Chapter One
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Welcome, angels!
We love a free book, don’t we?
As usual for my stories:
A couple of things:
♡ I don’t always mention contraception or STI’s, please assume the characters are being safe and not playing pregnancy roulette.
♡ I use British English. Please don’t correct my spelling with American English.
♡ That being said, if you notice any grammar mistakes, it would be great if you could point them out. Occasionally, I use conversational language that may be grammatically incorrect. For example ‘You good?’ instead of ‘Are you good’ etc. Feel free to ignore those.
♡ I write mature romances. The words ‘clit’ and ‘cock’ will make an appearance. If that’s not your thing, please leave without complaint.
♡ You can follow me on Instagram, naughtyxchristian.
Thank you and enjoy! L x
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Talia.
“Natalia? Can you come to my office for a moment?”
My heart stops at the sound of words no one ever wants to hear. My stomach churns as I nod weakly and push myself up off my chair.
My mind races with everything I could have done wrong to get myself fired. I finished the last of the custard creams last week. I left early on Thursday because I got a migraine. I came back late from my lunch break a week ago. I arrived late yesterday because of traffic.
I follow Mr Higgins down the corridor to his glass-walled office. Glancing around self-consciously, I step into his office. All of my colleagues can see that he has invited me in here. The door closes with a resounding click.
“Take a seat.”
I drop into the chair and clasp my hands together. Mr Higgins steeples his and meets my worried gaze.
“When you first joined the company three years ago…”
We thought you had great potential and you haven’t reached it.
We took a chance on you and it didn’t pan out.
We expected more and now we’re disappointed.
My brain unhelpfully completes his sentence as he pauses for effect. This is it, I think they’re letting me go. I’ve never been fired before. I’m sweating.
“When you joined, you added your name to a form requesting for volunteers who would be willing to transfer to another branch.”
Oh. Not what I was expecting.
“Right…”
“Well, a space has come up at one of our other branches and I think it would be perfect for you. It’s a managerial role, so it would be a promotion for you and it will come with a modest pay rise.”
For a moment, I’m stunned into silence. I blink a couple of times, trying to process what I’m hearing.
“Where? What branch?” I blurt.
He smiles broadly. “It’s one of the more remote locations, Headingway.”
“Headingway.” I frown and think for a second. “Isn’t that near the mountains?”
“Yes, it’s in a town called Westwood.”
I open and close my mouth, taken aback with surprise.
“Can I- can I have some time to about it?”
“Yes! Please do. Take the week or longer if you need, let me know what you think. I’ll send over an email with more information.”
“Okay, thank you.”
“Not a problem. Thank you for your dedication to this company.”
My legs are numb as I get to my feet and stumble out of his office. Two minutes later, I’m sitting back at my desk and the email comes through. It’s a £5K pay rise. I’d be managing a team of four. There would be an opportunity to have two days in office and three remote. The company will put me up in a flat for two months until I can find my own place. They will pay for moving costs.
This feels like a no brainer.
I search up the town. It’s quaint and picturesque with the mountain back drop. It’s seven hours from London. It would be a serious relocation for me.
But isn’t that what I want?
I sink back into my chair and close my eyes, silently asking myself what I want. I’ve lived in London my whole life. My parents raised me in the East End in Bethnal Green yet somehow I managed to curb the accent. My father passed when I was too young to truly remember him, I was only five. When I was 19, my mum was diagnosed with a brain tumour. She was given two years to live and surprised everyone by living seven more years.
I was so lucky to get that time with her. She lived every day like it was her last and each time she reached another birthday, she’d joke about how she’d have to get a proper job and start living her life again. By the time she passed away, she felt ready to go. She’d done everything on her bucket list and said her goodbye’s. She might have been ready, but I wasn’t. It was a year ago and I’m still in therapy for it, amongst other things.
