Trust (London Love #5)

He stroked my cheek. “Really. I could take an exam on Cantonese surnames now. I know how to spell most of them.”

“In Cantonese?”

“Yep.”

I wanted to kiss him. Just devour his gorgeous face. Tell him how bloody cute he was.

“Anyway,” I said. “Enough about this film. It’s going straight to that streaming channel. It’ll be gone and forgotten in a few months.”

“Or not. It might be the surprise hit of the year. I’ve heard of Con Telford. He’s a big name. So are you.”

“Yeah. I still have a horrible feeling we both sucked in this one.”

“Drop me off up here, Driver, please?” Reuben called out, waving at the Tube station coming up. “You’ll be fine,” he said softly, tapping my nose. “I’m going to drop in at work then go home. Call me when you’re on your way back? I’ll sort some food.”

And then he was gone, vanishing into the crowd.

I sat in the car, chewing on a fingernail as my driver swerved back out into the traffic.

“Know where you’re going?” I asked meekly. The driver nodded.

Just as well because I had no bloody idea. All I knew was that I was fucked. Royally.

Laughter lines

REUBEN

I wasn’t supposed to be at work when I wasn’t on duty, but I still sometimes did. Sometimes it was nice to catch up with the people I worked with. Other times, I just needed to ground myself. Stand around in a place where I fit.

I’d waltzed away into Gray’s ridiculous fantasies again, for a moment thinking I was a prince in a fairy tale or something. Standing behind the desk, even though I wasn’t in uniform, brought me back to reality, and Luis was working, so it was a comfortable conversation. A bit of gossip, nodding politely at passing guests. It was hard not to when I was so used to doing it.

“Mr Traynor is back with a bunch of ladies.” Luis whispered discreetly. “Amy was having a bit of a moment earlier when he checked in, trying to get ID on the ladies. Mr Traynor was having none of that maximum occupancy thing. One double bed. I bet that would have been fun to clean up.”

I grimaced. Clean-up. That brought back some little memories I wasn’t quite ready to process. Not now. Not here.

“Reubs!”

And here was Amy. Fishing, of course, phone at the ready. She shoved some Instagram Dieter update account in my face—a grainy video of me half carrying, half dragging Gray out of a very dodgy-looking fast-food restaurant.

“Classy.” She giggled. “So, spill. Are you his security or something? We were all saying you’d probably taken on another job on the side. Which is dead cool. Seth is well-jel. You know he’s a die-hard Dieter fan.”

“No, Ames.” I cringed. “No. And stop with the gossip. The Dieter is one of our guests, and as such, we treat him with respect.”

She laughed in my face.

“Yeah, like you do. I know you brought him food. One of the housekeepers clocked you coming out of his suite. Cutting it fine, babe. Watch out the boss doesn’t catch you doing dodgy things on the side, yeah? You know we have to declare any outside jobs. Working for other companies.”

Amy. Wannabe manager. Like we didn’t all know she was shagging the guy in engineering and sneaking into rooms for quickies on her breaks. Not subtle. Even compared to someone like me.

“He’s a mate,” I protested as visions of him with my dick in his mouth flooded my brain. I felt a little faint. Overwhelmed.

“A mate,” she teased. “He’s like the biggest pop sensation on the planet. Did you see the PopBitch poll? He was voted BabyGirl of the Year.”

“I know,” I snapped, filled with that weird anger where I wanted to defend him, tell the world that he was actually a really nice guy. With issues, obviously, and if I believed him, he couldn’t act and was falling apart over the band getting a load of shit in the studio. And now he’d bought a house that was nicer than any house I’d ever seen and there had been a bloody baby bed in the bedroom, and I’d gone completely cold.

“Ames,” I said. “You want kids?”

“With you, babes?” She looked serious for a minute before exploding into laughter. “I’d have The Dieter’s babies. Any day. Can you imagine? A bunch of super-cute little cherubs with laughter lines.”