Page 12 of The Reluctant Billionaire (Love in London #5)

Lotta

I jerk around at the noise.

Oh my God. It’s Gaz, and he’s screaming his head off. There’s a scuffle as we all run towards him from wherever we’re standing. Sylv appears from the kitchen. It’s a horrible noise Gaz is making, almost inhuman.

We crowd around him and I see him on his knees, bent over in front of the skirting board he was fitting and wailing. I have no idea what the hell’s just happened, but it looks like it’s not life-threatening, thank God.

‘Let me see, please,’ Noah orders firmly. The reassuring sound of his doctor voice has everyone stepping back and giving him space. ‘What’s happened, Gaz—oh, I see.’

‘What’s he done?’ Aide barks. His tone has me looking up. His face is all red and twisted.

‘Nail gun injury to the finger. I need a clean towel or cloth, please, as soon as possible.’

‘On it.’ Sylv takes off at a run towards the kitchen.

‘Oh my God,’ Judy exclaims. ‘The poor lamb.’

I suck in a breath at the horrifying array of possibilities the phrase nail gun injury to the finger presents. Poor Gaz is whimpering fuck fuck fuck . I can only imagine how agonising it is.

‘Shit!’ Aide shouts. ‘You stupid fucking idiot. Why weren’t you wearing gloves?’

Noah interrupts him. ‘Not now, Aide. Right, mate, I’m going to hold your arm up to stem the blood flow, okay? We’ll bandage you up, but we’ll need to get this out in a hospital. Any idea when your last tetanus shot was?’

‘No fucking clue,’ Gaz manages through gritted teeth. He’s gone as white as a sheet.

‘Not a problem.’ Noah slowly lifts his arm up and oh my Lord. Holy mother of God. There’s an actual nail sticking through his fucking fingernail, and there’s blood everywhere. It’s like something out of a horror show. I think I might barf. Or faint. It’s the most revolting thing I’ve ever seen.

‘Any sign of the cloth?’ Noah shouts.

‘Got it!’ Sylv returns, breathless. ‘Found the first aid kit, too.’

‘Well done.’ Noah continues to hold Gaz’s arm aloft. ‘Open it for me, will you? Grab any antiseptic wipe you can find and open it up for me, please. Aide, take this.’

He transfers the arm attached to Gaz’s injured hand over to Aide, who kneels beside him. Then Noah’s a blur of efficiency, wiping at the wound, which is gushing blood, before wrapping gauze around it and then the cloth Sylvie’s procured.

All the way through it, Gaz is sobbing and swearing, and I feel so helpless. It’s so awful. The poor, poor guy. I’m only semi-aware of getting to my knees beside Aide and behind Gaz and putting my arms against Gaz from behind as I lay my head against his shoulder.

‘It’s okay,’ I tell his back. ‘It’s going to be okay. You’re so brave. It must hurt so much.’

He shifts gingerly and reaches up to squeeze my hand with his good one. ‘Thanks, babe,’ he says through gritted teeth, and I hug him harder. I feel so bloody helpless.

‘Can you take it out at your place?’ Aide asks Noah, who shakes his head.

‘Afraid not. It’s A&E for him. Hammersmith’s your best bet. He’ll need a tetanus shot, too.’

‘I’ll take him,’ Aide says.

‘No you won’t.’ Judy crouches down. ‘I’ll do it. You’ll be a blubbering idiot, and you’re more use here than I am.’

‘It should be me,’ Aide insists. ‘I’m his best mate.’

‘I. Will. Take. Him,’ Judy insists. ‘If you want to make yourself useful, get us a cab.’

Within minutes, Aide has a black cab outside, its meter running.

He bundles Judy and Gaz in and returns to the hall, where we’re surveying the damage.

It looks like someone’s staged an amateur production of Texas Chainsaw Massacre .

There’s blood spattered across the wall where Gaz was working, all over the floor, and soaked into the bare wood of the skirting board he was in the process of fitting to the wall.

Frank lifts the piece of skirting and stands it on end against the wall. ‘I’m really sorry about this, mate,’ he tells Aide. ‘I should have been supervising him more closely.’

‘He used to be a fucking joiner, for fuck’s sake,’ Aide says, raking a hand through that mass of dark hair in frustration.

‘He knows how to use a nail gun. Why the fuck he wasn’t wearing gloves, I don’t know.

’ He looks down at the blood, and his shoulders visibly slump.

‘Why don’t you guys get out of here. I’ll clear up. ’

‘No you won’t,’ I say. ‘I will.’

He shoots me a look that telegraphs his utter lack of belief in my ability to clean up a bit of blood. Even when he’s devastated, he manages to be rude.

‘I’m not saying I’ll get it all out,’ I say, holding my hands up, ‘but I’ll have a go.

’ At least the wooden floorboards are so highly varnished that the blood is pooling on their surface rather than soaking in like a murder scene.

Thank God. A lone skirting board is easier to replace than an entire floor.

He hesitates.

‘Go on. You look a bit shaken up. Go and have some of Noah’s cake, or a whisky or something.’

‘I’ve lost my appetite,’ he says, but he does what he’s told and ambles back to the other end of the hall.

While I mop the blood off the floor, Frank has the others clear up their tools and stack all their equipment and massive toolboxes in a neat pile under the window, which he covers with a paint sheet for the night.

My end of the hall looks less tidy when I’m done.

Most of the blood comes off the floorboards, as I hoped it would, but the skirting board is going to need a fair few coats of paint to cover the stain, and the walls end up with ominous pinky blotches.

At least they’re all due a new paint job, too.

I drain the bloody water out of the mop bucket in the little scullery off the kitchen and leave the mop standing upside down to dry. The kitchen itself smells deliciously of garlic and onion and tomatoes.

