Blazed Trilogy

By Corri Lee

This complete trilogy volume follows the story of Emmeline Tudor, multi-billionaire's daughter turned starving artist. After an adolescence full of self-esteem issues and unrequited love, Emmeline is stuck in a rut and looking for a way out. An escape route from a boring reality comes in the form of Blaze, ex-rockstar male model with a reputation for being a stubborn bachelor. The pair meet and immediately the fires are stoked in a series of awkward and erratic encounters around the city of London. One thing leads to another, and the bond between them becomes undeniably strong. Only problem is, she's in love with another man and he has priorities elsewhere...

Set over a period of months, this first-person fiction is as emotionally gripping as light-hearted. The first volume of the trilogy, 'Blazed' was released in March 2013, with 'The Brides' following in May of the same year and the final installment, 'The Ashes', rounding up this turbulent love story in August 2014.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Corri Lee
• Release date: Sep 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311955548

Corri Lee

Self-publishing author and self-confessed fantasist, I vent my ideas into novels that I strive to make emotionally provocative and addictive. Music is referenced heavily and is a huge influence in the way I write. Those who know me well will see the pieces of my personality that I put into my words. Those who don't will see outrageous story lines, gut wrenching twists, raunchy love affairs, and heart stopping romance.Jaws will drop. Eyes will burn. Cheeks will blush. Pages will turn. If just one of those reactions is evoked from every reader, then I know that my time isn't wasted.I write in the hope that my work will be enjoyed and the word will spread. Not for the *unlikely* financial gain, but for the knowledge of knowing that I made a mark on the world by just 'being'.

Book preview

blazed

I wanted nothing more than a distraction. A diversion, a bolt from the blue—whatever you want to call it, I wanted it. Too much time had passed with no event; endless months of the same routine, days and days of the same old thing, over and over until I could swear I was going grey with boredom. Nobody else could see the strands of silver, of course, and were too fast to label me a drama queen. Nobody saw it from my side—that there might just be something missing from my life.

In my wildest fantasies, I met a tall dark stranger who swept me off my feet and turned my humdrum life upside down in the wildest and most amazing ways possible. But I did always have an over-active imagination. Even if he was out there, I stood in the wrong secular circle of social rejects to find someone that... spontaneous.

I had always felt like I was somehow different from everyone else. Not in a latent superhero or paranormal kind of way, but in that I was just extraordinarily mediocre. Everywhere I turned there were people of notable ability or beauty. In every direction there was extravagance and the exceptional. It seemed like every possible flaw that those flourishes might have deflected and centred on me.

Despite everything, in my eyes, I would always be just a bit little ugly, a little bit frumpy, a little bit socially stunted, a little bit fat and a whole lot boring. I sucked misery in like a vacuum, digested it until it was mulch, and then found a fresh supply. It wasn’t even intentional, it was the damn apathy that did it.

And that’s why I needed the distraction. A radical break in my woeful little cycle of self-pity to pull me out of the downward spiral that made me so pathetic. It didn’t even need to be something big, just something... new. A tiny spark, a flickering flame in the darkness to encourage me in a new direction.

But it would have to find me itself. I was so stuck in my depressive little oubliette that I couldn’t even make the easy reach up to the trapdoor only inches above my head. Truthfully, I didn’t know how to change, and the prospect of finding out was terrifying.

No amount of dislike and empty threats to escape it could really dispute the fact that my boring life was comfortable. My humble hovel of a flat was comfortable. My aforementioned circle of social rejects were comfortable. My job at Double Booked, a pun of an independent book shop that made promises to keep two copies of every publication in easy reach—honestly, they thought this was a unique selling point and a ‘hook’—was comfortable. Even the well known but seldom mentioned cat naps I took on the toilet there to nurse my hangovers, were comfortable.

I was stuck in a catch twenty-two and too damned comfortable to pull myself out of it. I really couldn’t be pleased.

My sister said I just liked to feel sorry for myself. My friends said that there was nothing wrong with my life. My father said something irrelevant that centred around money and greed, and my mother said I needed to let her set me up with a stud.

Now that... that was the most ludicrous suggestion of them all. Not even the knowledge that lightning rarely strikes the same place twice gave me the confidence to risk that my mother didn’t, either. She was too perceptive for her own good and always had been, and that uncanny ability to match make like Cupid’s disciple was a particularly bothersome point in my life.

She’d matched me up once before with a man I swore was my soul mate. But rather than set me up for happiness, all she’d done is given me an excuse to stay miserable. The more free time I had to lament my dull existence, the more time I had to think about him.

Hunter had been perfect for me from the moment we’d met at a dinner party my mother had set up when we were both thirteen. I always lived under the impression that there were some people who just made you smile for no reason when they were around, and he was one of them. He affected everyone the same way and any room he stood in was a joyful place to be, right up until he left and the withdrawal immediately set in.

Any light-hearted insult was delivered with no malice and a cheeky smile that absolved him without question. Without even trying, he was the whole world all at once and, like Atlas, I carried the weight of him on my back.

His crystal blue eyes and daringly long waved strawberry blonde hair made him beautiful without being androgynous, his extensive knowledge of just about everything but ability to admit he was often clueless made him a modest genius without being an insufferable know-it-all, and his unfailing love and compassion for everyone might just have been the flaw he deflected into my vacuum.

For me he had compassion and love of the wrong kind. The man who completed me wasn’t interested. I was his best friend and always would be. It was impossible to tell if I might have been happier never knowing him at all because I was a masochist where he was concerned and never dared to question who I’d be without him.

So I’d doomed myself to this weary life of what if’s and bathroom reprieves, and was inactively waiting for divine intervention.

Emmy, love? Come on, go home so I can close up shop. That wasn’t it, but it said a lot about the state of my environment when my boss was more eager to close four hours early to escape than I was. Mrs. Reynolds, a portly and kind faced woman with soft brown eyes and tumbling burgundy ringlets, stood patiently outside the bathroom door when I finally emerged, making no excuse for my slacking. As long as the shelves were fully stocked and no customers were waiting, I could have slept in the children’s corner for all she cared.

