You can tell a lot about a man by his nostrils. Pay attention and they’re full of clues. If his nostrils flare and his lips part, he’s picturing you naked.
The nostrils of the guy in the sharp blue suit at the top of the boardroom are fat with anger.
Max, my boss.
He checks his watch as the team piles in, taking the seats around me. Technically, they’re on time, but they’re on Big Ben’s clock rather than Max’s, which is five minutes slower.
Twenty of us—architects, interior designers, planners—make up Bradshaw Brown, one of London’s smaller architecture firms.
As far as design firms go, we’re not sexy. We don’t design shiny pointy things in the London skyline shaped like shards of glass or walkie-talkies and if I listed ten of our projects to the public, eyes would glaze over.
Restoration of old abandoned heritage buildings, that’s our bag.
The two sales guys take seats at the front. The Antichrist to us creatives. Their strategy is to pimp us out for deadlines that we can’t meet, then they ignore our calls because they’re too busy on the phone, selling us to new clients.
Max hooks up his laptop, and the boardroom screen comes to life.
But this morning, it’s not displaying the Bradshaw Brown team agenda.
Twenty jaws drop to the floor as we stare at an attractive blonde posing seductively on sand while rocking a red bikini and Santa hat.
Then slowly, like dominoes, nineteen slack jaws swivel to stare at me.
Well, shit.
My body stiffens in defence, and I shoot them back death glares.
I force my horrified eyes back to the screen.
The photo is in a message from a Danielle. To summarise our boss’s emailed response in big print: Danielle in a Mrs. Claus outfit makes his dick hard.
It’s not even Christmas.
Danielle smiles playfully at us with wide eyes as she lives her best life on a beach somewhere.
Max is too busy checking something on his laptop to notice that he’s broadcasting his digital masturbation bank to the design team. His inability to pick up on the tension in the room is astounding.
“Uh, Max,” Nisha, Bradshaw Brown’s contracts manager and my close friend, says sharply beside me. “That’s not the agenda you have on-screen.”
Confused, Max pivots and then flinches as if Danielle jumped out and slapped him in the face. “Shit!” Choking painfully on his own saliva, he frantically yanks the cable from his laptop.
We watch gobsmacked. Awkward sniggers sprinkle the room.
Max levies us a glare as if it’s our fault. “Moving on.”
Nisha cocks a brow at me in a ‘you okay?’ as Max recovers, plugs his computer back in and replaces sexy Mrs. Claus with the meeting agenda.
I plaster a bright smile on my face. Mortified is the understatement of the century.
So Max is dating again.
Max, the man I spent the past four years with. I was a fresh architecture graduate wet behind the ears when he was a qualified architect at Bradshaw Brown. He took me under his wing and became my mentor. Then he became my boyfriend, my fiancé and eventually my boss. Then my ex-fiancé. But still my boss.
Not an ideal sequence of events.
My gaze trails up his body as he strokes his 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 drum smashing 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 nods curtly 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 little exposé?
“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 less fifty shades of office romance and more old 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, always there. 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’s the hot 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.
They plan to create a whole new urban village full of flats, bars, restaurants and artsy buildings to house all the hipsters flooding in. It will be the new Thames South Bank of the east.
At its helm is local East Ender property tycoon, Jack Knight, propping up the top forty under forty UK rich list, not to mention national tabloid gossip with his rampant, outrageous sex life.
In his own words, he plans to reshape the east of London. At this rate, he’ll own more land than the Crown.
It’s the largest regeneration project London has seen in years and every architect’s wet dream.
One of the most exciting projects of my career if we win the bid.
The catch?
Jack Knight.
I’d rather work for Satan on designing hell after what he did.
“Yes, I wanted to spend a decent amount of time discussing this.” Max looks pointedly at Layla.
“I have news,” he continues irritatingly slowly, looking around the room until he’s confident he has everyone’s undivided attention. He unsuccessfully tries not to grin. “We’ve nailed it. The project’s ours.”
A loud cheer breaks out. It’s not often the office celebrates, but this is a huge deal for us.
As part of the wider regeneration, Knight’s vision is to convert London’s oldest factory, the London Motor Works, lying derelict for decades, into apartments and shops.
To work on a historic landmark like this?
CV gold dust.
“We beat Porter & Partners?” I ask incredulously. They’re a global powerhouse and front-runner for the bid.
“They didn’t feel it was a good fit.”
“Porter & Partners backed out of the bid?” Nisha asks slowly, her chin tilting to the floor.
Max’s nostrils flare to full capacity. “That’s not what should be the focus here, but they turned it down.”
We stare at him blankly.
“So, we didn’t nail it,” I murmur, exchanging glances with Nisha.
“Why on earth would they do that?” Darren pipes up from the back.
Max raises his palms. “It’s not relevant. What’s relevant is that we have won the work and will do our damnedest to show we are the best for the job. Now, as you may be aware, Jack Knight and I go back a long way, so I’ll be overseeing this project.”
I internally roll my eyes. Max isn’t exactly on Jack’s speed dial. Due to one common connection, they occasionally attend the same parties. Max learnt most of his knowledge from Knight’s biography, hidden in his sock drawer. I thought it would emasculate him if I told him I found it.
“Several of you will be reassigned to the project ASAP. Lexington expects to see condition surveys, treatment plans and conceptual design drafts within twelve weeks.”
