Daydreamer

Lucy

“What is this shit, Mayweather?” Will snapped, and I wished I had the backbone required to slap him. The man had a very slappable face.

“Er… it’s coffee.”

“It tastes like a baboon’s arse. What have you put in there?”

“You asked for soy milk,” I said through my now-chattering teeth. Will was really putting the effort in now to torment me. His current favourite was to send me on the most ridiculous errands. He almost seemed to get off on it. Hence this Costa run in the pouring rain for his over-complicated drink order. I was soaked to the skin and totally dishevelled as it was half a mile away and the traffic was gridlocked, so I’d had to jog there. And now he was in his office with two other executives he seemed hell bent on humiliating me in front of.

He laughed. “Do I look like a fucking woke, hippy, soy-drinking dickhead to you?”

I hesitated, wanting to say exactly what I thought he looked like but not having the lady balls. My hesitation was enough to infuriate him though. His eyes narrowed as he stared at me. “Go back and get it right.” Each word was said slowly and carefully as if he was addressing someone who was intellectually challenged.

“But it’s quite a⁠—”

“Gentlemen,” Will cut me off, looking at the other two suits in his office who were shifting uncomfortably in their seats (one of them was David, who I had previously thought wasn’t a total wanker) clearly not at peace with how much of a knob Will was being, but also not ballsy enough to stick up for me. “Your orders?”

They both demurred, but Will pressed it so much that eventually they gave in, and as I was a big wussbag and terrified of Will, I resigned myself to going back to the cursed Costa through the now torrential rain.

On my way back, the coffees were shaking so violently as I shivered that it took all my effort and concentration to keep them upright. So I didn’t notice the sleek, low-slung sports car pull up beside me. Not until the beeping of horns from the cars behind it was blocking started.

“Lucy!” Felix shouted, and I almost flipped the tray of coffee. His window was down now, and he was scowling at me from the driver’s seat. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” I called back. “This is my job. I’m assisting. You said you wanted me to do it better. This is me doing better.”

“I didn’t say go out in a howling gale and get hypothermia.”

“Go away, Felix,” I said and turned to carry on walking. I was cold, pissed off and I’d had it with this man. I really thought he was going to kiss me last week at his house. My disappointment was so acute that I was having a hard time being rational. To know that this fierce, almost painful attraction was still one-sided after having had that small glimmer of hope was unbearable. And I was sure that for a moment, just for a second, he’d felt it too. But then I’d been bundled into my coat and shoved into one of his cars that he seemed to have on twenty-four-hour call like I was radioactive. I was crushed. And I was not up to dealing with him yet.

At the office, I’d managed to avoid him, especially as I was spending more time with Vanessa to help with the ad campaigns in lieu of Will actually doing his job. But after the first day, I realised he was avoiding me as well, which was even more galling. Probably worried that silly little Lucy would get the wrong idea.

“Get in the car.”

“Bugger off.” The beeping had escalated now. Felix was causing a massive backlog of traffic – which in London was quite possibly a hanging offence.

“You can’t tell me to bugger off.” He sounded so ridiculously affronted that I almost laughed, although I doubted that would have been possible given how hard my teeth were chattering.

“Felix Moretti, I’ve known you since you had your first snog with Melanie Green behind the outdoor bogs at The Badger’s Sett. I can tell you to bugger off if I want to.” That had broken my little eight-year-old heart back then, and I was still letting him do it to me now.

“Right, fine,” he bit out, bringing his car to a complete stop and putting the hazards on. People in the cars behind him were swearing now and gesturing out of their windows. I stopped in my tracks and my mouth dropped open as he rounded his car, totally ignoring the chaos he was causing, and closed the distance between us in just a few long strides. Before I could react, he grabbed the tray of coffees out of my hand, chucked them in the bin next to us, turned back to me, put a shoulder to my stomach and lifted me over it.

