Page 23 of Pure Recklessness

‘So respectful,’ Mum repeated.

‘Like I’ve told you a thousand times, Jarvis and I aren’t together any more, so there’ll be no wedding now or in the future.’

‘Never say never!’ Mum chirped and I rolled my eyes.

My parents adored Jarvis. I expected that was partly because they still believed we hadn’t had sex.

Although we’d slept together, it was always uneventful. A quick fumble in my bedroom on the rare occasions that my parents were out visiting friends.

It only lasted a couple of minutes and never seemed worth the effort, so as time went on, we did it less and less. I think the last time was on his birthday ten months ago.

Actually, it was probably the birthday before that, which meant it’d been almost two years since I’d had sex. I didn’t mind though. You can’t miss something you’ve never really had. Well at least, not often.

There was so much hype around sex and in my opinion, it was totally overrated, so I wasn’t in any hurry to have it again.

Personally, eating a slice of gooey chocolate cake was a lot more satisfying.

The fact that the Devlin family had built an empire around the sex industry was impressive considering how boring the act was.

Which reminded me. I couldn’t stay on the phone yapping. I needed to crack on with this research.

‘I’ve got to go,’ I said. ‘I need to do some work.’

‘Don’t let those corporate city bigwigs run you into the ground!’ Mum warned.

‘Be careful, darling. Just say no,’ Dad added.

‘Say no to what?’ I frowned.

‘Whatever any suspicious city people ask you to do.’

‘Bye, Dad.’ I sighed before hanging up and typing ‘Sated International’ into Google.

Let the deep dive research begin…

8

ELLIE

‘Yay! You’re still here!’ A voice sounded from behind me as I stepped into Sated International’s main entrance.

‘So good to see you again,’ I said after turning to see that it was Dana. ‘How are you feeling? You look much better!’

‘Yep, I feel human again which is a relief. Thanks again for your help.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Come on,’ Dana said. ‘We’re not due to start work for another fifteen minutes. Let’s go to the canteen and grab a quick coffee so you can fill me in on what happened with Daddy Devlin.’

‘Okay.’ I smiled, pleased to have made a friend.

We went in the lift and Dana jabbed the button. Once we stepped out, my jaw dropped. When Dana said she was taking me to the ‘canteen’, I was expecting some dingy room with mediocre-looking food, crappy plastic chairs and sticky tables. But this looked like a swanky restaurant with soft banquette seats and glossy white tables.

After getting our coffees, Dana led me to a table in the corner.

‘So come on then, spill!’ she said.

‘Well, unsurprisingly, my article wasn’t the best, but I explained why and Mr Devlin took pity on me and moved me to work in the press office. So I spent the rest of the day packing PR boxes.’