Page 38 of Pride

“You need to try not being a people-pleaser. Not for those who don’t deserve it. If I was in your shoes, I’d be fucking fuming about all this, and everyone would know about it.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to remind her that it wasn’t so long ago that she was having trouble at work with her boss, who she’d always bent over backwards to please, but she hadn’t kicked up a fuss. But I didn’t want to be that person. And besides, she was offering me a free bed for the night. And wine. That I wasn’t drinking.

“I am fuming. I just show it in different ways,” I told her, but she wasn’t listening; her eyes had lit up with a new idea.

“If he has a lot of S.K.A.M. pieces, maybe he knows who this S.K.A.M. guy is?”

“Maybe he does.”

Gracie gasped. “Maybe it’s him.”

I shook my head. “Now, you’re being ridiculous. I saw him just before the performance on Friday. I hardly think he had time to get changed and get on that wall to do what he did.”

Did he?

Right now, I wasn’t sure of anything.

Thinking about what she’d said made me reach for my wine and take a huge gulp.

Was I about to jump from the frying pan into the fire?

I satwith Gracie until the wine had been drunk, and she was ready for bed. I knew I wouldn’t sleep a wink, so after saying goodnight, I took my phone out and did exactly what I’d asked Gracie not to. I Googled Alex Kingston.

My stomach flipped when I saw photos of him on my image search, looking delectable in his designer suits at various events and photo opportunities. He really was the best-looking man I’d seen in real life. The fact that I was seeing him tomorrow, for a private meeting, made my stomach roll.

He couldn’t be my stalker, could he?

He didn’t look like the type of man that’d terrorise women, and besides, he’d been so supportive and encouraging, backing me even after he’d read the articles.

Or was I being naïve?

After scrolling and zooming in on way too many photographs, and finding none with women on his arm, I focused on the websites that talked about him, his business and personal life.

They stated that he was thirty-two, single, and had no children. He was the only son and heir to the late Elizabeth and William Kingston, Duke and Duchess of Sunford. And that following their deaths ten years ago, the entire estate had been left to him, but he’d refused to accept the title. My eyes watered at the sum they claimed he was worth. If I wasn’t nervous for the meeting tomorrow before Googling him, then I was now.

After reading, I went back to Google images and scrolled until I found one of him on a beach, with no top on, showcasing the tattoos on his chest, arms, and neck. He was well-built, like a GQ model that I’d likened him to on our first meeting. I couldn’t deny, I liked what I saw. So I zoomed in to take a closer look, and that’s when I saw it. A lion on his arm, and the word Pride.

S.K.A.M.’s performance was about Pride.

Was it a coincidence?

Probably.

It was a pretty common word, and I guessed lots of guys had pride tattoos. But I couldn’t shake the niggly feeling.

Had the devil himself invited me to his lair?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EMMA

Iwalked into work the next morning to find two of the office juniors gossiping in the hallway.

“Did you see the photos?” one said on a whisper, eyeing me as I sauntered past.

“Unfortunately,” the other one groaned. “I almost threw up.”

“Who would do that?” She screwed her face up like there was a bad smell under her nose.