“Mr. Kane, your son’s school is on line two for you,” Ed announces over the intercom. My PA is militant, detached, and sparse with chat, just how I like my PAs.
“Connect me.” For a second, I think the worst, as I always do, even though it’s more likely related to a school trip or a scrap Daniel’s got in.
“Mr. Kane?” says Daniel’s teacher.
I wince at her tone; I’m in for a scolding.
“Mrs. Maguire, so lovely to hear from you.” I use my most winning voice. “How can I help?”
“There’s been a situation in the after-school club.” She launches straight in with a Northern Irish brisk authority. Pleasantries are done. Mrs. Maguire sets the rules in our relationship. She reminds me of my Irish mother. “We can’t get hold of Daniel’s mother. Unfortunately, Daniel will be losing his privilege of attending the school trip tomorrow to London Zoo.”
Damn, Daniel, what have you done this time? “Surely that’s not necessary. What’s the issue?”
“The issue was that he called Miss Hargrove, our teaching assistant, a ‘son of a bitch.’”
I suck in sharply. I feel like I’m the one who’s been naughty. Where did my seven-year-old son even learn that? No one uses the phrase ‘son of a bitch’ in England.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Maguire.” I’m seven again and back at confession with Father Murphy. “Gemina and I will ensure Daniel is reprimanded accordingly. Please pass on my apologies to Miss Hargrove.”
I hear her lips smack over the phone. “This behaviour is becoming more frequent, Mr. Kane. We will need to get to the bottom of this.”
“I know,” I say heavily. “I’ll speak to Daniel tonight. We’ll sort this out. I’m happy to come into the school to discuss it.”
“Please see that you do. Make alternative arrangements for Daniel tomorrow.”
The phone goes dead.
The scrap with his best mate, firing the lunch across the canteen floor, making the Menzes girl cry, now this. I should have named him Damien not Daniel. These past few months he’s acting like the kid out of the fucking Omen movie. I stare out at the London skyline with its sharp edges and growing skyscrapers.
It’s no surprise. I’m a terrible father.
“Mr. Kane, Elena Andric is here to see you,” Ed interrupts my thoughts for the second time. This time it’s welcome.
“Tell her to come through,” I respond, running a hand through my hair.
She enters, her eyes awkwardly darting around the room, like making eye contact with me is excruciatingly painful.
She’s even more stunning than I remembered. She’s wearing a tight dress that accentuates her curves without revealing too much skin. Dark glasses frame her blue-green eyes, and her dark hair is pulled into a tight ponytail. She can try to hide her sexiness, but it’s not working.
I’m not a man that gets flustered easily but that look she gives me with her big eyes and parted pout makes me weak in the knees.
I’m done for.
My lips curve into a smile. “Hello, Elena.” I lean forward in my chair and gesture to the seat in front of the desk. “Close the door and take a seat.”
She bites down on her bottom lip but nods and closes the door. “Hi,” she replies, taking a seat and adjusting her view downward. Her skirt rides up revealing a hint of toned thighs.
“This is a pleasant surprise,” I say softly, examining her face.
“Yes, it’s a surprise alright.” Her voice is strangled.
My eyes flit down to where her knuckles grip the side of the seat. Today, she’s not the confident, sassy woman I met in Greece. “So, you really didn’t know who I was?”
She finally looks up from the floor to meet my gaze. “Of course not.” She purses her lips. “You don’t have a photo on the company website.”
“I don’t,” I agree. “Believe it or not, I don’t court the media.”
“You told me you worked in property,” she says in a clipped tone.
“I buy and sell property. I wasn’t lying about that.”
Her eyes flash with resentment. “You weren’t telling the truth either. I told you I had finished law school. Didn’t you think that was a good opening to tell me you owned the most successful law firm in the UK?”
My gaze drifts down to her breasts, rising up and down with her laboured breathing. An image fills my head of her in the sea, wet and so aroused. I snap my eyes back to hers.
A deep flush runs up her neck and face. Not surprising, really, since she knows when I’m turned on. She’s just as embarrassed now as she was when I was talking at the induction.
Huh. Maybe she really didn’t know who I was in Mykonos.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t forthright about owning Madison, Elena. Elly.” I try her nickname. “It’s not something I advertise when I meet someone in a bar. Especially a bar like that. I wasn’t sure whether it was going to be a fling or something more serious. Given my position, sometimes I need to be…” I pause looking for the right word “…cautious.”
She gives me a withering glare then recovers. “It’s fine. It doesn’t matter. I’m assuming that we can keep our indiscretion a secret. Is that why you wanted to see me?”
I frown. “Not quite.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” she says, her voice panicked. “Mr. Kane, I need this job.”
So, I’m Mr. Kane now.
“I tried so hard to get into Madison Legal. I even took up new hobbies to show how well-rounded I was. Because you need to be the perfect human to be accepted. I’ve done a year’s volunteering at a cat’s rescue just to add it to my CV.” She laughs dryly. “I don’t even like cats.”
My lips twitch. “I’ve read your CV. It’s impressive for a graduate. I’m more of a dog person, unfortunately.”
