MICHAEL
Breakfast at home: over toast, juice and coffee, Charlotte’s phone beeps.
She barely looks at it, obviously knowing what the tone is.
“S’cuse me,” she mutters, vanishing into the bedroom, leaving her phone on the table.
James’ eyes meet mine, his expression quizzical. I lean over, looking at her phone screen.
“What is it?” he asks.
“Mmm… Calendar Reminder…. ‘Take your pill’.”
He nods, looking thoughtful. We sit in awkward silence for a few seconds.
“You think she wants children?” he asks.
“Not sure. Certainly, she’s not mentioned it, so I’m guessing she’s not interested right now. In a few years, who knows?”
After another pause…. “And, do you?”
“It’s a big house…”
James stares into space, looking pensive.
Time to take the bull by the horns.
“James…”
“Mmm?”
“For the avoidance of doubt…. If Charlotte should fall pregnant, I will adopt, in the womb, any child she bears…”
He glances up for a second, no more, then drops his eyelids in acknowledgement, looking happier.
*****
CHARLOTTE
Down in my small office in the Haswell Building, nothing else being asked of me just now, I am busy with a college assignment. There is a knock.
“Door’s open…”
A familiar face appears. “Hello, Charlotte. They told me you were down here. I was in the area, so I thought I’d call by.”
It is Daniel, originally introduced to me by my Master and Michael for one of our ‘parties’. However, he blotted his copy-book the last time we met, by making an unsubtle attempt to tempt me away from my two Lovers. He has not been invited to my company since.
And I am not comfortable with him turning up, unbidden, in my office; just the two of us.
“Hello, Daniel. What can I do for you?”
out for a drink
“No thanks. I’m busy.”
“Another evening then?”
hold up my left hand, displaying my
The last time I met you, you were fooling around with three
different. It was with James and Michael. If you want to
notes together. “You’ll have to excuse me. I have an appointment in a few minutes.” I’m lying, and doubtless, Daniel knows it. I squeeze by him out of the office, making my way up
*****
“You’ve missed a bit.”
peers sideways in the mirror, and I stroke his face where a little stubble
“Ah, yes. Thank you.”
“You seem nervous?”
edgy when there’s a meeting with the Thorntons. Thornton Junior is a bit of a firebrand, and I’m still the new
him, three times, trying to get the tie straight, I turn him at the
are the Thorntons,
runs the show from their end.
the
his ego was appeased
famously fragile
should put it like that. Apparently, the idea to do it that
“Are you a shareholder?”
deal. Haswell likes to have all his associates on board one way
keep all the
“Yup.”
wanted
did. Even as a minor shareholder, it’s worth a great deal of money…. After all, I have a wife de facto to support.” He gives me
anyway, Master, with or without a wife; de facto or
fine, Charlotte. You have me, as well as Michael. And that’s before you’ve even started earning properly in your own right. You’re never going to be short of money again.
*****
Master vanishes into his office to fetch the files he needs for the meeting. I am about to leave
disappear. Fetch your notebook. I want you as Meeting
the Thorntons. I assume that they are the two men, one elderly, one much younger, who sit to
me out. I look away, but he moves from his original
he perches on the edge of the desk next to me. He’s good-looking, in an
there. You’re new,
ready to take the minutes. and trying to display my
closer to me on the desktop, and I lean backwards, “And what’s your name again?” he asks, his voice oily. “I
given
“No, I meant
“Ms.” I snap.
hand, still with his fake
shaking
“Nice ring,” he says.
“Isn’t it?”
Surely, he’ll take
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