Apart from the fact Mike still wouldn’t have sex with me, it was just about the most perfect evening I’d ever experienced in my life.
Lottie and Ollie’s ongoing dramas had taken up much of the following week.
Thankfully, they were back together now, which meant Lottie was back to smiling, and Ollie wasn’t ringing me twenty-four hours a day, asking her whereabouts, if she was okay, what she was eating, or how I thought he could earn her forgiveness.Given my limited social and emotional intelligence, I had no idea why Ollie asked my advice on that score. But even without my advice, Ollie had managed to win her back, and I was so,sorelieved.
Lottie and Ollie were two of my favourite people. Just because I couldn’t express emotion in the normal way, didn’t mean I didn’t feel it. If anything, I felt too much, and I’d been devastated by their unhappiness, and my inability to do anything helpful to heal the rift.
With all that going on in London, and Mike’s huge projects he had to finish in Little Buckingham, there hadn’t been time to see each other.
But now, Mike was here in my office, and I was in his arms again, which I took as a very good sign.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Felix’s angry whisper-shout pulled me out of my Mike Haze.
“What do you mean?” I said, frowning at him.
He was standing next to Mike and me with his arms crossed over his chest, glowering at both of us.
Lottie was by his side, but she certainly wasn’t glowering; if anything, I would have guessed Lottie was trying to suppress a laugh—her lips were pressed together, and her shoulders were shaking.
This was good, because ever since her fight with Ollie, Lottie’s smiles had been few and far between.
“Vicky, we are in the middle of contract negotiations for a deal that’s been in the pipeline for months, championed byyou. I don’t know the numbers. I don’t even understand the numbers. Nobody in that room does. That’s because no bastard can understand those numbers exceptyou. But then, you simply stand up at one of the crucial points in a very sensitive meeting, leave the bloody room like someone’s chasing you, then runout here to kiss this great big lug in front of the whole bloody conference room.”
“Well, when I see Mike, I’m supposed to go straight to him and kiss him. He was very specific.”
Felix’s eyebrows shot up at this declaration as he turned to Mike. “That right, mate? You tell her to do that? Does Ollie know about this?”
Mike sighed. “Leave the Duke of Fuckingham out of this,” he told Felix.
“Leave him out of it? Listen up, carpenter-boy. You’ve been deliberately ignoring Vicky for months. What’s your game now? Neither Ollie nor I want her mucked about. So you better tread carefully. Understand me?”
“Look, I do understand what a dickhead I’ve been, believe me. But I didn’t have all the bloody information, did I?”
“I don’t think you’re a dickhead,” I told Mike, my voice annoyed.
He turned to me and smiled.
“Iwasa dickhead, love,” he said softly. “And Felix is right. I don’t deserve a chance with you, but I’m going to take it anyway.”
“I just hope you’re being careful with her, Mike,” Felix clipped.
“I am being careful with her,” Mike shot back. “Far as I can see, I’m about the only one who’s been proper careful with her for a bloody long time,mate.”
“Felix, why are you so cross?” I asked in total bewilderment. “Oh, of course. Sorry, I’m messing up the meeting, aren’t I?”
Felix’s expression softened as he turned from Mike to me. “Vicky, I’m not only angry about the meeting, although you do need to get your little genius arse back in there. I’m angry because I don’t want Mike messing you about if he’s not fully invested, and Ollie will feel the same.”
“B-but why do you care?” I blurted out. “I mean, I’m your business partner. Oh, is it because I might not be at peak performance?”
Felix was frowning at me now. “Vicky, I care about you. Surely you…” he broke off and rubbed the back of his neck—a sure sign of Felix’s discomfort. “Surely, you know I care about you?”
I bit my lip. This was one of those questions that Lottie would advise me not to answer.
“See what I mean, you tosser,” Mike muttered, giving me a squeeze and then setting me away slightly as he turned from Felix to me. “Go do yourgenius numbers stuff, love. I can wait with Lucy.”
I glanced over at the glass wall to Felix’s office to see Lucy in her window seat where she tended to hang out and write whilst her fiancé conducted his business.
She was grinning across at me and Mike, waving frantically with an excited expression on her face.
