Page 3 of Groom Gamble

Good with children.

Honestly though, I’m dancing around the point here: the whole reason for getting married rather than just adopting a few cats and crushing on my boss for the rest of my life.

Wants children. At least five.

Maybe that’s excessive, but this whole impulse was triggered when I was researching the Essex Cartel for a report, and then started reading about the London mafia bosses and their marriages. The Fulham kingpin and his wife are on record saying they’re aiming for ten kids. I turned so green with envy you could have stacked me in the vegetable aisle, and someone would have put me in their shopping basket thinking I was a broccoli.

But if I want that many kids, I gotta get started. Which means finding a husband. Pronto.

I check my watch—another thing I’ve changed since working for Mr Streatham. I used to use my phone, but I enjoy theelegance and simplicity of the little round face on a dainty strap around my wrist. I feel like a girl in an old movie. Five minutes until the end of my lunch break. Mr Streatham will be back soon. Anticipation and adrenaline pulse from my chest, all down my arms and I scrawl two more requirements at the bottom of the list, then look at the top items again, as though by ignoring those items I can deny that I’m such a slut that I could even think that, never mind write it down.

But honestly, if I want a baby, I should ensure my husband is up to the job, right? Maybe I’ll ask for a fertility test. There are discreet home kits. Probably.

I’m not being unreasonable.

There are quick steps in the corridor and my brain freezes. What, no, oh, gah. It’s okay, it’ll just be someone from HR or—the door opens and Mr Streatham strides in, a determined glint in his eye.

I shove my list into the out tray and pin a sunny smile on my face.

“There’s a fuck-up with Operation Calculus, Miss Berry, and you need to fix it,” he says without preamble.

Snatching up a sheet of paper, I scribble down the details as he stands before me, a shadowed mountain, one hand massaging his forehead. He rattles off payments to be made to the various Essex Cartel men he’s bribing for information, and how it is to be delivered. A mix of crypto, purchases to their legitimate businesses, and good old-fashioned cash. It still has a place in the mafia, if not the rest of the world.

“Or should I just have them killed, and not risk it?” he finishes. “No, scrap that, make hit notes for?—”

“Better to have a live asset than a dead liability,” I chirp. Those are his words. A Streatham motto, as it were.

“Mmmm.” He nods grimly, looks up, then stills.

His sharp gaze recognises something is off, despite my efforts. He scans my face, then my workspace, and presumably finds nothing amiss until he focuses on my watch. “Add five minutes onto your bonus request for this month, please, and label it, ‘The Essex Cartel screwed up our lunch break’.”

I write it into my agenda, hand shaking, telling myself this is going to be okay. No one will die today, of mortification or any other cause. Probably.

Mr Streatham gives a weary sigh and heads to his office, and I ease out a breath.

It’s fine. It’s all fine.

“The virginity thing.” He turns back.

“What?” I squeak. How can he know?! I check myself, as though maybe I have it written on my top. Nope, nope, it’s okay. A person still doesn’t have their sexual status emblazoned across their chest.Calm, Sophia.

Besides, if Mr Streatham could tell, it would be an alpha-male pheromone thing, right? He’s so big and masculine, he could have wolf-shifter senses.

“The paperwork on it.” Mr Streatham frowns at my weird reaction.

Paper.My mind springs to my list.

Oh nooooo. He must have seen it somehow.