CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

MAE POV

Mr Douglas’s house was incredible. The wide open spaces decked out in neutral colours were heaven on earth after being cramped up in grotsville.

      You could tell the place belonged to a guy. He had minimal pictures on the wall, and those that were up were abstract and obscure, seemingly chosen for the inoffensive colour schemes as much as anything else.

      The TV was huge and occupied a prime position to the right of a gorgeous open fireplace. The furnishings were plush and stylish, and the carpets were deep and cosy under my bare toes as I padded from one room to another in my quest to get a feel for the man behind the suit and scowl.

      He’d left me stocked up with enough supplies for a whole winter, and I wished I could stay forever. Preferably with him here too. And naked. Of course.

      I left it a good hour to make sure he’d be well on the road before I dared to venture upstairs. I felt like a sneaky little intruder as I checked out the rooms behind closed doors, despite assuring myself that technically he’d ordered me to treat this place like home.

      Who wouldn’t go everywhere in their own home, right?

      Right.

      Even so, I took a breath as I eased the door handle down on the bedroom at the far end of the hallway.

      This one was definitely his. The bed was huge and neatly made up in dark blue bedding. The bedside cabinets were clear of everything but an alarm clock and a paperback titled Business with Integrity. He’d left it splayed on an open page with the spine up, which is a pet hate of mine when it comes to reading books but was literally the only thing I’d found so far to criticise him for.

      His suits were hung in perfect order in the closet and they smelled like a dirty girl’s dream. His socks were all paired neatly in a drawer without a single odd in sight. His belts were coiled in a drawer of their own, and underneath was the underwear stash I’d been daydreaming about.

  Boxers. All Black. All folded neatly.

Ok, so I didn’t know what I was hoping to find, but the sight of such a demure setup was enough to have me laughing out loud at my own ridiculousness.

  A leather thong, perhaps? One of those dick socks with an elephant on the front and googly eyes? Maybe a satin posing pouch fit for a stripper as opposed to my steely CEO?

      Yeah, I found nothing. Not one little guilty pleasure.

      I didn’t even find anything of note in his bedside cabinet. Some ear buds and some hand gel and a stash of receipts.

      I vacated his personal space with far less of a thrill than I was hoping for.

      I wanted more. I wanted dirty secrets. I wanted filth and spice and fantasy fuel.

      I made do with one of the chocolate muffins he’d kindly left for me downstairs, and then I fired up my work laptop and video called my mum.

      The pang of loneliness as I waited for her to answer was hard to choke down, even if considerably lighter in Mr Douglas’s house. I managed to keep my smile bright and my mood upbeat all the same, loving how happy she seemed with her new boyfriend at her side, even if she was on a whole other continent.

      I just hoped I’d find that kind of happiness of my own one day, as loved-up as she was with a man who really deserved it. An actual man.

      An actual man like Mr Douglas.

      I told my brain to give it a rest and stop trying to sidestep the appreciation of Mum’s new guy. The guy was strong, stable and kind. He was fun, and smart, and always seemed to put her first, which was good because she deserved it. All of it.

      She’d been putting me first as long as I could remember.

      The guilt was written all over her face as she realised I was all alone on Christmas Eve.

      “I hate that you’re not here with us,” she told me, but I waved her words aside as though I was having the time of my life.

      “I’m busy with a new job, remember?” I said and managed a laugh. “You owe me a double portion of turkey next time though. I’m holding you to it.”

      Saying Happy Christmas from so far away nearly broke my heart. Waving goodbye to my only family in the world and knowing there was an ocean between us gave me enough of a twinge that I had to dab my eyes when the call was over.

 I held one of Mr Douglas’s cosy scatter cushions to my chest and pulled my knees up tight, staring at the twinkle of the tree lights and wishing he was my someone special and I was his. Even if it was just for one little Christmas Day.

      It was a crush. Just a crush. But here in his home it felt like so much more.

      Real enough to touch. Real enough to feel. Real enough to hope.

      I wondered if he was close to London yet, and if his family would be waiting with open arms and happy smiles. I wondered if he’d be thinking of me back here in his house when he was pulling a Christmas cracker tomorrow across the dinner table.

      I wondered if he’d give me a call to check on his cat.

      Fuck – his cat!

      I raced through to the kitchen, hoping I hadn’t missed Dickson teatime. Being late with dinner on night one wouldn’t be the best start to a long and fruitful companionship.

      Cats always seemed like the most temperamental choice of pet to me. Mean enough to hold grudges in that tail swishy, if I was bigger I’d kill you and eat you kinda way. I hoped Dick’s name didn’t suit his personality.

      I couldn’t even find his bowl. I almost tore the kitchen apart in my effort to locate the kitty accessory stash but in the end I had to make do with a random saucer and hope he didn’t hold it against me. I mean it wasn’t emergency enough to dial Mr Douglas’s mobile, right?

      ‘Hey, sir, sorry for the intrusion, but I’m too much of a doofus to find a cat bowl.’

      I loaded up the gourmet salmon and chopped it up in neat little chunks, then went out to the porch and called his name, hoping the neighbours weren’t close enough to listen in.

      No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t imagine Mr Douglas yelling for Dick on his doorstep. Maybe that’s why the cat never came inside. Maybe Mr Douglas just didn’t invite him hard enough.

      And that’s when it hit me.

      If I could succeed in getting his prize kitty inside the place and document the feat with some awesome selfies, maybe I’d surpass even the wildest of Mr Douglas’s expectations. Full marks on the pet-sitting front, have a key for next time.

      I slipped my feet into my slippers and ventured into the front garden despite it being close to freezing, Dick-dick-dickson in my sweetest voice as I wafted that salmon out into the open air and twanged a fork against the saucer.

      “Come on, Dick. Lovely fish. MMMMmm. Lovely! Dick! Are you there, Dick? Scrummy yummy food for you!”

I went right the way down the driveway and skirted the edges. I went up to the terrace at the side and even balanced on a patio table in the moonlight to call over the rear wall.

      I tried everything. Everything. Even Mr Douglas himself couldn’t have done more for that cat than I did.

      I’d just about given it up as a thankless task when I saw his furry ass sitting on the driveway. Holy shit, how I thanked my lucky stars.

      Dickson wasn’t anything like the cat I was expecting. He was big and ginger and didn’t look jittery in the slightest.

      He was straight up the porch steps in a heartbeat when I gave his bowl another twang, gobbling that salmon down his neck without a care for the fact his regular chef was nowhere to be seen.

      “I’m Mae,” I told him, like he gave a fuvk about who I was. I risked putting a hand out and he didn’t even flinch when I scratched behind his ears.

      Jittery, he was not. I congratulated myself on my epic cat communication skills. Maybe I was in the wrong career.

I waited until he was nearly done with his dinner, then edged the saucer closer to the front door. He came right along with it without even shooting me a glare, stepping over the threshold like he owned the place.

I closed the door behind him and waited until he’d chowed down the rest of his fish, then called him on through to the kitchen where I gave him a bit of a refill and an extra saucer of milk as a friendship bribe.

      I was grinning hard when I pulled out my phone and dropped down low to snap a selfie, and there it was. Documented. Indisputable.

 I was so tempted to send it through in a picture message to Mr Douglas’s mobile, but didn’t want to come across as gloating. Instead I got myself a mug of coffee and holed up cosy for some Christmas TV, only this time I wasn’t alone.

  Dickson was up on my lap in a flash, purring his furry butt off like we’d been friends for a lifetime already.

      Yep, it was all but guaranteed. The cat-sitting award of the decade had my name written all over it.