But during the week they’d be here, Holly knew, and how was she to smuggle Mick past Dad — and Mum, who had a finely tuned radar for such things — into her bedroom? If her father even suspected she was seeing Dominic’s blue-haired bass player, it would be Hannah-and-Jago, all over again.
No, thanks.
“You can save your money,” her father was saying, “and decide on a better course of action. It makes a great deal of sense, financially speaking.”
“I like living on my own,” she objected, “even if it means eating Pot Noodles every day, and buying my clothes at Oxfam—”
“And borrowing money from your well-heeled father’s bottomless pockets to pay your bills every month?”
Holly sighed, defeated. He was right.
“Come to my office tomorrow and I’ll write you a cheque for five hundred pounds,” he said.
“Oh, thanks, Dad, thanks so much—”
“This is the last time, Holly.” His words were steely. “I mean it. You’ll get no more financial aid from me after this. So you’d best find another way to make ends meet next month.”
“Hey, Alex!”
“You owe us a pint, mate!”
“How was she, Alex? What was it like to shag that sexy new MP? You did shag her, didn’t you? Come on — give us details!”
As he strode past his coworkers’ desks, briefcase in hand, Alex had a smirk on his face. “Sorry, but a gentleman never tells. And the bet was a pint if I failed to seduce Ms Shawcross within two days. I did it in a day and a half. So it’s you lot who owes me a pint.”
“When we made the wager, you said you’d prove the deed was done,” Tom, another solicitor, reminded him. “How do we know you’re not lying through those perfect white teeth of yours?”
Just outside his office, Alex paused and reached into his breast pocket. He withdrew a red silk thong and dangled it out on one finger. “Does this suffice as proof positive, gentlemen?”
As catcalls and dirty laughter erupted behind him, Alex went inside his office and shut the door. He thrust the thong back in his pocket. As he caught sight of the paperwork covering his desk his smile faded.
He had a mountain of casework to tackle, including the pair of high-profile clients his boss, Simon, had dumped on him late yesterday.
There was a discreet knock on the door. Jill, his secretary, edged the door open and peered inside. “Sorry to disturb, but your nine o’clock is here.”
He settled himself behind his desk and reached for the phone. “Ask him to reschedule. I’m rather busy this morning.”
“Her,” she corrected him. “She says it’s urgent, and that she’ll be sacked if she can’t speak with you today.”
Alex sighed and returned the phone to its cradle. “Oh, bloody hell. I don’t want anyone to get sacked. All right — tell her I’ll give her fifteen minutes. But that’s all.”
“Very good,” she replied, and started to close the door.
“Oh, and, Jill?”
She paused expectantly. “Yes?”
“What does she look like? Is she young? Old? Is she attractive? Or is she a bit — you know — woof-woof?”
Jill pursed her lips in disapproval. She hated questions like that, and her boss knew it very well. He was an excellent solicitor, and a wonderful man; all the women in the office adored him. But she suspected he enjoyed teasing her.
“I’m sure I couldn’t say,” she replied, and shut the door.
Holly looked up from her seat on the tufted leather wing chair as Henry Barrington’s secretary returned.
“He’ll see you shortly,” she informed Holly.
“Thanks.” Holly sighed. At least she’d have a few more minutes to gather her thoughts.
Every time she’d gone to Google Henry Barrington yesterday afternoon, she’d been interrupted. As a result she knew nothing about him. She didn’t even know what he looked like.
She reviewed her knowledge of finance. Money, obviously, and, um — stocks, bonds. Bank statements. And overdrawn bank statements — which hers would soon be, if her father refused to help her, or if Sasha sacked her…
As to her knowledge of law — well, she read John Grisham and watched Law and Order sometimes. She knew the police gathered evidence and built a case, so that men and women in robes and wigs could prosecute them in court. What was up with those wigs, anyway? They made grown men look like…spaniels.
Holly sighed. She was in deep, deep trouble here. Oh, well — she reached down and straightened the collar of her vintage sweater — at least she looked presentable. Perhaps Mr Barrington would be so overcome by her stylishness that he wouldn’t notice her financial ignorance.
As she flicked dispiritedly through the pages of the magazine on her lap, her thoughts wandered. Had Anastasia Steele felt this nervous, she wondered, when she’d first interviewed Christian Grey?
“Mr Barrington,” Holly imagined herself purring as she stood before a tall, icily handsome blond man, “I’m here to interview you. I’m writing an article, ‘Fifty Shades of Henry’.” She met his cold — yet über hot — blue gaze. “I’d no idea you were so attractive. Or so very, very kinky—”
“Miss James? Mr Barrington will see you now. His office is located at the end of the hall.”
“Thank you.” Holly stood on shaky legs and made her way down the hall. Her heels sank soundlessly into the thick carpet. She felt in her shoulder bag for her steno pad — check. Pen — check. Voice recorder — she groped around amongst the keys and lipsticks and crumpled KitKat wrappers, searching — but there was no voice recorder.
Where the hell was it? She knew she’d put it in her bag first thing this morning; she knew she had—
While she scrabbled in her bag like a demented squirrel looking for nuts, Henry Barrington’s office door swung open.
“Miss James? Henry Barrington. Please, come in.”
“You’re Henry Barrington?” Holly blurted out.
His hair was thick and dark, with just the slightest bit of curl, his eyes a velvety brown. “Alex,” he corrected her as his hand enclosed hers. His grasp was firm and warm as he ushered her in. “You sound surprised.”
Holly preceded him inside the office. She had a vague impression of bookshelves and mahogany panelling and the quiet, hushed atmosphere of a library. “That’s because I was expecting someone, erm, a bit…different.”
“Someone,” he observed with a quirk of his brow, “older?”
“Yes! That’s it exactly. I was expecting a man named Henry, who combs his hair over his bald spot, has a high, shiny forehead, and who wears sock suspenders and a regimental tie.”
“Well,” he said, amused, “I may not fit that very detailed description, but, I assure you, I’m fully qualified, despite my non-regimental tie and full head of hair. Please, sit down.”
Under his dark navy-blue suit he wore a shirt pinstriped in paler blue. A wafer-thin watch flashed on his wrist as he indicated one of two wing chairs angled in front of his desk.
Holly sat down.