No Control (Book 1)

45. Up All Night

I told Harry on Wednesday morning I wanted to go shopping and look for something to wear for our date that evening, so we decided to go to West Hollywood for breakfast. As I stood in the kitchen fiddling with my bag, with Harry standing behind me distracting me by kissing my neck, my phone pinged with a text from Sarah.

From: Sarah: Work emails

"Work emails?" Harry murmured into my neck. "What does that mean?"

To: Sarah: On it xxx

"It means, go and have a look at your work emails because there's something juicy kicking off that you'll be sorry you missed," I said, opening my emails on my phone and tapping my work account.

"How do you know?" Harry said incredulously.

I chuckled as my inbox loaded. 147 unread emails. Gross. I scanned the subjects, wondering which one Sarah was referring to. One caught my eye about a company called Mediasure that I had refused to insure a couple of months ago, but had been overruled by an idiot from another department who knew the owner. I opened the email and quickly scanned it. The company had gone bust, and now owed us thousands. "Fuck," I breathed.

"What's up?" Harry asked.

I shook my head. "A company I wouldn't insure because their accounts were shit have gone into Administration," I said. "But some numpty high up in Customer Relations knew the owner so I was overruled and now they owe us shed loads of money. Dickheads. I told them they weren't financially stable." This was probably the most Harry had ever heard me swear, apart from down the phone when I was yelling expletives at Calvin.

I saw another email further up from one of the senior underwriters and opened it.

From: Colin Simpson

To: Jessica Bradshaw

Subject: Mediasure

Hi honey. This is what happens when we get overruled. Seem to remember us saying these weren't creditworthy?! More chance of me whisking you off on a swanky date than recovering this money. I'll get my lucky pants on. Col xx

"Who's Col?" Harry asked, over my shoulder. Shit, I'd forgotten he was there.

"One of the senior underwriters," I said.

"Why is he asking you on a date?"

"He asks everyone on dates," I said. "He's just a flirt, he says stuff like that all the time."

I turned around and looked at Harry who was frowning at me with a strange expression on his face. "What do you say to him?"

"I give it back," I said. "It's just banter."

His expression was unreadable. My stomach began fluttering. "Are you jealous?" I teased him.

"No," he said shortly, turning around and picking up his keys. I smiled at his back and picked up my bag. "Have you ever been on a date with him?" he asked, his back still turned.

My smile widened. "No," I said. "Why?"

"Just wondering," he said casually, running a hand through his hair.

We headed to the door.

"Would you go on a date with him?" Harry asked suddenly.

"No," I said.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to," I said. "And he's not serious anyway. It's just banter."

Harry grunted and we walked outside. I automatically walked to the Range Rover but stopped when I realised Harry wasn't behind me. I turned around and looked for him, and heard him call, "We'll take this one today."