Page 3 of Trained In Sin

Seb

The small convenience shop is normally below my notice. Bright fluorescent lights making that horrible buzzing noise, shelves stocked with processed shit for people who've given up on life. I wouldn't be here at all if my driver hadn't gotten caught in traffic while I was walking between meetings.

I need cigarettes. Not because I smoke regularly, but because even I have a bad habit. Sometimes I need to hold fire between my fingers and watch something burn by my own choice.

The clerk barely looks up when I enter, too absorbed in his phone to notice a customer who could buy this entire establishment with pocket change. That's fine. I prefer invisibility when I'm not actively commanding attention.

I’m preparing to queue, when I hear a laugh that’s out of place in this cold, harsh store. Soft, genuine, the kind of sound that suggests someone who hasn't been properly broken by life yet.

Interesting.

I turn toward the sound and there she is. The girl from Pulse. Saphy. Standing by the wine section, phone pressed to her ear, completely oblivious to my presence.

"No, Beth, I'm not buying the expensive wine for a Tuesday night," she's saying, her free hand hovering between a ￡6 bottle and a ￡12 one. "I don't care if it's been a rough day. I'm not that pathetic yet."

She's wearing work clothes, a pencil skirt that hugs her curves in ways that suggest she has no idea how it looks, a white blouse that's slightly untucked on one side. Her hair is different from the club, pulled back in a clip that's fighting a losing battle against gravity.

Professional. Proper. Exactly the kind of woman who would run screaming if she knew what I was thinking right now.

The smart thing would be to leave. To pay for my cigarettes and walk out before she notices me. But intelligence has never been my problem, I have too much of it. What I lack, is the ability to let something I want, slip between my fingers.

And Saphy from Hartwell Architecture has definitely caught my interest.

I move closer, positioning myself where she'll see me when she turns. Just a man shopping for wine in the same aisle. The fact that I exclusively drink spirits worth more than her monthly salary is irrelevant.

"Fine, yes, I'll see you Friday," she's saying into the phone. "But I'm not wearing that dress again. It was too much."

The dress from Pulse. The one that made her look like temptation incarnate. The one she wore when she walked away from me.

"I have to go," she says, laughing at something Beth says. "The wine won't buy itself."

She ends the call and turns, reaching for the cheaper bottle. Her hand freezes when she sees me.

"Saphy,” I let her name roll off my tongue like I'm tasting it. "What a pleasant surprise. "

The colour drains from her face, then rushes back in a flush that starts at her collar and climbs to her hairline. "Mr. Blackwood."

"Please, call me Seb." I step closer, noting how she doesn't step back. Interesting. "Unless you prefer to keep things formal?"

"I prefer to keep things non-existent." She mumbles, but her voice wavers slightly, and her hand is still suspended between the two bottles like she's forgotten what she was doing.

"Harsh." I reach past her for a bottle of wine, something French and pretentious that costs ￡50. "Though I suppose I deserve that after my behaviour at the club."

She watches me examine the label with suspicious eyes. "You drink wine?"

"No." I put it back and select another at random. "But I enjoy trying new things. Expanding my horizons. Meeting interesting people in unexpected places."

"This is a shop, not a social club."

"And yet here we are, being social." I abandon the pretence of wine shopping and turn to face her fully. "How's the new position treating you? ”

Something flickers in her eyes, surprise that I remembered, maybe worry about how much else I know.

"It's fine."

"Just fine? That seems like an underestimation of a promotion worth celebrating."

"It's work. It pays the bills." She finally grabs the cheaper wine, holding it like a shield between us. "I should go. "

"Should you? Do you actually want to?" I lean against the shelf, deliberately casual, and watch her struggle with the question. "Because those are two very different things, Saphy."

"Don't." The word comes out sharp, but there's something underneath it. Fear, yes, but something else. "Don't do that thing where you pretend to know me."

"I'm not pretending anything. I'm simply observing.

" I let my eyes travel over her slowly, cataloguing responses.

The way her breath catches. The white-knuckle grip on the wine bottle.

The slight lean forward even as her mind screams at her to run.

"For instance, I observe that you chose the cheaper wine not because you can't afford better, but because you think wanting better makes you pretentious. "

Her laugh is bitter. "Amazing. You've psychoanalysed me based on wine selection."

"I see that your blouse is designer, probably a gift, since it's not your usual style, but you wear it like armour, like something that will make people take you seriously.

" I move closer, voice dropping. "I see that you're terrified of me but haven't left yet, which means you're either braver or more curious than you want to admit. "

"Or maybe I just don't want to give you the satisfaction of running." She lifts her chin, and there it is, that spark of defiance that made me notice her in the first place.

"There she is." I smile, the real one that makes people nervous. "There's the woman who told me no in my own club."

"And I'm telling you no, now. Whatever game you're playing…. "

"Who says I'm playing a game?"

"Because men like you don't shop in places like this. Men like you don't make small talk with commoners in shops. You spoke to me one time, in one club, and then have the audacity to make assumptions about me. Everything you do has a purpose."

Perceptive little thing. I file that away for future reference.

"Maybe my purpose is simple curiosity. You intrigue me, Saphy."

"I'm not intriguing. I'm boring. Terribly, annoyingly boring."

"Boring women don't look terrified and thrilled in equal measure when strange men approach them in clubs, do they now?"

"You mean Mountain Man? Please." She huffs.

"Didn’t answer the question though. You’re very good at redirection." I straighten, pulling out my wallet. "What a shame that I’m better.”

"You don't know anything about me.”

"I know you're here buying cheap wine on a Tuesday after what your friend called a rough day. I know you’ve probably kept hold of my business card, because you rather enjoy the temptation. I hope you have kept it. I want you to actually use it. No strings. No expectations. Just... possibility."

"Possibility of what?"

"Whatever you want it to be."

"This is a bad idea," she whispers.

"The best things usually are. "

She backs away, holding her wine. “I have to go."

"Of course." I step aside, giving her clear passage to escape. "It was lovely seeing you again, Saphy."

She almost runs to the register, fumbling with her purse, clearly desperate to get away from me.

I wait until she's gone before I pay for my cigarettes and leave. Outside, I light one immediately, letting the smoke fill my lungs as I process what just happened.

I've planted a seed. Not of desire, that was already there, buried under layers of propriety and fear. But of possibility. Of the idea that her safe, boring life might not be what she truly wants.

My phone buzzes. Matthew, wondering where I am.

I take another drag of the cigarette, watching the smoke dissipate into the grey London sky.

Saphy thinks she wants safety, stability, a man who'll never surprise her.

But her body tells a different story. Her responses whisper of a woman desperate for something more, something dangerous, something real.

I'll give her time to wrestle with it. To look at that card and tell herself she'll throw it away tomorrow. To lie in bed and wonder what would happen if she called.

Because she will call. Maybe not today, maybe not this week, but eventually. Curiosity is a powerful motivator, and I've made myself a question she won't be able to stop asking.

What would happen if she said yes to me?

The answer, of course, is that I'd ruin her completely. Take apart everything safe and stable in her life and rebuild her into something magnificent and mine. But she doesn't need to know that yet.

For now, let her think about possibility. Let her wonder.

I have all the time in the world.