“Humour me, Shakespeare,” he said softly. I sighed but the emotion in his voice made me relent. So, I started to tell him the story of the next book I was publishing. This was about a grumpy but damaged king of a savage world who ruled with an iron fist, killing anyone standing in his way; and the half-fairy daughter of the local witch who makes him see that there might be another way to govern.
The king just happened to have dark brown eyes and a dimple on his right cheek.
Ten minutes in Felix relented and carried me to his bedroom.
Epilogue
“Mummy, can you tell us a story?”
Lucy
“Lucy?”
I blinked as I felt a warm hand on the back of my neck, swimming up from my daydream and turning towards the sound of my husband’s voice. There he was, towering over where I’d been sitting in the window seat, hugging my knees and staring out over London.
Felix had added this arrangement into his office shortly after I moved back in with him. He knew daydreaming was essential for me and he said if I could do it anywhere I might as well do it in his office so he could see me anytime he wanted. I wasn’t about to object. I had a steady stream of caramel lattes, Marmite toast and anything else I might want here after all. One of the other reasons was that when I was into a story, I sometimes forgot to eat. Felix was not so keen on that scenario. So the window seat it was. There were comfortable cushions, and a desk that suspended over me should I want to write. I had an office laptop and Kindle given the amount of times I’d forget my own. Sometimes Felix would be out at meetings. Sometimeshe worked alongside me. Sometimes he’d kiss the side of my head or snuggle in behind me as I worked. Sometimes he’d lower all the blinds to the rest of the office…
Yes, it worked for me in a big way.
“Oh sorry, were you there long?” I smiled up at him as I reached for his waist, pulling him into me. He chuckled as he lowered himself next to me on the seat, wrapped his arms around me and leaned back so I could snuggle into him.
“Only the standard amount of time. Don’t worry, you ignoring me on the reg is good for my ego.”
“I don’t mean to ignore you,” I objected, twisting around to look at him. “I just go a bit…”
“Doolally.”
“Yes, doolally.”
“It’s okay, Shakspeare. I know your brain is thinking up the next universe for you to write in. Just so long as you continue to visit us mortals in this universe, I’m happy.”
He kissed my temple and gave me a squeeze. “You warm enough?”
Felix had ditched his suit jacket and tie. His sleeves were rolled up giving me plenty of muscular arm porn to admire. It may have been winter, but you wouldn’t have known it sitting in here. Felix had put in a separate heater for his office after people started standing in the fridge to try to cool down when he’d overheated the whole floor. Everyone was happier that way, and I’d assured Felix that I wasn’t going to die of hypothermia if I had to do the occasional walk to the bog or to see Vicky, Lottie and TBea at a reasonable twenty degrees.
“They’re here,” he said in a cautious voice, and I stiffened.
“W–what? Oh crikey, I completely lost track of time. We’d better?—”
I went to stand up, but Felix’s arms tightened around me to keep me in place.
“Felix,” I said, panicked now. “We shouldn’t keep them waiting.”
“They’re here for you, Shakespeare,” he said in a soft voice. “You’re going to see if you want to work with them. Not the other way around.”
“B–b–but it’s Netflix,” I squeaked. “Maddie’ll kill me if I don’t?—”
“Maddie works for you. Just like I work for you.”
I huffed out a laugh. “You don’t work for me, you daft article.”
“I’ll have you know that I’m the… what was it now? ‘The worst, most unrelentingly crap assistant in the history of publishing’.”
Ooh, Maddie had beenreallyangry with Felix after the last signing. To be fair to her, he had been a bit growly and overprotective and he may have told a producer to bugger off when he tried to corner me about a deal after the signing had finished. But by that stage I’d been on my feet for eight hours, my wrist was hurting and I had a headache from all the peopling. Stephen Spielberg himself could have approached me and Felix would still have told him to jog on.
“I thought you were excellent,” I said. “And you’ve got a cute butt which counts for a lot in an assistant.”
“Is that right?” he muttered, his hand coming up to tilt my face towards his so his lips could brush mine. “I think that might constitute sexual harassment, Mrs Moretti,” he muttered against my mouth, and I smiled.