“What the hell are you doing?” I screeched. The honking behind us had fallen silent. They were probably just as shocked as me. I heard the car door open, and I was lowered, then dumped into the deep bucket seat. Felix, still in the torrential rain, which had already soaked his hair, leaned down to unzip my soaking puffa, pulled it off me somehow, then took off his own coat and threw it over me. Still not finished, he pulled the seatbelt across me and his coat and plugged it in like I was a child. When he moved back to slam the door shut, his shirt was soaked and clung to his muscular torso like a second skin. He flipped off the cars behind us and rounded his bonnet to fling himself into the driver seat. Continuing to ignore the horns, he yanked up the thermostat on his car and I was blasted by warm air. Finally, cool as a cucumber, he casually drove away.

There was water dripping from his hair down the line of his jaw and into his stubble. I tried to drag my eyes away from his arms and chest, revealed by the wet shirt in all their glorious detail, but it was a losing battle. He was almost too perfect to be real.

“When do you get the time to work out?”

Yes. Yes, that is what came out of my mouth. If my blatant staring wasn’t enough, I actually asked the man how he cultivated his perfect muscles. Felix’s eyebrows shot up, and his severe frown was replaced by a small smirk. I felt my face flood with heat, but even with my embarrassment, I was thrilled to see the dimple on his right cheek finally make an appearance.

“Er… any chance we could forget I just said that?” My voice was muffled as I’d buried my face in my hands in mortification.

“I have a home gym,” Felix told me. “And I get up at five every day.”

“Every day?” I squeaked out, managing to lower my hands to look at him. “Even on weekends?”

“Even on weekends.”

“Bloody hell, you must be exhausted.”

“It’s called discipline, Lucy.”

I scowled out of the window. There was that superior tone again. I was so tired of being talked down to. There were different types of discipline. Okay, so mine was of the more haphazard variety, but that didn’t mean I never achieved anything. And, to add insult to injury, I just could not stop shaking. Felix glanced at me as we pulled up to another traffic light and frowned again.

“Why were you walking to get coffee in a heavy downpour?”

“I told you,” I said through chattering teeth. “I was being a good assistant. Mr Brent wanted coffee for his meeting.”

“He can get it at the office.”

“He didn’t want shitty instant coffee.”

“But—”

“Felix, you’ve got a fancy coffee machine in your fancy office. The rest of us have to survive on instant.” Yet another example of the ridiculous hierarchical system at work. The partners hogged all the coffee, most of the space and even all the natural daylight. It was the least open environment I’d ever set foot in. The sad state of the withering mini tree I’d brought in during my first week, back when I didn’t realise the office was where dreams and plants came to die, was a good representation of the general vibe there.

When we made it back to the office car park, I shoved Felix’s coat at him and jumped out of the car at double speed, booking it to the lift and hoping that he wouldn’t be able to keep up. This hope was in vain, seeing as his legs were much longer than mine, and he didn’t have to wear ridiculous death-trap shoes.

When we were standing in the lift, I started shivering again, and he put his coat over my shoulders. The combination of his hand brushing my neck as he did that and the clean, masculine scent coming off his suit jacket was enough to make my cheeks feel like they were on fire despite how freezing I was. When I glanced at Felix, his jaw was clenched tightly as he stared ahead, his fists bunched by his side. He looked almost angry. Well, I didn’t ask him to stop and force me into his bloody car. What a high-handed prick.

As soon as the lift doors opened he strode away without a word, and I followed, feeling like a total weirdo. The office fell silent as we emerged into the common space. We were both still soaked and dripping water onto the carpet. I thought Felix would duck into his office, happy to be away from me, but then he took off in the opposite direction. By the time I realised where he was heading, it was too late.

“What the fuck do you think you’re playing at, Brent?” Felix had thrown open the door to Will’s office and was glowering at Will and the two other executives from the doorway.

Will cleared his throat. “Er… problem, Felix?”

