Poison - Jade West Page 0,4

to avoid giving me scathing attacks at every opportunity.

“Is that him? The hot guy? Trojan?”

I nodded. “Yeah, it’s him. He wants to meet up this weekend. His promises are quite attractive.”

She nodded back. “So, are you going to do it? Bite the bullet and give him a shot?”

I leaned back in my seat and tapped my pen against the desk top. “I don’t know.”

“You’ve got to do it sometime,” she said. “It’s not like the local populous is offering you much fulfilment.” She put her hand over her mouth as Steve from accounts walked on by.

Cringe.

I screwed my eyes shut.

He’d been the last member of the local populous I’d spread my legs for in the hope of getting a genuine orgasm. I’d been disappointed. Same as usual. I’d fucked up in my stupid thrill-seeking. Same as usual.

“Sorry,” she said. “Hopefully he didn’t hear me.”

But he had. He fired me a seething glance from Peter’s desk at the other end of the room, and I cringed afresh. His seething glance could join the club along with everyone else’s, but still, it slammed me hard.

I should never have fucked anyone at work. It was a mistake. Hooking up with a couple of random hot-looking guys after nights out with some of my work friends had been one thing, but responding to Steve’s flirty work emails had been a whole other league.

“At least the online app should be good for anonymity,” I told her.

“Maybe he’ll actually be a good fuck,” she replied. “You’ll have to fill me in with the gossip on Monday. I can always give you an emergency bail out call if you need one. We can pencil one in.”

I thanked her – the one person in my life who wasn’t constantly shaking their head and demanding that I should run back to Seb. My parents were devastated, our entire network of mutual friends was still reeling, my friends too. Even Nicola, my bestest bestest bestie in the whole bloody world.

“I’ll let you know when to put in the call,” I said. “Honestly, I appreciate it.”

She tipped her head. “Sounds like you are planning on hooking up with this one, then.”

I guessed I was.

Maybe he’d be the one who finally got me off and gave me just a scrap of what I needed.

I sent him a reply.

Saturday? Eight pm? Oscars on Bath Street?

He’d replied before I’d even put my phone down.

I’ll see you there, you gorgeous kinky bitch.

Finally, my heart got a flutter. Hopefully my clit would follow soon enough.

The afternoon project meeting went fine, and I finished up another successful work week, at odds with the carnage of my personal life. I finished another day by taking my lamotrigine meds before bed and ticking the chart. Five days with no seizures – a slight improvement on the few weeks prior. I thought about Trojan as I laid there, picturing us as that same burning couple in the club that night. The pair who had ignited each other as well as a shitstorm of chaos for me.

Even one night with that kind of passion would make it worth it, though. Enough to remind me for even just a heartbeat that I was still Anna Blackwell, a woman still herself somewhere underneath the fear and the numbness and the crud of having a brain that couldn’t be relied on to function anymore.

Or so I prayed.

I got ready on Saturday evening with a sprinkle of nerves dancing all over me. Thirty-five years old, and in that moment I felt it – a world away from the early twenties-something girl who could hit the clubs and dance all night without even tossing a thought to the life looming ahead. Hell, what I’d give for a taste of that girl again.

I’d at least have a try at it.

I picked out my finest little black dress and tousled my freshly-dyed jet-black hair, and made my makeup even sultrier than any of my last dates – an ever increasing style since moving away from Sebastian. I was ready, teetering in my highest heels as the taxi dropped me off in the city centre. I grabbed an orange juice from the bar at Oscars, cursing again that my meds made alcohol forbidden to me. And there he was, leaning against the bar at the other end, a beer in his hand as he stared on over with a smirk.

Trojan.

I flashed him a smile back and he headed on over, and there they were again, those nerves dancing hard.

He