Chapter 2: Confession

I stared at Ed for several seconds, waiting for him to laugh or announce he was joking. Instead, he fiddled with his bracelet as his blue eyes stumbled around the room, his foot jiggling beneath the table.

By mentioning the bathroom, he'd done the one thing we needed: he'd confirmed specific details without us providing them. And as I let that damning realisation sink in, dread gnawed at my gut.

Burying my head in my hands, I groaned. "Fucking hell, Ed."

"I know, I know," he said, his voice pained as he rushed out the words. "But that's not the worst part of it."

The anxious lump in my stomach tightened, and I forced myself to look up at him again. "It's not?"

He shook his head slowly, swiping his tongue along his bottom lip as he shifted his nervous gaze away from me.

"Mark doesn't know I went to Putney. I knew he wouldn't agree to it, so I approached one of the new security guys and asked if he'd be willing to run me somewhere off the books."

At least he had the decency to seem ashamed, but that didn't ease my horror that he'd gone behind Mark's back. And Mark would be more than horrified: he'd be livid.

"Are you out of your fucking mind? Why would you do that?"

"Because I was in a weird place, okay?" His eyes swung back over to me, defensiveness blending with regret. "I felt stifled. I just wanted one evening where I could pretend to be normal. I picked a high-end bar, and I thought I was being careful. The girl didn't seem to recognise me, and I gave her a fake name. Obviously now I realise that she did know me..."

I drew in a deep breath and rolled my shoulders in an attempt to relieve the tension that had gathered there.

"Please don't judge me, Soph. I really need a—" He cut himself off and swallowed down the word that had been ready to leave his lips. "An ally. I really need an ally."

Friend.

He'd been about to say friend.

As much as I resented how my heart stuttered at his near slip-up, a rush of warmth rolled through me, temporarily thawing my cold response to his confession.

Taking pity on him, I sighed and shook my head. "You know I've got your back, Ed. I'm not judging. I'm just pissed that you looked me in the eye and told me you hadn't gone to Putney."

"Only because I didn't want Zola—"

I held up a hand to silence him. "That's not what I'm upset about. I'm upset that I believed you. I thought I knew you better than that."

His expression softened, the pity I'd just offered him now finding its way back to me.

"Soph, I've spent years perfecting my poker face. Don't take it personally."

Nodding, I pulled myself back on track. He hadn't even flinched when he'd lied—that was how skilled he'd become at his poker face. Although I hated being on the receiving end of it, I had bigger issues to address than my bruised ego.

His recklessness aside, I understood why he hadn't mentioned this in front of Zola. It would get straight back to Mark and Helen, and he'd end up in deep shit with both of them. Nobody enjoyed facing Helen on a bad day, but his relationship with Mark ran deeper than that. He'd never want his closest colleague to find out he'd gone behind his back.

"Is there any evidence?" I asked him. "Photos? Videos?"

"It's one of those places where phones aren't allowed."

"Okay, so you at least applied some common sense to the situation, then."

Rather than snap back, his shoulders sagged as he rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

"I didn't go there looking for anything. But we got talking, started flirting... It was a complete lapse of judgement."

"I'll say. You were thinking with your dick rather than your brain."

His eyes flashed with irritation at that, narrowing. "Yes. I was. Happy?"

"No. Not even a little bit." I tapped my pen against the soft cover of my notebook. "For fuck's sake, Ed. You've never done anything like this before. Why now?"

"I told you—I didn't plan for it to happen." He muttered the words through gritted teeth as his fist clenched around the edge of the table. "It wasn't like I went to that bar looking for sex. Unlike you, I don't have that privilege."

My grip on the pen tightened as we stared each other down, but Ed crumbled first, bowing his head.

"Sorry, Soph. I didn't mean it like that." He then lifted his head and cocked it to the side as he reconsidered. "Actually, yes. Maybe I did mean it like that. Because you can go out and sleep with whoever you want. I can't do that. I can't be a normal, horny, twenty-six-year-old. So when the opportunity presented itself on a platter, I took it. But I only took it because I genuinely believed she didn't know who I was."

