Breaking Leila
Authors: Lucy V. Morgan
Tags: #womens fiction, #erotic romance, #bdsm, #ds, #contemporary romance
breaking
LEILA
book
one
www.lucyvmorgan.com
Smashwords
Edition
Copyright ©
Lucy V. Morgan 2014
All rights
reserved
Originally
published in 2012 under the title of
Chairman of the
Whored
Cover art by
Kenny Wright
www.kennywriter.com
Publisher’s
Note
This book is a
work of fiction. Any resemblance to places, persons or events is
entirely coincidental and a product of the writer’s
imagination.
For
all the Josephs, the Leilas and the Matts
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Why would a
promising solicitor moonlight as a whore?
I made up a dozen sob stories. None of them were really true.
Suffice it to say, the parents who paid for the education that
brought me here–nearing the end of my training at a rather swanky
firm, if I say so myself–could never afford it.
I
could
have let the bank take their house and their lives, if I'd
been that kind of girl.
I wasn’t.
I
was
, apparently, the kind of girl
who could splay herself out for rich strangers and earn a couple of
thousand in a few hours. A convenient thing, that. A cursed one
too.
I built my
lair in London, where the snakes undulate as the banks close, and
every Eve worth her extra rib knows the real temptation beckons
when the moon begins to swell. Life happens on both sides of the
mirror, but only reflected sunlight splits Leila the lawyer from
Charlotte the whore. So it came to be that I was not one girl, but
two.
There was
something wickedly thrilling about both of the jobs I did.
I didn’t know
they were about to collide with each other.
* * * *
“Is it wrong,”
I began, “that I actually find tax law fascinating?”
Matt glared
over the top of his phallic-statement-sized coffee. “I’d need to
understand it before I found it fascinating, Leila.”
“You need to get your nose out of
Rock Sound
and into the FT.”
He took the
Financial Times
and scanned the front page.
“Ooh...capital gains amendments...exci–no, it’s really not working
for me.” He tossed it back over the desk. “I am
so
going back into real estate
when this seat is over.”
“Bah. You have
no balls.”
He ran long
fingers through the dark hair that constantly attacked his face,
and cocked an eyebrow. “I can prove otherwise, you know.”
“Don’t flash me
in the office again.”
“Flash you? It
was only my knee!”
“A bruised,
ugly rugby knee. Highly inappropriate. Put me right off my
lunch.”
He finished his
coffee and feigned a wounded pout. “You should have seen the state
of my–”
“La la la! I’m
not listening!” I clapped my hands over my ears.
Matt and I had a playground dynamic going on–easy, just a
little bit flirtatious. The firm had paired us up at the beginning
of our tax placement, when we were both equally terrified that we’d
managed to survive the past twenty-odd months at Bach and Dagier
and might actually get
real jobs
. We were squalling acolytes grown to the cusp of corporate
sacrifice, and while we shared no interests besides mocking each
other like fifteen-year-olds as soon as the quaint little office
emptied, he was fun.
He also filled
his clothes out in a rather pleasing fashion.
“We have
fifteen minutes before we can escape.” He flashed a chunky watch.
“What shall we do?”
“It’s highly
unlikely those warranties are going to come back soon...”
“They’ll probably be wrong, anyway,” he grumbled.
“
We
did them.”
I kicked him
under the table. “I resent that.”
“What are you
doing tonight?”
I wound an
auburn curl around my finger and tried not to blush. “Busy. Going
for drinks. You?”
“Out with some
clients and the boss, so preferably many drinks.” He leaned in.
“Don’t you find Merchant a bit intimidating?”
Intimidating
wasn't the half of
it.
He
came somewhere between
aloof
and
ideal height for desk
sex.
“Joseph? He’s meant to be, isn’t he? He’s paid to scare us
into not fucking up.”
“He doesn’t
drag you along to whinge about the recession though, eh?”
“You don’t
whinge. You talk about football and other games involving
balls...and cars...”
“Yep, it’s all
a big cock parade,” he said. “Sometimes I get offered pills by the
gay ones, too.”
“I bet you
don’t flash your knees at them, hmm?”
“Depends on how
strong the pills are.”
I pulled a
face. “I want to get invited on cock parades, damn it.”
“If you phrase
it like that to him, you just might.” He laughed. “In all
seriousness, you aren’t missing anything. And it’s not like you
need to look for another job–they’ve made it clear they like you
here.”