“Please don’t fire me, Mr. Kane,” she says, her eyes wild with worry. For a moment, I think she might cry.
I frown, shifting in my seat. Where the hell did she get this idea from? “I’ve no intention of firing you, Elly.”
She straightens her dress with long, nervous strokes. “Oh, so what did you want?”
To rip that dress off, push you down onto my desk, spread your legs and bury my throbbing cock hiding under this desk, deep into you. Is it too early to disclose that? She does want me to be honest, after all.
“Have dinner with me,” I blurt out. “Tonight. I can get a table anywhere you want.”
She gapes at me like I’ve demanded she stick pins in her eyes. What the fuck is wrong with her? “Why?”
My jaw tightens. This isn’t going how I planned. “I want to take you out.”
“Is this a condition of not firing me?”
“What? No,” I reply, irritated. “I want to resume what we had in Mykonos. For us to get to know each other.”
Her face distorts with disgust. “No. I don’t sleep with married men. At least not willingly.”
“I’m divorced, Elly. You can check it online.”
“Of course I won’t, it’s irrelevant to me.” Her face tells me she’s already checked. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear that isn’t loose. She’s nervous. I recognise her mannerisms from the first night outside the hellhole she was staying in.
“You weren’t divorced then,” she snaps. “Frankly, I find it hard to trust you. I don’t agree with you as a man.” She raises her chin. “Regardless, you’re the best in the business, and I want to learn everything I can from your company so we can put the incident behind us. You have my discretion and professionalism.”
My hackles rise. She disagrees with me as a man? I let out a frustrated breath. “I’m sorry for what happened on the yacht. I never meant to put you in that situation. But you didn’t exactly give me opportunity to explain it.”
“Do you know how humiliating that was?” she whispers bitterly. “For your wife to treat me like a servant then to find out I’m a bit on the side? I’ve slept with a married man.”
“Ex-wife,” I correct her. “And you weren’t a bit on the side.”
“She was your wife at the time.” She snorts. “You made me a mistress before I turned twenty-five.”
“Legally, yes,” I admit. “But she was ex-wife on all but paper. We were already separated when I met you. I was a free man.”
She lets out a humourless laugh, her anger with me as a man winning over her fear of me as a boss. “You were on holiday with your family,” she spits out the words. “Do you think I’m stupid? That’s disgusting.”
I raise an eyebrow, unimpressed. She’s overstepping. “I’m not the big bad wolf you think I am, Elly. My situation was, still is, complicated. On the trip, I had already started divorce proceedings. The holiday was just for the sake of my son.”
She stares at me. “She was wearing her obnoxious engagement and wedding rings,” she bites out.
Obnoxious? That engagement ring is worth fifty grand. “That was my ex-wife’s choice.”
Her nostrils flare. “I guess that’s why you’re a successful lawyer, with your ability to stretch the truth and evade questioning.”
I bite my tongue to refrain from reprimanding her. She might be the woman I’ve fantasied about every night for months, but she’s still a newly graduated junior lawyer in my company.
We stare at each other in tense silence.
“Couldn’t you have waited until the divorce papers were dry?” she asks in a low voice.
I let out a heavy sigh. “I didn’t plan it. I met a woman. She intrigued me, more than anyone has in years. I didn’t want to let her go. Sue me. I tried to find you. If only just to explain. I didn’t know I was looking for an Elly.”
Imagine my delight when HR showed me the new recruitment intake last week, and I saw Welsh Elly from Swansea coming to join us.
Her eyes hold mine, guarded.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” I ask softly.
She looks away. “No.”
“Then come to dinner with me.”
“I’m not your type,” she replies flatly.
“You are exactly my type. Everything about you is my type.” Damn, is she going to make me get on my knees and beg?
Her lips curl in disgust. “I met your type, remember? I cleaned her bloody toilet. Beautiful. Demanding. Passive aggressive.”
That was close to the bone. “I’m not discussing my ex-wife with you,” I reply through gritted teeth. Was she this hot-headed in Greece?
Her lips tilt into a dismissive smile. “No, thank you, Mr. Kane. I decline your offer of dinner. I’d prefer our relationship to stay professional.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Her eyes narrow into thin slits. “Because I don’t want to go to dinner with you? Do all your other employees say yes?”
“Don’t be crass, Elly,” I growl. “I haven’t asked an employee out before.” I clench my jaw to keep my cool.
“I don’t believe you, and I don’t trust you,” she chokes out, fumbling with her bag on the ground. “Are we done here? I’m leaving.” She jerks to her feet.
“No, we are not done,” I seethe, pushing back my chair to stand up. I close the distance between us in quick strides.
Turning away from me, she grabs the door handle.
“Wait, Elly.” My fingers tighten over hers on the door handle. Her skin is soft and warm. “Let me win back your trust.”
“No. And trust isn’t all you took from me, Tristan,” she mutters, snapping my hand away so she can turn the handle and fling the door open.
What the hell did that mean?
“It meant more to me than a fling,” she whispers, not looking back.
“It meant more to me too,” I call after her, but she’s already out the door.