I leaned back in my chair and raked my eyes over his restless body. All signs of his previous confidence and ease had disappeared. No matter how badly I'd fallen for his poker face earlier, I knew I was seeing the genuine reaction now. Even with everything we'd been through, he still trusted me enough to let down his guard, and I couldn't throw that privilege back in his face.

Trying not to come across as patronising, I softened my voice. 

"Ed, everyone knows who you are. And I know that must suck at times—" I stopped, wincing at my choice of words, but he cracked a tiny smile at least.

"I know I should be grateful," he said. "And I am. Most of the time. Just every now and then..."

"I understand. Okay... So, if there's no evidence, we can keep to our response of it never happening. You gave her a fake name. She doesn't have your phone number. It can't come back to bite us, right?"

He lifted one shoulder in a hesitant shrug. "There's probably CCTV."

"Probably, but I don't think bars hand out CCTV footage without good reason."

"Can we pay her off, just in case? That's got to be all she's after, right?"

Typical. Throw money at a problem and it'll go away. That was the solution to everything in this world.

"We'd have to go through official channels for that with Legal involved," I said.

"I just don't want her to be painted as a liar. That's not fair. I consented to it, too."

Sighing, I forced a gentle smile. "You didn't consent to it being shared with the world."

As we fell into silence, I tried to organise my thoughts, separating my personal feelings from my professional ones, so I could decide on the best course of action. I didn't want to let him down, but I also knew we had to be realistic about the implications of doing this alone.

"Can we give the reporter something better?" Ed suggested. "There must be something they've requested that we've previously refused to do?"

"When we refuse to do something, it's usually for a good reason."

"I'm just thinking that if some proof comes out, they'll know we lied. That's damaging, too, right? Next time we claim something didn't happen, they might not believe us."

"Is there something you're not telling me?" I raised an eyebrow. "You didn't hurt her, did you?"

Horror sliced across his face. "No. God, no. It wasn't like..." He shifted in his seat, eyes refusing to meet mine. "It wasn't like how we do things. It was just a basic blow job. I said I wasn't looking for anything serious, and she seemed fine with that, but perhaps she already knew she had something to sell to the press."

"Okay. Leave it with me. I'll have a think."

"Thank you, Soph. You know I wouldn't ask if—"

"I know." I interrupted him with a small smile. "I've got you. Don't worry."

If we tried to bury the story, the girl would just keep going to other reporters until one bit. Maybe there was a way to pay her off without it coming from us. The site could buy her story on an exclusive basis, but then not publish it in exchange for something juicier from us. That was the whole point of my role here—making sure both sides stayed happy.

As Ed started to head out, I couldn't resist chuckling at the irony of the situation—and he took the bait, turning to face me with his fingers still curled around the door handle.

"What's funny?"

Smiling, I leaned back in my seat and made a point of dragging my eyes down his tall, lean body.

"Just thinking about what you said to me in the lift earlier. Clearly I'm not the one who's suffering if you were desperate enough to say yes to a half-assed blow job in a public bathroom."

I could almost see the moment his attitude changed, where we shifted from professional friendliness to provocative antagonism. The constant yo-yoing of our relationship: the only way we knew how to behave with each other when we couldn't have what we truly wanted.

Despite the point-scoring nature of the exchanges, there was nothing genuinely malicious behind them—we had a mutual understanding that everything we said or did came from a place of trust, safe in the knowledge that we had each other's backs when it counted—but the sparring acted as a barrier between us, and after a conversation that had verged a little too close to friendship, I needed that barrier.

I also wanted his attention. He'd been just as transparent this morning after catching me doing the walk of shame.

His hand dropping from the door handle, Ed stalked towards me, stopping in front of my chair and bending down until we were face-to-face, his fingers gripping the armrests on either side of me.

"I may not have fucked her mouth like I did with you, but there was nothing half-assed about her technique, I can assure you."

I tilted my lips upwards, quirking an eyebrow. "Well, thanks for assuring me."

