Your Room or Mine? by Charlotte Phillips

Author:Charlotte Phillips
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007532032
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

CHAPTER FIVE

‘He’s offered you a job? So what was an unemotional mutual benefit one night stand is now going to amount to you mixing business with pleasure. Since when was that ever a good idea?’

Izzy took a sip of her latte, leaned in towards Shauna across the coffee shop table and lowered her voice.

‘I don’t see it that way. It’s a one-off job, four or five weeks at the most. I’m charging him full-whack, not mates-rates. And there’s no tacit agreement that we sleep together. There was just this undertone in the conversation that made it clear: if it happens, it happens. What might go on between the two of us has nothing to do with work.’

‘You’re deluded,’ Shauna said. ‘The job is his way of keeping you exactly where he wants you.’

‘For the hundredth time, this is about what I want, not what he wants. I get an easy gig one-off job that’s well-paid and a no-strings fling until I get bored with it. What’s not to like?’

‘Watch my lips,’ Shauna pointed to her own peach-glossed pout and spoke slowly and clearly. ‘He no longer qualifies for the no-strings-successful-fling rule.’ She held up her hands and shook her head as if she was disengaging from the whole thing. ‘It will all end in tears. Almost certainly yours.’

Izzy tried and failed to stop the automatic here-we-go roll of her eyes.

‘What an absolute load of crap!’ she said. ‘The no-strings-brilliant-fling or whatever-you-bloody-call-it rule is just some womens’ magazine nonsense. I am in total control of my own life, my own decisions and my own emotions. If I want to extend the fun a bit, where the hell is the harm? Now that I know he’s single and neither of us wants anything serious, who the hell is going to get hurt in a scenario like that?’

‘But he’s offered you a job, right?’

‘Yes, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything.’

Shauna threw exasperated hands up.

‘You’ve changed the whole dynamic. You can’t just mess about with the rules to fit whatever suits you. This is different. At the beginning it really was a true no-strings fling – one night, no surnames, no contact details. You know him now. There’s an obligation involved – you have an obligation to him. Which means he is in control. When you pare it right down, what you’re doing now is banging your boss.’

Izzy stared at her, speechless for a moment. Then her temper loosened her tongue and her opinion took over.

‘He is NOT my boss! I am self-employed and in any case the work agreement between us is beside the point.’

‘It’s his way of keeping tabs on you without giving up anything in return, can’t you see that? Any normal, decent bloke would have asked you out to dinner.’

‘You’re overlooking the fact that a dinner date with a load of poncy small talk is my idea of hell right now. I have absolutely no desire to get involved with anyone again anytime soon, not after Joe.

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