Page 2 of Pride
“It’s fine. These things happen. No need to apologise. Life goes on.”
I picked up the bottle of red wine and poured some into her glass before filling my own.
“Did they die recently or was it a long time ago?” she asked, picking up her glass and taking the smallest sip; then she licked her lips and placed the glass back down on the table. She wasn’t drinking much this evening, and I was trying very subtly to alter that. It would help her in the long run.
“It was quite a few years ago now,” I replied. “Don’t worry. I’ve had time to come to terms with it.” I picked my wine glass up and pretended to take a larger mouthful than I actually did. She watched me and mirrored my actions, just like I knew she would, lifting her glass again and taking a large gulp.
“Are you close to your family?” I asked her, taking the heat off myself and giving her the spotlight again. “Do you have any brothers and sisters?”
Her eyes went from watery empathy to sparkling hope as she started to talk. I did a stellar job of looking interested in what she was saying as I zoned out and focused on how her neck muscles constricted as she swallowed and spoke. I imagined what it’d feel like to have her velvet, porcelain skin under my touch, to feel the gentle pulse of her carotid artery against my fingertips. To feel that pulse gently wane as I squeezed tighter.
This girl was beyond pretty; she was truly beautiful when she smiled. What a shame the CCTV had been disabled, so no one would be able to see it after tonight.
I knew how to be a gentleman when I wanted to be. But tonight, the beast was coming out to play...
Because this girl sitting in front of me wouldn’t live to see the morning.
CHAPTER ONE
EMMA
Present Day
“Ineed a drink like you wouldn’t believe. My day has been beyond shitty. No. Scrap that. It’s been a totally shitty week,” my best friend Gracie told me as I listened to her on speakerphone while wrestling to get myself into my little black dress in the cubicle of my works toilet. Thankfully, there was no one else in here.
“I shouldn’t be too long. I’ve got a taxi booked. It should be here in five minutes, and then I’ll be with you. Order me a gin and tonic,” I replied breathlessly, blowing the hair out of my face as I wriggled into my dress and then smoothed the silky fabric in place with my hands.
“I’ll make it a double. I know your week will have been a shit show too. It always is. Don’t keep us waiting, Em.”
“Us?” I asked. It was usually just Gracie and me whenever we went out.
“There’s a few of the guys from my office here. I thought we could make a night of it.”
I didn’t really know Gracie’s colleagues that well. I’d only met them a few times.
“Sounds great,” I said, even though I wasn’t that keen on the extra guests, but it was Friday, and wherever I went with Gracie, we’d have a good time.
I assured her again that I’d be there as soon as I could and then said my goodbyes before hanging up. She wasn’t wrong, though. My working week was always a shit show. I spent half the time wishing I could climb the career ladder, that for me seemed to have brittle, breakable steps, or falling back into the shadows to avoid my odious boss.
I’d been a PA for the editor-in-chief at the Merivale Echo for four years now. It wasn’t the job I’d dreamed of taking when I left university with an English literature degree, but it was a job. It paid the bills. And when I’d accepted the position, they’d assured me there’d be the opportunity for growth. That my degree was what made me stand out during the interview process. It was why they’d wanted to take me on. I’d told them I was interested in pursuing a career in journalism. But all they’d said, all the promises they’d made, they were just words. They were paying lip service to a girl with stars in her eyes, but they had no interest in helping me. They tried to burn out those stars every opportunity they got. Time and time again, I tried to show initiative. Push myself forward. Give them ideas for leads I’d heard about, stories I could write, but they didn’t listen. Well, they did, but they listened to serve themselves. They stole my ideas and took the praise.
So why didn’t I leave?
I’d tried, but finding the right position in this town was tough. There were no jobs that appealed to me, and none that paid as well as this one. Rent wasn’t cheap, and I still held hope in the back of my mind that one day, my big break would come. That I’d get the opportunity to prove my worth in a world thatwas cutthroat and totally dominated by men. The women above me in the office, who were doing the job I wanted to do, they saw me as a threat and treated me as an outsider. Life was tough at the Merivale Echo, but even tougher working under Stephen Gold’s dictatorship. The boss from hell.
I shoved my phone into my purse and picked my rucksack, with my work clothes in, up off the cubicle floor. Then I opened the cubicle door and went over to the wash basins to wash my hands and do the last check of my hair and makeup. My dark brown curls were actually playing nicely tonight, falling perfectly over my shoulders. That hardly ever happened, but I’d take it. I didn’t look half bad.
“You’ve got this, Belmont,” I told my reflection in the mirror. Then I straightened my back, strode confidently to the door, and left the bathroom to head to my desk, so I could stow my rucksack underneath it until Monday morning.
“You look nice, love,” Phyllis, the cleaner, told me as she polished the desk across from mine. “Are you going anywhere special?”
“Just meeting up with a friend,” I replied as I pushed the rucksack under the desk and checked one last time that my computer was switched off.
“Have fun.” She smiled. “And have a drink for me.”
“Will do,” I said and waved her goodbye as I made my way out of the office onto the landing.
I pressed the button for the lift, but it was taking forever to arrive, so I decided to take the stairs. It was only seven flights down.