It’ll pick up in September, she promised, forcing a smile even she didn’t believe, when the new freshers pile in. It was true enough that students made up the bulk of our custom, swarming in with their anarchic attitudes towards the mainstream high-street book shops stealing business from us, the fiscal underdogs. They’d be all about independent this, organic that and vegan the other until their student loans were gone and they realised that being a conformist carnivore was logically far cheaper.

But there were still a few months to go before we got to bask in their blissful ignorance and reckless spending habits while they lasted.

By the way, she sneaked up on me again when I was collecting my basically redundant jacket from the stock room cum staff room. You have a visitor waiting outside.

The word ‘visitor’ was always ominous, and my day was that much worse when my ‘visitor’ arrived in a shiny black Mercedes. Rarely, they came in a silver BMW that was almost as bad to see as the Merc, or more often in a lipstick red Jaguar—one car I didn’t mind seeing.

But I knew which ‘visitor’ was bating for my blood by the car they rode in, and today it was the worst of them all. My father.

It was a great source of embarrassment for me to be Henry Tudor’s daughter, not just because of the ridiculous ripped off historical name I never really trusted he hadn’t purchased online, but because of all he stood for.

Academic excellence wasn’t enough for my so-called father. He would argue that he hadn’t amassed his success with just maths and a keen knowledge of geography and economics. No, he was all about force of will, networking and the micromanagement of just about anything with a pulse. More disgustingly for me, he was also pretty hot for a splash of nepotism.

Until I left home, my life was all about following my parents and my sister, Tallulah, around stuffy popularity seeking events promoting anything from golf courses to children’s charities. Normally, nobody would object to the latter, but Henry didn’t attend to be charitable. He went there and dragged us with him to set up some kind of ruse that he was a genial family man who cared deeply for the human race.

From this sick deception, he forged business associations and put out new roots, made friends he would betray for the smallest sniff of credit, and expanded what was already a vast multi-billion pound empire across three continents. I didn’t know of anything he didn’t control and, as impressive as that was, the man was a monster and I truly hated him for it; almost as much as I hated him trying to drag me into his soulless facade.

Mercifully, my mother let me use her maiden name for everything and never insisted that I visited home. Instead, she came to me in the chauffeur driven Jag that always turned heads in the streets, straining at the leash Henry had so firmly in place around her neck. She was a trophy wife and as damned as a snowflake in a firestorm, but she liked to live vicariously through me and my friends.

It was no secret that Henry hoped I’d come out of my geeky shell and become his second in command but I was resolute in my decision to have nothing to do with him and his atrocities. I didn’t want his name, I didn’t want his business and I didn’t want a single penny of his money. As much as he tried to throw the benefits of being part of what was easily one of the richest families in the world at me, I never accepted a single thing. My life was frugal and at times strained, but I preferred to spend a few days living off week old takeaway left-overs until pay day than let him think that he’d won for a single moment.

But every time that Mercedes pulled up in front of Double Booked with it’s black tinted windows and narcisstically personalised license plate, somehow it always felt like a victory was his.

I stared at the car for a full two minutes, debating escape routes and perfect murders, before the driver’s side door opened and the chauffeur, Oscar, stepped out to impart a brief precursory greeting. He reached gracefully over to the back passenger door and pulled it open, exposing me to the untethered beast inside.

I was glad that I looked nothing like Henry. My eyes were subtle olive green like my mother’s, rather than the murky brown of his that reminded me of wet clay. He was paunchy and bulbous, the rosacea in his cheeks and nose emphasised by the mop of receding ochre hair that sprouted wildly from his scalp. He was more monster than man, and more Bugsy Malone mobster than monster. He even had the barely-worth-growing pencil moustache to complete the cartoon villain illusion. I couldn’t think of a one single uglier man.

Emmeline! He greeted me warmly when I begrudgingly took the empty seat next to him, folding his newspaper in half and tucking it away into the door’s side pocket. He at least had the decency to still treat me like a human despite the fact I was the only person who refused to fall under his command. How are you, sweetheart?

You don’t need to spare me the pleasantries, Henry. Just tell me what you want.

The almost genuine smile fell from his face in an instant. To my knowledge, I was the only person both immune to Tudor charm and able to disarm the mighty business beast.

Without any kind of prompting, Oscar set off in the direction of my flat, so I knew the conversation would be graciously short.

Well, I’ve come to try and sway your decision to attend the wedding.

No. He could have arrived on the back of Cerberus or a loaned stallion from one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, taking me home via the fiery gates of Hell, and I still wouldn’t have changed my RSVP.

Don’t you think you’re being a little selfish? Obviously he couldn’t have you as a best man, but—

Surely it would be more selfish for me to attend and make a scene? I had absolutely no intention of provoking drama, but the threat was all Henry needed to seriously rethink his request. Any misbehaviour of mine reflected badly on him and he knew it.

And he obviously knew how to pick his battles, because he nodded once to himself and shifted to a new, just as undesirable topic. Then maybe I can convince you to reconsider taking over from your degenerate sister? Honestly, she’s a total liability and appears to be single-handedly turning my office into a grooming parlour. If I hadn’t been at the conception, I would honestly think she simply sprang into existence like a germ.

The way Henry spoke about his eldest daughter might have seemed callous and cruel if you didn’t know Tallulah directly. While I had no will to network but a keen mind, Tally had little more than a bad laugh and an Oedipus complex. The business was wasted on her, but honestly, I thought that was a fair price to pay for being corrupt. There was a fair chance that she would be the person who made the single off-hand comment to one of Henry’s associates that might ruin him, and nothing would have made me sadistically happier.

Still no.

You won’t even come down to The Parr and sit in on a few meetings? I didn’t let him see me roll my eyes. He owned six buildings worldwide as business centres and named each after a wife of Henry VIII. Of course, he worked in the building named for the wife who survived...

