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His eyes are so beautiful, with so much soul.
“Look, I know the deal with morning after syndrome with clients, and just how intense infatuation can be,” he says. “I also know how it feels to be the centre of someone’s universe, only for the day-to-day of regular life to erode that away a piece at a time. Or even worse, when someone ‘better’ comes along.”
I get a shiver at the thought. I can almost feel his fear.
I’m about to reply and tell him I feel exactly the same way, but he points out of the window behind me. I spin to see the skyline, and we’re already in Belgravia. It’s alight like a palace of dreams.
“It’s this one. This is my block,” I tell him when the first of the Belgravia towers comes into view. I point up at it.
“Up there. Seventh floor.”
He laughs. “You really will be able to wave at me, then. Lucky me.”
The cab drops us at the courtyard driveway, and Josh helps me out of my seat, ever the gentleman. I can’t believe how badly my hand is shaking as he takes it. He gives my fingers a squeeze in acknowledgement.
“Urgh, sorry,” I say. “I’m just… um. I’m a little bit…”
“Nervous?” he asks. “Ditto. Like I said earlier, I know how easy it is to get swept up by fantasies, and throw everything you’ve got into something that will leave you high and dry. I think we’ve both been there.”
“You could say that, yeah.”
“I don’t want to go through that again. I want real, or not at all.”
I adore his honesty, especially so early on. I squeeze his hand, grateful he’s not a charmer out for nothing more than getting in my pussy this evening.
But oh, the thought.
The nerves at being here come right back again. I stare up at the east wing tower as Josh takes out his key fob, and I recognise the beep of the system as he opens the main entrance.
“Similar to your wing?” he asks as we step into the lobby, and I nod. It’s exactly the same. Same marble walls and high ceiling. The same kind of elevators, in the same location. We step into one of them together, and yep, same handrails, same mirrors.
He leads me along to his apartment on floor eight, and my senses are on overdrive. This place is so familiar, but so surreal after my viewing with Kingsgate, and I still feel like a fraud.
Am I worth somewhere like this? Really? Am I really worth a property in Belgravia?
“Here we go…” Josh says.
I take a breath as he puts the key in the door, and I have to pause, stopping dead in my tracks, because even the sound of his door opening is identical to the apartment viewing I had with Richard Jacobs. My eyes well up at the thought of having my own key like Josh’s, to the same kind of apartment. Blame it on alcohol, and humility. Disbelief, mashed up with the kind of honesty in Josh’s words earlier. It all means so much.
“You ok?” he asks, paused with the door open. “If you want to go back to yours instead, that’s ok. If it’s too much, too soon, just say.”
I shake my head. “No, no. It’s not that. It’s just.” I sigh. “I really never believed I’d be living somewhere like this. When I moved to London, I had big dreams with my dickhead of an ex. But I ended up living in a shitty house share where the kitchen is so gross, you’d catch salmonella just from stepping foot in there. I was working crazy hours in a store, and crying myself to sleep at night, freshly dumped and single. I felt so fucked up and broken, stocking shelves for minimum wage and in a shit load of debt, believing that was all I’d ever amount to. But now, it’s so crazy different. I just… it’s hard to digest. I know I joked about it on messenger, but it’s not so funny in real life. Not being there, in the real grime, living a life that’s broken apart.”
He encourages my words with a gentle nod, and I let my honesty mirror his.
“Seeing my parents for Christmas was a big enough dream on its own, but now, to be here in Belgravia, knowing I’ll be living in a place like this…” I look at him with a smile. “And not only that, being here with you tonight. The hottest hardcorer on the planet, as well as a guy who isn’t all about being one. Who wants something more, and knows what it’s like to get your heart torn out and stamped into pieces.”
He lets the door close shut, and steps up close. Then he tilts my face up to his.
“You compliment me way too easily. There are hotter hardcorers than me, Ella.”
I giggle. “Yeah, sorry. I mean Tiff is an amazing hardcorer too, she’s stunning.”
“It’s not just Tiff I’m talking about,” he says. “It’s you.”
I don’t get the chance to reply before he lands his lips on mine again, and fuck it, I go all in with the kiss. Both his keys and my bouquet go tumbling to the floor as he takes hold of my ass and hitches me up to press me up tight against his front door. It’s hot and heavy – a kiss so desperate it has us both moaning. I try to pull his tie loose, but he uses his hips to grind, hard, working his thigh between my legs until I forget all about his tie and reach for his ass instead. We’re craving more, moaning and desperate, both of us so into the groove we’re on fire, caught in the crazy mist of lust.
Until we hear a door open on the opposite side of the hallway…
