Pure Feeling

fear or desire

When my boss rang me at half five in the morning, I hadn't expected the scene in front of me. Aggie Waterhouse didn't do meltdowns and yet, that was exactly how I found her. Sitting on the floor of her office with sweets wrappers and empty energy drink cans scattered around her. It was obvious she'd yet to leave the office or sleep since I'd left her at half eight the night before.

"Aggie? What in God's name is going on?"

She looked up at me with troubled eyes and you could see every bit of her 46 years in her face. I'd never seen her look so tired or aged. "Last night after you left I got a call from Harry Styles."

"The guy who just topped richest under 30 list?" I frowned. I had no idea why this had sent her into a tailspin. I mean sure, he was a very important and very rich businessman, but we'd had important clients before. Aggie and I had personally worked with The Duchess of Cambridge to create the nursery for Princess Charlotte. You don't get much more high profile than the wife of the future king of England. "We're both booked solid for the next fortnight, why on earth would you stay here all night? Besides, we've never worked with him before so it would only be an initial consultation."

"That's the thing," Aggie sighed. "He offered a very, very handsome retainer and requested a meeting this morning. He'll be here at 11!"

"Aggie! Stop!" I clapped my hands together loudly. "You are not the frazzled type. Pull yourself together! You need to go home, shower, and come back to the office with clean clothes and a fresh outlook."

"You're right, you're right," she muttered, hauling herself up off the ground. "He wants his bathroom redone, apparently. I need you to gather as much information on the man as you can. What he's impressed by, how he operates, that sort of thing. If we do a good job on his bathroom, Sasha, this could be huge for us."

"He might want us to do his whole flat?"

"Flat doesn't begin cover his personal dwelling. But anyway, my point is, the real estate division of his company is expanding rapidly. If we impress him on his bathroom we could put in bids for a multitude of commercial and hospitality work for him."

"I'll prepare a file on him. You go home and fix yourself up, and for the love of God, get some coffee!"

If I didn't know Aggie so well, I'd be shaking in my boots at the way I'd just spoken to her. But Aggie had taken me under her wing a long time ago and our relationship had developed to the point where I could be frank with her.

Aggie grabbed her handbag and scurried out of her office. I cleaned up the rubbish on her floor and hoovered the crumbs with the small vacuum cleaner kept in the cupboard near the front admin desk. When Aggie's office was restored to its usual standard I moved to my own office and turned my computer on. I craved coffee as I opened a web browser, it was not even seven in the morning after all, but I made myself wait. I typed in Harry Styles and was overwhelmed by the results Google provided me with. I opened a new tab and put Styles International into the search bar before hitting enter.

I was once again overwhelmed with an abundance of results so I clicked on the first link that lead to his company website. It was modern and sleek, which gave an insight into what he found aesthetically pleasing. I could already guess what his brief would be. He'd want dark colours, would probably request the use of slate, and all the modern conveniences available to someone in a bathroom. He'd want concealed storage and black tap wear.

It took me two hours to sift through the information on Harry Styles, businessman, family man, ladies man. Everyone had an opinion on him, and whether fact or fiction, everyone seemed to agree that he was charming, ruthless, driven, and devilishly attractive. Most people he'd done business with were impressed with him and sang his praises but there were people he'd pissed off, those who were cut out of deals or felt they got the short end of the stick in some form of another and they were cruel. Whatever Harry Styles was, I now held an arsenal of information on him. Enough that Aggie would be able to deliver a confident pitch to secure his business. Although the big fat retainer he'd already given was a fair indication that Harry Styles wanted what Waterhouse Designs had to offer.