No.

He sighed and nodded again, casting a weary eye out through the window. I’m not giving up on you yet, Emmeline. And when I do wear you down, you’ll be glad for all of the exposure you have.

And there it was. His true reason for turning up was subtle but detectable to the trained ear.

You want me at an event, I groaned, sagging back into the soft leather interior, which creaked a little under the strain. I’d have sooner gone to the wedding, at least that wasn’t about him and his damn networking. No, Henry.

Even though I refused, he still pressed on with details I tuned out like white noise. I got that it was a mixer being held by a Cornelia Alexander—a woman I knew only as a model and an impressive drinking partner. Nothing drastic, and even less necessary for me to put myself out for, so the finer points of his monotonous droning went unheard. I could have wept with joy when my building slid into view. I let myself out of the Mercedes before it had even fully stopped.

Just consider it, Emmeline.

Non, nein, bu, nej, den, nai, aniyo, nie, niet, nema, NO! I somewhat childishly slammed the door behind me and set off into a ramble of expletives, not really caring whether he heard. There was no way that eleven languages of ‘no’ would mark the end his pestering, but at least I had the satisfaction of knowing that it was four more languages than he knew. Working in a book shop had it’s advantages.

Your round. Chris smirked at me across our usual table in our local bar, Esme’s, and shook his head with a slow growling criticism of a laugh. Lightweight.

I thought I was doing quite well considering I’d been drinking for three hours longer than usual and was still standing, or rather slumping. Past the point of feeling just fuzzy enough to forget all my problems, I was well into the realms of wanting to cry over them. This was nothing new, it was just happening three hours earlier than usual.

I threw my purse at him, trusting him to not take advantage of the credit cards I refused to touch, and collapsed face down onto the table. Every sensible bone in my body told me to stop drinking when another work day stood on the other side of midnight, but those bones appeared to be the smallest ones in my body. The ones in my fingers, maybe. Or in my toes. More likely the bones in my ears. Any time I tried to let them take conscious control, I was met by a roar of objection from the rest of my body, which far preferred alcoholic escapism to waking up sober.

In keeping with comfortable patterns, my company was made up only of the social rejects who had a very different outsider impression of my life. Three fifths of that circle sat with me—excluding myself—with our spare, Esme, choosing to extricate herself from our pity party to attend to some pressing ‘business’ in her office.

What that really meant is that she had a private bathroom, had consumed her weight in the brightly coloured cupcakes and liqueurs she insisted on selling, and preferred to save face in front of her customers. Her shock of red Veronica Lake hair and Bette Davis eyes somehow kept her enigmatically charismatic through being absolutely trollied, and she rarely had any will to dispel the illusion that she carried herself with anything other than utmost grace and poise by being caught worshipping the porcelain throne in the ladies bathroom.

Chris, on the other hand, was a hulk of a man with a stocky build who might just have had an unfulfilled wanderlust to rival my own. He, too, craved change he wouldn’t actively seek to discover and overcompensated for that lack of motivation with relentless cynicism and sarcasm. He would be at his finest and most resentful right around the time I hit the full blown depressive drunk zone and we would have tremendous rants about the state of the world, and how our misery was everyone else’s fault bar our own.

The other two fifths of our circle were definitely more of a completed part than two separate segments. Daniel had been my best friend since I was five and, consequentially, had a fairly good idea of exactly who the real Emmeline Tudor was. He was his usual bitchy self, dripping in designer threads and too much sparkle. His outlandish approach to ‘casual’ came less from his excess of wealth and more from the fact he had a civil partner who preferred him to be the femme, and dressed him as such.

There was no ‘too much’ for the man who wore what should have been a women’s charm bracelet between neon leather strapped wrist bands; the man who could name more shades of pink than an interior designer. It had taken a long time for him to accept his sexuality but as soon as he had, he embraced his right to be flamboyant. Women loved him for it, and so did his preferred type of man. As a result, the first gay partner he met turned out to be the one he kept.

Jonathan was good for him, and maybe my third-most favourite person in the world because he was the embodiment of everything I loved about the city. He was a sweet Asian cartoon aficionado wrapped up in a suit, topped with purple tipped spikes and the smell of dirty business and cigarettes—diversity capped professionalism with a penchant for the unusual and a flagrant disregard for anyone with a shred of an orthodox lifestyle. He encapsulated the modest snobbery and paradoxical individuality I lived for. He was so liberal and yet so disciplined; nothing ever seemed to phase him. He was everything I envied in almost plush toy form, and he loved Daniel just the way he was. Even better.

What strange company I kept. When you looked at the five of us—the dowdy billionaire’s daughter, the relative supermodel, the mismatched Brokeback Mountain replicas and... Chris—it hardly seemed likely that we’d be friends, let alone that we’d be united by the one quirk that made us compatible...

We were all nerdy by nature. Beyond the bar, Esme was a voice actress for numerous video games and cartoons, and had an obvious extensive knowledge of everything she’d starred in. Daniel and Jonathan were computer programmers, Jonathan a little less ‘legitimately’ so, and considered a Star Trek marathon to be a date night. Chris was a writer for an international nerd-based website and reviewed all manner of obscure media with one eye firmly on everything zombie.

And me... well, I was just the little nerd who could. I’d dabbled here and there, working in character design within the same company as Daniel, chasing comic conventions around the country with my sketches and occasionally bingeing on video games when the right one came along.

But now I was the odd one out, the one with no ambition. I was happy working by the Dewey Decimal System and doodling in my lunch break, not looking to make it big, just to comfortably exist. Still, we had some interesting conversations about teaming up to create some kind of geeky monstrosity.

A piercing whistle from the bar forced me to look up and search for Chris’ fuzzy silhouette. The suppressed violence in his wave and grim expression meant only one thing.

