His Realm

Chapter One

Chapter One

She gathered her wits about her when her name was called, then followed the Personal Assistant into the lion’s den.

The carpets were so plush that she felt as if she sank a few centimetres with each step, but she held her spine ram rod straight and refused to let the expensive décor unnerve her. She was good at hiding nerves, she’d made a career of it.

“Mr Hiddleston, Miss Anastasia Sheridan, QC, to see you.” The receptionist announced from the doorway.

The lion looked up from his desk, his smug smile kept reasonably in check as he looked her over.

“Hello, Tom.”

“You look good,” he replied as he stood and came around his massive desk, clasping her hand in a business-like manner.

She didn’t respond to his compliment.

“I have to say, I was surprised to see you in my appointments diary.” Tom gestured to a cluster of chairs to one side of his office and she made her way over to them. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“No, thank you.” Even although she felt as nervous as a cat at a dog show, she kept her voice cool and even.

“Thank you, Denise,” Tom told his PA, who disappeared with a nod, closing the door behind herself.

Tom seated himself opposite her, taking his usual, wide legged stance, as if he owned the place. Which in this case, he did.

“I gather you made silk,” he said, referring to her being introduced as a QC, or Queens Council. In layman’s terms, it was as high as a lawyer could go, save for becoming a judge.

“I did.”

“It’s what you always wanted,” he said, although there was a touch of bitterness too his tone. Her career ambitions had been part of the reason they had broken up, all those years ago.

“Yes.”

When she didn’t elaborate, Tom moved the conversation on. “So, what brings you here, after all these years?” he asked.

“I find myself in need of your… services,” she admitted.

“Oh?”

“Can I talk freely?” she asked, wary of prying ears, even although he was the one who needed to fear such things far more than she did.

“Of course,” his smile widened.

Ana took a deep breath then as calmly as if she was placing an order for pizza, she said, “I need you to kill someone.”

Tom laughed, which momentarily nonplussed her.

“You think I’m a hit man?” he asked.

“I would have said ‘assassin’.”

He gave her that awful head tilt look, the one that said, ‘I expected better of you’.

“I’m not wearing a wire,” she stated baldly.

“I know,” he agreed. “Security clear everyone who enters the building.”

Why wouldn’t he help her? “Look, I know you can have people killed, Tom, and I’m not here asking for any special favours, I’ll pay you. Whatever the going rate is, I’ll pay it. Just tell me where to wire the money, and it’s yours.”

Suddenly Tom didn’t appear to be finding her visit so enjoyable any longer.

“I don’t need your money,” he said but his voice wasn’t angry, instead it was ice cold, which reminded her of their last conversation. It was the only time she had ever been afraid of him. “I don’t need anything from a condescending bitch like you, Ana. Had you come here with even an ounce of humility, even an attempt at treating me as your equal, rather than at best a last resort and at worse, not something to be scraped off your shoe, I might have at least heard you out. As it is, I make more money in a week that you’ll make in your entire life, and I have better things to do with my time than to play your games.”

He got up and left the office, leaving the door open in his wake.

Ana stared after him, slack jawed and terrified that she had failed.

She’d had one shot, and she’d blown it.

Denise appeared in the doorway, her professional expression never slipping as she smiled at Ana.

“Let me show you out, Miss Sheridan.”

Ana followed meekly, her eyes darting around for any sign of Tom, although she didn’t know what she would do if she saw him.

***

“No, please, do come in,” Mark Strong said as Tom stormed into his office and headed straight for the drinks tray.

Mark’s PA hovered in the doorway, unable to tell his partner to leave but well aware that his entering her boss’s office without being announced was a breach of protocol. Mark approached her.

“Why don’t you take a long lunch, Mary, be back at 2.” His tone let her know that she wasn’t in trouble.

She nodded then left, and Mark closed the door behind her, turning just in time to see Tom down two fingers of scotch in one go.

“Drinking during work? Have the Chinese taken a hit out on you again?”

Tom didn’t turn around but his posture did slump. “Ana came to see me,” he said softly, but each word laced with pain.

“It wasn’t a joyous reunion then,” he surmised.

Tom gave a hollow bark of laughter and finally turned to face his friend.

“She swaggered in. acting like Little Miss Perfect, clearly hating to even be in the same room with me, then she said she wanted to hire me to kill someone.”

“Ouch,” Mark sympathised.

Tom cast a longing look at the whisky decanter before he turned away and Mark let out a silent sigh of relief; Tom had been such a mess when Ana left him the first time and he was almost afraid his friend would sink back into the same bad habits.

Mark got them both a bottle of water from the refrigerator and handed Tom one as they sat on the couches.

“I wonder who she wanted killed,” Mark mused.

“I wonder the same thing,” Tom admitted. “Unfortunately, she got me so riled up that I had to leave before I could let her see that she was getting to me.”

Mark nodded sympathetically. When he was just starting out and had met his wife, there were a few tense weeks once she discovered what he did for a living. Just the thought that she might have left him for good was enough for him to know the depth of pain that Tom must have felt.

“Maybe you should take the rest of the day off,” Mark suggested.

Tom was about to argue but Mark cut him off.

“Your head’s not in the game when you’re like this. Fuck a beautiful woman, hell, fuck a dozen if you have to, go for a run, press some weights, go gambling, hit something; I’ll even let you go for a spa weekend and promise not to make jokes; just do whatever you have to work this off, then come back on Monday, ready to kick some ass and take some names.”

Tom found a smile for his friend.

“You’re right.”

“I usually am,” Mark grinned.

“Do you want me to tell Ben?”

“I’ll take care of that, you just have a good weekend. And no moping, I’ll know.”

Tom nodded and got to his feet. “Thanks. I’ll see you Monday.”