Daydreamer

Lucy

“Mum, I told you I’m not having any lunch,” I muttered, not looking up from the huge spider diagram I was pouring over at my desk when I heard the door to the office open.

“You are definitely having lunch.”

I spun round in my chair at the sound of Felix’s deep voice and blinked up at him. He was frowning down at me, and I immediately felt self-conscious. My hand flew up to my bird’s nest of a messy bun on top of my head and felt the multiple pens and pencils embedded in it. I was wearing leggings, a huge jumper of Mikey’s which fell to mid-thigh, and I had no fewer than five pairs of socks on my feet.

“What are you doing here?” I said, totally bewildered. Felix was here in Little Buckingham? On a Wednesday? Had the global financial market collapsed? Was I hallucinating? In all the time I’d worked at Moretti Harding I don’t think he’d ever taken time off in the week. He shifted on his feet and stuck his hands into his suit pockets (his standard three-piece suit seemed very incongruous with the pokey, cluttered office shed).

“Making sure you eat lunch,” he said, as if him popping to Mum’s cottage was a regular occurrence. I hadn’t seen him in over a month. Now he was walking into the shed like he owned it, closely followed by Legolas (who’d already eaten two of my previous diagrams), put his hand on the radiator and frowned. “This is way too cold,” he said in an irritated voice before pushing away from there to walk to the window and run a finger over the glass, holding it up to show the condensation on the pane of glass. “It’s damp in here, Lucy.”

“Gah! Legolas! Out!” I shoved the pony away from the desk just before his teeth snapped dangerously close to my newest and most complicated diagram. Legolas snorted at me, and I was, yet again, covered in pony snot. I started pushing him towards the door. It was easier said than done as Legolas was bracing his hooves against me. “Well, help me then,” I said to Mr Pristine. “You let Legolas in; you may as well help me eject the little shit.”

So Felix Moretti, property development titan, ruthless businessman, most eligible bachelor in London, three-piece-suit-wearing posh boy, helped me push a fat pony’s massive furry butt out of my office. When he shut the door on a disgruntled Legolas and turned to me, I took two big steps back, nearly falling over my office chair. Felix reached for me but when his hand met only air, he clenched it into a fist and let it drop to his side. We stared at each other for a moment.

“When was the last time you ate?” he asked.

“Oh my God. Why are you so obsessed with my eating habits? Did Mikey guilt you into coming down here?”

Felix’s eyes remained glued to mine, and he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Right,” I said, now understanding the situation. Mum and Mikey were worried. For some reason my lunatic brother clearly felt that dragging the man who had broken my heart out to the back end of nowhere to sort me out was appropriate. “You can tell Mikey to jog on. I’m fine. I’m an adult, and I can look after myself.”

Felix looked out of the window as his jaw clenched. “You’ve lost weight,” he said. “Lucy, you’re not looking after yourself properly. Of course, Mikey’s worried.”

“I’m fi⁠—”

“And you can’t work in here,” he went on, cutting me off. “This hut isn’t fit for Legolas even. You need a warm, dry environment. Proper insulation. And you shouldn’t be crouched over a screen or your desk twenty-four hours a day.”

A low, frustrated noise made it out of my mouth that sounded suspiciously like a growl. Bloody hell, when had I ever growled at anyone? But Felix was driving me crazy.

“You’re so bossy,” I snapped. “I’m not even yours to boss around anymore, and you’re still coming here and having a go at me.”

Felix looked pained. “Please, love. I⁠—”

“Don’t call me love,” I said in a low voice, which, to my humiliation, was laced with pain. Just one simple endearment from Felix and I was almost doubled over with the agony of losing him all over again. That was how dangerous this man was to me. That was why I needed to keep my distance, to bury myself in my work and escape reality.

Felix swallowed and looked away for a moment. When he made eye contact again, I could have sworn the pain in his expression was almost equal to mine before he blanked it.

“Okay, Lucy,” he said, his voice low and steady, “I accept I’ve lost that right. I accept I’ve lost a lot of things when it comes to you. What I won’t accept is you not looking after yourself. Now you’re coming with me to get lunch, and then you’re going to have a break from writing. When you do go back to work it won’t be in this fucking shed.”

My eyebrows went up, and I crossed my arms over my chest. I really must have been a pushover before if he thought I was going to do any of what he just said. Well, spineless Lucy Mayweather had found her backbone. No bossy billionaire was swanning in here and telling me what to do.

“I concentrate better in here,” I said, turning away from him to sit back down and start work on the map again. “I can’t work in the cottage, it’s a madhouse. Out here it’s quiet, when people aren’t interrupting me.” To my surprise, after a brief pause, Felix strode over to me and plucked my hands up off the desk to hold them in both of his. I had to hold back a sigh at the delicious warmth of his large, warm hands enveloping mine. I knew I should jerk them away, but I couldn’t quite muster up the self-control to do it. I blinked up at him, overpowered yet again by the sheer beauty of the man. His tight expression from before relaxed now that he was holding my hands.