Your card bounced again, he hissed at me when I approached. Really, this happened far more often than it ought to. I sighed and mouthed an apology, knowing that he resented how I wouldn’t dip into my Tudor fortune. He understood why, but that didn’t mean he agreed. The way he glared at me was a challenge to let my principles go just once to make sure he didn’t remember getting home. That was our routine, and he was damned if that was going to change, even if just for one night.

Dismissing him with a scowl, I stared into the meagre contents of my purse and debated just how much of my soul was hardwired into that credit card. Henry would know the minute I used it and that would be just one slip that led me into his own privately purchased sector of Hell. Was one night of inebriation worth it? Really?

Don’t do it, don’t jump. Esme’s voice sneaked up behind me in a whisper, knowing that using that credit card was like throwing myself off a jagged cliff face. Her eyes were bloodshot and shining with tears, a tell-tale sign that too much wine and sugar had made her ill, but somehow she was still austerely beautiful. She pulled the card from my purse and whined longingly; she, too, wished I’d indulge but was a little more accepting of my financial ethos.

I tried to explain my empty bank account with a foolproof excuse—We drink too much—which earned me a nod and a murmur of agreement.

I’ll cover your rounds for the night if you do me a favour. I hated to admit it, but she had my attention riveted. I spent my life returning her favours, and with no pay day insight for another week, I’d be looking at seven more, at least. I need a place to... hang out.

Again?

Just for a few days. She’s searching the area again. The woman just won’t give up.

I couldn’t even begin to understand what Esme was going through. After running away from home and her abusive mother when she was fifteen, she’d made an impressive way up from the London gutters just by way of pure dumb luck. Even then, she had an irresistible, husky voice that turned the right heads.

Now at twenty-one, just a year younger than me, she had this: her own speakeasy type establishment with a glass topped bar, war-time styled glass decanters lining the mirrored shelves, and deep seated red Chesterfield booths and armchairs circling the candle lit mahogany tables. It was her own romantic vision of perfection and she was in no hurry to share it with the woman who never stopped looking for her. Any news that she was in the area sent Esme into hiding and rightly so—her mother was a gargoyle who was only looking for a pay off.

Of course. ‘Misery loves company’. She half-laughed and kissed my temple, waving a hand to one of the bartenders dressed in black braces and a bow tie to fit the theme. He smiled at her indulgently, far too blatantly displaying his soft spot for the self-made beauty, and put together our drink order without even really stopping to think about it. He might have been disgusting if his affection hadn’t been so entirely justified.

Then, for the first time, I saw something I’d never seen before. Esme whimpered and blushed as crimson as her hair, looking at something over my shoulder bashfully, then coiling up into a spring of uncharacteristic nerves. When I opened my mouth, she shook her head severely and composed herself before stepping past me to address whatever issue had her crippled like a gawky teenager. I turned with her, mystified, and felt like I’d walked smack into a brick wall.

I missed his name because I was too busy replicating her initial reaction, cringing in embarrassment at just the split-second glimpse I caught of what definitely qualified as six foot three inches of screaming distraction. From behind my arm, I stole a better look of the man too beautiful to be human—a look I didn’t feel worthy of stealing.

Swept back dark hair framed a gorgeous bronze face that would have looked more at home on a god or an angel. Thick lashes edged eyes of the most intense emerald that shouldn’t have been at all obvious in the dim light of ‘Esme’s’, but all my attention centred on his lips.

Lips that looked like they needed to be kissed and bitten—definitely bitten. He gave off the impression that he was a selfish lover who needed to be put in his place. I had to look away before I let my loosened inhibitions rule me and have me jumping up onto the bar, pouncing like a wolf-child.

Too grateful for the silver tray that arrived on the glass bar, I refused the offer of table service from the smitten bartender and made a cautiously slow and unsteady way back to the three men. Just a small look at that man had knocked my mind back into sobriety, but my body didn’t follow suit. I was jelly-legged, maybe more so for knowing I’d shared air with the demigod.

Stunning, isn’t he? Jonathan sighed dreamily and hooked an arm around Daniel’s. I wonder if he’s gay. Bisexual would do.

The idea of him being dragged into the gay entourage made both him slightly less attractive and me slightly pissy. With no good reason, I felt strangely territorial over the stranger and totally resistant to the idea of anyone else having him.

That alone was a disaster waiting to happen; I felt exactly the same way about Hunter. Daniel caught the flicker of ire in my eye and pursed his lips. Whatever he thought, he didn’t vocalise it. He probably knew it would cost him his life.

I wrangled with my impulsive reaction to look back at the bar. The fact was I didn’t feel deserving of the chance to stare disgracefully at a man so viscerally magnetic. No amount of connections to the wealth and popularity of the land could ever put me on par with him—he who exuded raw sex appeal and absolute recklessness.

So I sought solace in seeking the bottom of my glass and swore blind that I wouldn’t look up, knowing that there were another four rounds between me and having to face that bar again, by which time he would hopefully be gone.

He wasn’t. I was fall-down-drunk the next time I reached the bar and used the excuse of being completely detached from my decency to shamelessly ogle him. Maybe it was the haze, but he looked even more edible than before. The low lights made it harder to distinguish any flaws that may have been hiding in that diamond of a face, so I made believe that he had none.

Intoxication brought to light new things I wouldn’t have thought to notice before. He chatted animatedly with the bartender in a warm baritone purr that made all my nerves stand to attention. On occasion he laughed a satiny caress of a chuckle that was genuine and throaty, rumbling deep down from his stomach. I only wished I had a hint of his body to complete the mental image I was almost definitely taking to my dreams.

Wow, I breathed, biting my lip to contain a strangled giggle when I realised I’d said it out loud. I was aware of my cheeks being too rosy and eyes too bright, but stared blankly ahead as a denial that I’d spoken.

