Page 2 of Fighting Mr. Knight

My gaze trails up his body as he strokeshis tie in agitation.I know every inch of this man, every freckle, birthmark and vein on his dick. How he sneezes after sex. I could write his medical records from memory.

Does Danielle know his dick veins too?

He wasn’t supposed to start dating again. He was supposed to become a fat monk.

“Status updates,” Max orders, turning his attention to the project managers sitting at the back, confidence fully restored. “Darren, the Mayfair project. Where are we with it?”

I can barely hear Max over the sound of my heartbeat in my ears,like a drumsmashing against my brain.

Who the fuck is Danielle?

Darren shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “All going well, boss. We’re preparing the preliminary cost estimates. I’ll perform a requirement drill-down with the team to ensure we’re singing from the same hymn sheet.” He nodscurtly in my direction. “Then we’ll finalise figures, dot the i’s, cross the t’s and present back.”

Huh? I have no idea what the fuck Darren’s saying.Scraping all his fingernails down the whiteboard would have achieved the same result.

“I’ve planned a workshop with Bonnie today,” Darren adds.

Calling it a workshop is a stretch. Ten minutes ago, Darren popped a fifteen-minute meeting in my diary. A meeting to say he’s in a meeting.

“Bonnie,” Max says sharply, rapping his knuckles on the desk like a headmaster. “Treat it as urgent. Do you need me to help prioritise workload?”

I stare back at Max in disbelief. Is he really going to get on my grill after that littleexposé?

“Bonnie and I can take this offline,” Darren cuts in before Max can detect that this full-blown workshop is a chat on the way to get coffee and some of the walnut cake they have in the cafeteria.

Darren takes everything offline, which means nothing will happen. He’ll give the same update phrased slightly differently next week.

He’d be a great politician.

Next up is Layla, the other project manager. Layla prefers to keep everything online, which means she’ll monopolise the meeting talking about her project in irrelevant detail.

Everyone drifts to faraway places while Max reins in Layla. Eighty percent of people are thinking about sex during meetings, and many of the scenarios involve other people in the room. It’s the same with conferences, weddings and funerals. That’s my theory.

I often wondered what co-workers thought of Max and me. I suspect it’s lessfifty shades of office romanceand moreold married couple who schedule sex.

I guess that was the red flag.

With Max, there was no steamy elevator sex or sneaky boardroom leg rubbing under the table. No uncontrollable bouts of horniness or unexpected semis. Not once did we have to rush out to the stairway to claw off each other’s clothes.

On the clock, we talked shop. Off the clock, we talked about . . . quite a bit of shop.

Our sex life at home was decent enough, though. After years together, I never expected to be swinging from chandeliers, letting loud guttural moans rip through me in an Oscar-worthy performance.

But what we did have was stability. Max was simply, alwaysthere. A constitutional force in my life not to be questioned.

Nisha breathes angrily beside me as Layla rambles about a Notting Hill church conversion into luxury flats.

“That’s enough, Layla,” Max cuts in sharply. “If there are no escalations, let’s move on.”

“Can we talk about the Lexington project?” Nisha asks.

Everyone’s spine straightens. The Lexington East London project has been the buzz of the office for weeks. Wider than that, it’sthehot topic across the UK construction industry.

Everyone from politician to pop star is wading in with their opinion.

The Lexington Group, Europe’s largest property empire, conservatively valued at a humble seven billion, has bought huge swathes of land east of Canary Wharf, London’s version of Wall Street.

Right now, it’s old wharves and docks spread over thirty hectares, mostly brownfield land where youths skateboard and take drugs.

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