Page 91 of Pride and Privilege

Fuck.

Liam would find something eventually. It just might take a while. Especially with no reference.

She reassured her mum as best she could, promised to see her tomorrow, then ended the call. Roscoe reached for her, pulled her back against his chest, and wrapped his arms around her. Comfort, strength, security. When had she last had any of that? It brought tears to her eyes, but she pushed them back, swallowed before she spoke, kept her voice calm.

“Did you hear?”

She felt his nod. “Most of it. I can help. If your brother needs some money—”

“No. No, don’t. I’m grateful but… I can’t ask that.”

“I’m offering.”

“You’re already worried about being my boss and my landlord. Let’s not add money and loans into the mix.”

“Not a loan. A gift.”

But she shook her head, resolute, and Roscoe stopped pressing the matter, seeming to realise he wouldn’t get anywhere. “I’ll drive you to your mum’s tomorrow morning,” he said. “Get some sleep now.”

The drive back to London went quickly, Poppy preoccupied with her family’s worries—worried a little, too, about the man beside her and the slight hurt and frustration her refusal to accept his help had caused.

He had offered again twice that morning. It was nothing to him, he told her. He could pay their rent for a year. He could buy them a house mortgage-free. But she refused to contemplate it. Something deep inside her baulked at the idea.Neither a borrower nor a lender behad been one of her Grandad’s favourite expressions. And her Grandmother’s had been,Lookafter the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.Of course, life wasn’t that simple. It didn’t cooperate—didn’t acknowledge good intentions and reciprocate in kind. It just did what it bloody well wanted. But still. Her Grandparents had been hard-working and proud, and she had learnt the lesson deep and early—that there was something important about being able to stand on your own two feet, not beholden to anyone.

Was it just pride that made her refuse Roscoe’s help? Stubborn pride. Maybe she didn’t want to be the poor girl sponging off her rich boyfriend any more than he wanted to be the big boss sleeping with his secretary. Maybe they were both too proud to bend to stereotypes.

But it was also simply too much. Too much to ask and too soon.

I love you…

She glanced at him as he drove, and her heart skipped over. She must love him, too. There wasn’t any other word that seemed to capture what she felt.Likewas laughably small. It was closer to obsession. Roscoe Blackton in her very veins, speared through every part of her, and all she ever wanted was to pull him deeper still. Get even closer. Bind him with her soul. Possessive and greedy, the way he had half-joked with her. But it made sense that they would love in the same way. They may have come from different ends of the universe, but where they met in the middle, they were one.

She shook her head, bemused at her own thoughts. Definitely love, if she now thought and felt like that.

Roscoe glanced over, sensing her amusement. He smiled, and she knew it was because he was glad that she had smiled. “Alright?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yes. I’m alright.”

He spared his hand momentarily from the gearstick, gave hers a squeeze. “And if you’re ever not,” he said, “let me know. I’m right here with you.”

FORTY-THREE

There was a smallcarpark outside Poppy’s mum’s place, the bays tiny, the markings worn, access impeded by a cluttered row of wheelie bins. “Apparently that’s our one,” Poppy said, nodding to a mossy bay under a skinny poplar tree. It was occupied by a broken-down motorbike, the algaed tarp half off and flapping in the light breeze. “But that’s been there longer than we have. So park anywhere. It doesn’t matter, given your car’s going to get nicked in five minutes.”

She was joking. Probably. She was grinning at him, anyway, the bright spark in her eyes fighting through the anxiety that had clouded them since last night. His brain offered him an unhelpful but heartfelt thought along the lines ofI wouldn’t mind having my car nicked so long as it made her laugh.But he gave the DBS a warning look as he locked it and mentally told it,Stay.

The block of flats was one of those eighties ones, made of pebbled concrete. A squat rectangular building, three stories high. He followed Poppy into the entrance hall and up green-linoleum-clad stairs that reminded him of an underfunded secondary school. Or how he imagined such a place. Something institutional about it, anyway. A hospital perhaps. One that hadn’t been cleaned in a while.

Poppy let herself in through a white door at the end of the second-floor corridor, calling, “Mum? It’s me.”

Roscoe followed, self-conscious. He had asked her if she wanted him here, offered to wait in the car—because surely he was intruding? But she had considered it for a moment before shaking her head and saying, “No. Come. I’d like you there.”

There was a metre-long hall—windowless bathroom on the left, almost windowless kitchen on the right—then immediately at the end of the little hall was the lounge, a window at the end overlooking the carpark. A woman stood by the window, cup of tea in her hands. She looked around at Poppy’s voice. So did a dark-haired teenaged boy sitting cross-legged on the floor, scowling in confusion over his shoulder as he took in Roscoe behind his sister.

“Oh!” Her mum visibly started at the sight of him. “Erm. Hello.”

“This is Roscoe,” Poppy said, taking his hand. “He drove me here.”

“Right,” said her mum, obviously flustered. “Hello.” She looked about forty. Fairly pretty and petite, with light reddish-blonde hair.

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