I don’t really fit in with my colleagues. I’m 27 and most of them are in their forties and fifties. They find me too enthusiastic. One even said I’m too ‘young’ and it’s exhausting. I’m a bubbly person, not one of those toxic optimists that shoves positivity down your throat, but I will always try to see the silver linings in shit situations. I like to put up decorations in the office when there’s a holiday. I have four plants on my desk. I wear brightly-coloured jumpers, badges on my lanyard and have sparkly stationery.
I don’t fit in here amongst my married coworkers with children as a single woman without so much as a cat at home. I even feel apart from my best friend because she now has a six-month old. Gone are our nights out with cocktails and karaoke, now it’s all spit-up and sleep routines. I’m not mad about it, I just feel out of sync with everyone in my life. My mum always said I shine too brightly for most people but I should never try and be less just to make them comfortable. Unfortunately, I’m an oversharer and often easily make people feel uncomfortable without even trying.
If my mum were still here, I’d want to stay for her. She isn’t though, and truthfully, nothing is keeping me in London. I couldn’t afford to keep up with the rent after my mum passed so I ended up in a studio flat which has a rent that costs half my monthly salary. It’s noisy, draughty and far too small for me. I put up with it because…well, I don’t know why.
I look at the email again, knowing already that I’m going to take it.
One month later…
“It’s perfect, I’ll take it.”
The estate agent beams at my response. “Wonderful! Let me get the documents up on my iPad and we can get the paperwork sorted now.”
As she taps away on her tablet, I look around at the cute two-up, two-down cottage. I can’t believe it hasn’t been snatched up yet, the rent is the cheapest I’ve seen for somewhere this size. It’s ideal for one person. The downstairs has a kitchen and dining room, the upstairs has a bathroom and bedroom. On the days where I work remotely, I can easily set up my laptop at the kitchen table.
The only downside is the garden. It’s really adorable with a small patch of grass, bountiful flowerbeds and a shed, but the eight-foot-high wooden fence is a bit of an eyesore when I could be looking onto the beautiful evergreen forest behind it.
“How come there’s such a big fence?” I ask.
The estate agent brushes me off with a wave of her hand. “Oh, it’s just cause of the forest.”
“The forest?” I frown. “What, are there like bears or something?” I joke.
She looks over at me. “Try wolves.” Registering the surprise on my face, she continues, “Has no one told you? Westwood has a grey wolf population,” she explains. “They stick to the forest obviously, but any properties that back onto the woods have fences to ensure no wolves come roaming into their gardens. It’s why we have a no-pet policy too, less likely to attract a predator.”
My eyes widen at this news. “I had no idea. Wow, wolves. That’s pretty cool.”
She shrugs. “It means we don’t venture into the forest much, they’re a protected species so there’s all these rules for hiking about which areas you can go into and you have to have a permit etc. It’s easier to drive one hour east to Haywood if you want a woodland walk.”
“Ah okay, thank you, that’s good to know.”
I yawn discreetly and rub my eyes, cursing under my breath when I realise that I’ve got make-up on. I don’t wear it on the days I’m not in the office so I get used to only having it on a few times a week. My ditsy brain always forgets and I smudge my mascara by rubbing my eyes.
“Take a look at the contract for me. If you’re happy, you can sign electronically now and I’ll send you a printed copy in the post later this week.”
I yawn again as I cradle my coffee in both hands. I came into work an hour earlier than usual this morning to make up for the hour I took off to view that rental property. 24 Hollyhock Lane will be my new home in exactly two weeks. I can’t wait to get out of the company’s flat. It’s not that it isn’t nice, it’s just very basic and doesn’t have any parking so I have to park five blocks away and it adds extra time to my commute that I don’t want. It’s also on the other side of town and despite the small size of this place, there is still a rush hour in the morning and I end up in traffic.
While I wait for a client’s details to load, I look out of the window next to me. I really like our offices. There are ten of us with desks in one office and we have windows on one side. The far side looks outwards onto the street, the side I am on overlooks the building’s central atrium. I can see from the first floor down to the main lobby. I love it because I get to people-watch as customers and staff come in and out of the building.