‘Have you seen Aide?’ I ask Sylvie, who’s peering into the oven at her vast trays of pasta bake.

She jerks her head towards the office next door. ‘I think he’s still in there. You okay, sweetie?’

I grimace. ‘I’m fine. I just feel so bad for Gaz. It’s so horrible.’

She gives me a comforting nod. ‘I know. Not nice at all. But he’ll be fine. He’s had a nail through his foot once, you know. Stood on it. Went right through the sole of his work boot and all.’

I gasp in horror. ‘Oh my God. That’s revolting.’

‘Yup,’ she says. ‘This ain’t his first nail gun rodeo. But you think he’d be a faster learner, wouldn’t you?’

That makes me giggle. ‘Seriously.’ Poor Gaz.

‘Stupid twat,’ one of the women helping her says. It’s mean, but it makes me giggle even harder.

‘You head home,’ Sylvie says. ‘We’ve got this.’

‘If you’re sure.’ I back towards the door. I feel really drained, all of a sudden. An unexpectedly long evening in my luxurious, blood-free flat sounds amazing. ‘I’ll just go say bye to Aide.’

I pause for a second outside the closed door of the office, pulling out my hair tie and shaking out my hair before knocking. I hear an irritated-sounding Come in.

Yep, that’s definitely Aide in there.

He’s sitting on the desk, facing the door, his legs spread wide and his shoulders slumped. His fingers are curled around a glass, and there’s an open bottle of whisky beside it. He doesn’t smile, but neither does he tell me to get out.

‘I’m going to head off,’ I tell him.

He looks down at the glass. Tilts it in his hand.

‘Want some?’ he asks, raising his head to me. Despair is etched onto his gorgeous face. His blue eyes are reddened. Tired.

I nod and back up against the door, pushing it shut with my bum.

‘Why not?’ I’m not much of a whisky drinker, but I’ve developed a taste for it over years spent with my dad and my brother.

Gabe has a stupendous collection at our flat.

He favours scotch, obviously, but I’m more of a Bourbon girl. It’s kinder. Sweeter.

He picks up the bottle and sloshes, conservatively, three shots into the glass before holding it out to me. ‘Drink.’

I step forward and put it to my lips.

Wow.

Definitely scotch. It’s good stuff, smooth, but bloody hell does it burn.

‘Yikes,’ I say, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

He laughs gruffly. ‘Not your poison?’

‘I don’t mind it, but I’m more of a champagne girl.’

‘Course you are,’ he says, but it’s not unkind. He gestures towards my leg. ‘You’ve got blood on your thigh.’

I look down at my bare thigh. There is indeed a smear of Gaz’s blood across my skin. ‘Nice. At least I didn’t wear yoga pants today. Skin’s easier to wash.’

His gaze lingers on my thigh before he drags it upwards.

‘You okay?’ I ask hesitantly. He’s a grumpy bastard at the best of times, and I don’t want to poke the bear, but I also don’t want to go without making sure he’s not too shaken up. I know he and Gaz are close, and I’ve already learnt that Aide thinks everything and everyone are his responsibility.

‘I’m fucked off,’ he says. He accepts the glass I hold out and takes a swig before handing it back to me.

There’s something about sharing a glass with him that feels intimate.

Sensual. ‘Fucked off with him for not sticking to super fucking basic safety rules and fucked off with myself for not noticing.’

‘He’s not your responsibility,’ I say. ‘He’s a big boy. At the end of the day, it’s down to him to keep himself safe. But it was also an unfortunate accident. These things happen.’

I raise the now-almost-empty glass to my lips again and take a slow sip, allowing myself to enjoy the burn. To revel in the incredible, almost medicinal warmth of the liquid as it coats my throat. My oesophagus. Heating me, soothing me from the inside.

When I look back down, his eyes are on me. On my mouth, more precisely.

‘I know that in my head,’ he says to my mouth.

‘I mean, I know you’re right. But I still feel sick to my stomach.

We’re here trying to do a bit of good, and now my mate is sitting in fucking A&E, waiting to have a bloody nail pulled out of his finger, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

I’m just sitting here, drinking like a useless twat and spiralling.

It’s stupid. But I can’t get out of my own head. I can’t stop obsessing about it.’

He raises those despairing blue eyes to meet mine, and we’re locked in place for a moment. I don’t know why, but Aide deigning to talk to me, to let me in, has me feeling more lightheaded than the whisky has.

‘I know,’ I say, and I step closer, between his legs, setting the glass down on the desk.

I’m thinking this guy needs a good hug, so I act on instinct and put my arms around him, pulling him in towards me.

Given he’s sitting and I’m standing, the hug ends up being more like suffocation by boobs.

I hold his head against my chest and move one hand up so it’s cupping the back of his head through all that glorious, silky hair.

He stays frozen for a few seconds before his entire body slumps against me and he lets out the most enormous shuddery sigh. ‘Fuck,’ he groans, and I feel the heat of his breath through both my t-shirts.

We stay like that for what feels like an eternity until he lifts a big hand and places it right on the small of my back, pressing me in closer to him. I stagger forward half a step and allow myself to rake a hand through his hair as I lower my face to the top of his head.

To say it feels good like this is a gross understatement. It’s elemental. It’s two people who don’t particularly enjoy each other’s company coming together and offering each other comfort with parts of themselves that transcend personality.

Being here with him like this, my body cradling his and his cradling mine, feels right in a way that’s quiet and tentative and yet revelatory.

It’s also hot as hell. Aide is coursing through my bloodstream like a drug, this proximity to him messing with my brain. He looks up at me, his face pained but open.

Questioning.

And I know what my answer is.