He mirrored my smirk, leaning closer until just inches of torturous space separated our mouths. His warm breath tickled my lips, and I could almost taste the coffee on his tongue.

"Do you want to admit that you're a tiny bit jealous?"

"Jealous that I didn't spend my Saturday night kneeling on the cold, hard floor of a dirty bathroom?"

A dark chuckle rumbled from deep within his chest. "I'm sure you've done far worse and never complained."

True. But I wasn't going to admit that.

Dragging his soft lips across my cheek, Ed settled his mouth at the shell of my ear. "I'll admit that I was a little jealous to find out someone else had the pleasure of hearing you moan last night..." His teeth grazed my earlobe, and the onslaught of lust that surged through my body had me clenching my thighs together. "...Of feeling your nails scraping down his back..." One hand roamed from the armrest to my leg, sliding beneath the hem of my dress and tugging my thighs apart again. "Of fulfilling your deepest, darkest fantasies..."

When he leaned back to gauge my expression, his darkened eyes clung to mine, and a deluge of carnal memories passed between us.

"Or are those secrets for my ears only?" he added, his tone low and suggestive.

His long fingers were warm, gentle, and cautious as they crept along my inner thigh. Each inch of skin they caressed came alight with a tingling heat that rushed to gather at my core, pulsing and aching for a release.

I scrambled to find a comeback among the hazy thoughts that focused solely on his delicate touch, his magnetic presence, his intoxicating cologne. As his fingers paused, every fibre of my body silently begged him to continue. But I knew he wouldn't. Not because he wanted me to suffer—but because he never did anything without an explicit go-ahead from me.

Less than twenty-four hours had passed since I'd slept with someone else. If they'd both been strangers, quite frankly I wouldn't have cared so much. But until I'd cleared the air and set the record straight with Mac, I couldn't fool around with Ed.

So, ignoring my body's protests, I ducked under his bicep and rose from the chair, smoothing down my dress with trembling fingers as I took a couple of precautionary steps away from him.

"It's very telling when you do that," Ed said, straightening up and folding his arms as he regarded me with a smug expression.

I focused on his sparkling eyes, not giving in to the temptation of letting my gaze drift southwards to his crotch.

"When I do what?"

"Push me away. It only proves my point that you're fighting a losing battle."

"Not really. I'm just still buzzed from my night with Mac."

Determined to wipe the arrogant smirk off Ed's face and bring him down a peg or two, I said Mac's name without thinking. He'd been at the forefront of my mind thanks to my crisis of conscience, but I hadn't wanted to use him as a weapon. Fortunately, Ed didn't even flinch. If anything, he looked amused as he arched a brow.

"Mac? He's your latest victim, is he? Upgrading from strangers to friends... Sounds familiar."

And just like that, the teasing reference to our own past squashed my initial panic. He wasn't hurt. He was baiting me. Daring me to jab back and own my confession.

Challenge accepted.

"Wouldn't call him a victim. He was definitely on board, and now you've warmed me up nicely for when I see him at lunch."

"Warmed you up." A deep, unconvinced breath of laughter broke from his throat. "Can he not do that himself, then?"

"He can." I stepped closer, cocking my head to the side as I smiled sweetly at him. "But now I'm going to be turned on all morning, so as soon as he touches me..." I rose onto my tiptoes, curling a hand around his broad shoulder as I pressed my lips to his ear. "...I'm going to explode."

Before I even felt him move, his fingers slid into my hair and roughly tugged my head back until I faced him. I swallowed down the moan, closing my eyes.

"And when you explode," he said, voice so dangerously low that it only intensified the throbbing between my legs, "it's going to be my face you picture."

He released me and I staggered backwards, reaching out to grab the back of a chair to steady myself. With a slow wink, he strolled out of the room—leaving me standing there more frustrated than ever. 

***

Thank you for reading :) xx

***

Thank you so much for the response to the first chapter! I really appreciate all the support. In Chapter 3, we meet Mac. Any guesses as to what he'll be like?