Page 199

I stand in the kitchen in my dressing gown, enjoying my coffee while Bryce and Alice mope around as though the world ended overnight. It actually ended at lunchtime yesterday, if I’m being precise. Alice was a sobbing wreck when she got home from her parents’ place, and BT was like a shining knight with no backbone trying his best to soothe her.

At least we got a decent fuck in the aftermath, once everyone was snivelled out enough to need the distraction.

I look across the apartment at Bryce. Jesus. He’s so uptight, he looks like his face is about to fracture from the pressure.

It’s time he grew himself that goddamn fucking backbone. If I can help him do it, it’ll be a far more generous gift than Alice’s sixty grand charity paintings or his deluxe Toastique Pro.

He’s looking immaculate for work today in a charcoal suit and pale grey tie. Refined and upper class. At least he would be if he wasn’t checking his cufflinks every thirty seconds, and breathing like each lungful of air might be his last.

I mean, I get it. William Parker is likely going to grill him to fuck after his Christopher Otley blurt out to Alice, but still. We’re not in an apocalyptic movie where everyone on Earth is about to die.

And even if a comet is heading on a path to London at wipeout speed, we’ve still got six days before impact.

Six days.

Time does fly when you’re having fun.

“Hey you, wait up a minute,” I say and beckon Bryce over. I straighten his tie, like he hasn’t done it sixteen times already. “Keep your shoulders loose, leave your cuffs alone, and get your poker face in action.”

“I don’t have one,” he says.

“Fantastic. Then today is an excellent learning opportunity.”

He gives Alice a lingering kiss on his way out like something from Pride and Prejudice, then looks back at me with far too much something in his eyes. Fear. Appeal. Something warmer I refuse to acknowledge right now.

“You’ve got this, BT,” I tell him, and frogmarch him to the elevator like a sergeant major sending a cadet off on a single strike mission.

“Bill knows me too well to pull this off,” Bryce says, panicking when I press the lift button.

“Then use that knowledge to your advantage. Keep kissing his brogues like a puppy dog, promising you’re keeping his grandiose interests at heart. Shoulders up. Don’t let him get the better of you.” I smile. “Getting the better of you is my job. I want another go on that ass of yours when you get home. It’ll have been clenched tight as fuck all day long.”

He almost smiles.

Almost.

“Come on, Bryce,” I say. “We’re doing this for Alice, remember? Soul Girl needs you to get your game on.”

He nods at that and steps straight inside the lift when it arrives. No hesitation. Once the doors close behind him, I’m left staring at my own reflection in the metal.

Through all the bluster, I get a deep-rooted pang in my guts as I picture the day ahead of him. Poor Bryce has to walk into the office carrying secrets capable of destroying the entire life he’s built up there. No easy task for a guy like him.

William Parker has spent years learning every single version of Bryce Terrence Maddocks by heart. Today, Bryce has to convince the man who built him up from nothing that he still remains entirely at his command.

And that he’s definitely not fucking his daughter.

Definitely, definitely not sharing his daughter with a Mayfair reprobate and jizzing all over her paintings.

“Do you think he’ll be alright?” Alice asks when I get back in.

No.

“Of course,” I lie.

She searches my face, but I give her nothing.

Poker face.

Alice retreats to the sofa and curls back up with her phone in her hand, Camilla’s message glowing hot on the screen.