Elly
I’m physically shaking when I get on the underground train after work. I expected my first day to be tough but not this shit show. My emotions are all over the place.
I’m disgusted with how much I’ve obsessed over him. Not a day goes past without him possessing at least some of my thoughts. Every night, to the sounds of Frank the Shagger’s real love life, I devise new scenarios in my head revolving around Tristan. It’s my guilty pleasure.
Pathetic.
How could I let myself get so wrapped up in a three-day fling? I’m ashamed to say it was a fairy tale for me. Except in my imagination, the fairy tale has a happy ending, the one where we meet in Greece and he isn’t married with a family.
He claims he issued divorce papers even though he was on holiday with his family. Then why did his ex-wife start a war with the cutlery? She wasn’t acting like a woman who had agreed to a separation. And she was wearing her rings.
I want to believe him. If only so that I can remember our time together as something meaningful rather than just evidence of me being a gullible fool.
I take out my phone and enter the code. Of course, I was lying when I said I wouldn’t look him up online. I could only scan the basics in work today. Looking for dirt on the CEO of your new company doesn’t feel like a productive first day activity. Like an itch aching to be scratched, my next few hours will be consumed with cyberstalking Tristan Kane.
My ultimate goal since I decided to study law was to end up at Madison Legal. Now, this changes everything. I knew the owner was one of the top lawyers in the world. How the hell had I not bothered to check what he looked like? I was so buried in case studies, interviews questions, Glassdoor reviews and articles on how to bag a trainee contract. I ignorantly assumed Tristan Kane, CEO was a stuffy old bloke to have amassed such a CV.
Not him.
I type in his name, and immediately a number of predictive search suggestions pop up.
Tristan Kane net worth
Tristan Kane age
Tristan Kane Gemina Kane
Tristan Kane Madison Legal
Tristan Kane Reid case
Tristan Kane Danny Walker
Which one do I start with?
I select Tristan Kane Gemina Kane and click on images. A plethora of photos invade my eyes. Most of them are of Tristan and Gemina at posh events around the globe. Some of the photos are of him outside London’s supreme court or on podiums speaking at events. There are a few videos of him being interviewed by the BBC that send tingles up my legs and between my thighs. Hearing that man’s voice broadcast across the British nation is very erotic.
The bastard is sexy as hell. On and off paper.
I click on an image of Gemina Kane. She’s wearing a dark purple gown and is clearly singing on a stage. Oh my God, is that the Royal Opera house in London? Is she famous? Famous in theatre circles it would seem from the number of pictures of her. She really is devastatingly attractive. It makes me wonder why he chose me to have a fling if this is his standard.
The next photo is one of both of them standing outside a theatre. Gemina is smiling for the camera whereas Tristan is looking at her.
It winds me how he looks at her. Every woman wants a man to look at her like that. The article is dated the start of last year.
Rebound springs to mind.
I click out of the search. This isn’t good for my mindset.
There are lots of photos of him with Danny Walker, the Scottish tech tycoon who owns the Nexus Group. Interesting. They must be friends. There’s another guy in all the pictures. Jack Mathews, I read. It would appear handsome attracts handsome.
I click into info about Jack Mathews. Owner of The Lexington Property Group. It takes me a minute to register where I know them from—the chain of hotels and apartments in every major city in the world. So, this is his friend with whom he owns property.
This is Tristan Kane’s world.
The divorce must have gone through after Greece. I type Tristan Kane girlfriend and click search.
Now photos of Gemina are replaced with photos of Tristan with other beautiful women. I can’t find two photos with the same girl. My thoughts float back to what happened that day and Gemina’s voice echoes through my head, ‘You’re nobody.’
I didn’t blame her for hating me. What woman wouldn’t?
One of the images takes me into an article called ‘London’s sexiest lawyers.’ Who knew that was a thing? As I scroll through the article I laugh bitterly, causing the people next to me to stiffen. No one expresses emotion on the underground.
Tristan Kane was voted number one.
Guiltily, I try one last search. It was the first suggestion that came up, so it would be rude not to. My eyes bulge when the numbers render on screen: 250 million pounds?? This guy is worth 250 million pounds?
I shut my phone. Why am I torturing myself? No good can come of creeping on Tristan Kane online. Seeing photos of his glamorous life is just heart-breaking. None of those women in the pictures look like they live in a house-share with seven other people and stock toilet rolls in their bedroom.
No, I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll focus on my work, keep my head down and get everything I can out of this trainee contract, then move on. Sophie is a good mentor; I can learn a lot from her.
He can sleep with other trainees, not me. Greece wasn’t me; it was a temporary lapse of judgement. And it’s never the subordinate that comes off well in these situations, is it? I can’t jeopardise my career before it’s even started. For all I know he’s looking for a quick fumble then I’ll be ghosted or worse, fired. I need to protect myself. While I’ve been in a no-sex bubble for months he’s been schmoozing all over London, by the looks of things.
I’m almost convinced except for one niggling thing. I can’t stop thinking of the way he looked at me.
The look told me Tristan Kane is a man who gets what he wants.
