The only reason I’m putting up with this torture for the next few months is so I can prove to the world that I’m more than just a party girl. That I’m someone who deserves respect. All the drudgery and sucking up will be worth it if I get to be my own boss one day. Maybe I’ll even impress my father by making a success of my life.
Stranger things have happened.
I’m not banking on it, of course. The man has an emotional wall so high it’s impossible to see the top, let alone scale it. I should know—I’ve tried hard enough over the years.
But enough of that. I’ve never been one to feel sorry for myself and I don’t intend to start now. I’m the master of my own destiny and I’m going to bloody well make it a good one.
I watch my new boss now, as he leads the meeting with hypnotising control, garnering the full attention and respect of his minions as he determinedly works through every point on the agenda. He conducts himself beautifully, with a grace and confidence that sends little thrills of awe chasing around my body. They collect together in an erotic thrum at the juncture of my thighs, making my skin prickle with awareness.
Despite the fact that he acts as if he’s got a dildo permanently shoved up his behind whenever he’s around me—or maybe because of it—I find him fascinating.
‘Would you like me to fetch you anything, Mr Chivers? A cup of tea, perhaps?’ I ask him, to make sure he has to look me directly in the eye during a short pause in the meeting. We’ve not made full eye contact since I started here, and I’ll be damned if I don’t at least get a couple of seconds’ worth of attention from him before we break for the weekend.
‘No, thank you, Maya,’ he says, and I hold my breath, waiting for those dark, sensual eyes to lock onto mine.
But they don’t. Instead he looks down at his tablet with the meeting notes on it that I so painstakingly prepared for him, as if my presence here doesn’t have any impact on him whatsoever.
Well, fuck that.
I excuse myself, going the long way round the table, past where he sits at the head, and making sure to bump my hip gently against his shoulder as I pretend to squeeze past him, and stride off to the bathroom.
Once in there, I stare at myself in the mirror, wondering whether I’m really brave enough to do the thing that’s been racing round my mind since I realised I’d be forced to endure the whole meeting being patronised by Benedict and his fawning associates. They’re talking about company pensions and I have to take what must be entirely pointless notes.
It seems Benedict Chivers is following my father’s lead and trying to subdue my life force by subjecting me to endless spreadsheets and slide presentations.
I’ll be lucky if I even get to the point of setting up my own business at this point. There’s a good chance I’ll have died of boredom before then.
So hell, yes, I have got the guts to do this, I tell myself, reaching up under my skirt and sliding down my knickers, then stepping out of them and hiding them in the small utility cupboard under the sink. After smoothing my skirt down, I give myself one last daring smile in the mirror, then exit the bathroom.
I return to the meeting room, feeling the cool air from the air-con unit swirling around my pussy, which only adds to the thrum of arousal that started as soon as the idea shimmied into my head.
Let’s see how easy it is to ignore me now, Mr Chivers.
I go back to a different place at the table, right next to Benedict, and subtly shift my chair as I sit down so he’ll have a full view of me—but no one else will—when he looks directly my way. I cross my legs primly and try not to smile as I see his gaze dart quickly towards the movement I make, then away again, as if he’s training himself not to look.
I don’t do it straight away. I wait until one of the associates is droning on about hybrid schemes and then make a bit of a show of shifting in my chair. Then I sigh gently, so the others won’t be alerted to what I’m doing but Benedict will, and raise my foot, propping the heel of my shoe on the front bar of my chair so my knee is in the air, which forces my legs to open a little, parting my skirt.
In my peripheral vision I see Benedict’s head turn and hear his sharp intake of breath as he clearly spots my ‘accidental’ indiscretion. I’m full-on flashing him now, and as I turn my head to look at him our gazes finally lock and I see exactly what I’ve been waiting for since that moment when he couldn’t tear his eyes away from me in the bathroom.
Desire.
Hot, fierce need.
But before I can even smile he looks away again and asks his colleague a question, as if nothing has happened.
As if I don’t exist.
He’s ignoring me again.
A wave of burning frustration floods through me and I drop my foot from the chair and cross my legs again, determinedly keeping a blank expression on my face in case he looks at me again. No way will I ever show Benedict Chivers how much he’s hurting me with his disregard.
The meeting seems to go on for another couple of hours—though according to my watch, when I check it at the end, it’s only eighteen minutes. Eighteen pain-filled, life-sucking minutes.
The others get up from their chairs on Benedict’s say-so, and I gather my pad and pen together and make to stand up, smoothing my skirt down over my legs.
‘Maya, come with me. I want to see you in my office. Right now.’
The vehemence in Benedict’s last two words leaves me in no doubt that I’m in for it. It just remains to be seen exactly what he has in mind by way of punishment.
The thought of that breaks through my aggravation and wet heat floods between my thighs as I follow him to his office on trembling legs, hearing him call to his other PAs that he’s not to be disturbed.
I shut the door behind me with a shaky hand and turn to face him, my breath coming quickly but my head held high.
I am not going to let this guy get the better of me.
Benedict
MAYA DARLINGTON-HUME IS bad news. Everybody knows that.
Like everyone, I’ve seen the gossip articles showing her falling out of nightclubs on the arm of the latest It Boy and giving the finger to the camera, both of them clearly drunk or high, as well as those grainy long-lensed shots of her slouching around Primrose Hill in the late afternoon, wearing dark glasses and with a takeaway coffee clutched in her hand, after a reportedly wild party at her place the night before.
The whole thing churns my stomach. Not because women shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy themselves, but because I’ve had a lot of experience with spoilt, bored, rich girls throughout my life, so I know one when I see one.
In my teens I worked as a maintenance guy at Tinderly, the most famous and moneyed of all the private girls’ schools in the country. It was only a few miles away from where I grew up, in a rundown post-war prefab house on a rough estate on the edge of Oxford, but those girls’ lives were a million miles away from my own tough upbringing.
I worked at that school throughout my late teens, saving every penny I could so I’d finally be able escape the life I’d been desperate to leave behind since I was old enough to realise that I had a waste of space, sociopathic drunk for a father and that I needed to earn enough money to rescue and rehouse my mother so we’d never have to see that piece of shit again.
That’s how I was able to stick it out at Tinderly—carefully navigating