“Yes there’s a fucking problem, you twat,” Felix snapped. Oh dear, I knew very well how things would go for me if Felix had a go at Will. The be-a-total-shit-to-Lucy campaign would ramp up significantly. I rushed forward to try to stop him but unfortunately tripped over those stupid heels when I was a foot away. I would have face-planted into Will’s office had Felix’s strong arm not shot out to catch me around my waist and haul me back up to my feet. My hands had automatically gone to his arm to steady myself, and I could feel the hard muscles under my fingers through the still-damp shirt. His jaw clenched again, and he looked almost in pain before he abruptly let go of me once I was stable, stepping back like I had a contagious disease.

I heard Will mutter, “Fucking liability,” under his breath. If someone could die of embarrassment, I would have expired on the spot. There were some chuckles from the other two men in the room before Felix shot them a furious look that I was surprised didn’t incinerate them in their seats. David at least had the decency to look ashamed of himself.

“Don’t send Lucy out to get coffees in a fucking rainstorm.”

“Look, I’m sorry, Felix,” Will said, his voice full of frustration. “I didn’t realise it was raining.” Felix’s eyebrows went up. Rain was currently beating against Will’s windows. Will huffed. “And exactly what else do you expect I ask her to do? She doesn’t even answer the phone properly half the time.”

“Felix, please,” I begged, tugging on his sleeve to get his attention. “Just let it go.”

He glanced at me. His eyes flashed as he tracked a raindrop splash from my eyelashes onto my cheek, and he huffed out a sigh.

“No more errands in the bloody rain,” he said, turning back to Will and pointing at him. “And you two better watch yourselves as well.” Geoffrey’s small smirk dropped, and he sank back in his chair. David shot me an apologetic look. Felix spun on his heel, ushered me out in front of him and slammed the door to Will’s office behind us. Then he turned to me.

“Don’t let him push you around.”

I frowned at him. “Don’t fight my battles for me.” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared up at him. “You’ll only make it worse. Anyway, you yourself told me that I should be a better assistant. That does actually mean doing what the man says, you realise?”

His hand went to the back of his neck, and his head dropped back to look up at the ceiling. There was so much pec, biceps and forearm muscle action under the wet shirt involved in that manoeuvre that I felt my mouth go completely dry.

“You come to me if he gives you any more grief. Right?” He was looking at me again now as he crossed his arms over his chest. My eyes slid to the side. I was not going to go to Felix if I had another problem with Will. Why he thought I would was a total mystery. Nobody complained in this soulless place, and he was the very last person I’d run to if there was a problem. He already thought I was totally useless and spineless.

“Sure,” I muttered, and, to my shock, his hand came up, and his fingers gently grasped my jaw to lift my face towards his. He was close now. I could smell a heady combination of rainwater and Felix, and I could make out the golden flecks in his dark brown eyes. My breath caught in my throat, and then I stopped breathing altogether.

“You come to me, understand?” His voice was low and commanding. I told myself that I hated him bossing me around like a child, but there was something about that voice that went right through me, causing my stomach to hollow out with such fierce need that I couldn’t help swaying towards him just slightly. At my movement, a muscle ticked in his jaw and his pupils dilated. When I licked my lips, his gaze moved to my mouth. Two flags of colour appeared high on his cheeks.

“Felix,” I whispered. He blinked once, and the spell was broken. His hand fell away before he stepped back. I noticed his hands clenching into fists again at his sides again before he lifted one to point at me.

“Don’t go out in the rain again,” he said, his voice now hoarse. All I could do was nod as he turned to leave like the hounds of hell were chasing him. Once he was out of sight, I slumped against the wall, trying to control my breathing. The buzzer on the intercom from Will’s office made me jump.

“Lucy, if it’s not too much trouble, could you actually make us some fucking coffee? Or am I going to get shat on by the boss for asking you to do even that?”

I rolled my eyes and pushed away from the wall. Yeah, there was no way in hell I was tattling to Felix about any of this. It only made things worse.