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Chapter Three

I smile politely at Martin Banks as I make it back to my desk, trying to remember what we were talking about. My mind is a complete mess. I’ve just locked Lucas Brady in the stationery cupboard. I don’t know what came over me, other than that he had a hard on and I had to get myself away from him before I did something stupid.

In hindsight locking him in the cupboard probably wasn’t the smartest move I’ve ever made, but I panicked. There’s no denying it. My heart is still racing dangerously fast as Martin Banks smiles at me. ‘Did he find what he needed?’

‘Absolutely!’ I beam at him. I can still rescue this. I can still appear intelligent and in control and get that invite to dinner.

‘Good, good,’ Martin Banks says. ‘He came highly recommended, you know. Seems a little young, but I’m sure you’ll keep him in line, Meredith.’

‘Yes,’ I say breathlessly. ‘You have no concerns there.’

Here it comes, I think to myself. I prepare myself to smile, to look surprised, to accept graciously.

‘I’d better get to it, then. My first client is due in at ten.’ Martin Banks folds up the newspaper he’s been studying and moves away down the corridor with a nod. His route takes him past the stationery cupboard, the one I locked Lucas Brady in, and leaves me alone at my desk, wondering how I could have misread things so badly.

Plus now I have a new problem. I have to figure out a way to get Lucas out of that cupboard without anyone realising that I locked him in there. I’m very proud of my spotless record at work. I am not about to tarnish it now. I am about to pick up my keys and let him out when a client arrives, and then another, and before I know it Lucas Brady has been locked in that cupboard for over an hour. I can’t believe that no one has noticed he is missing, but then I suppose that they all assume he is working in someone else’s office. And that I am supervising him, which in a way, I am.

But I can’t leave him in there all day. As soon as the next opportunity arrives, I sneak back to the cupboard. I unlock the door and tiptoe away like the coward that I am. Hopefully he heard the key turn and will make his way out. I watch the corridor out of the corner of my eye as I type up a couple of invoices and answer the phone and make more coffee. I can almost convince myself that everything is as it should be.

Except that it isn’t.

Fifteen minutes later he still hasn’t come out of the cupboard, and panic is starting to get me again. I abandon my desk for the second time, march up to the cupboard and open the door. Lucas Brady is stood exactly where I left him. ‘What are you doing?’ I snap at him.

‘Waiting for you to tell me I can come out,’ he says.

A shiver of excitement runs through me again, and this time it’s a big one. ‘You could have come out on your own,’ I tell him sharply, refusing to let him see the infuriating effect he’s had on me.

‘I suppose I could,’ he says, dropping his gaze to the floor. ‘Can I come out now?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘For god’s sake, yes.’

I step back out into the corridor, wait for him to follow me, then lock the door. I should check that everything is still in place inside, but that will have to wait until later. I’m too wired, too tense to think about it right now. ‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about that,’ I say, as we walk together back towards my desk. I walk fast, but he keeps up with me easily.

‘There is nothing to tell,’ he says. ‘I misbehaved, and you punished me.’

Why is he saying these things? Why am I reacting to them? Why can’t I just be my usual professional self? For one long, awful moment I wonder if he knows that I am the person who has been slipping notes through his letterbox, but then I dismiss that thought. He couldn’t possibly know. I’ve been discreet. I’ve been careful. And it makes sense that a man who is willing to stand in his window and masturbate would be equally as risqué in other parts of his life. ‘Well, it’s done now,’ I say. ‘You should get back to work.’