But I heard him shift to face me, hyper-aware of his gaze on me and the fact that his eyes were laughing. So I took the most brazenly illogical path by turning back to him and cocking my head. If I had his attention I would have been a fool not to try my luck, and I had needs—ones I hoped he’d volunteer himself to satisfy for just one night. Certain aspects of my life afforded a lazily relaxed attitude and I never went home alone, but then I never approached men so entirely out of my league. I usually knew how to pick my battles. Not tonight apparently.

Enough raven hair had fallen loose of my drunkenly dishevelled chignon for me to look coyly from beneath it. Batted lashes and pouting lips aside, my approach was just sensual enough to not be embarrassing. I lifted my glass from the bar and locked eyes with him while I took small silent sips, hoping he might break the silence first.

He leaned in towards my ear, surprisingly sweet breath breezing past my cheek, and purred, You’re on fire.

Twisting just enough to make eye contact again, I arched a brow and said, I haven’t done anything yet.

No, you’re literally on fire.

The moment he spoke, the searing pain of being burnt registered in my elbow. Without realising, I’d positioned myself over one of the mosaic glass candle holders and drooped slowly closer into the danger zone until the flame caught my shirt.

In a flurry, the bartender had a damp towel over my arm and Esme had rushed me over to an ice bucket. It was obvious that she was trying not to laugh at my expense, but the rumble of titters around me suggested that I might have just unwittingly provided their entertainment for the evening. I laughed along with them and left early to change into something a little less singed, confident that my mishap would be old news in the morning, and that at least I’d be memorable to the demigod as the woman who tried to win him by setting herself ablaze.

I had no idea that it would be the first time of many.

The great thing about the gargoyle-mother sweeping the streets was that Esme attached herself to me like a barnacle. This invariably resulted in pleasant wake up calls with my morning coffee, hair almost professionally styled, clothes laid out and company to keep me sane. Hell, the woman even cleaned my glasses within an inch of their life when they looked a little murky. By her way of thinking, my vision was imperative to my line of work—somewhere she insisted on following me to.

That was another advantage of working in a book shop. Esme looked most like an immaculate marble sculpture when she was curled up in an armchair reading, and that really was the only option of entertainment in Double Booked. The WiFi connection was atrocious and the host computer nearly always in use by Mrs. Reynolds, so it was read or work.

Esme helped me with the work side of the day on occasion, pacing the aisles of books and noting where the gaps and single copies stood, and ably playing the part of sexy tea lady. Too afraid to leave the shop without me, she was definitely what my mother would have called a ‘trooper’ when it came to the listless silences. Fortunately, Mrs. Reynolds appeared to be her biggest fan, so when the suggestion of playing background music into the shop was made, she rallied around and had her son come in to hook up a speaker system.

That son? Chris.

There, he announced jubilantly, spinning a screwdriver artfully around his fingers. Consider yourselves Chinese pan-pipe music ready.

Scoffing, Esme rifled through the sparse in-house CD collection until she found what she considered to be gold dust. I think not, Christopher. She brandished a Frank Sinatra CD and ignored his groaned protest. Hush, metalhead. You don’t have to work here.

Neither do you, he snapped in response, childishly plugging his ears with his fingers. The clash of preferences between them had been known to get ugly, Esme stuck on forties jazz and Chris a dedicated rocker. My own tastes were a little more liberal and eclectic, though maybe not stretching as far as pan-pipes.

I left them to argue over the music, armed with a trolley of books to re-home on the shelves in the art section, my packed lunch courtesy of Esme, and a dull throbbing hangover. The further away I was from the debate, the better. They would duke it out, settle it over the toss of a coin, Chris would leave to go trolling on some internet communities and we’d listen to Sinatra anyway. Like Mrs. Reynolds, I knew how to pick my battles where her son was involved.

Even though I could hear it clearly, I tuned out the argument and worked one-handed while I ate. When the battle was eventually won and Ol’ Blue Eyes began to croon, I hummed along quietly and danced between the shelves, enjoying the peaceful tranquillity of my surroundings. The place others might call stuffy and boring was somewhat of a utopia for me, guarded and almost segregated from the bustling metropolis just streets away. It was like my own Shell Island stood in the middle of London, my very own peninsula accessible by foot but cut off from the world when the tide rolled in.

It wasn’t until I heard the swell of an MP3 player breaking the lilt of Mack The Knife that I remembered, realistically, how public my peninsula really was. I made out strains of muffled Fallout Boy and my feet stilled beneath me, sure that whoever was visiting wouldn’t sweep me up into a swing dance when they saw me prancing. The other three voices in the shop silenced, so figuring their conversation hadn’t been appropriate for public spaces—Mrs. Reynolds was definitely a cougar and had the dirty mouth to back it up—I chastised them with an eye roll they wouldn’t see and felt my gaze fix on one, or two, books in particular.

‘Syncretic Sciences’ razzed at me from it’s shelf, the way it had every workday for two years. My pet project had become a fixation and a challenge, one I didn’t really care to defeat. I liked to chase the unobtainable but drop the tail when I got too close to catching it. I didn’t know what my life would become if I actually achieved something, and that uncertainty made me keep a safe distance between me and my aspirations. I had, after all, seen how success could make a person ugly.

Henry hadn’t been a prestigious business man when I was born; I saw exactly how to do it and how I could replicate it, but like GI Joe said, ‘knowing is half the battle’. I wasn’t a fighter, I was a dreamer. So much so my mother often called me ‘Sleepy Jean.’

The buzz of Thnks Fr Th Mmrs got closer and had me chuckling to myself at the thought of monkeys in directors chairs. The buzz became a roar the moment it was next to me.

Hi, sorry. I tried not to audibly groan at having to associate with the customers. Can you point me to the direction of the graphic novels?

Right in front of me. I plastered on my ‘good employee’ smile and side-stepped to look at the owner of the voice.

My brain stuttered to a complete halt. It felt like I’d walked right onto a Hollywood movie set and ended up face to face with the sexy bad boy in some corny rom-com. With his hair falling down to his temples and skimming the tops of his thick dark brows, he looked like a fucking poster boy—the kind-hearted rebel who never found the love he always craved. The kind of man school girls wrote their names with in a heart and swore blind they’d marry him. A walking wet-dream.