Nisha gasps.
I inhale sharply. We haven’t even visited the site yet. That’s an unreasonable ask for a building of that size and complexity.
“Now we know why Porter turned it down,” Nisha says. “We’d never pull together credible designs within a few weeks even if we weren’t dealing with listed buildings.”
“Uh-huh.” Max, irritated, raises a brow. “Are you going to be the one to tell Jack Knight that?”
“Won’t he listen to you, Max?” She pouts. “Isn’t it already in the bag if you guys,” she makes air quotes, “go back a long way?”
It’s not even in the trolley, never mind the bag.
“It’s not enough time,” I say to Max with more bite than I intended. “Can we negotiate an extension?” And who the hell is this Danielle woman?
He inhales a lungful of air through his nostrils, meaning shut the fuck up.
The conversation is fruitless. If Lexington says jump, we get a long pole and launch ourselves into space.
My eyes fix on the Lexington Group HQ, a great big forty-something-floor glass brute dominating the London skyline and blocking our sunlight.
Jack Knight pretty much owns this skyline with his fancy hotels and luxury apartments. The guy thinks he’s a bloody god and London is his monopoly board.
“The partners and I will be discussing resourcing this afternoon,” Max says.
Nisha nudges me.
And that’s why I’m sitting here, enduring the soul-sucking experience of working under my ex-fiancé.
Bradshaw Brown promotes once a year and that date is four months away.
I won’t cut off my nose to spite my face. I’ve worked too hard to leave without the title of senior architect. And they’re putting me through the training to get admitted to the elite architectural Conservation Register.
Bricks before dicks.
Otherwise, I have to claw my way up somewhere else.
“Another bleeding hipster village where the normal folk won’t be able to afford housing,” Steve, my fellow architect, grimaces. “Jack Knight’s a cockney, has he no shame?”
“Guys, focus.” Max’s lips press tightly together. “Now the deal’s secure, Jack has called a meeting next week to talk to us personally about this. I’ll send out the statement of work. You’ll need to know it inside out. Everyone assigned to this project must live and breathe it until I say otherwise.”
We exchange glances across the room.
“Why is he meeting us?” I ask Max suspiciously. “Surely his construction leads will handle this?”
“That shows how important this project is to him,” Max snaps back. “Nisha, I’ll need you to drop what you’re doing and support the design team on the commercials. We may be buddies, but Jack is not a patient man.” I do another eye roll in my head as Max looks at his watch. “Too many minutes wasted today—next time be early, folks.”
Nisha grunts beside me. “More all-nighters to pull this out of my ass in time.”
Everyone spills out of the boardroom while Max loiters at the front. “Bonnie, a minute please.” He gives me a thin-lipped smile as a frenzied conversation erupts in the hallway about hot Danielle and Max’s dick.
I grind my teeth into a smile to stop murderous threats from escaping. “Yes, Max?”
“Sorry about that little mishap earlier. I didn’t mean for you to see that.”
Guilt briefly flashes across his face. It’s gone so quickly I might have imagined it.
“Me and the rest of the team.” I titter defiantly. “Look, it’s fine. Doesn’t bother me. I’m dating too.”
That’s a big fat lie. These days I’m busying myself with a variety of fake dicks. I alternate between different shapes, sizes and colours as I’m not racist. No need for men to be attached.
With the number of mechanical devices in my bedroom, I’m surprised I have any feeling left down there at all.
“Glad to hear it.” He’s not convinced. “Listen, if you play your cards right, the partners will promote you. You can use this project to get noticed.”
They better bloody promote me.
“But I need you to give it everything.” He’s adopted that tone he uses to dangle work carrots in front of me. “I’m putting my neck on the line offering this chance. Sometimes it seems like you’re stuck in fourth gear, and you can’t get to the next level. I don’t want to give you too much to handle.”
My eyes widen. “What? I’m not stuck in fourth gear!” What does that even mean? “I can handle this project. I’m in top gear. Driving like I stole her.”
He exhales heavily. “This deadline is bad timing with the wedding, but we’ll just have to manage.”
That’s the sucky thing about our break-up, so much of our lives still overlap. Our friends Kate and Sean are getting married on the weekend and Max and I are part of the wedding party because we spent years together as a foursome. They were supposed to repay the favour, but that requirement is now null and void.
I nod vigorously. “I’ll work every hour I can. You don’t need to worry about that. You know that. You know me.”
His frown says he’s not fully appeased. I know what’s coming.
“That’s not all I’m worried about. Look, I understand you have some . . . issues with Jack Knight. And I’m not saying they aren’t justified, but it was a long time ago, okay? You need to treat the wedding as a networking opportunity. Be professional. Be civil to the guy at the very least.”
The icing on the wedding cake—Kate’s marrying into the Knight family.
“I’ll behave in front of the great and glorious Mr. Knight,” I say through gritted teeth.
“See?” Max glares back at me. “That’s what I’m talking about. The attitude.”
“Max, I’m not going to mess up the chance of promotion. I’ll follow the required bridesmaid etiquette. Last time I checked, it included being nice to the guests.”
Even if the guest list includes an obnoxious, arrogant Knight who dumps pawns off his board when he’s got no further use for them.
I swallow the lump in my throat. Simple.