The automatic doors slide open and a man enters who moves in such a way that it can only be described as a power walk. It’s a walk that demands attention. His tall and bulky frame demands it, too. He moves to the middle of the foyer and checks his watch. Even from a floor up, I can see how handsome he is. He meets the typical beauty standard of tall, dark and handsome. Tanned skin. Sharp jawline. Perfect combination of beautiful and rugged. Tailored, fitted navy suit. CEO-hot.
“Who are we perving on?” Steph asks, appearing next to me with a cup of tea in hand.
“Man in the suit,” I reply, not even trying to hide my open ogling from her.
I like Steph. In my three weeks of working at this branch, she is the only coworker I’ve become close with. It helps that she doesn’t mind that I’m an oversharer. I feel like I’m constantly trying to look for people who match my energy. I just want to be able to speak my mind without making people uncomfortable. Apparently it’s not normal to share lots of your inner thoughts and feelings.
Steph and I met when she poured herself a glass of cranberry juice in the staffroom on my second day here and because I lack a filter, I didn’t introduce myself or say hello, no, I said “I hope you haven’t got a UTI”. And because Steph is wonderful and sweet, she blushed and admitted that she was drinking cranberry juice solely for that reason. My social etiquette finally caught up to my brain and I apologised for making such a personal statement. I informed her that she would do best to drink lots of water and that should flush everything through in a few days.
I was embarrassed after the encounter and thought that would be the last I’d hear from her, but two days later, Steph came by my desk to thank me for the advice because her UTI had gone. I was amazed that she wasn’t freaked out by my overstep. We’ve since spoken about a lot more normal things and I would even dare to call her my friend now.
“Oh! That’s Councilman Hague.”
My eyebrows draw together. “You say that like I should know who he is. Does being a councilman mean he’s a politician?”
“Yeah, sort of. He’s the leader of the town council, kind of like a mayor I guess,” Steph explains.
I’ve started to learn my coworkers names and their habits now, so when I hear the sound of chair wheels rolling over the carpet, I know it’s Liz before I smell her sweet perfume. Liz is in her forties and is absolutely obsessed with gossip. From the sly looks she gives me, I know she thinks I’m weird. The moment there’s a whiff of anything interesting that’s non-work related, Liz appears. She forgets that I’m weird when she thinks I have information for her.
“Ooh, Mr Hague is such a hotty,” she gushes. “Shame the man’s a loony.”
I look at her in surprise. Nothing about the man screams anything other than normal. Except maybe his supernatural hotness.
“A loony? How so?”
“He owns an entire village outside town. When I first moved here, I thought I’d go check it out, you know? See if there were any cute shops or something, but I couldn’t even get into the village.” Her eyes are wide with disbelief as she explains animatedly, “The entire place is gated off and you need a security pass to access it. Have you ever heard of that?”
“I suppose it’s like a gated community,” I offer weakly.
Liz scoffs. “Yeah, but that’s with a housing estate, not an entire village! Apparently you can only live there if you’re friends or family of Mr Hague. It’s such a shame he’s such a snob, he’s so hot.”
I glance at Steph, wondering how much of what Liz is saying is true. She shrugs vaguely.
“What’s he doing here then?”
“Meeting with the big boss probably,” Liz says.
Disinterested now, she pushes off the floor with her feet and rolls back to her desk.
“He regularly checks in with all the local businesses,” Steph carries on. “Part of his role, I think. His family owns most of the buildings in this town.”
“Huh, so he’s rich-rich then.”
“Yep,” she says and sighs. “Ugh, gotta go back to work.” She perks up and surprises me further by asking, “Wanna grab a drink after work tonight?”
“Um, yeah, sure?” I reply, my surprise making it sound like a question.
Steph nods. “Okay, I’ll come to your desk at 5.”
I smile as she walks away, pleased that I’ve made a new friend. When I look back at Mr Hot Suit, he’s shaking hands with our big boss, Larry Otter, who owns this bank. Knowing he’s so far out of my league that it’s laughable, I allow myself to indulge in a few more minutes of checking him out before returning to my work.
