He gave a little grunt of anticipation, like maybe he was OK with a woman taking the upper hand. He had no idea, she thought. He stank of his own lust, and she could damn near read his mind. He thought he was in, he thought she was kinky enough to be turned on by him, the little toad. And when she’d pushed him back until his bum rested against his desk, he practically quivered with excitement. The laugh that came from her throat startled even her. The man was pathetic, and her time was way too valuable to waste on such a creature.
She spoke as calmly as if she had just told him the football scores. ‘You disgusting little worm. Do you really think there’s anything you could do to persuade me to let me put your filthy little cock inside me? You have two hands, Devlin, I would suggest you fuck yourself, and, while you’re at it, fuck this job because I no longer need it.’
She heard the pop of joints as he catapulted off the desk into a stiff-necked stance, eyes bulging, chest inflating like a balloon. ‘You filthy slut! Clear your desk, you little bitch. I want you out of my sight. Now!’
‘Oh, don’t worry, Devlin. I’m leaving.’ She stepped back just beyond the range of his anger, and it really was as though her right hand didn’t know what her left hand was doing. ‘But before I go, you’ll agree to make sure my unexpected leaving is nicely smoothed over with HR. You’ll also make sure that I’m very well compensated for putting up with you, Devlin, very well. And finally you’ll make sure there’ll be the stellar references I deserve for my CV.’
‘You fucking little bitch.’ He lunged for her but she stepped back, pulled the BlackBerry from her pocket and hit the playback button.
What do you want me to do, Mr Devlin, Jill heard herself say. Then she heard her boss’s fetid laugh.
I want you to lose the jacket, unbutton that lovely silk top of yours and give me a good look at those tits you’re always pointing at me …
When she switched the recording off, the man looked decidedly green.
‘I think we understand each other, Mr Devlin. I’ll be back Monday to pick up my things and talk to HR. What you do between now and then will determine what I do with this lovely little recording. Are we clear?’
The man nodded. In truth she was afraid if he opened his mouth he might just throw up.
‘I know a lot of the women who work here, and I know how you treat them. I’ll be having coffee with them from time to time, just to see how things are going. You get the picture.’ She held up the BlackBerry. ‘Oh, and one more thing, Devlin. My busker story leads this week’s eZine, according to plan.’
Then she walked out of his office, shut the door quietly behind her and just kept walking with the strange buzzing in her ears reducing everything else to background noise. She felt like her head was too full, too full of everything, colour and light and darkness and texture and scent and sounds and distance and space and time. And everything felt so completely solid. Inside her there was a powerful urge to run down the street laughing hysterically. The job from hell was finished. Finished! She’d never have to face Devlin again.
Right next door to the urge for hysterical laughter was the urge to panic hugely. The battling urges threatened to rip her chest open, threatened to cut off her breathing, threatened to drive her to her knees. But the sun was bright and the air was warm and she was going to Shoreditch to fuck the clerk at Kinky Boots.
* * *
In the end Chelsea called her fuck buddy, the banker, who called Vivie. Because she fancied him, it hadn’t taken him long to wheedle Jill Hart’s name out of her. It turned out Vivie was a bit of a matchmaker and found the idea of hooking up her friend with a hot bloke irresistible. The hot-bloke bit was Chelsea’s embellishment, not Finn’s, but if it worked, it worked. By noon, Finn had tweeted and Facebooked Jill Hart. He was sure it was her because she had a fairly good photo of herself as her avatar. He’d got the number of her landline, but there had been no answer, and he’d had no response from his efforts with social media. Jill didn’t seem like the type who would leave a debt unpaid. He was sure she’d be back once she realised that she hadn’t paid him for the boots, but by then it could be too late. It was frustrating. It was more than frustrating, it was frightening. Eleanor had never deliberately hurt anyone. Not deliberately. But after the last time, Finn couldn’t believe that she would willingly do what she’d clearly done. The thought made him cold inside.
He was getting desperate when he got a call from the Water Poet pub. The bartender was a friend. There was a woman at the bar fitting Jill’s description. She was doing tequila shots.
Chapter 4
It was only when Jill was in the tube heading toward Old Street Station that the impact of what she had done hit her full-on. She probably would have collapsed in a heap, but the carriage was packed cheek to jowl. She had just quit her job! Christ! Not only had she quit her job, but she’d told her boss to fuck himself. She hadn’t even realised she was recording the bastard. How could she not realise? If anyone else had done what she’d just done, she’d be congratulating them, patting them on the back, buying them a drink for giving the arsehole what he deserved. But it wasn’t someone else. It was neurotic, shy, insecure and now unemployed Jill Hart who had done it. What the hell would she do now?
Instead of paying for the boots she could no longer afford, Jill ended up wandering aimlessly around Shoreditch silently arguing with herself amid the Saturday bustle of shoppers. The job, which she would have otherwise enjoyed, had been a nightmare from the beginning, and all because of Devlin. And now she had the man by the short hairs. She would have a bit of a cushion until she could find what she wanted. It was all so exciting, she tried to convince herself. She had just opened the door to all kinds of new possibilities. On the other hand, she had just opened the door to poverty and moving back home with her mother, a thought that made her queasy.
She wasn’t sure how long she wandered about, or which part of her had won the argument, but when she finally came back to herself, leaning against the bar at the Water Poet pub downing her second tequila shot, she figured it was not Betty Bright-Side who had come out on top.
‘Tequila before lunch is not a good sign.’
She was surprised to find the clerk from Kinky Boots standing next to her, if anything looking even sexier in the bright light of day than he had in the mood lighting of the shoe store. He ordered a coffee.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked. ‘Are my boots equipped with a tracking device for customers who leave without paying?’
He offered her a smile that seemed to turn inwards, as though he knew a private joke. ‘Something like that.’ Then he added, ‘I figured you’d come back, and even if you didn’t, I can hardly begrudge you the boots after … well, after such a lovely down payment.’
She laughed softly at her own private joke, but then she decided not to keep it to herself. ‘Afraid a down payment may be all you’ll get. I just quit my job.’
‘Oh?’
‘My boss is an arsehole, OK, but that’s nothing new. Up until now I’ve managed to get by keeping a low profile. But today … don’t know what came over me. Guess he finally just pushed me too far.’
The man’s startling eyes darkened like a storm, and he leaned closer. ‘What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?’
She found that she didn’t, which was strange. There was a time, only