Him. The man from Esme’s.

And he looked almost as surprised to see me. His face broke into a mind-numbing smile mid-examination of me and his weight shifted onto one leg. With no visual impairment, I could fully appreciate the finer details I’d not been able to see in the dimly lit bar with an astigmatism handicap.

The slight surprise in his eyes made them wider and greener, almost inhumanly vivid in emerald hue. He wasn’t cleanly shaven like he had been the night before, and the light muzzle of dark prickles spread up to his perfectly sculpted high cheek bones. A small scar marred his Cupid’s bow, maybe a souvenir from a drunken battle over a lovelorn woman. One small flaw in the face I’d considered a diamond.

Wow. I was careful not to outwardly express that opinion again. It hadn’t been until I locked eyes with him I realised just how much I’d wanted to run into him again and apologise for my less than verbose greeting and unimpressive display of pyrotechnics.

Well— I damn near flinched when he finally spoke, —that’s a much better reaction than last night’s self-harm.

Not knowing what he meant, I forced focus back onto myself and realised that I was grinning like a fool. Not my customer service smile, something genuine and deceptively soul exposing. And probably manic and shit-eating. He was one of those people who pure exuded joy, someone you couldn’t help but smile around. Just like Hunter.

Sorry, it’s not intentional. The little man running auto-pilot in my head decided that was the appropriate response to your pheromones. I cringed and mouthed ‘What?!’ at myself, blushing violently as I turned back to the shelf in self-defence. What the hell had possessed me to say something so obtuse? So, any graphic novel in particular?

The amusement in his voice provoked goose bumps. No, just browsing. Unless you can recommend...?

Nope. Straightening, I rounded him to make an escape. I’ll be at the desk if you need any more help.

I could have kicked myself for moving quite so hastily. Any remaining blood that hadn’t rerouted to my cheeks flooded to my hands and made them shake relentlessly against the old world cash desk, so hard that the rose quartz friendship bracelet Daniel had given me rattled against the wood. Esme, Chris and Mrs. Reynolds all stared at me, apparently still locked into the state of total noiselessness that they’d been pushed into when he walked through the door.

Eventually, Chris choked a laugh and shook his head at me. ‘Appropriate response to your pheromones’? Only you could dweeb up a chat up line like that. My blush got impossibly deeper at the realisation they’d been listening in on the brief conversation and that they could be easily heard now.

It wasn’t a chat up line, I hissed, feeling like I might pass out if I didn’t get a grip. Chris muttered something about thinking I had better taste as he excused himself and left the shop, the exact moment the demigod slid into view and started walking towards us. Christ, give a girl a chance, I thought, willing some of the colour to drain from my face. His pace was leisurely enough for Esme to give me a thumbs up, assuring me that I didn’t look like a crazy person.

Did you find everything you were looking for? I asked too cheerfully, tensing every muscle out of his view. What the hell was he doing to me? I wasn’t the type of woman who got hot and hormonal over men. Man, maybe. Just one.

Sort of. I found something. Independent author, right? He threw a book down on the desk in front of me and somehow Esme’s and Mrs. Reynolds’ silence thickened.

I swallowed hard at the sight of ‘Syncretic Sciences’ staring up at me. Of all the books in all the bookshops... That’s right.

Did this Emmeline White do anything else?

Uh... no. Just that novel and we have the only two copies that got printed.

Huh... I kept my eyes fixed on his hands sinuously stroking the spine of the book and felt the movement all over my body. He leaned closer towards me, forcing me instinctively back like a repelling magnet. Shame, really. Did she come to you to sell them?

Oh, yes. Mrs. Reynolds chipped in, granting me a precious second to reassemble my brain cells. That’s how most of our independent works make it here.

Oh, so would you have means of contacting her? I’d like to petition for her to expand her bibliography.

No need. The last ounce of blood in my body pooled in my face when she laughed and nodded in my direction. Why go through the desk monkeys when you can go straight to head office?

Meekly, I lifted my head to meet his scorching hot gaze and forced an almost apologetic smile. He hummed inquisitively on an exhale.

Emmeline White, eh? His voice caressed my name with aggressive sexuality. The fantasy of him growling it while he was balls deep inside me made my mouth dry. That’s much better than what I’ve been calling you in my head. He smirked at my raised eyebrow and clarified—"Lisbeth."

"The Girl Who Played With Fire. Very clever. I pulled my eyes away from his, needing to dispel the sunspots he left in my field of vision. And you are?"

Blaze.

I immediately looked back at him and scowled. Giving a name like that seemed like a poor joke at my expense. Are you trying to be funny? For a moment it didn’t look like he understood, but then the dazzling smile crept back onto his face. His laugh was satiny and not even slightly patronising like it could have so easily been. He quickly gave off the impression that he’d never lied once in his life because his face could soften even the most brutal truths.

I wasn’t but if it happened that way, that’s fine by me. Tell me, Emmeline... The way he said my name again like we were familiar made my stomach knot. ... This is ‘Double Booked’, right? Hypothetically, if there are only two copies of a graphic novel and you sell just one, what happens to the other?

Um, well... Coughing away the lump in my throat, I turned to find something arbitrary to distract me from his intense green eyes. Usually, we take the spare off the shelf and contact the supplier or author to order more. If there are no more prints, it ends up in the book graveyard next door.

He craned his neck to look at the adjacent unit. The charity shop?

Sure. ‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure’ and all that jazz.

He seemed to bristle at the word ‘trash’ and stalked back off beyond the shelves without a word, leaving the three of us to admire him from behind. That view was almost as impressive as the front from the shoulders down, and for the life of me, I couldn’t get past the primal urge to strip him bare and stare at him until the image of his naked body was permanently imprinted on my mind. Now there was a sight I wouldn’t forget in a hurry.

