with much greater care.

“Yeah.” I heaved out a sigh. “Thought I’d get a head start on whatever horrors awaited us.”

“And?”

“The usual. A few defamatory claims from girls who say they spent a dirty weekend with him. All three met him in different parts of London, so I think we can safely disregard unless he’s mastered teleportation.”

“Right,” Zola said, nodding as she typed in her password. “Worth asking how he spent his weekend, though. If he was near any of those places, then we need to cross our Ts and dot our Is.”

I leaned back in my chair, stretching out my legs beneath the table. My thighs ached, a delicious reminder of last night’s fun activities, but my encounter with Ed in the lift had dampened my post-sex buzz.

“He doesn’t sleep with fans, Zola. It’s all bullshit.”

She tapped one long, manicured nail against her laptop screen. “This one in Putney doesn’t mention sex. Sex act only. Seems quite specific for bullshit.”

“Nah, the girls are just getting smarter, so it seems more legit.”

“Either way, we need to quash it. If any of this is close to true, it will lay the foundations for worse stuff to come out. And if he earns a reputation for messing around with fans, these stories are given credibility and we won’t be able to get ahead of them.”

As I let her point sink in, I re-read the email from one of our regular tabloid correspondents. Exclusive bar in Putney. Flirting over cocktails—mocktail for Teddy—led to a sex act in the bathroom. Teddy refused to share his number. Girl felt used. Girl sells story to press.

Something about it didn’t sit right with me. Yes, the mocktail thing was quite particular, but Ed had done several interviews recently where he’d spoken of cutting down on alcohol. This girl could have easily applied that intelligence to this account in order to give it credibility.

What I struggled to believe was the negative portrayal of him. Maybe because I once had believed that Teddy Stone was heartless enough to use a girl in that way, and that blind belief had come back to bite me. I was far more careful about what I believed now. He’d earned my trust, and his word now came before anyone else’s.

“Don’t they have to check with us beforehand anyway?” I asked Zola. “They can’t just print any old story without knowing if it’s true. That’s libel, right?”

“Right. But from a PR perspective, we can’t go around suing every newspaper and website. It’s not good for the brand, and it will just publicise the stories even more. Plus we would have to prove that they consciously published a fake story. That’s much more difficult if some of these examples have genuinely happened in the past.”

I made a mental note of that logic. Sometimes my friendship with Ed made this job easier—I could guess the likelihood of him having done the things that appeared in our inboxes—but other times it clouded my judgement completely.

After three months in the role, I’d learnt a lot. But one thing I still hadn’t mastered was the different worlds we both occupied.

As Zola and I caught up on each other’s weekends, my phone buzzed with a message.

Logan McIntosh: Waking up with a bra wrapped around your ankle is a sign of a good night…

Smiling, I opened the message to reply. No wonder I hadn’t been able to findit.

Me: Not sure how it ended up there but I want it back

Logan McIntosh: Happy to drop it off at your hotel on my way into work

Me: I’m already at work

Logan McIntosh: Which hotel are you at? I can leave it with reception or ask the concierge to take it up to your room?

Me: Hilarious. I’ll come to your office at lunch

At least he didn’t seem bothered about me sneaking out. Hopefully that also meant he wouldn’t be bothered when I told him it would never be happening again.

As I locked my phone and turned it facedown, Ed moseyed through the door, a tray of coffee in one hand.

“Morning ladies,” he said, lowering the drinks onto the table. He picked out two of the cups, handing one to me and the other to Zola. “Americano for Soph… And Cappuccino for you, Zola.”

“Thanks.” I shot him an appreciative smile.

Taking the third cup from the tray, Ed settled into the seat opposite me and crossed one foot over his knee.

He’d changed out of his gym clothes and now wore a plain white tee. My eyes followed the deep plunge of the v-neck, lingering on the smooth, bronzed skin of his chest as I pictured him without the fabric concealing the masterpiece underneath. When I dragged my gaze back up to his face, I found him watching me, and his lips twitched almost imperceptibly.

“Nice weekend?” Zola asked him.

Ed turned his attention onto her. “Yes, thanks. You?”

“Do anything fun? Go to any parties?”

He sat up straighter and blew on his coffee. “Starting already, are we? What happened to polite small-talk before the interrogation?”

Peering at him over her laptop lid, Zola pushed her glasses to the top of her head. “This is small-talk. Why? Did you go to any bars?”

“Small-talk is an exchange. You ignored my question. That’s an interrogation.”

“I don’t have the patience for your games today, Ed. If your answer is different depending on whether this is small-talk or an interrogation, then we have a problem.”

That silenced him, and I got a small stab of amusement from seeing him rattled by her no-nonsense response. Zola was a true professional, and she took no prisoners.

“No,” he said, raising his eyebrows at her for emphasis. “I didn’t go to any bars. It was a pretty chilled weekend, actually.”

“Did you go anywhere? Or did you stay in the hotel?”

Although said as a joke, Ed’s point about interrogating him was true. We did the same activity every Monday. Zola and I would fire questions at him about his weekend, and if any of his answers matched up with any of the reports in our inboxes, we would know to pry further. If we did it the other way round—letting Ed know about the reports beforehand—then he could be tempted to fabricate details to cover his tracks. We needed his honesty for this to work.

“I went to the gym on Saturday morning. That was about it.”

Zola nodded at me, and I picked up the reins. Ed’s eyes softened as they shifted onto me, relaxed and patient.

“Okay, so you didn’t spend any time in Wimbledon?” I asked.

“No.”

“Chelsea?”

“No.”

“Putney?”

“No.”

As I drummed my pen against my notebook, I glanced at Zola. If Ed hadn’t left the hotel since Saturday morning, he couldn’t have been at the bar in Putney, or the restaurant in Wimbledon, or the house party in Chelsea. All the stories were fake, and we could go back to each reporter with confirmation of that, stopping them from being published.

Every now and then, something would turn up in the inbox that had an element of truth to it. For example, Ed would have been at the restaurant, but he wouldn’t have spoken to the person selling the story. They’d simply seen him there and grabbed onto an opportunity to make some quick money.

“Moving on,” Zola said, and she started to discuss his itinerary for the upcoming week.

The meeting wrapped up ahead of schedule, but Ed stayed at the table, gazing across at the window as we packed up.

“Soph,” he said as I began to follow Zola out of the room, his voice so soft that I almost thought I’d imagined it.

When I glanced over my shoulder, he tipped his chin to beckon me back inside. Checking that Zola hadn’t noticed, I let the door swing shut and returned to my chair.

“What’s up?” I asked.

I sat down and studied him, the relaxed expression from earlier tightening into something more guarded as he stared at his intertwined fingers resting on the surface of the table. A red flag fluttered in the front of my mind.

“The story you got about Putney. Was it about me and a girl in a bathroom?” He lifted his eyes to meet mine, and the hairs at the back of my neck prickled with apprehension. Surely not…

My poker face sucked, but I still tried my best not to give anything away. I raised a suspicious eyebrow and folded my arms.

“What makes you say that?”

“Come on, Soph. Zola’s not here to critique your interrogation approach. Let’s talk candidly.”

I cast a cautious glance towards the door, half-expecting Zola to burst through it and demand I follow protocol. But the meeting was over, and it couldn’t be more obvious that Ed wanted this conversation to take place off the record.

“Yes,” I said. “It was. She performed a sex act on you, allegedly.”

He swallowed, pinching his eyes shut for several tense seconds. When he opened them, regret tinged his blue irises.

“I need a favour.”