“At least eat something,” he said in a soft voice that made my chest squeeze, but I managed to pull my hands from his with a firm tug.

“Stop fussing over me,” I snapped. “I’ll eat when I need to eat, and I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.”

Felix sighed, then pushed off from my desk. I did my best to try to ignore him as he felt the damp on the windows again and then tutted when he felt the heat output from the admittedly pathetic mini heater I had plugged in.

“Honestly, it’s at least eighteen degrees in here,” I told him. “You don’t need to worry about it.”

“You need it to be at least twenty-four degrees to feel comfortable,” he told me, and I gritted my teeth. Trust Felix to lecture me on what temperature I was happy in.

“You don’t know anything about my temperature regulation.”

“I raised the office temperature in a series of degree hikes,” he told me. “You stopped shivering at twenty-two degrees, and your hands stopped displaying pigment loss at twenty-three degrees. Twenty-four was when you stopped huddling over to keep warm.”

I blinked at him and very nearly smiled. “I didn’t realise you were watching that closely.” A small kernel of hope started to grow. “You do realise it was madness to make the entire office tropical just to keep one, relatively crap, assistant comfortable?”

He shrugged. “I just wanted you to be comfortable,” he muttered.

“That was really sweet,” I said, and hope lit his expression. My chest squeezed, and all I wanted to do was run to him and fall into his arms. But then an unbidden image of Felix’s furious face when he berated me before throwing me out of his office popped into my brain. I’d let my guard down with him before and look where that got me.

Plus it was obvious that he was only here because Mike had guilted him into it. My family were worried. I didn’t want to worry them, but I really couldn’t help it. The compulsion to sink into the other world, the fantasy world I’d created was too strong, and just then that shed was the only place I could do it. The only place I could forget everything and feel fully immersed in the writing. I cleared my throat. “I hope you’re not still boiling them alive.”

“No,” Felix said, looking sheepish, “But I have made some other changes. The office is way more open now. No more old boys’ club mentality. More collaboration. Less emphasis on being a dick to get ahead. I even allowed some colour on the walls, personal effects on the desks. We have Cake Monday, Taco Tuesday. You were right – it does make a difference. And you were right about how short-sighted I am. It’s not just the sharks that I need to contribute. The best ideas often come from the minnows – they just have to have a forum to speak. It’s helped the company immeasurably. I don’t know why I’ve been such a prick for so long. And Will, of course he’s been sacked. Tabitha and a few others came forward as well. I’m sure you already know that. He’ll have a criminal record.”

Yes, the police had told me all of that, not that I really made much time to take in it. Much easier to be stuck in my imagination most of the time.

“TBea feels really bad. She’d like to apologise to you in person. Vicky too.” He let out a brief chuckle. “I think Vicky’s taking it the worst. She’s not good at being wrong. I gather you’re not taking their calls?”

“I’m too busy,” I said, looking away from him and back at my map.

“Too busy even to speak to Lottie?” he asked gently. “She’s worried about you as well. And she misses you. They all do.”

I felt a brief twinge of guilt. I did feel bad about Lottie, but I still wasn’t ready to speak to or see anyone from my life in London.

“After I’ve finished this series. I’ll speak to them after.”

“But, you’ll see them next month, won’t you?” Felix asked. When I looked at him in confusion, his head was cocked to the side, his arms crossed again.

“Next month?”

“At the book signing.”

My stomach dropped and I gritted my teeth. There were ten missed calls on my phone from my agent. This was an international signing. Epic fantasy and sci-fi authors from all over the world would be there.

“I’m not doing it,” I said. There was no way in hell that I was, a) going back to London again, b) being put on display in front of thousands of people, or c) leaving this shed. The small event at Harry’s building was one thing. I’d actually enjoyed talking to the teenagers and I was glad I’d managed to work up the courage to do it before leaving London. But this would be a totally different kettle of fish.

“You have to go up there to negotiate the Netflix deal as well,” Felix said. I jerked in my chair in surprise as my gaze flew to his.

“What do you know about that? Have you been speaking to Madeline?” I said, annoyance in my tone. First Mikey and now Madeline. Was everyone just going around talking about me behind my back?

“She’s worried about you too,” Felix said in that gentle tone again.

I rolled my eyes. Maddie was worried about her fifteen percent.

“Lucy, she says your output is insane at the moment. She thinks you need to slow down.”

I frowned at this. Okay, so if Maddie was only interested in making money from me then she’d only be happy that my output was crazy high.

“I’m not doing the signing, and I’m not making any deals with Netflix,” I said, turning my back on Felix again. “I just want to stay in my shed and work on my books.”

“Okay, love,” Felix said softly. I had to blink away tears that suddenly pricked my eyes, so by the time I managed to turn around to tell him to go away he was shutting the door to the shed behind him.

Finally, I thought. He’s given up.