Page 168 of Fighting Mr. Knight

For so long I let my dream be stifled into something smaller. Something mediocre. I was blind to how cynical I’d become working under Max.

All I wanted was to be the best architect I could . . . under Max.

But that’s not my dream. That’s Max’s dream, with him standing at the top of the hierarchy.

One day, I want to be a Lauren Torres.

“Ready to visit your dad, darlin’?” Jack asks.

I nod. Dad got a suspended sentence for two years with community service.

Dad lives only a few streets over in the new social housing as part of Jack’s regeneration project. I still love to hear from Jack and Nisha about what’s happening on the project.

Dad greets us with a smile. It’s more genuine than the last visit.

“Frank,” Jack jumps off the motorcycle to shake his hand.

Someday soon Jack will get his apology.

But for now, we’ll just accept . . . progress.

Roughly one and a half years later

Jack

“Happy thirtieth, darlin’.”

We are dancing in the garden of our Greenwich home with fifty of our closest friends.

“Thank you, Jack.” She smiles up at me, eyes shining and emotion wells in my chest.

My girlfriend is making a name for herself. She’s working her way up in Lauren Torres’s company. Now she adorns more heritage architecture articles than gossip rags exposing so-called threesomes between us and Michelle Allard.

Next week we are attending the UNESCO Cultural Heritage Conservation Awards and Bonnie and her team have been nominated.

The body-hugging brown leather dress compliments her slender athletic figure perfectly. Her blond hair is swept up in a French braid. Wisps of hair escape, framing her jawline. My dad’s chain adorned with crystals clings to her collarbone.

My sexy Viking.

Her hips thrust in a steady sensual rhythm against mine and she has a gleam in her eye.

Blood flows south.

Fuck.Now’s not the time for my dick to pay homage to his favourite person.

I shoot her a warning look.

I have something much more important to do.

“You haven’t got your present from Lucy yet.”

“No.” She groans. “I don’t want any more dead birds.”

I chuckle. “I hope you’ll like this more than a dead bird.”

I nod over to the DJ.

The music lowers and my stomach squeezes tight.

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