Page 3 of Kingpin's Baby
“I’ll go.”
But before I can turn and sprint out, a single word stops me.
“No.”
I’m shaking, heart pounding, when I look back at Mr Booth. I bite my lip to stop myself from begging. Probably not to kill me, but I’m not sure I wouldn’t like to be laid on that messy desk of his and spanked. Ravaged. Kissed. All of the above.
“It’s fine,” he says in a voice that’s low and rough and like warm silk and whisky. “Please carry on, Miss Smith. Don’t allow my insomnia to inconvenience you. One of us is quite enough, on that count.”
With a jerky nod, I return to dusting the bookshelves. Behind me, there is the whoosh as he swivels his chair, then the soft sound of shuffled papers.
It takes a few minutes, but I’m working, and so is he. The silence and the gentle sounds of cloth on wood and pen to paper are soothing somehow. Against all the odds, the muscles on each side of my spine unclench.
It’s perfectly domestic.
Ting!
I freeze.
“Your boyfriend texting you?” Mr Booth drawls in a dangerously soft voice.
“No!” I yelp, snatching my phone from my hoody pocket and poking it desperately to try to silence all messages. Hardly. “It’s just a notification for a group I’m in.”
Mr Booth raises one eyebrow.
“I don’t have a boyfriend. The alert was from an internet site.” That’s even worse, isn’t it? “An advice group,” I babble.Please don’t kill me. “People tell their story, and commenters say whether they are in the right, or what they deserve for what they did.”
“Sounds like I’d be good at this,” he replies dryly, and leans back in his big black leather chair. “Go on then. What’s the question?”
Am I hallucinating?
I scan the post, taking it in.
“It’s an office dispute. There’s a group of work colleagues who team together and buy donuts every Friday.”
I hazard a glance at Mr Booth, but his expression is scrupulously neutral.
“The original group continued to buy fancy donuts, and leave them on the break room table until it’s time for elevenses.”
“Elevenses, being…?”
Mr Booth has never had elevenses? He’s awake and at his desk at five in the morning, but isn’t peckish by eleven. What is he, a machine? Pffs. Not even my phone can hold out until lunchtime. It needs to be plugged in by eleven or it dies.
“You know. Elevenses.” I shrug. “A cup of tea and a snack at eleven o’clock.”
“I see.” His mouth twitches as though he might smile. He circles his hand, indicating for me to continue.
“Now there’s a new guy at work, and he keeps eating the fancy glazed-with-sprinkles donuts for breakfast. At like, eight.”
Mr Booth’s expression has taken on a tint of exaggerated patience.
“A fight has broken out. The new dude has been told that the donuts are for elevenses, ateleven, but continues to eat them first thing in the morning. He says that donuts left out for a whole morning are fair game, and if they don’t want anyone else to eat them, they shouldn’t leave them on the breakroom table. The donut group say they like to anticipate their elevenses treat as they pass through the breakroom, and see what’s been bought that week. And he should keep his hands to himself. Everyone else manages to restrain themselves. In response, he says… Well. It continues. That’s the key bits.”
There’s a brief silence. My mouth goes dry.
Could really do with a cup of tea and a donut right now.
“What do you think?”
