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Prologue

Two Years Ago

There’s nothing more embarrassing than a thirty-something year old man speed walking between pedestrians. I mean sure, I could be wearing lycra with a funny headband on but I’m not. I’m in a tailored suit with split knuckles and an expression of pure panic, which only confirms I hadn’tplannedto speed-walk through the streets of Seattle this morning.

I barge into a man who despite scrunching his brow and opening his mouth to give me a good telling-off, takes one look at me and smartly closes his mouth and scurries away.

I know why too. I have a hideous purple bruise on my left cheek that has swollen so extensively, I can’t open my eye more than half way. My knuckles are red and scabbed, threatening to split every time I clench my fist in frustration, which, spoiler alert, is quite often.

But here I am, burning my calves to escape one of my father’s associates who’d propositioned me two months ago. His wife had been curling her stilettoed shoe up and down the inside of my leg for an hour before I felt him do the same. She wasn’t asking for a risky romp in the bathroom right under her husband's nose. They were asking for a threeway.

Something, in all honesty, I wouldn’t normally hate. Who doesn’t take their business with a little pleasure? But the text my father sent me earlier that day made a lot more sense as I felt the unsaid proposition between my legs.

Do what it takes to close this deal.

The realization that my father had pimped me out was a hard pill to swallow. I do a lot for my father as his enforcer. I’m the six-foot-four brawn that will politely encourage you to do what is in your best interest. If not, there’ll be consequences.

Hint, it’s me. I’m the consequence.

But I’d never been asked to sleep with an associate and his wife before. Sure… I’ve done it. Not under the orders of my father, but of my own volition. Is this my life now? Even my sex life was at his command. The sting was measured equally between embarrassment and the sense that I had been a dutiful lap dog my entire adult life. Had my other encounters been orchestrated like this one? Had my father had a hand in all of it?

So for the first time in my life, I politely refused, settled the bill and high-tailed it out of there. Two months later and I am fleeing a mid fifties, hair-thinning man, like a scared little boy. Which, I’m not ashamed to admit. I am. I’m fucking terrified.

I had told my father that I was done working for him a few weeks after that dinner. The evening with Mr and Mrs Winter, a.k.a. Mr. and Mrs. Proposition had been a catalyst for me to make some changes in my life. It took a few weeks, but I’d finally told Dad I wasn’t doing it anymore. And now, despite the changes I’ve been making to become a better person, flashes of screams, blood, and smacks of metal on flesh cloud my vision before I push them back down. As if the very sight of Mr. Winter brought them bubbling back up to the surface.

The final straw came when I did something unforgivable. On paper it might not be worse than anything I’ve done before, but it cut deeper this time. The shame rose high and I felt my face redden for the first time in years, just from the thought of it.

Given that I’d quit a job that doesn’t accept resignations unless they’re in the form of obituaries, I’d spent the last few months attempting to build something legitimate for mylife. Something secret that my father couldn’t know about. Something that sounded scary enough to keep people at bay. But by the time night rolled around, the memories of my previous life came swooping back in. The only way I could get through them was to get black-out drunk at a local bar. It always seemed to end with me vomiting most of what I’d drunk on my hands and knees in an adjacent alleyway. It was that, or fighting. And last night, I apparently felt the need to over-achieve, so I did both. Therefore when I say that speed-walking through Seattle wasn’t on my list of things to do today, I meant it.

I duck into a lime green colored café and hide behind the largest person I can find and pretend to tie my shoe. I’m watching through the throngs of morning café dwellers waiting for their coffees or smoothies as it seems everyone in here is drinking. I spot Mr Winter’s head through the window popping up and down like a meerkat as he scans the street. I stay hidden despite the cluck of a tongue and a scowl from a woman attempting to give me away. I give her my best sheepish smile but that still seems to terrify her so I decide to keep my face neutral going forward.

As Mr Winter’s moves along, I dare to stand, ordering a black coffee at the counter.

“Olivia,” the worker calls out and that’s where I see her. Long blonde hair braided into two plaits, her workout gear hugging her body tightly in a way that makes me jealous. Two round cheeks outlined by the high pull of her shorts. Fucking spectacular. She turns so I can see her face, reaching out to take the smoothie.

I freeze. I know this girl. But surely it can’t be her? I’d just watched her video this morning. She’s a fitness influencer and I had somewhat guessed she was local to me given her accent but it hadn’t occurred to me I could bump into her.

My lips part as I’m about to tell her I know her but the café worker slips and her body throws forward. Her hand grips the plastic cup housing the bright green smoothie and it spurtsout all over Olivia’s pink lycra clothing, slowly oozing between her hiked up breasts and dripping down to reach the sliver of stomach she has exposed.

I expect her to be furious. Hell, I’m furious for her. She’s covered in green sludge which will never come out of that fabric. I step forward to help, but Olivia promptly throws her head back in a deep cackle. She takes the napkins that multiple patrons have offered and starts to dab herself.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I slipped and I-” the café worker practically screams so the whole place is watching with rapt attention.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Olivia reassures her. “Come here for a second, you’re shaking.”

She sits her down, most of the green smoothie wiped clean from her body, the rest I have the strong urge to lick up myself and given the way the other men in this room are gawking, I’d say I wasn’t the only one.

“I’m so sor-” she starts again.

“I told you. None of that. We all do embarrassing things. One time, I went on a run with a client and made him do burpees in this field. It turned out, a lot of dog owners went to that field and he was covered in dog poop by the end. It was absolutely disgusting. This is not nearly as bad as that, Jenny.”

Jenny hiccups and laughs, the red in her cheeks lessening, “Thank you.”

“I will need another smoothie though. And a cup of tea for yourself.”

She nods, smiling before heading back behind the counter.

I stare for a moment, bewildered that she didn’t scream in her face for being so clumsy. But she didn’t. She laughed.Laughed. And then proceeded to make her feel better about the situation despite being the one covered in smoothie.