“Still, I’d pay to watch the insolvency queens coming on to
you.” I finished my Coke and tossed the can toward the waste
basket. “You’d make a good gay man, Matt. You’ve got that healthy
flush about you.” He looked half embarrassed and half horrified.
Baha.
Burn
.
“I’m going to
pretend you never said that.” He tapped his watch again. “Look,
it’s nearly five. Let’s escape before they try to make us do
something.”
* * * *
I met Clemmie
at Starbucks and we strode out into the five PM massacre, lattes
thrust aloft for protection.
“Oh gosh,” she
said as Matt waved us off. “Is that Mr Shares-Your-Desk?”
“Yep.”
“You won’t tell
James I’ve been perving, will you?”
“Clem, you
could mount him right here and I would keep a dignified
silence.”
She arched a
sleek black eyebrow.
“Okay.” I
grinned. “Perhaps not dignified.”
“Why haven’t
you turned him into a raging conquest yet?”
“Erm.” I dived between two random pedestrians to keep up with
her. “Work is busy. I’m all conquested out.” That
was
half
true, and not that she’d know. Clemmie, my best friend in the
world, would not have laughed if I slipped
oh, and I’m whoring
now
into a
conversation. “How’s the studio, anyway?”
“Diederick caused all this hoo-ha in the
Guardian
with his farmyard spread, and
we’re trying to think of a sequel.”
“That thing
with the photo of the nude teenager draped over the pig?”
“
Fresh Meat
? Yep.” She rolled her eyes. “He did ask if I wanted to do a
kind of
Alice in Wonderland
piece…pose all cramped in a
doll house, that kind of thing…”
“But?”
She sighed. “He wanted to call it
Chink Big
.”
I swallowed too
quickly as I tried not to snort.
“It’s all
right, Leila. I already know you’re a racist. You just laugh
away.”
“Clem. I am
only racist when you get drunk and beg me, and if I remember
correctly, we resolved never to tell another soul about it.”
She linked her
arm through mine. “Ah. Boarding school memories.”
“Good times.
Vodka bottles stuffed in Pringles tubes.”
“Pringles tubes
stuffed into Caroline Fawcett.”
“Allegedly! She
said she always walked that way after horse riding, remember?”
“I suppose one
of those tubes is about the same size as a horse.” She
guffawed.
I’d thought
about horses more than once. Couldn’t really talk. “Did you see the
thing in the Old Girls’ newsletter a while ago? She’s on some weird
tropical island, studying sperm whales.”
“
I
would study
marmots.”
“What about the
humble marmoset?” The last mouthful of coffee was strong enough to
make my eyes bulge. “Marmosets get a bad deal.”
“But they get
Um Bongo,” she said, “that funky juice stuff everyone had at
school. Marmosets were on the adverts and they had
jazz...paws?”
“I forgot about
that. Marmots it is.” We reached the crossroads and stopped to hug.
“Sorry to rush off–work stuff tonight.”
She gave me a
knowing look. “Shares-Your-Desk?”
“Sadly not.” I
squeezed her and tapped my cup to hers. “See you later,
slutface.”
* * * *
I had been
working for the agency for almost a year. In that time, a dream had
begun to stalk me.
It visited
randomly–no warning, no cursory act. One moment, I slept against
cold pillowcases and the next, I stood in a dark room where the
dregs of a spluttering candle hung in the air.
I wore nothing. My hands were secured firmly behind my back.
In the corner, a man’s silhouette blurred at the edges as he moved,
and though moonlight poured through the slip of a window, it rushed
from him. He was a hollow shadow. The
anti-mirror.
Nothing to see here
.
“Tell me what
you are.” The voice was familiar, but my ears burst with blood rush
and I couldn’t match a face.
“I’m not sure
what you mean.”
“This thing you
do.” He cocked his head. “The thing that you were so sure you’d
lose sleep over…yet here we are, hmm?”
“I’m a lawyer,”
I said.
“Are you
really?”
“Well.” I
stepped from one foot to the other. “There’s the other thing.”
“You take their money. You’re a
whore
. I like the way it sits on my tongue, you know.” He leaned
forward, and the shadows stretched with him like the Emperor’s
conjured clothes. “Biblical. Honest. Luscious, I think.”
I nodded. “The
best of the bunch, I suppose.”
“Oh, you
suppose
.” The curve of his mouth
shaped his words, and while I never saw him smile, I heard his
amusement. “Do you know when it’s time to worry,
Charlotte?”