LAID & BETRAYED (Getting wrong with Mr. Wright)

All rights reserved
Chloë
Thurlow
2012

More information about me and my other books are at the end of this story.

Laid
&
Betrayed

Getting it wrong with
Mr. Wright

My exams finished at the end of July. Three days later, I was sitting in the office of Drew-Butler, the estate agents in Canterbury, studying the houses for sale on the computer.
F
ather played golf with Peter Drew and, with his belief in hard work and
discipline,
I was spending a month of my holidays learning the art of
the property business
. I wasn
'
t even being paid
,
but would earn a commission if
I
made a sale
.

My desk was adjacent to the main window and I
felt like a
dummy
in a store
as
the shoppers and tourists
wandered by. Most p
eople in Canterbury a
re far
too polite to stop and stare. B
ut that
Friday
,
the end of my first week,
someone
did stop
, a man who
shaded his eyes with his palms
, not to study the photographs of the property for sale, but to get a better look at me
. I turned away, and when I turned back again, he grinned and marched in the door.

'Good morning,' he said, and glanced at his watch. 'Sorry, good afternoon.
'

I stood.

'
Sorry, yes,' I stammered. '
Can I help you?'

'You bet.'

He
had
a broad smile on his lips and a heavy bag on his shoulder. He
wore white
trousers
,
a
blue
shirt with too many buttons undone and a decidedly un-Canterbury-like gold chain nestl
ed
in the dark hair of his chest. He
must have been almost
forty, which seemed awfully old
to me at the time
, with twinkling
amber eyes like a cat
that settled on me with such intensity I turned the same shade of pink as my summer skirt.

'There's a place in the window,
Black Spires,' he continued. '
I'd like
to take a look.'

My armpits tingled and my brow
was suddenly dam
p
.
I had not taken anyone to see a house on my own before. But there was no one else.
Like anyone with any sense,
Peter Drew
was on holiday, and Mr.
Butler
was
'in conference'
with
Melinda McKinley, a young widow with a large
piece
of real
estate
she wanted to
develop
into luxury apartment
s
with
tennis
on the roof. Robin, Mr.
Butler
, was the young partner in the business, unmarried, and
, as far as I could see,
totally under Melinda McKinley
's spell. Before vanishing into his office he had held up a warning finger – just like my father – and told me he didn't
want to be disturbed 'under any circumstances.'

But this was
an
emergency.
Black Spires was an old white elephant of a house outside the village of
Wingham
.
It had been on the books for a long time and I
kn
e
w they were desperate to sell
the property
.

I looked back at the man with the open shirt.

'Just a moment,' I said.

He smiled broadly and I was conscious of him watching me
cross
the office and tap on Mr. Butler's door.

As I poked my head into
the
room,
Melinda McKinley
recrossed
her long legs and lowered the veil on her little black hat; she was as
pale as a ghost with
bl
u
e
eyes
and a wave of
blonde
hair that fell to her shoulders.
Robin Butler sat back in his chair
as
if
he had just been shot.

'I told you…'

'
Someone wants to see Black Spires
,
and
..
.
'

'
Yes, yes, yes.
C
an you deal with that yourself
,
Grace
, we're very
busy.'

'I haven't don't it before.'

'
Well, it's about time you did. Now, o
ff you go.'

I closed the door,
then
remembered, I didn't have the keys, and poked my hea
d back inside the office again.
Mr. Butler
was holding them up,
the keys
dangling from the ring hooked over his finger
.
Melinda McKinley
recrossed
her legs again
.

'Always engage you
r
brain before proceeding forward,' he said. 'You'll reach your destination far more quickly that way.'

I wasn't sure what to say, but I
knew that instant that if Mr. Butler
had designs on the happy widow they were
n't
going any
where.
I took the keys, closed the door and
followed the
client
out into the afternoon sunshine. We introduced ourselves as we cr
ossed the road to the car park.

'
Grace
Goode
,
'
I said
, extending my hand, which he shook
.

'
Charlie
Wright
.
Good to meet you
,
'
he replied
,

He
look
ed me up and down,
as if
I were the house he was intending to buy
,
then
held the car door open for me. I stepped in and
the sudden touch of his hand on my arm ma
de
me lurch forward against the steering wheel.

'You alright?'

'Yes, I'm fine, thank you.'

'Not nervous, or anything?'

'No,
no,
not at all.'

He swung his bag on the back seat and I felt a perfect idiot
as I re
positioned the rear-view mirror. He buckled himself in beside me
and pushed back his seat to get more
leg room
. I turned the ignition
key,
touched the accelerator and
the engine throb
bed
with impatience.
It was hot
, a heat haze rising off the cement.

I lowered the window to get some air as I joined the afternoon traffic.

'
Is that al
right?
'
I said.

'
I
t's good for me
,
'
he replied.

I had only recently passed my test and drove
slowly
through the v
illages dotting the countryside,
lips tightly closed,
my
hands at ten to two on the steering wheel. I could feel his eyes on me, on
my neck with its splash of colo
r, my bare thighs, on my breasts pushing against the
fabric of my blouse. M
y body under his inspection gr
ew
sticky
with embarrassment.

As I changed gear he watched m
y legs dancing over the pedals. My
skirt r
ose
over my thighs and
my
breasts tingled.
That morning, after my shower, I had put my bra on, stared
at myself in the mirror,
then
I
t
ook
it off again. I
rolled
my nipples
between my fingers
until the sting
made me grip my teeth in bliss. W
ith those buds smarting and raw
,
I wriggled into the smallest, skimpiest most immodest little white blouse in the drawer.
Having lost my holiday, if
there was one thing I wanted to do that mo
nth as an intern at Drew-Butler,
it was sell a
property and
I
ha
d
set out for work with
butterflies in my tummy,
determination in my step and
a feeling that destiny was about to pay a visit.

This was my chance
.
Be cool.
Be grown up.
I turned momentarily.

'
How do
you like being an estate agent?
'
he asked.

'
It
'
s only temporary,
'
I replied.

'
Ah, yes.
The only permanence is change,
'
he
observ
ed, his deep
voice
like the
Bishop who had once given out books and trophies on prize day.