Too quickly, he came back and tossed the other copy of ‘Syncretic Sciences’ down, free hand digging into his back pocket for his wallet. I can find a happy home for this, he promised. What the proverbs don’t tell you is what happens after that trash becomes treasure. Other people see it as treasure, too. Just look at any aspect of modern economy for proof. All it takes is one man’s idea and another man’s faith.

Recognising Henry in that statement, I faltered just slightly in my reply. He was the ideas man, and there was no doubting that his unfathomable charisma was how he’d conned—... I mean convinced, people to put their belief in him. But I refused to believe that I was capable of anything like that just by paying for a couple of prints of my doodles.

I expect my fan club to converge every Friday and send me love notes every month, I joked.

Well, today is Friday. No time like the present. This place closes at six, right? He didn’t pause for a reply. So I’ll head off now to get a start on those love notes and swing round to collect you later.

My forehead knit into a frown while I scoured his comment for sarcasm. There was none. Even his seraphic face looked deathly serious—about fetching me from work at least, possibly not the love notes.

Isn’t there a pick up line missing from this conversation?

He ducked down to my eye level, scrutinising me as I rang the books through the till and stuffed them into a paper bag. You don’t look like you have a desire to be wined and dined before you’re sixty-nined...

I don’t. My obsession with Hunter went deep enough to earn me a reputation as a heart-breaker for anyone who wanted anything more long-term than the time it took to find a vacant bed or sofa, take care of business and see me safely into a taxi. If a sordid screw was what he was after, he’d have done better propositioning me outright. I did, however, feel my pulse quicken at the dark promise in his observation.

Well, then. Blaze straightened, scooping his purchase up from the desk. I’ll see you at six.

Esme quickly pounced on the computer after we’d watched him leave in an awed muteness you’d probably only see on a playground after a childish brawl. There was a sudden and instant gush of nightmarish teenage gossip between her and Mrs. Reynolds the moment he slipped out of sight, followed by a rapid fire line of questioning I had few answers for.

Do you think he knows who you are? He would have mentioned if he’d seen you pictured with your dad, right? Oh, but you never wear the specs when you’re out drinking, so maybe it didn’t click. Oh, wow, can you imagine the press coverage of you two?

Hold up. I raised a hand to silence the onslaught. Are you thinking he’s pursuing me to score a rich chick?

Oh, please. Esme scoffed and navigated to a search engine over my shoulder, fingers flying so fast they were almost a blur. Blaze has been in everything. Modelling for major labels, acting, he was the Monday’s Miracle front-man before they got big, and...

A music video pinged up on the screen and blared The Bystander Effect’s cover of Weak into the shop. One of my favourites.

He was the anti-CJ. He’s been near Amelia Marsh’s mouth. I had more than a little girl crush on the woman who was more tattooed leg than body.

Uh huh. That hot tamale who just ‘didn’t’ ask you out is already a big deal. And... well... She sighed down at me ruefully. As gorgeous and smoking hot as he is, he doesn’t date. He’s never pictured with female company despite obviously constantly beating them off with a big stick, and barely associates with anyone attached to a vagina. God knows I’ve tried.

Gay? The question had to be asked.

Implicitly no. He’s been asked in numerous interviews and nothing he says is anything other than the veritable truth.

I felt slightly smug that I’d correctly identified that trait, but then frowned at the information Esme was laying in front of me in the medium of news clippings and online gossip blogs. "So what the hell was that?"

For both our sakes, I’m hoping it was pillow talk. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard enough to blanch the skin in my fingers. Please, Miss Untouchable, tap that. I need to live vicariously through you.

I didn’t believe for a moment that ‘Blaze’—God, even his name did wicked things to me and described his visceral effect on me perfectly—would turn up in that threshold at six o’clock. Articles of how untouchable he was had been pushed under my nose all day and I couldn’t come up with a single good reason why I might be the woman he broke a pattern for. The more super-talented and gorgeous I found out he was, the more convinced I became that our verbal spar had been nothing but bravado. Even if he did secretly know which family I was really a part of, he had to be worth a lot of money himself. If he wasn’t after the millions I refused to touch, what the hell did he stand to gain?

I pushed the thought of him to the back of my mind with copious amounts of coffee and random reads from the Double Booked science-fiction shelves, and eventually Esme and Mrs. Reynolds forgot about him, too. The afternoon passed in what was essentially an audio-described flashback for Mrs. Reynolds’ benefit; Esme recalling the tales of her dire childhood to explain exactly why she was seeking asylum with us. At times it looked like they might both cry, so totally engrossed in the woe, and these were the times I dozed covertly, having heard the montage of memories often enough to no longer empathise.

My head and elbow leaned against the window, cooling the throb of both the hangover and the burn enough for me to feel drowsy. On my lap laid a battered old sketchbook full of the more decorative pieces that had been too detailed for my graphic novel.

God, at least one person was going to read that book and have a damned good laugh. Of all the graphic novels in this shop, and we had a pretty extensive collection, why did he have to pick mine?

I was toying with the idea of him using the other copy for toilet paper when a peculiar little bug of a maroon car pulled up to the kerb outside the shop and idled, engine still running but no signs of life inside. The windows were tinted enough to reveal that the lone occupant was male but little else.

Looks like your sexy visitor came back after all, Mrs. Reynolds quipped, pulling my attention away from the window long enough for the driver to step out onto the street and lean up against the side of the vehicle, casual as anything.

Once the disbelief melted away, horror struck me. Turning to Esme, I opened my mouth to insist that I’d see her home safe before I even entertained putting my safety in the hands—and car—of the man standing outside.

If you blow him off, I will kill you. I know where you sleep, she muttered, staring lustfully through the window. But if you’re not at the bar by nine to gossip, I’ll send out a search party.

Thanks, I said wistfully, wrinkling my nose at the spectacle outside. I appreciate it.

The minute the clock ticked around to the hour, Blaze was on that threshold looking divine and almost hopeful. He’d shaved and styled his hair back, looking more like the hot stud I’d seen at the bar and less like the ruffled bad boy I’d seen in the shop earlier that day. I couldn’t possibly decide which side of him I preferred because both were equally as delicious.

He greeted me with a purr and took my sketchbook from my hand. Ready to go?

Almost, I just— Esme appeared with my bag and draped it over my shoulder, discernibly whimpering with need for the demigod. Okay, so I guess I’m ready.

With a smile, Blaze lead me out to the path and paused at the passenger door, pulling it open for me to climb in.

Seriously?

You don’t like my city car?

I scoffed scornfully, the unwillingly well groomed feline in me unleashing fully sharpened claws. "That’s not a car. It’s a Cygnet." My form had graced the back seat of many fine vehicles over the past twenty-two years, and his boxcar didn’t make the grade.

It’s an Aston Martin, he objected.

It’s a gremlin car. Shuddering, I resigned myself to my fate and stepped past the open door to get it, flinching when he slammed it behind me.

Climbing into the driver’s seat, he started the engine before I had chance to fasten the seatbelt. Do you have something better than this tucked away? I bit my lip. I’d never confess to anyone that I had an untouched cobalt blue Bentley hidden away in a private garage. It was another token of Henry’s ‘affection’ that I refused to touch. Don’t worry, I don’t fill her up after midnight, so she won’t mutate and eat you.

"Unless ‘she’ secretly transforms into Optimus Prime in the dead of night, I’m withholding any hope that this thing won’t put me in a coffin." He stopped to look at me and laughed before pulling out into the dense city traffic, tutting at my white knuckle grip on the seat either side of my legs.

So how’s the elbow?

Fine, just stiff. A blatant and pitiful lie. The amount of analgesics pumping around my system might have just been the reason why I could string coherent sentences together around him, but there was still a searing pain in my elbow every time I moved. Luckily, I think I’d cried so much over my teenage years that my tear ducts were paralysed through over use.

You need an aloe vera plant, he mused, tossing an arm around my headrest to bridge the gap between our seats. I wanted to scream at him to keep both hands on the steering wheel but fear for my life kept me quiet. Don’t worry, I checked our route and there are no open flames.

Our route? There was a glint of mischief in his eye that he didn’t put words to. I shuffled uncomfortably, hands moving from the seat to my bag where I had a better grip on something—anything—to steady my nerves.

So... you don’t hang out with women. Shrugging apologetically, I tried to not get preoccupied with the way his eyes darkened like something bothered him.

You’ve been doing some research?

Well, you know. A guy you meet in a bar strolls into your workplace and bluntly tells you that he’s picking you up when you finish without really asking if it’s okay. It pays for a girl to be armed with information. ‘Knowledge is power’.

I suppose you’re right. How very prudent of you.

Ah, well... Scratching the back of my neck, I lifted one shoulder in an awkward shrug. I kind of had it forced on me the minute you left. I’m really more a fan of blissful ignorance. But for curiosity’s sake, uh... Why?

His gaze flickered over me then settled back on the road ahead. Why don’t I hang out with women or why you?

Yes.

He sighed, almost amused by my response and shook his head. I made you set yourself on fire. I suppose this is the least I can do.

That’s all it takes? Stop the presses, I need to let the entire female population of Great Britain know it’s that easy.

We drove in silence for the next ten minutes, my unease with travelling in the gremlin car fading with each mile. My gaze stayed fixed out of the window, watching the stop-start rhythm of the sea of cars around us. Despite living there for a little over four years, I didn’t know London well enough to take it’s chaos for granted like the other suits and stiffs roaming the streets between dinner appointments. It still amazed me that anyone could live comfortably in the middle of all the noise.

I’d not once perused the crowded arenas of Piccadilly Circus or Trafalgar Square, so I was daunted enough by being so close to the action before Blaze pulled into a small private car park and retrieved another nightmare mode of transportation from the boot of his ‘car’.

Rollerskates? I snapped, crossing my arms defiantly as he pulled off his shoes to slip on a pair of red and white skates of his own. This had better be your bad sense of humour at play.

Nope. It’s rush hour, this is faster.

You’re fucking crazy, man. He shot me a sterling grin and pulled my door open, swiftly crouching to pull my feet from the foot-well. I was horrified when I realised that he was genuinely serious. Oh, God. I’m going to die today. Without a doubt, this is my last day on Earth.

I’ve got your back. He looked up at me and winked, pulling my shoes off and replacing them with the ludicrously clowny skates. I had to guess at your size, so I went for a five. I tried not to focus on the fact he’d guessed right. He was turning out to be weird enough without the words ‘foot fetishist’ flashing over his head in neon lights. You ever been on a pair of these bad boys before?

Sure, when I was about nine. And I’d felt like an idiot then.

Great! No tutorial necessary, then.

Grabbing me by the waist, he hauled me to my feet and tossed my bag down on the seat behind me. It seemed like I was totally at his mercy in the middle of a relatively alien place, separated from familiar company and any way of contacting them. On rollerskates. Why wasn’t I feeling a little more apprehensive than I should have been?

For interests sake... I murmured, testing the stability of the wheels underneath me. ... You know how to keep under the press radar, right? My question had less to do with his lone wolf reputation and more the fear of being identified as a Tudor.

Why, are you camera shy?

If I say I’m camera shy, do you promise not to ask questions? His eyes narrowed with suspicion but he nodded, agreeing to play along. I’m camera shy.

Righto. Ready? No.

As I’ll ever be.

With one of his hands wrapped around my wrist, Blaze pulled me along behind him at unnerving speed, weaving between the pedestrians that filled the pathways. Occasionally, he glanced back at me to laugh at the hand I had firmly clapped over my eyes and called back insults based around me being cowardly.

Watching him move so confidently and fluidly, there was really no way to avoid being envious of how comfortable he was in his own body—completely refined and controlled in a hectic environment like it